Hippocampus
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GPR40, the free fatty acid receptor 1, is expressed strongly in the primate pancreas and brain. While the role of pancreatic GPR40 in glucose homeostasis has been extensively studied, the absence of this G-protein-coupled receptor from the brain of rodents has hampered studies into its role in the central nervous system. However, we found intense GPR40 mRNA expression by in situ hybridization in mouse hippocampal and motor cortex neurons. ⋯ Significantly, the activation of GPR40 provoked the phosphorylation of the cAMP response element-binding protein, CREB. The receptor was also functional in primary cultures of murine neurons, in which its activation by a selective agonist produced the phosphorylation of CREB and of extracellular signal-regulated kinases, ERK1/2. These results suggest that mice represent a suitable model for elucidating the role of GPR40 in brain function.
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Adult hippocampal neurogenesis has been suggested to play modulatory roles in learning and memory. Importantly, previous studies have shown that newborn neurons in the adult hippocampus are integrated into the dentate gyrus circuit and are recruited more efficiently into the hippocampal memory trace of mice when they become 3 weeks old. Interestingly, a single high-dose treatment with the N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonist memantine (MEM) has been shown to increase hippocampal neurogenesis dramatically by promoting cell proliferation. ⋯ Importantly, we observed a significant positive correlation between the scores for spatial memory (probe trial in the Morris water maze task) and the number of young mature neurons (3 weeks old) in MEM-treated mice, but not saline-treated mice. We also observed that the young mature neurons generated by treatment with MEM were recruited into the trace of spatial memory similarly to those generated through endogenous neurogenesis. Taken together, our observations suggest that treatment with MEM temporally improves hippocampus-dependent memory formation and that the newborn neurons increased by treatment with MEM contribute to this improvement when they become 3 weeks old.