Two Binges of Ethanol a Day Keep the Memory Away in Adolescent Rats: Key Role for GLUN2B Subunit.

Background: Binge drinking is common in adolescents, but the impact of only a few binges on learning and memory appears underestimated. Many studies have tested the effects of long and intermittent ethanol exposure on long-term synaptic potentiation, and whether long-term synaptic depression is affected remains unknown.

Methods: We studied the effects of one (3 g/kg, i.

Synergy between L-DOPA and a novel positive allosteric modulator of metabotropic glutamate receptor 4: implications for Parkinson's disease treatment and dyskinesia.

Group III metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors are localized in presynaptic terminals within basal ganglia (BG) circuitry that become hyperactive due to dopamine depletion in Parkinson's disease (PD). For this reason, group III mGlu receptors, in particular mGlu4, have been considered as key strategic targets for non-dopaminergic pharmacological treatments aimed at modulating these synapses, without producing the well known side-effects of l-DOPA, in particular the highly disabling l-DOPA-induced dyskinesia (LID). Herein we add physiological and functional support to this hypothesis using Lu AF21934, a novel selective and brain-penetrant mGlu4 receptor positive allosteric modulator (PAM) tool compound.

Ciliary neurotrophic factor protects striatal neurons against excitotoxicity by enhancing glial glutamate uptake.

Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) is a potent neuroprotective cytokine in different animal models of glutamate-induced excitotoxicity, although its action mechanisms are still poorly characterized. We tested the hypothesis that an increased function of glial glutamate transporters (GTs) could underlie CNTF-mediated neuroprotection. We show that neuronal loss induced by in vivo striatal injection of the excitotoxin quinolinic acid (QA) was significantly reduced (by approximately 75%) in CNTF-treated animals.