The pedunculopontine nucleus is known as a cholinergic nucleus of the reticular activating system, participating in regulation of sleep and wakefulness. Besides cholinergic neurons, it consists of GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons as well. According to classical and recent studies, more subgroups of neurons were defined. Groups based on the neurotransmitter released by a neuron are not homoge...

Local inhibitory GABAergic and excitatory glutamatergic neurons are important for midbrain dopaminergic and hindbrain serotonergic pathways controlling motivation, mood, and voluntary movements. Such neurons reside both within the dopaminergic nuclei, and in adjacent brain structures, including the rostromedial and laterodorsal tegmental nuclei. Compared with the monoaminergic neurons, the deve...

Regulation of GABAergic inhibitory inputs and alterations in POMC neuron activity by nutrients and adiposity signals regulate energy and glucose homeostasis. Thus, understanding how POMC neurons integrate these two signal molecules at the synaptic level is important. Here we show that leptin's action on GABA release to POMC neurons is influenced by glucose levels. Leptin stimulates the JAK2-PI3...

Well balanced novelty seeking and exploration are fundamental behaviours for survival and are found to be dysfunctional in several psychiatric disorders. Recent studies suggest that the endocannabinoid (eCB) system is an important control system for investigatory drive. Pharmacological treatment of rodents with cannabinergic drugs results in altered social and object investigation. Interestingl...

Mutations of MECP2 cause Rett syndrome (RTT), a neurodevelopmental disorder leading to loss of motor and cognitive functions, impaired social interactions, and seizure at young ages. Defects of neuronal circuit development and function are thought to be responsible for the symptoms of RTT. The majority of RTT patients show recurrent seizures, indicating that neuronal hyperexcitation is a common...

The effects of a prolonged seizure, i.e. status epilepticus (SE), on neurogenesis of dentate granule cells (DGCs) in the immature dentate gyrus (DG) and possible changes in the phenotypes of the newborn neurons have remained incompletely characterized. We have now studied neurogenesis of DGCs in 9-day-old (postnatal, P9) rats 1 week after kainate (KA)-induced SE using 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (Br...

The authors grant the Society for Neuroscience an exclusive license to publish their work for the first 6 months. After 6 months the work becomes available to the public to copy, distribute, or display under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Chronic nicotine exposure increases sensitivity to nicotine reward during a withdrawal period, which may facilitate rel...

Numerous observations strongly support the hypothesis that dopaminergic neurons could be particularly vulnerable to an impairment of their energetic metabolism. In order to demonstrate the existence of such a selective vulnerability, the toxic effects of rotenone, an inhibitor of complex I of the respiratory chain, and of glutamate, which is very likely involved in the neurotoxicity induced by ...

Output from steroidogenic factor-1 (SF-1) neurons in the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (VMH) is anorexigenic. SF-1 neurons express brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) that contributes to the regulation of food intake and body weight. Here I show that regulation of GABAergic inputs onto SF-1 neurons by endogenous BDNF determines the anorexigenic outcome from the VMH. Single-cell ...

We have performed a morphofunctional analysis of CA1 pyramidal neurons at birth to examine the sequence of formation of GABAergic and glutamatergic postsynaptic currents (PSCs) and to determine their relation to the dendritic arborization of pyramidal neurons. We report that at birth pyramidal neurons are heterogeneous. Three stages of development can be identified: (1) the majority of the neur...