The over-activation of glutamate receptors can lead to excitotoxic cell death and is believed to be involved in the progression of neurodegenerative events in the vulnerable hippocampus. Here, we used an in vitro slice model to study toxicity produced in the hippocampus by the mitochondrial toxin 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NP). The organotypic slice cultures exhibit native cellular organization a...

Epilepsy is a complex neurological disorder that affects around 1%of the world’s population.it affects the neural cells of the CA1 and CA3 regions of the brain's hippocampus that causes behavioral disorders. The use of medicinal herbs for the treatment of epilepsy has long been common, but these effectors have been less successful. According to glutamate theory, the cause of epilepsy is t...

introduction: in this study, the effect of memantine administration into the nucleus accumbens on the metabolic changes induced by acute stress in female mice was evaluated. methods: intra-accumbens unilateral or bilateral canulation was performed. one week after recovery, a group of animals were given memantine (1, 0.5, and 0.1 μg/mouse) five min before stress induction intra-accumbally, and t...

introduction: we previously shown that microinjection of glutamate into the hdb of rat elicited cardiovascular depressive responses. microinjection of ap5 (an nmda receptor antagonist, 2.5 mm, 50 nl) and cnqx (an ampa receptor antagonist, 1 mm, 50 nl) caused no significant changes in the blood pressure and heart rate. microinjection of bicuculline (bmi: a gabaa receptor antagonist, 1 mm, 50 nl)...

Toxicity risk assessment for chemical-induced human health hazards relies mainly on data obtained from animal experimentation, human studies and epidemiology. In vitro testing for acute toxicity based on cytotoxicity assays predicts 70-80% of rodent and human toxicity. The nervous system is particularly vulnerable to chemical exposure which may result in different toxicity features. Acute human...

Bombycis corpus (BC) or Bombyx Batryticatus, a batryticated silkworm and white-stiff silkworm, is a drug consisting of the dried larva of silkworm, Mobyz mori L., dead and stiffened due to the infection of Beauveria (Bals.) Vuill. In a previous paper (Kim et al., Pharmacol. Res., 43, 12-16, 2001), BC was shown to protect amyloid-beta-induced cytotoxicity. In the present study, we have found tha...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Studies examining the role of tetrodotoxin-sensitive ion channels in hypoxic-ischemic neuronal damage have concluded that sodium influx is an important initiating event. We examined the neuroprotectant effect of tetrodotoxin on both cultured cerebellar neurons and on CA1 hippocampal neurons of gerbils exposed to brain ischemia. METHODS We studied neuroprotective mechani...

The cytotoxicity, and probably the selectivity, of folate antimetabolites depend upon the expression of the enzyme folylpoly-gamma-glutamate synthetase in tumor cells. Evidence for the existence of multiple forms of this enzyme and the need to define the control mechanisms determinant of expression levels in normal and neoplastic cells has focused attention on the gene(s) encoding these forms. ...

The impairment of astrocyte functions is associated with diabetes mellitus and other neurodegenerative diseases. Astrocytes have been proposed to be essential cells for neuroprotection against elevated levels of methylglyoxal (MG), a highly reactive aldehyde derived from the glycolytic pathway. MG exposure impairs primary astrocyte viability, as evaluated by different assays, and these cells re...

The B subunit of Shiga toxin and the Shiga-like toxins (SLTs) mediates receptor binding, cytotoxic specificity, and extracellular localization of the holotoxin. While the functional receptor for Shiga toxin, SLT type I (SLT-I), and SLT-II is the glycolipid designated Gb3, SLT-II variant (SLT-IIv) may use a different glycolipid receptor. To identify the domains responsible for receptor binding, ...