Current events

Date: 04 October 2013

Time: 09:30 am

Place : Gonda 2303 (2nd Floor Conference Room)

Title : Metabotropic NMDA Receptor Function

Speaker: Walt Babiec

Recently, two laboratories have reported data from hippocampal slice culture that the depression of AMPA receptor mediated transmission by amyloid beta is blocked by competitive NMDA receptor antagonists, e.g., APV, but not non-competitive antagonists, e.g., MK-801. One of these, the Malinow Laboratory, has proposed that NMDA receptors not only display an ionotropic function but a metabotropic function. They suggest that this metabotropic function, which requires NMDA receptor activation but not cation flux, is necessary and sufficient for generating long-term depression (LTD), which they argue mediates this amyloid beta effect. This week, we will review that data offered in support of their metabotropic NMDA hypothesis of LTD, as well as some data we have taken in the O’Dell Laboratory investigating whether such a function persists in adult animals, thus enhancing its potential for relevance to neurological disorders of aging such as Alzheimer’s Disease.

Covering This Week’s Paper: “Metabotropic NMDA receptor function is required for NMDA receptor-dependent long-term depression” PNAS (2013) 110:4027. Sadegh Nabavia, Helmut W. Kessels, Stephanie Alfonso, Jonathan Aow, Rocky Fox, and Roberto Malinow http://www.pnas.org/content/110/10/4027.long