mGluR1 enhances efferent inhibition of inner hair cells in the developing rat cochlea.

Key Points: Spontaneous activity of the sensory inner hair cells shapes maturation of the developing ascending (afferent) auditory system before hearing begins. Just before the onset of hearing, descending (efferent) input from cholinergic neurons originating in the brainstem inhibit inner hair cell spontaneous activity and may further refine maturation. We show that agonist activation of the group I metabotropic glutamate receptor mGluR1 increases the strength of this efferent inhibition by enhancing the presynaptic release of acetylcholine.

Clock genes control cortical critical period timing.

Circadian rhythms control a variety of physiological processes, but whether they may also time brain development remains largely unknown. Here, we show that circadian clock genes control the onset of critical period plasticity in the neocortex. Within visual cortex of Clock-deficient mice, the emergence of circadian gene expression was dampened, and the maturation of inhibitory parvalbumin (PV) cell networks slowed.

Inhalative formaldehyde exposure enhances aggressive behavior and disturbs monoamines in frontal cortex synaptosome of male rats.

Formaldehyde (FA) exposure is known to be toxic to central nervous system of mammals. In this paper, we evaluated the aggressive behavior after repetitive inhalative FA exposure to male SD rats, and explored the potential mechanism. The rats, ranging from 160 to 180 g, were randomly designated into the orchiectomized (ORX) group, the control and the inhalative FA treatment groups.