Identity of endogenous NMDAR glycine site agonist in amygdala is determined by synaptic activity level

Yan Li, Silvia Sacchi, Loredano Pollegioni, Alo C. Basu, Joseph T. Coyle and Vadim Y. Bolshakov ()
Additional contact information
Yan Li: McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Silvia Sacchi: University of Insubria, ‘The Protein Factory’ Research Center for Protein Biotechnologies, Politecnico di Milano and University of Insubria
Loredano Pollegioni: University of Insubria, ‘The Protein Factory’ Research Center for Protein Biotechnologies, Politecnico di Milano and University of Insubria
Alo C. Basu: McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Joseph T. Coyle: McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Vadim Y. Bolshakov: McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Mechanisms of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor-dependent synaptic plasticity contribute to the acquisition and retention of conditioned fear memory. However, synaptic rules which may determine the extent of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor activation in the amygdala, a key structure implicated in fear learning, remain unknown. Here we show that the identity of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor glycine site agonist at synapses in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala may depend on the level of synaptic activation. Tonic activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors at synapses in the amygdala under low activity conditions is supported by ambient D-serine, whereas glycine may be released from astrocytes in response to afferent impulses. The release of glycine may decode the increases in afferent activity levels into enhanced N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor-mediated synaptic events, serving an essential function in the induction of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor-dependent long-term potentiation in fear conditioning pathways.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2779 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2779

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2779

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().