Dopamnine-Immunoreactive axon varicosities form nonrandom contacts with GABA-immunoreactive neurons of rat medial prefrontal cortex

Recent postmortem studies have suggested that reduced γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic activity in limbic cortex may be one component to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. This hypothesis has underscored the importance of knowing whether midbrain dopamine afferents interact extensively enough with inhibitory interneurons to suggest a direct functional relationship. Toward this end, a double immunofluorescence approach combined with confocal laser scanning microscopy has been used to localize dopamine and GABA simultaneously in rat medial prefrontal cortex. The results confirm studies from other laboratories showing a rich network of dopamine‐immunoreactive fibers forming a gradient across the cortical laminae, with deeper layers having the highest density. When viewed with oil immersion optics, dopamine‐immunoreactive fibers were frequently found to be in close apposition with GABA‐immunoreactive cell bodies. The percentage of GABA‐containing neurons showing such contacts was highest in layer VI (65%) and progressively decreased toward layer I (9%). Varicose regions of the dopamine fibers were typically present at the point of contact with a GABA‐immunoreactive cell body. Using an immunoperoxidase technique to localize dopamine fibers and cresyl violet staining to visualize neurons simultaneously, two separate statistical analyses were performed to assess whether the frequency of contacts between dopamine fibers and cell bodies in general may be due to random effects. In layer VI, a high percentage of both pyramidal and nonpyramidal neurons were found to be in contact with dopamine varicosities (71% and 76%, respectively), but these were not significantly different from that observed for GABA‐containing cells (65%) in double‐immunofluorescence specimens. A Chi‐square statistical test was used to compare the observed and predicted number of varicosities forming cell body contacts. This analysis indicated that the percentage of dopamine varicosities (30%) that form appositions with cell bodies is much greater than would be expected if these appositions were due to random effects (15%). Moreover, using an estimate of intensity for a stationary Poisson process, it was again found that random effects can not account for these interactions (P = 0.01). Taken together with earlier electron microscopic studies from other laboratories, the present findings support the idea that GABAergic interneurons have extensive interactions with dopamine varicosities. While th