Initial effects of drugs of abuse seem to converge on the mesolimbic dopamine pathway originating from the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Even after a single dose, many drugs of abuse are able to modulate the glutamatergic transmission activating the VTA dopamine neurons, which may represent a critical early stage in the development of addiction. Ligands acting on the benzodiazepine site of the inhibitory g-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA A ) receptors are known to be rewarding in animal models and have abuse liability in humans, but notably little evidence exists on the involvement of the mesolimbic dopamine system in their effects. Here we report that single in vivo doses of benzodiazepine-site agonists, similar to morphine and ethanol, induce a modulation in the glutamatergic transmission of VTA dopamine neurons. This is seen 24 h later as an increase in the ratio between a-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-mediated excitatory currents using whole-cell patch-clamp configuration in mouse VTA slices. The effect was due to increased frequency of spontaneous miniature AMPA receptor-mediated currents. It lasted at least 3 days after the injection of diazepam, and was prevented by coadministration of the benzodiazepine-site antagonist flumazenil or the NMDA receptor antagonist dizocilpine. A single injection of the GABA A receptor a1 subunit-preferring benzodiazepine-site ligand zolpidem also produced an increase in the AMPA/NMDA ratio in VTA dopamine neurons. These findings suggest a role for the mesolimbic dopamine system in the initial actions of and on neuronal adaptation to benzodiazepines.

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Ethanol actions on ␣-amino-3-hydyroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)-type glutamate receptors were studied using voltage-clamp recordings from mouse cortical and hippocampal neurons. During whole-cell recordings ethanol (EtOH) inhibited AMPA receptor-mediated currents in a dose-dependent manner at concentrations from 10 to 500 mM. The steady-state component of AMPA-activated current was more sensitive to EtOH than the peak component. To examine the effect of EtOH on a well resolved peak current component, patches were excised from cultured cortical neurons, to which AMPA and EtOH were applied using a piezoelectric solution application system. Under this condition, the peak current was not inhibited significantly by EtOH. To further study possible mechanisms of EtOH inhibition, kainate and AMPA were used to evoke currents in the absence and presence of cyclothiazide. Ethanol inhibition was stronger when receptors were activated by low than high kainate concentrations. Cyclothiazide reduced inhibition by EtOH regardless of the agonist used to activate the receptor. Finally, EtOH inhibition was reduced in a point mutated (L497Y) GluRAi receptor that lacks desensitization. These findings suggest that EtOH inhibits AMPA receptors by stabilizing the desensitized state. Our results can explain some of the variation observed in EtOH inhibition in previous studies, and support the idea that physiologically relevant concentrations of EtOH can have a strong effect on AMPA receptor function.Glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (CNS). It produces its physiological actions by activating several metabotropic and ionotropic receptors (for review, see Lovinger, 1997). The different ionotropic glutamate receptors are divided into three subtypes based on their primary amino acid sequence, and the agonists that best activate them. These three classes of receptor have been named the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), kainate, and ␣-amino-3-hydyroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) subtypes. Glutamate activation of AMPA receptors (AMPARs) is thought to mediate most fast synaptic excitatory neurotransmission in the brain, whereas transmission via kainate receptors contributes only a minor component.Ethanol (EtOH) has been shown to act on several targets in CNS, and the glutamate receptors are among these sites of action. Ethanol decreases the function of all three classes of ionotropic receptors at concentrations in the physiologically relevant range (Lovinger et al., 1989;Weiner et al., 1999). Ethanol is also known to inhibit glutamatergic synaptic transmission (Lovinger et al., 1990). Although the majority of studies have focused on potent inhibition of NMDA receptors by EtOH, the effect on AMPARs is not as well studied. This is in part due to the fact that EtOH inhibition of AMPA receptors is rather weak in many neuronal preparations (Lovinger et al., 1989;Weiner et al., 1999) and AMPARmediated synaptic transmission is not greatly inhibited by EtOH at hippocampal syn...

Altered neuronal network formation and function involving dysregulated excitatory and inhibitory circuits are associated with fragile X syndrome (FXS). We examined functional maturation of the excitatory transmission system in FXS by investigating the response of FXS patient-derived neural progenitor cells to the glutamate analog (AMPA). Neural progenitors derived from induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines generated from boys with FXS had augmented intracellular Ca responses to AMPA and kainate that were mediated by Ca-permeable AMPA receptors (CP-AMPARs) lacking the GluA2 subunit. Together with the enhanced differentiation of glutamate-responsive cells, the proportion of CP-AMPAR and -methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-coexpressing cells was increased in human FXS progenitors. Differentiation of cells lacking GluA2 was also increased and paralleled the increased inward rectification in neural progenitors derived from-knockout mice (the FXS mouse model). Human FXS progenitors had increased the expression of the precursor and mature forms of miR-181a, a microRNA that represses translation of the transcript encoding GluA2. Blocking GluA2-lacking, CP-AMPARs reduced the neurite length of human iPSC-derived control progenitors and further reduced the shortened length of neurites in human FXS progenitors, supporting the contribution of CP-AMPARs to the regulation of progenitor differentiation. Furthermore, we observed reduced expression of (the GluA2-encoding gene) in the frontal lobe of FXS mice, consistent with functional changes of AMPARs in FXS. Increased Ca influx through CP-AMPARs may increase the vulnerability and affect the differentiation and migration of distinct cell populations, which may interfere with normal circuit formation in FXS.

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