Previous work showed that the dorsal periaqueductal gray is involved in the inhibition of fear-potentiated startle. The present study investigated the effects of blockade and stimulation of Kainate/AMPA and GABA(A) receptors within the dorsal periaqueductal gray on expression and conditioned inhibition of fear-potentiated startle. Blockade of the Kainate/AMPA receptors enhanced whereas stimulat...

Van Damme, P., L. Van Den Bosch, E. Van Houtte, G. Callewaert, and W. Robberecht. GluR2-dependent properties of AMPA receptors determine the selective vulnerability of motor neurons to excitotoxicity. J Neurophysiol 88: 1279–1287, 2002; 10.1152/jn.00163.2002. AMPA receptor-mediated excitotoxicity has been implicated in the selective motor neuron loss in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In some cu...

mammalian CNS, the actions of which are regulated by ionotropic glutamate (iGlu) and metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlu). mGlu receptors are a family of G-protein-coupled receptors comprising eight members, refered to as mGlu1-8. Group I receptors include mGlu1 and mGlu5, which when expressed are coupled via Gq to phospholipase C. Group II (mGlu2 and mGlu3) and group III (mGlu4,6,7,8) recep...

In the retina, it is not well understood how visual processing depends on AMPA- and NMDA-type glutamate receptors. Here we investigated how these receptors contribute to contrast coding in identified guinea pig ganglion cell types in vitro. NMDA-mediated responses were negligible in ON alpha cells but substantial in OFF alpha and delta cells. OFF delta cell NMDA receptors were composed of GluN2...

Members of the synapse-associated protein-97 (SAP97) family of scaffold proteins have been implicated as central organizers of synaptic junctions to build macromolecular signaling complexes around specific postsynaptic neurotransmitter receptors. In this regard, SAP97 has been suggested to regulate the synaptic localization of glutamate receptor type 1 subunits of the AMPA-type glutamate recept...

The neostriatum is critically involved in the control of movement. The activity of neostriatal neurons is regulated by two major inputs: a glutamatergic input from the cortex and a dopaminergic input from the substantia nigra. Ionotropic glutamate receptors mediate synaptic transmission and plasticity in the neostriatum through intrinsic ligand-gated ion channels. In contrast, dopamine receptor...

Although synaptic functions of ionotropic glutamate receptors in the olfactory bulb have been studied in vitro, their roles in pattern processing in the intact system remain controversial. We therefore examined the functions of ionotropic glutamate receptors during odor processing in the intact olfactory bulb of zebrafish using pharmacological manipulations. Odor responses of mitral cells and i...

Alterations in the function and expression of NMDA receptors are observed after in vivo and in vitro traumatic brain injury. We recently reported that mechanical stretch injury in cortical neurons transiently increases the contribution of NMDA receptors to network activity and results in an increase in calcium-permeable AMPA (CP-AMPA) receptor-mediated transmission 4 h postinjury (Goforth et al...