Topic: complement system

The complement system is an innate immune pathway that responds to pathogens and cellular stress. The complement receptor C3aR is expressed on various brain cells, especially microglia. C3a, the ligand of C3aR, is elevated in several psychiatric disorders, such as psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. Previous studies have shown that mice lacking C3aR exhibit behavioural abnormalities, including anxiety, hyperactivity, and working memory deficit. These findings indicate that C3aR is involved in the development and/or function of brain circuits. We performed a brain imaging

Adenosine acts as a fine regulator of synaptic plasticity in the adult brain. We showed a key role for the adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR) in the stabilization of nascent active GABAergic synapses during brain development (Gomez-Castro et al., Science 374 2021). Our data indicate that this regulation extends to glutamatergic synapses and involve neuroglial interactions. The suppression of neuronal A2AR with a shRNA approach in mixed neuron-glia cultures led to the loss of ~30% of glutamatergic synapses. Puzzlingly, activating A2AR in these cultures with a selective agonist (CGS21680) also led to