Dopaminergic Modulation of Striatal Glutamatergic Signaling in Health and Parkinson's Disease

Dopamine (DA) has long been known to be a critical modulator of striatal processing of cortical and thalamic signals carried by glutamatergic synapses on the principal neurons of the striatum-medium spiny neurons (MSNs). Dopamine regulation of these neurons is important for an array of psychomotor functions ascribed to the basal ganglia, including associative learning and action selection. This chapter focuses on four topics: (1) the intrinsic differences between MSNs expressing D1 and D2 dopamine receptors; (2) how DA modulates postsynaptic properties that influence glutamatergic synaptic events and their integration by MSNs in the dorsal striatum; (3) how DA influences the induction of long-term synaptic plasticity; and (4) how DA depletion in Parkinson's disease (PD) models remodels glutamatergic signaling.