Neuroscience
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A topic of high current interest and controversy is the basis of the homeostatic sleep response, the increase in non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep and NREM-delta activity following sleep deprivation (SD). Adenosine, which accumulates in the cholinergic basal forebrain (BF) during SD, has been proposed as one of the important homeostatic sleep factors. It is suggested that sleep-inducing effects of adenosine are mediated by inhibiting the wake-active neurons of the BF, including cholinergic neurons. ⋯ Two weeks after i.c.v. saporin injection there was a 59% cholinergic cell loss, correlated with significant increase in SD-induced adenosine level in the BF and an intact sleep response. Three weeks after i.c.v. saporin injection there was an 87% cholinergic cell loss, nearly complete abolition of the SD-induced adenosine increase in the BF and the homeostatic response, implying that the time course of i.c.v. saporin lesions is a key variable in interpreting experimental results. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that cholinergic neurons in the BF are important for the SD-induced increase in adenosine as well as for its sleep-inducing effects and play a major, although not exclusive, role in sleep homeostasis.
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Mole-rat species within the family Bathyergidae exhibit a wide range of reproductive strategies and social systems. Various forms of reproductive suppression are displayed within this family: in the solitary species, breeding is suspended for part of the year and in the social species, reproduction is suppressed in subordinate animals. This study investigated the gonadotrophin-releasing hormone 1 (GnHR-1) systems of breeding and non-breeding solitary Cape mole-rats and social Natal mole-rats for possible inter- and/or intra-species differences. ⋯ In female and male Natal mole-rats, GnRH-1-immunoreactivity in the median eminence is less dense in the reproductive animals; no such difference was found in Cape mole-rats between the breeding and non-breeding seasons. These immunohistochemical results are discussed in the light of earlier studies which identified no functional neuroendocrine impediments underlying regulated reproduction in either Cape or Natal mole-rats. The cumulative findings suggest that the principal factors determining seasonal or socially induced suppression of reproduction in these species are behavioral rather than neuroendocrine.
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The avian brainstem serves as a useful model system to address the question of how afferent activity influences viability of target neurons. Approximately 20-30% of neurons in the chick cochlear nucleus, nucleus magnocellularis (NM) die following deafferentation (i.e. deafness produced by cochlea removal). Previous studies have identified cellular events that occur within hours following cochlea removal, which are thought to lead to the ultimate death of NM neurons. ⋯ Lithium did, however, affect changes that are believed to be indicative of the subpopulation of NM neurons that will eventually die. Ribosomes recovered in all of the deafferented NM neurons (as assessed by Y10b labeling) by 10 h following cochlea removal in subjects pretreated with lithium, while a subpopulation of the NM neurons in saline-treated subjects showed dramatic reduction in Y10b labeling at that time. Lithium treatment also prevented the robust upregulation of b cell leukemia/lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) mRNA that is observed in a subpopulation of deafferented NM neurons 6 h following cochlea removal.
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The relative distribution of the excitatory amino acid transporter 2 (EAAT2) between synaptic terminals and astroglia, and the importance of EAAT2 for the uptake into terminals is still unresolved. Here we have used antibodies to glutaraldehyde-fixed d-aspartate to identify electron microscopically the sites of d-aspartate accumulation in hippocampal slices. About 3/4 of all terminals in the stratum radiatum CA1 accumulated d-aspartate-immunoreactivity by an active dihydrokainate-sensitive mechanism which was absent in EAAT2 glutamate transporter knockout mice. ⋯ Most of the remaining immunoreactivity (8%) was found in axons where it was distributed in a plasma membrane surface area several times larger than that of astroglia. This explains why the densities of neuronal EAAT2 are low despite high levels of mRNA in CA3 pyramidal cell bodies, but not why EAAT2 in terminals account for more than half of the uptake of exogenous substrate by hippocampal slice preparations. This and the relative amount of terminal versus glial uptake in the intact brain remain to be discovered.