The N-methyl-diethyl-aspartate (NMDA) receptor has been reported to play an important role in several acute and chronic neuropathologic syndromes. 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) accumulates in acute porphyrias due to a deficiency in the heme biosynthetic pathway. Considering that glutamate uptake inhibition caused by ALA could be one of the reasons conducing to porphyric neuropathy, it was of interest to evaluate the effect of porphyrinogenic agents on NMDA glutamatergic system. To this end receptor levels and apparent affinity (Kd) were analyzed in mice brain cortex and cerebellum. NMDA levels were diminished after chronic Isoflurane anaesthesia in brain cortex. In cerebellum, a diminution was observed after acute Enflurane and Isoflurane and allylisopropylacetamide, while ethanol administration showed a significant increase. ALA administration diminished NMDA levels only in cerebellum. Affinity constant was only reduced in brain cortex after chronic Isoflurane treatment. In conclusion, glutamatergic system appears to be involved in the action of some of the porphyrinogenic drugs studied mainly in cerebellum. Receptors regulation should therefore be considered an important mechanism in the cellular response to specific drugs, with the aim of designing new therapies and elucidating the mechanisms leading to porphyric neuropathy and acute attack triggering.
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Fish Shellfish Immunol
January 2025
College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, P.R. China; Engineering Research Center of Green development for Conventional Aquatic Biological Industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430070, P.R. China; Hubei Provincial Engineering Laboratory for Pond Aquaculture, Wuhan 430070, P.R. China; Freshwater Aquaculture Collaborative Innovation Center of Hubei Province, Wuhan 430070, P.R. China. Electronic address:
Microcystin-leucine-arginine (MC-LR) has been shown to induce neuroinflammation and disrupt neurotransmitter system. However, little is known about the mechanism of toxicity. In this study, male adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) were exposed to MC-LR at concentrations of 0, 0.
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January 2025
Department of Neuroscience and Mahoney Institute for Neurosciences, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Glioblastoma (GBM) infiltrates the brain and can be synaptically innervated by neurons, which drives tumor progression. Synaptic inputs onto GBM cells identified so far are largely short-range and glutamatergic. The extent of GBM integration into the brain-wide neuronal circuitry remains unclear.
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Department of Pharmacy, DIFAR, Pharmacology and Toxicology Section, University of Genoa, Viale Cembrano 4, 16148, Genoa, Italy.
The central nervous system (CNS) is not an immune-privileged compartment, but it is intimately intertwined with the immune system. Among the components shared by the two compartments is the complement, a main constituent of innate immunity, which is also produced centrally and controls the development and organization of synaptic connections. Complement is considered a doubled-faced system that, besides controlling the physiological development of the central network, also subserves synaptic engulfment pivotal to the progression of neurodegenerative diseases.
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January 2025
Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) regulates synaptic transmission through presynaptic receptors in nerve terminals, and its physiological roles are of clinical relevance. The cellular sources and synaptic targets of CB1-expressing terminals in the human cerebral cortex are undefined. We demonstrate a variable laminar pattern of CB1-immunoreactive axons and electron microscopically show that CB1-positive GABAergic terminals make type-2 synapses innervating dendritic shafts (69%), dendritic spines (20%) and somata (11%) in neocortical layers 2-3.
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January 2025
Department of Basic Clinical Practice, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Schizophrenia (SZ) is a deleterious brain disorder characterised by its heterogeneity and complex symptomatology consisting of positive, negative and cognitive deficits. Current antipsychotic drugs ameliorate the positive symptomatology, but are inefficient in treating the negative symptomatology and cognitive deficits. The neurodevelopmental glutamate hypothesis of SZ has opened new avenues in the development of drugs targeting the glutamatergic system.
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