HCN4 knockdown in dorsal hippocampus promotes anxiety-like behavior in mice

Hyperpolarization-activated and cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels mediate the I_h current in the murine hippocampus. Disruption of the I_h current by knockout of HCN1, HCN2 or tetratricopeptide repeat-containing Rab8b-interacting protein has been shown to affect physiological processes such as synaptic integration and maintenance of resting membrane potentials as well as several behaviors in mice, including depressive-like and anxiety-like behaviors. However, the potential involvement of the HCN4 isoform in these processes is unknown. Here, we assessed the contribution of the HCN4 isoform to neuronal processing and hippocampus-based behaviors in mice. We show that HCN4 is expressed in various regions of the hippocampus, with distinct expression patterns that partially overlapped with other HCN isoforms. For behavioral analysis, we specifically modulated HCN4 expression by injecting recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors mediating expression of short hairpin RNA against hcn4 (shHcn4) into the dorsal hippocampus of mice. HCN4 knockdown produced no effect on contextual fear conditioning or spatial memory. However, a pronounced anxiogenic effect was evident in mice treated with shHcn4 compared to control littermates. Our findings suggest that HCN4 specifically contributes to anxiety-like behaviors in mice.