Smoking during pregnancy exposes the fetus to nicotine, resulting in nicotine-stimulated neurotransmitter release. Recent evidence suggests that the hippocampus develops differently in males and females with delayed maturation in males. We show that chronic nicotine exposure during the first postnatal week has sex-specific long-term effects. Neonatal rat pups were chronically treated with nicot...

The CA1 to perirhinal cortex projection is one of multiple hippocampal-neocortical projections considered to be involved in memory consolidation. This projection has been shown to sustain long-term potentiation (LTP) following stimulation of CA1. Here we examined the pharmacological properties underpinning the plasticity observed in this projection. A stimulating electrode was inserted into the...

To avoid legislation based on chemical structure, research chemicals, frequently used for recreational purposes, are continually being synthesized. N-Ethyl-1,2-diphenylethanamine (ephenidine) is a diarylethylamine that has recently become popular with recreational users searching for dissociative hallucinogenic effects. In the present study, the pharmacological basis of its neural actions has b...

Prenatal morphine exposure induces neurobiological changes, including deficits in learning and memory, in juvenile rat offspring. However the effects of this exposure on hippocampal plasticity, which is critical for learning and memory processes, are not well understood. The present study investigates the alterations of spatial memory and in vivo hippocampal synaptic plasticity in juvenile rats...

Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and growth hormone play a major role in the growth and development of tissues throughout the mammalian body. Plasma IGF-1 concentrations peak during puberty and decline with age. We have determined that chronic treatments to restore plasma IGF-1 concentrations to adult levels attenuate spatial learning deficits in aged rats, but little is known of the acute ...

We have shown previously that the corticospinal tract (CST) with functional connections can be reconstructed in vitro in slice cocultures. Using that system, we stimulated the deep cortical layer and recorded field EPSPs (fEPSPs) along a 100 microm-interval lattice in the spinal gray matter. The specific, spatial synapse distribution on the dorsal side at 14 d in vitro (DIV) basically correspon...

The serine protease subtilisin-A produces a long-term depression (LTD) of synaptic potentials in hippocampal slices which differs mechanistically from classical LTD. Since caspases have been implicated in hippocampal plasticity, this study examined a possible role for these enzymes in subtilisin-induced LTD. Subtilisin produced a concentration-dependent decrease in the size of field excitatory ...

BACKGROUND Glucocorticoid hormones, in interaction with noradrenaline, enable the consolidation of emotionally arousing and stressful experiences in rodents and humans. Such interaction is thought to occur at least partly in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) which is crucially involved in emotional memory formation. Extensive evidence points to long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP) ...

OBJECTIVE The study aimed to determine the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) on Wistar Kyoto (WKY) depressive model rats and explore the possible mechanism of EA on hippocampal CA1 region neuronal synaptic plasticity. METHODS The male WKY rats were randomized to three experimental groups (EA, Sham EA, and Model group, n = 8/group), and Wistar rats as the normal control group (n = 8). EA treat...

In this study we characterized the pharmacological selectivity and physiological actions of a new arylaspartate glutamate transporter blocker, L-threo-ß-benzylaspartate (L-TBA). At concentrations up to 100 µM, L-TBA did not act as an AMPA receptor (AMPAR) or NMDA receptor (NMDAR) agonist or antagonist when applied to outside-out patches from mouse hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. L-TBA had no...