Multiple neuromodulators including acetylcholine, noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin are released in response to uncertainty to focus attention on events where the predicted outcome does not match observed reality. In these situations, internal representations need to be updated, a process that requires long-term synaptic plasticity. Through a variety of common and divergent mechanisms, it is recently shown that all these neuromodulators facilitate the induction and/or expression of long-term synaptic plasticity within the hippocampus. Under physiological conditions, this may be critical for suprathreshold induction of plasticity endowing neuromodulators with a gating function and providing a mechanism by which neuromodulators enable the targeted updating of memory with relevant information to improve the accuracy of future predictions.

When native and recombinant kainate receptors (KARs) are compared, there is a mismatch in several of their functional properties. While both generate currents, synaptic responses mediated by KARs have rarely observed in cultured hippocampal neurons. The recent discovery of auxiliary proteins for KARs, such as Netos, offers an explanation for these discrepancies. We found that the GluK5 KAR subunit and the ancillary proteins, Neto1 and Neto2, are not expressed by hippocampal neurons in culture. Therefore, we used this model to directly test whether these proteins are required for the synaptic localization of KARs. Transfection of GluK4, GluK5, Neto1, or Neto2 into hippocampal neurons was associated with the appearance of synaptic KAR-mediated EPSCs. However, GluK4 or GluK5 alone produced synaptic activity in a significant proportion of cells and with reliable event frequency. While neurons expressing GluK4 or GluK5 subunits displayed synaptic responses with rapid kinetics, the expression of Neto proteins conferred these synaptic responses with their characteristic slow onset and decay rates. These data reveal some requirements for KAR targeting to the synapse, indicating a fundamental role of high affinity KAR subunits in this process.

Acetylcholine release in the hippocampus plays a central role in the formation of new memory representations. An influential but largely untested theory proposes that memory formation requires acetylcholine to enhance responses in CA1 to new sensory information from entorhinal cortex whilst depressing inputs from previously encoded representations in CA3. Here, we show that excitatory inputs from entorhinal cortex and CA3 are depressed equally by synaptic release of acetylcholine in CA1. However, feedforward inhibition from entorhinal cortex exhibits greater depression than CA3 resulting in a selective enhancement of excitatory-inhibitory balance and CA1 activation by entorhinal inputs. Entorhinal and CA3 pathways engage different feedforward interneuron subpopulations and cholinergic modulation of presynaptic function is mediated differentially by muscarinic M3 and M4 receptors, respectively. Thus, our data support a role and mechanisms for acetylcholine to prioritise novel information inputs to CA1 during memory formation.

With increasing life expectancy, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias pose an increasing and as yet unresolved health problem. A variety of cellular models of AD has helped to decipher some key aspects of amyloid and tau related degeneration. The initial approach of extracellular applications of synthetic peptides has now been replaced by the introduction of amyloid precursor protein (APP) and tau genes. In the present study adenoviral transductions were exploited for gene delivery into primary rat hippocampal and dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cultures to enable comparative and mechanistic studies at the cellular level and subsequent drug testing. Time lapse experiments revealed a different pattern of cell death: apoptotic-like for APP whereas tau positive cells joined and formed clusters. Mutated human APP or tau expression caused accelerated neuronal damage and cell death (cf. EGFP: -50% for APP at 5 days; -40% for tau at 3 days). This reduction in viability was preceded by decreased excitability, monitored via responses to depolarising KCl-challenges in Ca(2+) imaging experiments. Additionally, both transgenes reduced neurite outgrowth in DRG neurones. Treatment studies confirmed that APP induced-damage can be ameliorated by β- and γ-secretase inhibitors (providing protection to 60-100% of control levels), clioquinol (80%) and lithium (100%); while anti-aggregation treatments were beneficial for tau-induced damage (60-90% recovery towards controls). Interestingly, caffeine was the most promising drug candidate for therapeutic intervention with high efficacy in both APP (77%) and tau-induced models (72% recovery). Overall, these cellular models offer advantages for mechanistic studies and target identification in AD and related disorders.

Acetylcholine release in the hippocampus plays a central role in the formation of new memory representations by facilitating synaptic plasticity. It is also proposed that memory formation requires acetylcholine to enhance responses in CA1 to new sensory information from entorhinal cortex whilst depressing inputs from previously encoded representations in CA3, but this influential theory has not been directly tested. Here, we show that excitatory inputs from entorhinal cortex and CA3 are depressed equally by synaptic release of acetylcholine in CA1. However, greater depression of feedforward inhibition from entorhinal cortex results in an overall enhancement of excitatory-inhibitory balance and CA1 activation. Underpinning the prioritisation of entorhinal inputs, entorhinal and CA3 pathways engage distinct feedforward interneuron subpopulations and depression is mediated differentially by presynaptic muscarinic M3 and M4 receptors respectively. These mechanisms enable acetylcholine to prioritise novel information inputs to CA1 during memory formation and suggest selective muscarinic targets for therapeutic intervention.