Interaction of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), pentobarbital and two neuroactive steroids on t-butylbicyclophosphorothionate ([35S]TBPS) binding to GABAA receptors in thalamus was studied during absence seizures. In control brain sections, the steroids alphaxalone and tetrahydrodeoxycorticosterone (at low 0.1-1 microM concentrations) increased [35S]TBPS binding in thalamic relay nuclei. Both GA...

Rats with complete fornix lesions or cytotoxic lesions placed in the anterior thalamic region were trained on an allocentric spatial memory test (the Morris water maze). While both lesions led to impairments in locating the hidden platform in this test of reference memory, the thalamic lesions led to a significantly greater deficit than that observed after fornix transection as measured by a nu...

BACKGROUND Although the mechanisms of short- and long-term potentiation of nociceptive-evoked responses are well known in the spinal cord, including central sensitization, there has been a growing body of information on such events in the cerebral cortex. In view of the importance of anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in chronic pain conditions, this review considers neuronal plasticities in the t...

The thalamic nuclei are thought to play a critical role in recognition memory. Specifically, the anterior thalamic nuclei and medial dorsal nuclei may serve as critical output structures in distinct hippocampal and perirhinal cortex systems, respectively. Existing evidence indicates that damage to the anterior thalamic nuclei leads to impairments in hippocampal-dependent tasks. However, evidenc...

This study was performed to examine the hypothesis that thalamic-projecting neurons of mesopontine cholinergic nuclei display activity patterns that are compatible with their role in inducing and maintaining activation processes in thalamocortical systems during the states of waking (W) and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep associated with desynchronization of the electroencephalogram (EEG). A sam...

Axon guidance cues of the ephrin ligand family have been hypothesized to regulate the formation of thalamocortical connections, but in vivo evidence for such a role has not been examined directly. To test whether ephrin-mediated repulsive cues participate in sorting the projections originating from distinct thalamic nuclei, we analyzed the organization of somatosensory and anterior cingulate af...

The cerebral cortex and the intralaminar thalamic nuclei are the major sources of excitatory glutamatergic afferents to the striatum, whereas the midbrain catecholaminergic neurones provide a dense intrastriatal plexus of dopamine-containing terminals. Evidence from various sources suggests that there is a functional interaction between the glutamate- and dopamine-containing terminals in the st...

Several lines of investigation suggest that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), a neurodevelopmental disorder of well-characterized genetic etiology, have selective impairments in integrating local image elements into global configurations. We compared global processing abilities in 10 clinically and genetically diagnosed participants with WS (eight females, two males; mean age 31y 10mo [S...