Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling is essential to the patterning of the embryonic neural tube, but its presence and function in the postmitotic differentiated neurons in the brain remain largely uncharacterized. We recently showed that Shh and its signaling components, Patched and Smoothened, are expressed in postnatal and adult hippocampal neurons. We have now examined whether Shh signaling has a...

Via its extracellular N-terminal domain (NTD), the AMPA receptor subunit GluR2 promotes the formation and growth of dendritic spines in cultured hippocampal neurons. Here we show that the first N-terminal 92 amino acids of the extracellular domain are necessary and sufficient for GluR2's spine-promoting activity. Moreover, overexpression of this extracellular domain increases the frequency of m...

BACKGROUND Ketamine is a commonly used intravenous anesthetic which produces dissociation anesthesia, analgesia, and amnesia. The mechanism of ketamine-induced synaptic inhibition in high-level cortical areas is still unknown. We aimed to elucidate the effects of different concentrations of ketamine on the glutamatergic synaptic transmission of the neurons in the primary somatosensory cortex by...

The aim of this study was to investigate the actions of silver nanoparticles (nano-Ag) on glutamatergic synaptic transmission and excitability in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons with whole cell patch technique. The amplitude of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) was inhibited by silver nano-particles (nano-Ag) (10⁻⁵ g/ml and 10⁻⁴ g/ml), but the amplitude and frequency of spon...

context the current study aimed to review research articles concerning cortical representational plasticity following the manipulations of inputs. evidence acquisition this review article compromised previous studies in pubmed, google scholar and scientific information databases according to the keywords since 1988. results ca1 neurons depolarization paired with ca3 presynaptic input result in ...

introduction: over the last decade, exposure to electromagnetic waves due to base station antennas has increased. this study was planned to evaluate the effects of different electrical field strengths with 950 mhz waves of the gsm mobile phone system on the excitatory postsynaptic potentiation (epsp) slope of the dentate gyrus long-term potentiation (ltp). material and methods: twenty four naiv...

Excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs), miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (MEPSCs), and acetylcholine-induced current fluctuations (noise) have been studied in voltage-clamped bullfrog parasympathetic ganglion cells of the atrial septum. EPSCs were also recorded from voltage-clamped sympathetic B cells and, in general, it was found that the basic properties of the EPSCs are similar i...

The mechanisms generating giant miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) were investigated at the hippocampal mossy fiber (MF) to CA3 pyramidal cell synapse in vitro. These giant mEPSCs have peak amplitudes as large as 1,700 pA (13.6 nS) with a mean maximal mEPSC amplitude of 366 +/- 20 pA (mean +/- SD; 5 nS; n = 25 cells). This is compared with maximal mEPSC amplitudes of <100 pA ty...

Excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) from dorsolateral medium spiny neurons (MSNs) were recorded in cortico-striatal slice preparations from postnatal day 6-8 (P6-8) and >P12 wild-type mice and mice that were lacking either the NR2A or the NR2C subunit of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor. EPSCs were elicited by stimulation of the excitatory afferents and the NMDA and non-NMDA recept...

Efficient and dependable methods for detection and measurement of synaptic events are important for studies of synaptic physiology and neuronal circuit connectivity. As the published methods with detection algorithms based upon amplitude thresholding and fixed or scaled template comparisons are of limited utility for detection of signals with variable amplitudes and superimposed events that hav...