Different effects of intracochlear sensory and neuronal injury stimulation on expression of synaptic N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in the auditory cortex of rats in vivo

Expression Changes of NMDA and AMPA Receptor Subunits in the Hippocampus in rats with Diabetes Induced by Streptozotocin Coupled with Memory Impairment

Cognitive impairment in diabetes (CID) is a severe chronic complication of diabetes mellitus (DM). It has been hypothesized that diabetes can lead to cognitive dysfunction due to expression changes of excitatory neurotransmission mediated by N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDAR) and α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptor (AMPAR); however, the pathogenesis involved in this has not been fully understood, especially at early phase of DM. Here, we sought to determine the cognitive changes and aim to correlate this with the expression changes of NMDAR and AMPAR of glutamate signaling pathways in the rat hippocampus from early phase of DM and in the course of the disease progression. By Western blot analysis and immunofluorescence labeling, the hippocampus in diabetic rats showed a significant increase in protein expression NMDAR subunits NR1, NR2A and NR2B and AMPAR subunit GluR1. Along with this, behavioral test by Morris water maze showed a significant decline in their performance when compared with the control rats. It is suggested that NR1, NR2A, NR2B and GluR1are involved in learning and memory and that their expression alterations maybe correlated with the occurrence and development of CID in diabetic rats induced by streptozotocin.

Synergistic Transcriptional Changes in AMPA and GABAA Receptor Genes Support Compensatory Plasticity Following Unilateral Hearing Loss

Debilitating perceptual disorders including tinnitus, hyperacusis, phantom limb pain and visual release hallucinations may reflect aberrant patterns of neural activity in central sensory pathways following a loss of peripheral sensory input. Here, we explore short- and long-term changes in gene expression that may contribute to hyperexcitability following a sudden, profound loss of auditory input from one ear. We used fluorescence in situ hybridization to quantify mRNA levels for genes encoding AMPA and GABA_A receptor subunits (Gria2 and Gabra1, respectively) in single neurons from the inferior colliculus (IC) and auditory cortex (ACtx). Thirty days after unilateral hearing loss, Gria2 levels were significantly increased while Gabra1 levels were significantly decreased. Transcriptional rebalancing was more pronounced in ACtx than IC and bore no obvious relationship to the degree of hearing loss. By contrast to the opposing, synergistic shifts in Gria2 and Gabra1 observed 30 days after hearing loss, we found that transcription levels for both genes were equivalently reduced after 5 days of hearing loss, producing no net change in the excitatory/inhibitory transcriptional balance. Opposing transcriptional shifts in AMPA and GABA receptor genes that emerge several weeks after a peripheral insult could promote both sensitization and disinhibition to support a homeostatic recovery of neural activity following auditory deprivation. Imprecise transcriptional changes could also drive the system toward perceptual hypersensitivity, degraded temporal processing and the irrepressible perception of non-existent environmental stimuli, a trio of perceptual impairments that often accompany chronic sensory deprivation.

Role of Auditory Cortex in Noise- and Drug-Induced Tinnitus

Purpose

To elucidate the role of auditory cortex in tinnitus.

Method

Neurophysiological findings in cat auditory cortex following noise trauma or the application of salicylate and quinine, all expected to induce tinnitus, were reviewed. Those findings were interpreted in the context of what is expected from studies in humans, specifically in the brains of people with tinnitus.

Results

Tinnitus is an auditory percept to which several central structures in the auditory system may contribute. Because the central auditory system has both feed-forward connections and feedback connections, it can be described as a set of nested loops. Once these loops become activated in a pathological fashion, as they may be in tinnitus, it becomes hard to assign importance to each contributing structure. Strongly interconnected networks, that is, neural assemblies, may be determining the quality of the tinnitus percept.

Conclusion

It is unlikely that tinnitus is the expression of a set of independently firing neurons, and more likely that it is the result of a pathologically increased synchrony between sets of neurons. There is clear evidence for this from both evoked potentials and from neuron-pair synchrony measures.

Pathophysiology of tinnitus

Guided by findings from neural imaging and population responses in humans, where tinnitus is well characterized, several morphological and physiological substrates of tinnitus in animal studies are reviewed. These include changes in ion channels, receptor systems, single unit firing rate, and population responses. Most findings in humans can be interpreted as resulting from increased neural synchrony.

The effects of different auditory activity on the expression of phosphorylated c-Jun in the auditory system

CONCLUSION

The data revealed that calcium influx via the NMDA receptor up-regulated the expression of phosphorylated c-Jun in the primary auditory cortices following sensory stimulation and after different neural injury stimulations which guide activity-dependent changes in gene expression and neural plasticity.

OBJECTIVES

Activator protein-1 (AP-1) transcription factor, which is mainly composed of c-Fos and c-Jun proteins, is believed to be a key participant in molecular processes that guide activity-dependent changes in gene expression. Our previous study had shown that the expression of NMDAR2A gene on synaptosomes membrane of auditory cortical neurons varied by electrical intracochlear stimulation (EIS) and neural injury induced by acoustic trauma. In this study, we investigated the role of the NMDA receptor (NMDAR) in regulating the expression of phosphorylated c-Jun in the primary auditory cortex (AI). The modulation factors observed for gene expression included EIS and noise traumas.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

EIS was applied in rats with early postnatal auditory deprivation. The impact of the noise traumas on the ultrastructures of spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) and their innervations to inner hair cells (IHCs) were verified by transmission electron microscopy (EM). These changes include a decrease in subcellular organelles, the swelling of mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum, the morphological changes in cell nuclei, and damage in the afferent synapse.

RESULTS

Immunohistochemistry observations showed that the expression of phosphorylated c-jun and active caspase-3 in hair cells and SGNs varied with amount of noise. Immunocytochemistry and Western blotting showed that the auditory cortex began to express phosphorylated c-jun 24 h after 2 h of EIS. However, this expression was not changed by EIS if NMDAR antagonist was applied. The level of phosphorylated c-Jun was remarkably increased in AI after noise overstimulation at 115 dB SPL for 3 h. Again, such an increase was not seen if NMDAR antagonist 3-(2 carboxypiperazin-4yl) propyl-1-phosphonic acid (CPP, 10 mg/kg, i.p.) was applied 30 min before the noise exposure.