Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0848237 (acute stress)
 4,619 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Exposure to stress during gestation alters brain development resulting in permanent alterations that may increase susceptibility to subsequent cognitive or neuropsychiatric disorders. In this manuscript we examined the effects of prenatal stress on critical determinants of the glutamatergic synapse under basal conditions as well as in response to acute stress. The main finding of this work is that gestational stress altered the responsiveness of the glutamatergic system following a challenge at adulthood. In fact, while in control animals acute swim stress enhanced the phosphorylation levels of the NMDA receptor subunits NR-1(Ser896) and NR-2B(Ser1303) as well as the phosphorylation levels of alpha calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (Thr286), a crucial sensor of calcium fluctuations, prenatal stress prevented or attenuated such activation. This dynamic modulation is restricted to prefrontal cortex since no changes were observed in the hippocampus, in line with the different maturational profile of these brain regions. Changes were also observed in the phosphorylation of the alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionate subunit GluR-1(Ser831) which, however, relied on the acute stress exposure and were independent of gestational stress. These effects point to a unique interference of chronic prenatal stress with the responsiveness of specific determinants of the glutamatergic synapse at adulthood in a region specific manner. The inability to mount an homeostatic glutamatergic response to subsequent stress at adulthood may impair the normal responses of the cell to challenging situations.
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PMID:Prenatal stress alters glutamatergic system responsiveness in adult rat prefrontal cortex. 1938 86

Because stress represents a major precipitating event for psychiatric disorders, it is important to identify molecular mechanisms that may be altered in vulnerable individuals when exposed to stress. Here, we studied GluR-A(-/-) mice, animals with compromised AMPA receptor signaling, and characterized by a schizophrenic as well as depressive phenotype to investigate changes occurring in response to an acute stress. Wild-type and GluR-A(-/-) mice were exposed to a single immobilization stress and sacrificed immediately after the end of the stress for the analysis of activity regulated genes and of glutamatergic synapse responsiveness. The acute stress produced a marked increase in the hippocampal expression of Arc (activity-regulated cytoskeletal-associated protein) in GluR-A(-/-) , but not in wild-type mice, which was associated with a similar increase of phospho-CaMKII, a partner in the action of Arc. When looking at the glutamatergic response to stress in wild-type animals, we found that stress increased GluR-A phosphorylation on serine831, an effect that was paralleled by a significant increase of the phosphorylation of the main NMDA receptor subunits, that is, NR-1 and NR-2B. Conversely, the stress-induced modulation of NMDA receptor subunits was not observed in GluR-A(-/-) mice. We suggest that enhanced stress responsiveness in GluR-A(-/-) mice may be due, at least in part, to their inability to activate NMDA-mediated glutamatergic neurotransmission, suggesting that the integrity of AMPA/NMDA receptor function may be important for successful coping under stressful conditions.
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PMID:AMPA GluR-A receptor subunit mediates hippocampal responsiveness in mice exposed to stress. 2057 99