Recent studies have shown that place cells in the hippocampal CA1 region fire in a sequence sensitive manner. In this study we tested if hippocampal CA3 and CA1 regions can give rise to the sequence sensitivity. We used a two-layer CA3-CA1 hippocampal model that consisted of Hodgkin-Huxley style neuron models. Sequential input signals that mimicked signals projected from the entorhinal cortex g...

The retrosplenial cortex is situated at the crossroads between the hippocampal formation and many areas of the neocortex, but few studies have examined the connections between the hippocampal formation and the retrosplenial cortex in detail. Each subdivision of the retrosplenial cortex projects to a discrete terminal field in the hippocampal formation. The retrosplenial dysgranular cortex (Rdg)...

To determine the role of dendritic filopodia in the genesis of excitatory synaptic contacts and dendritic spines in hippocampal area CA1, serial section electron microscopy and three-dimensional analysis of 16 volumes of neuropil from nine male rat pups, aged postnatal day 1 (P1) through P12, were performed. The analysis revealed that numerous dendritic filopodia formed asymmetric synaptic cont...

Objective(s):Growing evidence indicates that extract of Ginkgo biloba (EGb) attenuates hippocampal-dependent memory deficit in aged individuals; however, very little is known about the effect of EGb on the structure of hippocampus. Therefore we examined the EGb-induced morphological changes of the Cornu Ammonis (CA) region in aged rats. Materials and Methods: Sixteen aged male Wistar rats, 24 ...

Activity induced long lasting modifications of synaptic efficacy have been extensively studied in excitatory synapses, however, long term plasticity is also a property of inhibitory synapses. Inhibitory neurons in the hippocampal CA1 region can be subdivided according to the compartment they target on the pyramidal cell. Some interneurons preferentially innervate the perisomatic area and axon h...

The hippocampal CA1 neurons are selectively vulnerable to global ischemia, and neuronal death occurs in a delayed manner. The threshold of global ischemia duration that induces neuronal death has been studied, but the relationship between ischemia duration and glial death in the hippocampal CA1 area has not been fully studied. We examined neuronal/glial viability and morphological changes in th...

The cellular and molecular effects of stress on the amygdala are strikingly different compared with those in the hippocampus. Previous findings on stress-induced plasticity were based primarily on postmortem analysis within individual areas. However, little is known about how stress affects dynamic changes and interactions in neuronal activity between the two areas. Hence, we simultaneously mon...

BACKGROUND Pyramidal neurons in the hippocampal area CA3 express high levels of BDNF, but how this BDNF contributes to oscillatory properties of hippocampus is unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we examined carbachol-induced gamma oscillations in hippocampal slices lacking BDNF gene in the area CA3. The power of oscillations was reduced in the hippocampal area CA1, which coincided w...

Tetanic stimulation of the Schaffer collateral inputs into area CA1 of the hippocampus causes N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor activation, an effect that contributes to the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP) in this region. The present studies demonstrate that LTP-inducing tetanic stimulation in rat hippocampal area CA1 elicited increased levels of cAMP. The elevation of cAMP was blo...

The subfornical organ (SFO) is one of circumventricular organs characterized by the lack of a normal blood brain barrier. The SFO neurons are exposed to circulating glutamate (60~100 µM), which may cause excitotoxicity in the central nervous system. However, it remains unclear how SFO neurons are protected from excitotoxicity caused by circulating glutamate. In this study, we compared the gluta...