The use of PNU-120596 [1-(5-chloro-2,4-dimethoxyphenyl)-3(5-methylisoxazol-3-yl)-urea], a positive allosteric modulator of 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), may be beneficial for enhancing cholinergic therapies. However, the effects of PNU-120596 on activation of native 7-containing nAChRs by physiological concentrations of choline are not known and were investigated in this study usi...

A deeper understanding of both movement control and the effects of nociceptor inputs on our motor systems is critical for proper clinical diagnosis of musculoskeletal dysfunctions and for development of novel rehabilitation schemes. In the jaw system, masticatory movements are produced by a central pattern generator (CPG) located in the brainstem. Considerable efforts have been made in decipher...

Rohrbacher, Jutta, Katja Sauer, Andrea Lewen, and Ulrich decapitation. Pieces of ventral midbrain tissue were dissociated mechanically and plated on a primary culture of glial cells from Misgeld. Enhancement of synaptic excitation by GABAA receptor antagonists in rat embryonic midbrain culture. J. Neurophysiol. the same area. Culturing techniques were as previously described (Bijak et al. 1991;...

1 I n t r o d u c t i o n Neocortical circuits are formed of recurrently connected neurons. These neurons are of two basic types, inhibitory and excitatory, which are reciprocally coupled in monosynapt ic or polysynaptic arcs. The possible roles of these connections have been the subject of many experimental and theoretical analyses. Little at tention has been given to the effect of recurrent c...

Repetitive stimuli reliably induce long-term potentiation (LTP) of synapses in the upper layers of the granular somatosensory cortex but not the agranular motor cortex of rats. Herein we examine, in these same cortical areas, short-term changes in synaptic strength that occur during the LTP induction period. 0-Burst stimulation produced a strong short-term enhancement of synapses in the granula...

Endogenous opioid systems are implicated in the reinforcing effects of ethanol consumption. For example, opioid receptor (DOR) knockout (KO) mice show greater ethanol consumption than wild-type (WT) mice (Roberts et al., 2001). To explore the neurobiological correlates underlying these behaviors, we examined effects of acute ethanol application in brain slices from DOR KO mice using whole-cell ...

Ethanol intoxication results partly from actions of ethanol at specific ligand-gated ion channels. One such channel is the GABAA receptor complex, although ethanol’s effects on GABAA receptors are variable. For example, we found that hippocampal neurons from selectively bred mice and rats with high hypnotic sensitivity to ethanol have increased GABAA receptor-mediated synaptic responses during ...

The input-output relation of a single neuron stands at the basis of every biologically oriented description of the brain. This report shows that the input-output relation of cultured cortical neurons is non-linearly tuned by the input frequency. Increasing the rate of stimulation results in the appearance of ordered temporal ®ring patterns, which are qualitatively different for different input ...

Human preferences for fat are yet to be fully understood. The purpose of the following review is to provide an evaluation of the empirical research on the effects of the peptide galanin (GAL) and nucleus accumbens on orosensory fat preferences in rats. The orosensory properties of fats are believed to be enough reinforcement for the ingestion of oils. Fats with a strong nutritive value are beli...