Impairments of exploration and memory after systemic or prelimbic D1-receptor antagonism in rats

► Systemic applications of a dopaminergic D1 receptor antagonist dose-dependently reduced spatial exploration and object exploration. ► Appetitive spatial learning performance was reduced by this antagonist and this effect was hippocampus-dependent. ► Non-spatial object recognition performance was impaired by this antagonist. ► In contrast to these systemic effects, injections into the prelimbic cortices reduced spatial and non-spatial memory without affecting exploration. ► The effects of systemic application on exploration were synergistically enhanced by an antagonist for mGlu5.