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Contextual cues linked to drug experience have been frequently associated to craving and relapse, with this phenomenon being described in human and experimental animals. Hippocampal synaptic plasticity has been related to learning, memory, and adaptive processes developed during chronic administration of drug abuse. In this study, we investigated if the environmental context associated with withdrawal...
Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that structural alterations in the brain, including neurogenesis, may play a role in both the pathogenesis of mood disorders and the mechanism of action of antidepressants. Previous studies have implicated both the transforming growth factor‐beta (TGF‐β), and the phosphatidyl inositol‐3 kinase (PI3K)‐Akt pathways in the neurogenesis‐promoting and behavioral...
GABAB receptors (R) are widely expressed and distributed in the nervous system, and have been implicated in variety of neurodegenerative and pathophysiological disorders. However, the exact molecular mechanism regarding responsibility of GABAB1R in downstream signaling pathway is not well understood. The present study was undertaken to explore the downstream signaling and role of GABAB1R upon acute...
In the hippocampus, glucocorticoids bind to two types of receptors: the mineralocorticoid receptor, which binds corticosterone with high affinity and is tonically occupied; and the glucocorticoid receptor, which is occupied during stress and at certain phases in the circadian cycle. Diabetes mellitus increases levels of glucocorticoids in both humans and animal models. To explore the contributions...
Dopamine D3 receptors have the highest dopamine affinity of all dopamine receptors, and may thereby regulate dopamine signaling mediated by volume transmission. Changes in D3 receptor isoform expression may alter D3 receptor function, however, little is known regarding coordination of D3 isoform expression in response to perturbations in dopaminergic stimulation. To determine the effects of dopamine...
A variety of mechanisms that contribute to the accumulation of age‐related damage and the resulting brain dysfunction have been identified. Recently, decreased neurogenesis in the hippocampus has been recognized as one of the mechanisms of age‐related brain dysfunction. However, the molecular mechanism of decreased neurogenesis with aging is still unclear. In the present study, we investigated whether...
In Alzheimer's disease brains, morphological changes in the dendrites of pyramidal neurons of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus have been observed. These changes are particularly reflected in the decrement of both the dendritic tree and spine number. Donepezil is a potent and selective acetylcholinesterase inhibitor used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. We have studied the effect...
Hippocampus is a limbic structure that participates in learning and memory formation. Specifically the dentate gyrus has been described as a hippocampal subregion with high rates of plasticity and it is targeted by different psychoactive drugs modulating synaptic plasticity. Repeated cocaine administration induces sensitization to the locomotor effects and it is believed that sensitization involves...
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is known as a successful treatment for severe depression. Despite great efforts, the biological mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of ECT remain largely unclear. In this study, animals received a single, 10, or 20 applications of electroconvulsive seizure (ECS), and then cell proliferation and apoptosis were investigated in the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the...
Postsynaptic density protein‐95 (PSD‐95) is hypothesized to control the excitatory‐to‐inhibitory ratio and plays an important role in the regulation of hippocampal synaptic plasticity, synaptogenesis, and learning and memory. In this report, we used immunoblotting to study the effects of aging and ovariectomy (OVX) on the expression of PSD‐95 in the hippocampus of female rats. The results indicated...
We have studied, in spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rats at different ages (2, 4, and 8 months old), the dendritic morphological changes of the pyramidal neurons of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus and medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) induced by the chronic effect of high‐blood pressure. As control animals, we used Wistar‐Kioto (WK) rats. Blood pressure was measured...
Curcuminoids are vital constituent of turmeric, with therapeutic potential in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Electrically, stimulus train‐elicited plastic changes in hippocampal CA1 excitability were used as an experimental paradigm to study the effects of curcuminoid mixture and individual components on functional failure induced by Aβ peptide in vitro. Electrical stimulation was applied on...
Exposure to alcohol during brain development may cause a neurological syndrome called fetal alcohol syndrome, characterized by pre‐ and postnatal growth deficiencies, craniofacial anomalies, and evidence of CNS dysfunction. The objective of this study was to evaluate pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) and ethanol effects on Bax, Bcl‐2 expression, which further induced activation of caspase‐3, release of cytochrome‐c...
Animal models provide compelling evidence that chronic stress is associated with biochemical and morphological changes in the brain, many of which are mediated by corticosterone, a principal glucocorticoid synthesized in the rodent adrenal cortex and secreted in response to stress. To better characterize the effects of chronic corticosterone at the synaptic and subsynaptic level, we implanted three‐month‐old...
In the mammlian brain, the hippocampus has been established as a principle structure for learning and memory processes, which involve synaptic plasticity. Althought a relationship between synaptic plasticity and stimulation frequency has been reported in numerous studies, little is known about the importance of pulse number on synaptic plasticity. Here we investigated whether the pulse number can...
Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR2, encoded by Grm2, and mGluR3, encoded by Grm3) are inhibitory autoreceptors that negatively modulate the adenylate cyclase signaling cascade. Within the hippocampus, mGluR2 is believed to play a key role in the induction of long‐term depression (LTD) at mossy fiber‐CA3 synapses. Here, we used Grm2/3 double knockout (dko) mice to investigate to what...
Cocaine use during pregnancy induces profound neural and behavioral deficits in both mother and offspring. The present study was designed to compare the effects of cocaine exposure on spine density of postpartum and virgin female rat brains. Timed, pregnant, primiparous rats were injected with either cocaine (30 mg/kg) or saline, once daily, from gestational day 8 to 20. Twenty‐four hours after giving...
Cerebrolysin (Cbl) is a mixture of neuropeptides with effects similar to the endogenous neurotrophic factors and is considered one of the best drugs used in the treatment of dementias such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). In brains with AD, morphological changes in the dendrites of pyramidal neurons of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus have been reported. These changes are reflected particularly...
Activity‐dependent synaptic plasticity is associated with synaptic protein turnover involving the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) for protein degradation. In primary hippocampal cell culture, it has been shown that increased or decreased activity of synaptic transmission can regulate the amount of postsynaptic density (PSD) proteins via UPS. However, the specific spatio‐temporal dynamic of PSD protein...
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