introduction: barrel cortex of rats is a part of somatosensory cortex, which receives information from facial whiskers. vibrisectomy by sensory deprivation leads to some changes in the barrel cortex, which have been known as experience dependent plasticity. on the other hand, norepinephrine (ne) and locus coeruleus, which is the main source of ne, influenced response properties of cortical barr...

One of the most prominent but least understood neuroanatornical features of the cerebral cortex is feedback. Neurons within a cortical area generally receive massive excitatory feedback from other neurons in the same cortical area. Some of these neurons, especially those in the superficial layers, send feedforward axons to higher cortical areas while others neurons, particularly those in the de...

Gamma-aminobutyric-acidergic (GABAergic) cells form a very heterogeneous population of neurons that play a crucial role in the coordination and integration of cortical functions. Their number and diversity increase through mammalian brain evolution. Does evolution use the same or different developmental rules to provide the increased population of cortical GABAergic neurons? In rodents, these n...

The objective of this study was to compare the efficiency trypsin and papain in neuronal digestion determine which enzyme is more efficient. Cortical tissues were obtained from Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats. According different digestive enzymes, samples divided into group group. After being digested by each two cortical neurons collected samples. Then, morphology determined. Moreover, transfected w...

Extracellular single-unit recordings were used to characterize responses of thalamic barreloid and cortical barrel neurons to controlled whisker deflections in 2, 3-, and 4-wk-old and adult rats in vivo under fentanyl analgesia. Results indicate that response properties of thalamic and cortical neurons diverge during development. Responses to deflection onsets and offsets among thalamic neurons...

Corticofugal modulation of sub-cortical auditory selectivity has been shown previously in mammals for frequency, amplitude, time, and direction domains in separate studies. As such, these studies do not show if multi-parametric corticofugal modulation can be mediated through the same sub-cortical neuron. Here we specifically studied corticofugal modulation of best frequency (BF), best amplitude...

Layer-specific cortical neurons are essential components of local, intracortical and subcortical circuits and are specified by complex signaling pathways acting on cortical progenitors. However, whether extrinsic signals contribute to postmitotic cortical neuronal development is unclear. Here we show in mice that retinoic acid (RA) receptors are activated in newly born migrating cortical neuron...

Basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCNs) provide the major subcortical source of cholinergic input to cerebral cortex and play an important role in regulating cortical activity. The present study examined the ability of BFCNs to influence neocortical neuronal growth by examining effects of the presence of BFCNs on certain cortical neurons grown under the controlled conditions of dissociated ...

Causes of lower induction of Hsp70 in neurons during heat shock are still a matter of debate. To further inquire into the mechanisms regulating Hsp70 expression in neurons, we studied the activity of Heat Shock Factor 1 (HSF1) and histone posttranslational modifications (PTMs) at the hsp70 promoter in rat cortical neurons. Heat shock induced a transient and efficient translocation of HSF1 to ne...

Transplanted neurons derived from stem cells have been proposed to improve function in animal models of human disease by various mechanisms such as neuronal replacement. However, whether the grafted neurons receive functional synaptic inputs from the recipient's brain and integrate into host neural circuitry is unknown. Here we studied the synaptic inputs from the host brain to grafted cortical...