PURPOSE Chronic stress is a risk factor for behavioral deficits, including impaired memory processing and depression. Exercise is well known to have beneficial impacts on brain health. METHODS Mice were forced to treadmill running (4-week) during chronic restraint stress (6h/21d), and then behavioral tests were conducted by Novel object recognition, forced swimming test: FST, sociality test: ...

Recent reports have suggested that various general anesthetics affect presynaptic processes in the central nervous system. However, characterizations of the influence of intravenous anesthetics on neurotransmitter release from presynaptic nerve terminals (boutons) are insufficient. Because the presynaptic calcium concentration ([Ca2+]pre) regulates neurotransmitter release, we investigate the e...

Objective(s) Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) regulate epileptiform activity and produce a sustained proepileptogenic action within the hippocampal slices. In the present study, we investigated the effect of nAChRs on evoked glutamatergic synaptic transmission in area CA3 and CA1 of rat hippocampal slices to identify possible excitatory circuits through which activation of nAChRs prod...

In our previous report [Tsukada, M., Aihara, T., Saito, H., Kato, H., 1996. Neural Netw. 9, 1357-1365], the temporal pattern sensitivity of long-term potentiation (LTP) in hippocampal CA1 neurons was estimated by using Markov chain stimuli (MS) with different values of the serial correlation coefficient rho1 between successive interstimulus-intervals. In this paper, the effect of chaotic stimul...

One of the most vulnerable areas to ischemia or hypoglycemia is CA1 hippocampal region due to pyramidal neurons death. Glutamate receptors are involved together with protein-kinase C and nitric oxide synthase. Long-term potentiation (LTP) is generated in anoxic or hypoglycemic conditions via activation of NMDA while inhibition of these receptors attenuates this response. Protein-kinase C and ni...

Protein synthesis is involved in the consolidation of short-term memory into long-term memory. Previous electrophysiological data concerning LTP in CA3 suggest that protein synthesis in that region might also be necessary for short-term memory. We tested this hypothesis by locally injecting the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin in hippocampal area CA1 or CA3 immediately after contextual fe...

A large body of evidence from molecular, cellular and human studies suggests that lithium may enhance synaptic plasticity, which may be associated with its therapeutic efficacy. However, only a small number of studies have directly assessed this. To determine whether lithium treatment alters structural synaptic plasticity, this study examined the effect of 4 wk lithium treatment on the amount a...

Running exercise is an effective method to improve depressive symptoms when combined with drugs. However, the underlying mechanisms are not fully clear. Cerebral blood flow perfusion in depressed patients is significantly lower in the hippocampus. Physical activity can achieve cerebrovascular benefits. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impacts of running exercise on capillaries in t...