8
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: not found
      • Article: not found

      Enhanced hippocampal long-term potentiation in rats after chronic exposure to homocysteine

      , , , ,
      Neuroscience Letters
      Elsevier BV

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPubMed
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Homocysteine (HCY) is a sulphur-containing amino acid, which has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, and is widely reported to enhance vulnerability of neurons to oxidative, excitotoxic and apoptotic injury via perturbed calcium homeostasis, activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of HCY on long-term potentiation (LTP) and synaptic transmission after chronic 4-week systemic exposure to HCY in adult rats, and possible longer-term effects of HCY 4 weeks after exposure had ended. Contrary to expectation, LTP was enhanced, not retarded after chronic HCY exposure relative to controls. Basic synaptic transmission was not affected at this time point. However, after the 4-week wash out period, a decrease in speed of basic synaptic transmission emerged, and LTP was still partially enhanced, particularly for time points >30 min post-tetanus. In summary, we provide first evidence for sustained HCY-induced changes in hippocampal plasticity and a slow-onset disruption in synaptic transmission. These changes may reflect the suggested (excito-)toxicity of HCY and its putative contribution to neurodegenerative disease.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          Neuroscience Letters
          Neuroscience Letters
          Elsevier BV
          03043940
          January 2005
          January 2005
          : 373
          : 2
          : 119-124
          Article
          10.1016/j.neulet.2004.09.072
          15567565
          6fd9e209-744b-4078-a500-7bd4903cf732
          © 2005

          http://www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/

          History

          Comments

          Comment on this article