Loss of GluN2B-containing NMDA receptors in CA1 hippocampus and cortex impairs long-term depression, reduces dendritic spine density, and disrupts learning.

NMDA receptors (NMDARs) are key mediators of certain forms of synaptic plasticity and learning. NMDAR complexes are heteromers composed of an obligatory GluN1 subunit and one or more GluN2 (GluN2A-GluN2D) subunits. Different subunits confer distinct physiological and molecular properties to NMDARs, but their contribution to synaptic plasticity and learning in the adult brain remains uncertain. Here, we generated mice lacking GluN2B in pyramidal neurons of cortex and CA1 subregion of hippocampus. We found that hippocampal principal neurons of adult GluN2B mutants had faster decaying NMDAR-mediated EPSCs than nonmutant controls and were insensitive to GluN2B but not NMDAR antagonism. A subsaturating form of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) was impaired in the mutants, whereas a saturating form of LTP was intact. An NMDAR-dependent form of long-term depression (LTD) produced by low-frequency stimulation combined with glutamate transporter inhibition was abolished in the mutants. Additionally, mutants exhibited decreased dendritic spine density in CA1 hippocampal neurons compared with controls. On multiple assays for corticohippocampal-mediated learning and memory (hidden platform Morris water maze, T-maze spontaneous alternation, and pavlovian trace fear conditioning), mutants were impaired. These data further demonstrate the importance of GluN2B for synaptic plasticity in the adult hippocampus and suggest a particularly critical role in LTD, at least the form studied here. The finding that loss of GluN2B was sufficient to cause learning deficits illustrates the contribution of GluN2B-mediated forms of plasticity to memory formation, with implications for elucidating NMDAR-related dysfunction in disease-related cognitive impairment.

Impaired synaptic plasticity and motor learning in mice with a point mutation implicated in human speech deficits.

The most well-described example of an inherited speech and language disorder is that observed in the multigenerational KE family, caused by a heterozygous missense mutation in the FOXP2 gene. Affected individuals are characterized by deficits in the learning and production of complex orofacial motor sequences underlying fluent speech and display impaired linguistic processing for both spoken and written language. The FOXP2 transcription factor is highly similar in many vertebrate species, with conserved expression in neural circuits related to sensorimotor integration and motor learning. In this study, we generated mice carrying an identical point mutation to that of the KE family, yielding the equivalent arginine-to-histidine substitution in the Foxp2 DNA-binding domain. Homozygous R552H mice show severe reductions in cerebellar growth and postnatal weight gain but are able to produce complex innate ultrasonic vocalizations. Heterozygous R552H mice are overtly normal in brain structure and development. Crucially, although their baseline motor abilities appear to be identical to wild-type littermates, R552H heterozygotes display significant deficits in species-typical motor-skill learning, accompanied by abnormal synaptic plasticity in striatal and cerebellar neural circuits.