GABA tagged posts

Richard Maddock and his team conducted MRI exams of people before and after vigorous exercise to determine the effect of exercise on neurotransmitters. Credit: Image courtesy of University of California – Davis Health System

Intense exercise increases levels of 2 common neurotransmitters – glutamate and GABA The finding offers new insights into brain metabolism and why exercise could become an important part of treating depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders linked with deficiencies in neurotransmitters, which drive communications between the brain cells that regulate physical and emotional health.

“Major depressive disorder is often characterized by depleted glutamate and GABA, which return to normal when mental health is restored,” said Prof. Richard Maddock...

In this composite image, a human nerve cell derived from a patient with Rett syndrome shows significantly decreased levels of KCC2 compared to a control cell.
Image: Gong Chen lab, Penn State University

“The most exciting part of this research is that it directly uses human neurons that originated from Rett Syndrome patients as a clinically-relevant disease model to investigate the underlying mechanism,” said Dr. Chen...

When a laser triggers an optogenetic switch in neurons in the medulla of a sleeping mouse, the animal goes from non-REM sleep (NREM) into REM or dream sleep. The axons of these neurons (green) reach into distant parts of the primitive brain, such as the hypothalamus, broadly affecting brain function. (Franz Weber image.)

Activating small group of neurons in medulla causes rapid transition to REM sleep. The researchers inserted an optogenetic switch into a group of nerve cells located this area, allowing them to activate or inactivate the neurons with laser light. When the neurons were activated, sleeping mice entered REM sleep within seconds...