cells; C-6 cells; SchizophreniaSchizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric illness with two major types of symptoms-positive or psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and negative or deficit symptoms, such as amotivation, apathy, and asociality. Approximately 1% of the population suffers from schizophrenia (Kaplan and Sadock 1988). The serendipitous discovery of chlorpromazine four decades ago not only provided the first efficacious therapeutic intervention, but also opened horizons into research about the etiology and therapy of this disease. It was soon hypothesized that chlorpromazine and similar drugs worked by being pharmacological antagonists of the neurotransmitter dopamine (Seeman et al. 1976;Creese et al. 1976), a hypothesis that ultimately provided the foundation for the commonly accepted division of dopamine receptors into two classes (Garau et al. 1978), now often called D 1 and D 2 (Kebabian and Calne 1979).During the past decade, molecular cloning studies have resulted in the identification of several genes coding for dopamine receptors. There now are at least two From the Departments of Pharmacology (CP, RBM) and Psychiatry (CPL, RBM), and Medicinal Chemistry (RBM), Curricula in Toxicology (CPL, RBM), and Neurobiology (MML, RBM), UNC Neuroscience Center (CPL, CP, MML, RBM), University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Molecular Neuropharmacology Section (CM, DJ, JAS, AMG, DRS), National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, Maryland.Address correspondence to: Dr. Cindy Lawler, CB #7250; UNC Neuroscience Center, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7250. Received April 17, 1998; revised August 27, 1998; accepted September 21, 1998. (Zhou et al. 1990;Monsma et al. 1990;Sunahara et al. 1990;Dearry et al. 1990) and D 1B (Tiberi et al. 1991) or D 5 (Sunahara et al. 1991], both of these linked functionally to stimulation of cAMP synthesis, and preferentially recognizing 1-phenyl-tetrahydrobenzazepines (e.g., SCH23390). The D 2 -like receptors come from at least three genes and include multiple splice variants. The D 2 -like receptors [D 2S (Bunzow et al. 1988), D 2L (Giros et al. 1989;Monsma et al. 1989), D 3 (Sokoloff et al. 1990, and D 4 ] sometimes are linked to inhibition of cAMP synthesis and have a different pharmacological specificity from the D 1 -like receptors (i.e., having much higher affinity for spiperone or sulpiride).The traditional view of antipsychotic drug efficacy posits a primary role for pharmacological antagonism of D 2 -like receptors. Despite the demonstrable effectiveness of dopamine D 2 receptor antagonists, however, a substantial number (up to 20%) of patients are considered unresponsive to these typical antipsychotics (Kane et al. 1988). Furthermore, the typical antipsychotics have significant and serious side effects that make them less than optimal therapeutic agents (see Peacock and Gerlach 1996). For example, they cause acute drug-induced parkinsonian symptoms (...

Thyroid hormone is important for normal brain development. Cellular responses to thyroid hormone are mediated by multiple nuclear receptors, classified into alpha- and beta-subtypes. In the rat, expression of both the alpha and beta genes results in several translation products. By using cRNA probes common to alpha transcripts or specific for alpha-1 and beta-1, we have studied the distribution of these transcripts in rat brain at different stages of development from embryonic day 14 to adult age by using in situ hybridization histochemistry. On embryonic day 14, the alpha-1 mRNA is already widely expressed at a low level in the developing brain. The alpha-1 mRNA is developmentally regulated and showed a peak in expression during the first 3 postnatal weeks in the cerebral cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum. The probe common to the alpha transcripts detected a widespread distribution and high levels of these forms in the same regions throughout postnatal development. The level of beta-1 mRNA before birth was low or undetectable. The beta-1 transcript showed developmental regulation as well, with a high level at birth in the mitral cell layer of the olfactory bulb, accumbens nucleus, caudate, and hippocampal field CA1 and increasing levels in other regions later during development. Complementary expression of the alpha and beta forms was seen in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. The differential temporal and spatial distribution as well as coexpression at comparable levels in certain brain regions suggest different roles for the c-erbA proteins during brain development and in the mature animal.

The results of this study support the hypothesis that the mtDNA haplogroups have a role in the complex osteoarthritic process.

To examine directly in the brain the status of α2‐adrenoceptors in major depression, the specific binding of the agonist [3H]UK 14304 was measured by quantitative receptor autoradiography in the hippocampus and frontal cortex of suicide victims (n = 17) with a retrospective diagnosis of depression (n = 7) or other psychiatric disorders (n = 10) as well as of matched control subjects (n = 9). In suicide victims, a significant increase in the number of α2‐adrenoceptors was found in the CA1 field (40%) and dentate gyrus (20%) of the hippocampus and in the external layers I (33%) and II (31%) of the frontal cortex, compared with that in matched controls. In depressed suicide victims, the increase in α2‐adrenoceptors in the CA1 field (57%) was significantly greater (24%, p < 0.05) than that observed in the group of suicide victims with other diagnoses (26%). In the same depressed suicide victims, the increase in cortical α2‐adrenoceptors was restricted to layer I (34%) and it was equivalent to that found in layer I (33%) of suicide victims with other diagnoses. The results indicate that suicide is associated with increases in the high‐affinity state of brain α2‐adrenoceptors and that there is a pronounced localized increase of this inhibitory receptor in the hippocampus of depressed suicide victims.

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