Dopamine depletion, stimulation or blockade in the rat disrupts spatial navigation and locomotion dependent upon beacon or distal cues.

Rats depleted of dopamine by intraventricular or nigrostriatal bundle 6-hydroxydopamine injection were compared with normal rats on acquisition and retention of place and cue navigation in the Morris swimming pool test and on a battery of sensorimotor tests. Rats with extensive bilateral dopamine depletions were able to swim vigorously, but were unable to acquire either the place or cue task. Rats with unilateral lesions, although impaired in the rate of acquisition were eventually able to learn both tasks to close to normal levels. Animals pretrained on the tasks prior to the lesions displayed retention deficits that were related to the extent of dopamine depletion: after extensive depletions, performance on both tasks deteriorated until successful navigation was abolished, whereas incomplete depletions impaired but did not abolish performance on either task. In separate groups of pretrained animals, both dopamine antagonists (haloperidol, alpha-flupenthixol) and agonists (apomorphine, metamphetamine) blocked performance on both place and cue tasks, although there were individual differences in sensitivity of the rats. Performance on the place task was more sensitive to disruption than the cue task both by the lesions and by haloperidol, alpha-flupenthixol or apormorphine but not by metamphetamine. On the sensorimotor tests dopamine-depleted rats were impaired at visual but not contact placing, they oriented weakly to snout touches and surfaces but not to distal stimuli, and they were akinetic on a number of tests of motor function but when wet they displayed as many grooming movements and groomed as long as did normal rats. The results suggest that dopamine depletion may impair spatial navigation by a disruption of their ability to use distal cues for guidance.