Publication Date:
2003-06-28
Description:
In the mammalian CNS, N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors serve prominent roles in many physiological and pathophysiological processes including pain transmission. For full activation, NMDA receptors require the binding of glycine. It is not known whether the brain uses changes in extracellular glycine to modulate synaptic NMDA responses. Here, we show that synaptically released glycine facilitates NMDA receptor currents in the superficial dorsal horn, an area critically involved in pain processing. During high presynaptic activity, glycine released from inhibitory interneurons escapes the synaptic cleft and reaches nearby NMDA receptors by so-called spillover. In vivo, this process may contribute to the development of inflammatory hyperalgesia.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Ahmadi, Seifollah -- Muth-Selbach, Uta -- Lauterbach, Andreas -- Lipfert, Peter -- Neuhuber, Winfried L -- Zeilhofer, Hanns Ulrich -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2003 Jun 27;300(5628):2094-7.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institut fur Experimentelle und Klinische Pharmakologie und Toxikologie, Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Fahrstrasse 17, D-91054 Erlangen, Germany.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12829784" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Analgesics/pharmacology
;
Animals
;
Anterior Horn Cells/drug effects/metabolism
;
Diffusion
;
Electric Stimulation
;
Evoked Potentials/drug effects
;
Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials/drug effects
;
Glycine/*metabolism/pharmacology
;
In Vitro Techniques
;
Interneurons/metabolism
;
Neural Inhibition/drug effects
;
Opioid Peptides/pharmacology
;
Pain Measurement
;
Patch-Clamp Techniques
;
Posterior Horn Cells/drug effects/*metabolism
;
Rats
;
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
;
Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate/*metabolism
;
Serine/pharmacology
;
Spinal Cord/drug effects/metabolism
;
Synapses/*metabolism
;
*Synaptic Transmission/drug effects
;
Temperature
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
