Synaptic scale dopamine disruption in Huntington's Disease model mice imaged with near infrared catecholamine nanosensors

Dopamine neuromodulation is a critical process that facilitates learning, motivation, and motor control. Disruption of these processes has been implicated in several neurological and psychiatric disorders including Huntington's Disease (HD). While several treatments for physical and psychiatric HD symptoms target dopaminergic neuromodulation, the mechanism by which dopaminergic dysfunction occurs during HD is unknown. This is partly due to limited capability to visualize dopamine dynamics at the spatiotemporal resolution of both neuromodulator release (ms) and dopaminergic boutons (m). Here we employ near-infrared fluorescent catecholamine nanosensors (nIRCats) to image dopamine release within the brain striatum of R6/2 Huntington's Disease Model (R6/2) mice. We find that stimulated dorsal striatal dopamine release decreases with progressive motor degeneration and that these decreases are primarily driven by a decrease in the number of dopamine hotspots combined with decreased release intensity and decreased release fidelity. Using nIRCat's high spatial resolution, we show that dopamine hotspots in late HD show increased ability to add new dopamine hotspots at high extracellular calcium concentrations and track individual dopamine hotspots over repeated stimulations and pharmacological wash to measure dopamine hotspots release fidelity. Compellingly, we demonstrate that antagonism of D2-autoreceptors using Sulpiride and direct blocking of Kv1.2 channels using 4-Aminopyradine (4-AP) increases the fidelity of dopamine hotspot activity in WT striatum but not in late HD striatum, indicating that D2-autoreceptor regulation of dopamine release through Kv1.2 channels is compromised in late HD. These findings, enabled by nIRCats, provide a more detailed look into how dopamine release is disrupted and dysregulated during Huntington's Disease to alter the coverage of dopamine modulation across the dorsal striatum. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.