Topic: NMDARs

Mammalian babies are “sensory traps” for parents. Various sensory cues from the newborn are tremendously efficient in triggering parental responses in caregivers. We recently showed that core aspects of maternal behavior such as pup retrieval in response to infant vocalizations rely on active learning of auditory cues from pups facilitated by the neurohormone oxytocin (OT). Release of OT from the hypothalamus might thus help induce recognition of different infant cues but it is unknown what sensory stimuli can activate OT neurons. I performed unprecedented in vivo whole-cell and cell-attached

Dopamine (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra are vital for the control of movement. This fundamental function is encoded by the output signal of DA neurons which switches from spontaneous firing to bursts of action potentials. The latter produces an increase of DA release in targeted areas which is associated to locomotion initiation. The impairment of this process, such as DA neurons degeneration, leads to the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The activation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs), by the simultaneous binding of glutamate and a co-agonist, is indispensable for th

N-acetyl spermine (NASPM) is known from in vitro and in vivo animal models for its action as calcium permeable AMPA receptors (CP-AMPARs) antagonist. Our study aim to investigate the impact of NASPM on an ex vivo human brain slice neocortex model, focusing on its ability to suppress epileptic activity. While AMPA receptors play a central role in neocortical signaling and neuronal activity, the contribution of CP-AMPARs, particularly in the context of seizure-induced inhibition/excitation imbalance, remains unknown. By applying NASPM to ex vivo human cortex slices, we aimed to investigate its a