On the use of lesions of afferents to localize neurotransmitter receptor sites in the striatum.

Rats received lesions of either the cortico-striatal or the nigrostriatal projections. Two to three days after either type of lesion, evidence for degenerating dendritic spines that were postsynaptic to degenerating striatal boutons was often encountered. This type of transsynaptic degeneration of spines indicates that it is inappropriate to conclude that decreases in the number of neurotransmitter receptors after these types of lesions necessarily indicates that these receptors are located presynaptically on striatal afferents.