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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 15, 2008, 28(42):10599-10603; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2732-08.2008

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Brief Communications
Loss of Inhibitory Neuron AMPA Receptors Contributes to Ataxia and Epilepsy in Stargazer Mice

Karen Menuz1 and Roger A. Nicoll1,2

Departments of 1Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and 2Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143

Correspondence should be addressed to Roger A. Nicoll, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, Genentech Hall, N272D, 600 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94143. Email: nicoll{at}cmp.ucsf.edu

Stargazer mice are characterized by ataxia and seizures, which resemble the human disorder absence epilepsy. Stargazin, the protein mutated in stargazer mice, promotes the expression and function of neuronal AMPA receptors (AMPARs). However, it is unclear how decreased expression of excitatory AMPARs generates stargazer seizures, given that seizures often result from increased neuronal excitability. Additionally, although stargazer ataxia has been attributed to loss of AMPARs from cerebellar granule cells, other cerebellar neurons have not been examined. To examine the role of AMPAR dysfunction in these behavioral phenotypes, electrophysiological recordings were used to probe AMPAR regulation in relevant brain regions. We found that both cerebellar Purkinje cells and inhibitory thalamic reticular nucleus neurons have strongly reduced synaptic AMPAR function in stargazer mice. Together, our data suggest that impaired AMPAR regulation in multiple neuron populations may contribute to the behavioral phenotypes of absence seizures and ataxia seen in stargazer mice and imply that an understanding of human genetic disorders will require knowledge of both the genes that are mutated as well as their precise cellular expression pattern.

Key words: epilepsy; seizure; stargazin; thalamus; AMPAR; ataxia

Received June 15, 2008; revised Aug. 28, 2008; accepted Aug. 30, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Roger A. Nicoll, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, Genentech Hall, N272D, 600 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94143. Email: nicoll{at}cmp.ucsf.edu






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