Study on excitability transmission of glutamate receptor in vestibular nucleus by optical imaging / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the spatiotemporal patterns of the glutamatergic transmission in vestibular nucleus. Methods The brainstem slices were prepared from postnatal 1-5-day mice. The slices were stained with RH155, which was a light-absorbent voltage-sensitive dye, for 20 min. A multiple-site optical recording system was used for optical imaging of the evoked responses after electrical stimulation to the vestibular nerve. Results The spatiotemporal patterns of excitatory propagation in VN were illustrated. The effects of glutamate antagonist in VN after being bathed in APV (100mol/L, NMDA receptor antagonist) or CNQX (10mol/L, non-NMDA receptor antagonist) were observed in the postnatal 1 to 3 day-mouse brainstem slices. Our data showed that the percentage of APV sensitivity ranged from 50% to 84.2%, with a mean of 64.9%?9.06% (n=18). The percentage of CNQX sensitivity ranged from 15.8% to 50%, with a mean of 35.1%?9.06% (n=18). Conclusion The study indicated that the use of optical recording for revealing visually the synaptic transmission of afferent input in VN in brainstem was feasible. Both NMDA and non-NMDA receptor were sensitive to the neuronal transmission of EPSP in VN, but the NMDA sensibility to EPSP was higher than that of non-NMDA in newborn mice.