Excitotoxic damage represents the major mechanism leading to cell death in many human neurodegenerative diseases such as ischemia, trauma and epilepsy. Caused by an excess of glutamate that acts on metabotropic and ionotropic excitatory receptors, excitotoxicity activates several death signaling pathways leading to an extensive neuronal loss and a consequent strong activation of astrogliosis. C...

Mouse strain background can influence vulnerability to excitotoxic neuronal cell death and potentially modulate phenotypes in transgenic mouse models of human disease. Evidence supports a contribution of excitotoxicity to the selective death of medium spiny neurons in Huntington's disease (HD). Here, we assess whether strain differences in excitotoxic vulnerability influence striatal cell death...

The loss and injury of neurons play an important role in the onset of various neurodegenerative diseases, while both microgliosis and astrocyte loss or dysfunction are significant causes of neuronal degeneration. Previous studies have suggested that an extract enriched panaxadiol saponins from ginseng has more neuroprotective potential than the total saponins of ginseng. The present study inves...

Introduction Drug use and misuse continue to create public health challenges in the world, leading overdose deaths, infections, other chronic conditions. Illegal addictive drugs can lead functional or structural impairment of central nervous system (CNS). Because clinical findings alone are often nonspecific, some patients unlikely admit substance abuse, neuroimaging may play an important role ...

A high cytoplasmic Na concentration may contribute to Nmethyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-induced excitotoxicity by promoting Ca influx via reverse operation of the Na/Ca exchanger (NaCaX), but may simultaneously decrease the electrochemical Ca driving force by depolarizing the plasma membrane (PM). Digital fluorescence microscopy was used to compare the effects of Na versus ions that do not support the...

UNLABELLED ARALAR/AGC1/Slc25a12, the aspartate-glutamate carrier from brain mitochondria, is the regulatory step in the malate-aspartate NADH shuttle, MAS. MAS is used to oxidize cytosolic NADH in mitochondria, a process required to maintain oxidative glucose utilization. The role of ARALAR was analyzed in two paradigms of glutamate-induced excitotoxicity in cortical neurons: glucose deprivatio...

It has been claimed over the years—most recently in this journal and several others—that neuronal degeneration in adult brain arising during chronic alcohol exposure is, or is likely to be, via " excitotoxicity " A purpose of this opinion piece is to reinforce a view, noted earlier (Collins and Neafsey, 2012), that an excitotoxic mechanism underlying alcoholic neurodamage in the mature brain ha...