1. Phosphoinositide hydrolysis-linked excitatory amino acid (EAA) receptors (ACPD receptors) are selectively activated by the glutamate analogue trans-1-amino-1,3-cyclopentanedicarboxylic acid (trans-ACPD). Regional analysis of trans-ACPD-induced phosphoinositide hydrolysis indicates that this response is greater in the hippocampus than in other brain regions. Therefore we designed a series of studies aimed at testing the hypothesis that activation of this receptor modulates synaptic function in the hippocampal region. 2. We report that trans-ACPD dramatically altered field population spikes at each of the three major synapses in the hippocampal trisynaptic circuit at concentrations that are effective in activating phosphoinositide hydrolysis. At the perforant path-dentate gyrus synapse, bath application of trans-ACPD resulted in a decrease in the amplitude of field population spikes. In contrast, trans-ACPD markedly enhanced field population spike amplitude at the mossy fiber-CA3 synapse and the Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapse. In area CA1, but not area CA3, trans-ACPD also induced generation of multiple population spikes. 3. Simultaneous field potential recordings from the s. pyramidale and s. radiatum in area CA1 revealed that the effect of trans-ACPD on population spikes in this region was not accompanied by an increase in the initial slope of the field EPSP. This suggests that the effect of trans-ACPD was not mediated by a presynaptic action but must be mediated by direct effects on CA1 pyramidal cells or by a decrease in synaptic inhibition. 4. trans-ACPD had a number of direct excitatory effects on CA1 pyramidal cells. These included 1) cell depolarization (with an increase in input resistance), 2) inhibition of the slow afterhyperpolarization, and 3) blockade of spike frequency adaptation. trans-ACPD also had effects on CA1 pyramidal cells that were not excitatory in nature. These included an increase in the threshold for initiation of calcium spikes and an increase in interspike interval during prolonged current injection. None of these effects were mimicked by an ACPD analogue that does not activate the ACPD receptor (trans-methanoglutamate), nor were they blocked by kynurenate, a nonselective EAA receptor antagonist that does not block the ACPD receptor.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

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The main purpose of this article is to broaden U.S. scholars' awareness of the similarities and differences of gender literature in another part of the world. In providing this partial review of gender scholarship in India, the authors hope to foster critical reflection on the inequities of global knowledge production and consumption and the role of U.S. academic institutions and scholars in this project. The article is written not by scholars who are based in India but by those who are based in U.S. academies. Given their location, linguistic and cultural competencies, and scholarly expertise, the review, at best, can be described as a glimpse of gender scholarship in India. The four sections of this article feature theoretical and methodological issues, the women's movement, and violence against women in India.

In this paper, I argue that transnational feminist practices have become the dominant modality of feminist movements around the world, since the Fourth Women's World Conference in Beijing. By transnationalism I mean both organising across national borders as well as framing local, national, regional, and global activism in “transnational” discourses. I review two sites of transnational feminism, the UN and the World Social Forum, especially the emergence of the Feminist Dialogues from the Forum. I argue that the changed socio‐political context following Beijing – in particular the continuing hegemony of the neo‐liberal economic agenda, the entrenchment of religious fundamentalisms, and the post 9/11 wars and focus on terrorism in the US and around the world – has highlighted the limitations of transnational activism, for both internal movement politics and social transformation. Transnational feminism fragments movement politics as tensions emerge between movement organisations that can actually cross borders versus those that cannot and reproduces inequalities among activists within and between countries in the North and South. More importantly, however, given the spaces within which transnational feminists operate and the modalities of transnational activism, the strategic focus of movements' shifts from outcome to process and from redistribution to policy and discursive changes. Thus, the ironic state of the feminist movements post Beijing, I argue, is that (some) women's agency is visible everywhere even as (most) women's lives remain mired in multiple inequalities. What is needed in this neo‐liberal moment is a neo‐radical feminist politics that is based on intersectional analysis and democratic practices but devises strategies with other mass movements that can redistribute resources and emancipate women.