background: oligodendrocytes, the myelinating glial cells of central nervous system, are highly vulnerable to ischemic‑induced excitotoxic insult, a phenomenon in which calcium overload triggers cell death. berberine is an alkaloid extracted from medicinal herbs as coptidis rhizoma with several pharmacological effects like inhibition of neuronal apoptosis in cerebral ischemia. methods: we exami...

Excitotoxicity is implicated in the pathogenesis of several neurologic diseases, such as chronic neurodegenerative diseases and stroke. Recently, it was reported that excitotoxicity has a relationship to apoptotic neuronal death, and that the mitochondrial toxin, 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NP), could induce apoptosis in the striatum. Although striatal lesions produced by 3-NP could develop throug...

Effects of chronic ethanol exposure on N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor function were examined in hippocampal neurons. Rat hippocampal neurons grown in culture were chronically exposed to 100 mM ethanol to examine mechanisms that could underlie ethanol-induced changes in receptor function and excitotoxicity. NMDA-stimulated, but not kainic acid-stimulated, increases in intracellular calcium...

Glutamate is the most important excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system which is involved in synaptic transmission, brain development, synaptic plasticity, learning, and memory. Normally, the enzymatic destruction of glutamate does not occur in the synaptic and extracellular space, but glutamate is removed through specific transporter proteins, leading to stabilization of glut...

OF DISSERTATION FLAVONOIDS WITH NOVEL NICOTINIC ACTIVITY AS POTENTIAL PHARMACOTHERAPIES TO TREAT ETHANOL-INDUCED NEUROTOXICITY Ethanol causes neurotoxicity via several mechanisms at different points in the cycle of dependence, including neuroinflammation and oxidative stress during ethanol exposure as well as excitotoxicity during ethanol withdrawal. The primary therapeutic implication is that ...

Calpain-mediated cleavage of neuronal targets has long been associated with excitotoxicity and synaptic plasticity. In this issue of Neuron, two papers by Xu et al. and Abe and Takeichi explore the respective roles of mGluR1alpha cleavage in excitotoxicity and beta-catenin cleavage in transcriptional control. Together, these papers show the functional importance of fragments of calpain-mediated...