GABAergic drugs can change analgesic effect of morphine. Wide dynamic range (WDR) neurons play an important role in pain transmission and may change behaviors in morphine tolerance. In this study WDR neuron behaviors in morphine tolerant rats and rats treated with GABA agonists, were recorded to elucidate the effect of morphine and GABA agonists on WDR behavioral changes. Rats were divided to 4...

Introduction: Neurons in layer II and III of the somatosensory cortex in rats show high frequency (33 ± 13 Hz) of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) that their rates and amplitudes are independent of sodium channels. There are some changes in these currents in neurodegenerative and psychological disorders. Regarding to well known roles of the neuromodulatory brain systems in...

The Erwinia ligand-gated ion channel (ELIC) is a bacterial homologue of vertebrate Cys-loop ligand-gated ion channels. It is activated by GABA, and this property, combined with its structural similarity to GABA(A) and other Cys-loop receptors, makes it potentially an excellent model to probe their structure and function. Here we characterise the pharmacological profile of ELIC, examining the ef...

Dopamine regulates the activity of neural networks in the prefrontal cortex that process working memory information, but its precise biophysical actions are poorly understood. The present study characterized the effects of dopamine on GABAergic inputs to prefrontal pyramidal neurons using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings in vitro. In most pyramidal cells, dopamine had a temporally biphasic eff...

Although -aminobutyric acid type A receptor agonists and antagonists bind to a common site, they produce different conformational changes within the site because agonists cause channel opening and antagonists do not. We used the substituted cysteine accessibility method and two-electrode voltage clamping to identify residues within the binding pocket that are important for mediating these diffe...

We modelled the N-terminal ligand-binding domain of the rho1 GABA(C) receptor based on the Lymnaea stagnalis acetylcholine-binding protein (L-AChBP) crystal structure using comparative modelling and validated using flexible docking guided by known mutagenesis studies. A range of known rho1 GABA(C) receptor ligands comprising seven full agonists, 10 partial agonists, 43 antagonists and 12 inacti...

Fear can be considered as a functional defense behavior to protect living beings against dangerous situation. In our studies we have investigated the fear behavior in rats in elevated plus maze .The increase in two parameters percent of open arm entries (%OAE) and percent of time spent in the open arms (% OAT) and decrease in the percent of time spent in closed arm (%CAT) was considered as fear...

Fear can be considered as a functional defense behavior to protect living beings against dangerous situation. In our studies we have investigated the fear behavior in rats in elevated plus maze .The increase in two parameters percent of open arm entries (%OAE) and percent of time spent in the open arms (% OAT) and decrease in the percent of time spent in closed arm (%CAT) was considered as fear...

δ opioid peptide (DOP) receptors are considered a therapeutic target in Parkinson's disease, although the use of DOP agonists may be limited by side effects, including convulsions. To circumvent this issue, we evaluated whether blockade of nociceptin/orphanin FQ (N/OFQ) tone potentiated the antiparkinsonian effects of DOP agonists, thus allowing for reduction of their dosage. Systemic administr...

GABA is more than the main inhibitory neurotransmitter found in the adult CNS. Several studies have shown that GABA regulates the proliferation of progenitor and stem cells. This work examined the effects of the GABA(A) receptor system on the proliferation of retinal progenitors and non-pigmented ciliary epithelial (NPE) cells. qRT-PCR and whole-cell patch-clamp electrophysiology were used to c...