Here, we report that the CB(1) receptor antagonist rimonabant disrupts extinction learning in an aversive, but not in an appetitive, Barnes maze conditioning task. Accordingly, these results provide this website compelling support for the hypothesis that the endogenous cannabinoid system plays a necessary role in the extinction of aversively motivated behaviors but is expendable

for appetitively motivated behaviors.”
“Hemispheric lateralization is well known in the cerebral cortex, but not in subcortical structures like basal ganglia. The goal of our study was to determine whether lateralization was present in the direct and indirect striatal pathways. We studied gene expression in the striatum of healthy rats, which was divided into two sectors, medial and lateral. Dynorphin

(DYN) and enkephalin (ENK) mRNA were analyzed as markers of the selleck inhibitor direct and indirect striatal pathways, respectively and glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) mRNA was analyzed as a marker of all medium spiny neurons. DYN and GAD mRNA expression was higher on the left hemisphere in the medial sector of the striatum, but not in the lateral one. We did not observe any difference between sides with ENK mRNA expression. We suggest the presence of a lateralization in the medial striatum, which is specific for the direct striatal pathway. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Spatial familiarization consists of a decrease in the exploratory activity over time after exposure to a place. Here, we show that a 30-min exposure to an open field led to a pronounced decrease in the exploratory behavior of rats, generating context familiarity. This

behavioral output is associated with a selective decrease in hippocampal PKM zeta levels. A short 5-min exposure did not induce spatial familiarity or a decrease in PKM zeta, while inactivation of hippocampal PKM zeta by the specific check details inhibitor ZIP was sufficient to induce spatial familiarity, suggesting that the decrease in PKM zeta is involved in setting a given context as a familiar place.”
“The effect of general anesthetics on the developing brain is receiving growing attention. Nonetheless. there remains a paucity of evidence regarding the effect of sevoflurane, a widely used anesthetic in pediatric anesthesia. This study was designed to investigate the effect of sevoflurane on nerve cell apoptosis in the developing brain. Techniques to detect cell apoptosis included immunohistochemistry of cleaved caspase-3 and single-strand DNA, as well as electron microscopy. Elevated cleaved caspase-3 was also validated semi-quantitatively by immunoblotting assay. Mouse pups (day 7 postnatal) were subjected to sevoflurane inhalation. Twelve hours later, dramatically increased cleaved caspase-3 and single-strand DNA immunoreactivity were detected in the pup brains.