{
  "abstract": "Dopamine (DA) is a key modulator of prefrontal cortex function, yet how distinct dopaminergic states shape the temporal organization of cortical population activity during behavior remains poorly understood. We combined in vivo fiber photometry of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) putative glutamatergic neurons with an object-based attention (OBAT) task in male mice to examine this question. Intranasal DA (IN-DA), which accesses the brain directly via nose-to-brain pathways, left locomotion and exploratory behavior unchanged. Although both vehicle- and IN-DA- treated mice showed a preference for the novel object, this preference reached statistical significance only in the IN-DA group. IN-DA selectively amplified calcium activity within the familiar-object zone and enhanced movement-normalized calcium spike rates. Strikingly, IN-DA reduced both the mean and variability of calcium transient intervals, reflecting a shift toward more frequent and temporally regular events during object processing. To model the network consequences of supraphysiological dopaminergic drive, we administered the psychostimulant amphetamine as a proxy for dopaminergic excess. In contrast to the stabilizing effects of IN-DA, amphetamine induced locomotor hyperactivity accompanied by a collapse of temporal structure, characterized by prolonged inter-transient intervals and markedly increased variability. Together, these findings demonstrate that dopaminergic modulation shapes not only the magnitude but also the temporal organization of dmPFC population activity. At the network level, physiological DA promotes a temporally stable prefrontal state, whereas dopaminergic excess destabilizes it. This provides population-level evidence for the inverted-U relationship between DA signaling and prefrontal function.\n\nSupplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-65870-1.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 100233 Taiwan",
    "Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth, MN 55812 USA",
    "Department of Pharmacology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA",
    "Department of Psychology, Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, 58051 Brazil",
    "Clinic of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany",
    "Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany",
    "Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Owen Y. Chao"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Ezequiel Marron Fernandez de Velasco"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Flávio Freitas Barbosa"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Susanne Nikolaus"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Joseph P. Huston"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        6
      ],
      "name": "Yi-Mei Yang"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a9dyfwhwwbmfg.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41598-026-65870-1",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13736705/",
  "id": "a9dyfwhwwbmfg",
  "issns": [
    "2045-2322"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-65870-1",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Article"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2804|Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7197052226",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC13736705",
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-08-06",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a9dyfwhwwbmfg.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-09T12:22:06Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13736705",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-65870-1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2804|Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Intranasal dopamine stabilizes prefrontal cortical CaMKIIα-positive neuronal population dynamics during object discrimination",
  "title_text": "Intranasal dopamine stabilizes prefrontal cortical CaMKIIα-positive neuronal population dynamics during object discrimination",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T12:22:06Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a9dyfwhwwbmfg",
  "venue": "Scientific Reports",
  "versions": []
}