The aim of this study was to evaluate effects of strychnine, as well as bicuculline and picrotoxin on the anticonvulsant action of felbamate against maximal electroshock (MES)-induced seizures in mice. Strychnine (up to 0.5 mg/kg), bicuculline (up to 2 mg/kg) and picrotoxin (3 mg/kg) did not affect the seizure threshold. However, strychnine (0.25-0.5 mg/kg) and picrotoxin (3 mg/kg) impaired the...

Introduction: Some studies show magnesium has anticonvulsive effect in some animal models. Despite of the availability of well-studied anticonvulsant drugs, this evaluation was not carried on new kind of magnesium supplement, magnesium oxide nanoparticles (nMgO). According to the interaction between magnesium and convulsion, this study was designed to evaluate the effect of nMgO on strychnine-i...

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed for the quantitation of strychnine in urine of children with nonketotic hyperglycinaemia and other developmental disorders treated with the alkaloid. Mobile and stationary phases were polar, i.e. methanol-water-330 g/kg ammonia (volumes, 85 ml + 14.2 ml + 0.8 ml) and LiChrosorb Si-60, 7 microns. Brucine was the internal standa...

Glycine receptors have been localized by autoradiography in the rat central nervous system (CNS) using [3H]strychnine. The gross distribution of receptors is in excellent accord with the distribution determined by filtration binding assays. Specifically, the density of glycine receptors is greatest in the gray matter of the spinal cord and decreases progressively in regions more rostral in the ...

Strychnine-sensitive glycine receptors are expressed in many adult forebrain regions, yet the biological function of these receptors outside the spinal cord/brainstem is poorly understood. We have recently shown that rat lateral/basolateral amygdala neurons express strychnine-sensitive glycine-gated currents whose pharmacological and molecular characteristics are consistent with those establish...

The present study was designed to investigate the role of strychnine-sensitive glycine receptors in hypnosis and analgesia induced by emulsified volatile anesthetics. After having established the mice model of hypnosis and analgesia by intraperitoneally injecting (i.p.) appropriate doses of ether, enflurane, isoflurane or sevoflurane, we intracerebroventricularly (i.c.v.) or intrathecally (i.t....

A simple, sensitive, and specific thin-layer chromatography densitometric method has been developed for the simultaneous quantitation of strychnine and brucine. These two marker compounds are quantitated in the seeds of Strychnos nux-vomica, Strychnos ignatii, and its formulations. The method involves densitometric evaluation of strychnine and brucine after resolving it by high-performance TLC ...

The inhibitory glycine receptor (GlyR) is a member of the ligand-gated ion channel receptor superfamily. Glycine activation of the receptor is antagonized by the convulsant alkaloid strychnine. Using in vitro mutagenesis and functional analysis of the cDNA encoding the alpha 1 subunit of the human GlyR, we have identified several amino acid residues that form the strychnine-binding site. These ...

Nerve cells of different functions cannot be differentiated histologically by staining methods. In order to prove chemical differences it is necessary t o affect the function of a given type of neuron by the action of a chemical agent. Thus Baglioni 1 has demonstrated a chemical difference between sensory and motor cells in the frog and the squid, by showing that phenol is an excitant for the m...

In cell culture, mammalian neurons form fault tolerant, spontaneously active systems with great sensitivity to their chemical environment and generate response profiles that are often concentration and substance specific. In the experiments to be discussed, the response of spontaneously active murine spinal cord cultures coupled to an array of 64 transparent microelectrodes to the glycine recep...