The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of acute nicotine exposure on the VTA DA neuronal firing and to understand how the disruption of communication from PFC affects the firing patterns of VTA DA neurons.\n\nMethods: Extracellular single-unit recordings were performed on Sprague-Dawley rats and nicotine was administered after

stable recording was established as baseline. In order to test how input from PFC affects the VTA DA neuronal firing, bilateral transections were made immediate caudal to PFC to mechanically delete the interaction between VTA and PFC.\n\nResults: The complexity of the recorded neural firing was subsequently assessed Pevonedistat Ubiquitin inhibitor using a method based on the Lempel-Ziv estimator. The results were compared with those obtained when computing the entropy of neural firing. Exposure to nicotine triggered a significant increase in VTA DA neurons firing complexity when communication between PFC and VTA was present, while transection obliterated the effect of nicotine. Similar results were obtained when entropy values were estimated.\n\nConclusions: Our findings suggest that PFC plays a vital role in mediating

VTA activity. We speculate that increased firing complexity with acute nicotine administration in PFC intact subjects is due to the close functional coupling between PFC and VTA. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that deletion of PFC results in minor alterations of VTA DA neural firing when nicotine is acutely administered.”
“G protein-coupled buy Givinostat metabotropic glutamate HKI-272 receptors

(mGluRs) are expressed in widespread regions of the mammalian brain and are involved in the regulation of a variety of neuronal and synaptic activities. Group I mGluRs (mGluR1 and mGluR5 subtypes) are expressed in striatal medium spiny output neurons and are believed to play an important role in the modulation of cellular responses to dopamine stimulation with psychostimulants. In this study, we investigated the effect of a single dose of the psychostimulant amphetamine on mGluR1/5 protein expression in the rat forebrain in vivo. We found that acute systemic injection of amphetamine at a behaviorally active dose (5 mg/kg) was able to reduce mGluR5 protein levels in a confined biochemical fraction of synaptosomal plasma membranes enriched from the striatum. In contrast to the striatum, amphetamine increased mGluR5 protein levels in the medial prefrontal cortex. These changes in mGluR5 expression in both the striatum and the medial prefrontal cortex were transient and reversible. In addition, protein levels of mGluR1 in the enriched synaptosomal fraction from both the striatum and the medial prefrontal cortex remained stable in response to acute amphetamine.