background: sex steroids and their receptors exist in hippocampus and affect spatial learning and memory. this study was designed to measure testosterone level of ca1 and to assess the effect of spatial learning on its amount in left and right hippocampus of adult male rats. methods: sixteen rats were divided into two intact and castrated groups, and then trained in morris water maze (mwm). ano...

a person, who is talented, performs in a certain capacity above the norm. talent is different from intelligence which is a response to a circumstance using knowledge and skill. the attributes of talent are exceptional memory, rapid processing speed, and high motivation, an affinity for learning, creativity and optimal cognition. there is some proof suggests that certain aspects of talent are re...

introduction: gap junctions are intercellular membrane channels that provide direct cytoplasmic continuity between adjacent cells. this communication can be affected by changes in expression of gap junctional subunits called connexins (cx). changes in the expression and function of connexins are associated with number of brain neurodegenerative diseases. neuroinflammation is a hallmark of vario...

The doublecortin (Dcx) and doublecortin-like kinase 1 (Dclk) genes are developmentally expressed neuronal microtubule-associated proteins. Humans with DCX mutations show a severe defect in hippocampal development, but targeted deletion in mouse shows only a defect in pyramidal neuron lamination. There is significant sequence overlap between Dcx and Dclk, suggesting functional redundancy. Here w...

The developing dorsomedial telencephalon includes the medial pallium, which goes on to form the hippocampus. Generating a reliable source of human hippocampal tissue is an important step for cell-based research into hippocampus-related diseases. Here we show the generation of functional hippocampal granule- and pyramidal-like neurons from self-organizing dorsomedial telencephalic tissue using h...

Sex steroids and thyroid hormones play a key role in the development of the central nervous system. The critical role of these hormonal systems may explain the sensitivity of the hypothalamus, the cerebral cortex, and the hippocampus to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC). This review examines the evidence for endocrine disruption of glial-neuronal functions in the hypothalamus, hippocampus, a...

The authors present a theoretical framework for understanding the roles of the hippocampus and neocortex in learning and memory. This framework incorporates a theme found in many theories of hippocampal function: that the hippocampus is responsible for developing conjunctive representations binding together stimulus elements into a unitary representation that can later be recalled from partial ...

Thimerosal, an organomercurial added as a preservative to some vaccines, is a suspected iatrogenic factor, possibly contributing to paediatric neurodevelopmental disorders including autism. We examined the effects of early postnatal administration of thimerosal (four i.m. injections, 12 or 240 μg THIM-Hg/kg, on postnatal days 7, 9, 11 and 15) on brain pathology in Wistar rats. Numerous neuropat...

The developing CA3 hippocampus is comprised by highly connected hub neurons that are particularly effective in achieving network synchronization. Functional hub neurons were shown to be exclusively GABAergic, suggesting that the contribution of glutamatergic neurons to physiological synchronization processes at early postnatal stages is minimal. However, without fast GABAergic transmission, a d...

The mammalian hippocampus harbours neural circuitry that is crucial for associative learning and memory. The mechanisms that underlie the development and regulation of this complex circuitry are not fully understood. Our previous study established an essential role for the zinc finger protein Zbtb20 in the specification of CA1 field identity in the developing hippocampus. Here, we show that con...