Full Description
Over the past two years, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has begun a series of symposia to highlight the need for more integrative re search to understand how ethanol alters behavior. Much of the research to date has dealt either at the molecular level or has been whole animal studies. More studies are needed to build our base of knowledge between these two extremes by focusing more on cellular and network levels of organization. To begin this focus on the intermediate steps in this scheme, the NIAAA presented a satellite symposium entitled "Approaches for Studying Neural Circuits: Application to Al cohol Research" held at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washing ton, DC, on November 16, 1996. This symposium brought together a group of scientists who presented their work on techniques used to study neural circuits. The proceedings of that symposium were published (Y. Liu (Ed.) Approaches for Studying Neural Circuits: Application to Alcohol Research. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 1998 Feb; 22: 1--{j6).
Contents
1. Overview of the Symposium.- 2. A Perspective on the Synapse.- Section I. Synaptic Transmission.- 3. Molecular Targets Underlying Ethanol-Mediated Reduction of Hormone Release from Neurohypophysial Nerve Terminals.- 4. Alcohol and General Anesthetic Modulation of GABAA and Neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors.- 5. Alcohol and the 5-HT3 Receptor.- 6. Questions and Answers of Session I: Synaptic Transmission.- Section II. Synaptic Modulation.- 7. Depolarization-Induced Suppression of Inhibition (DSI) Involves a Retrograde Signaling Process that Regulates GABAA-Mediated Synaptic Responses in Mammalian CNS.- 8. Native GABAA Receptors Get "Drunk" but Not Their Recombinant Counterparts.- 9. Adenosine and Ethanol: Is There a Caffeine Connection in the Actions of Ethanol?.- 10. A Metabotropic Hypothesis for Ethanol Sensitivity of GABAergic and Glutamatergic Central Synapses.- 11. Questions and Answers of Session II: Synaptic Modulation.- Section III. Synaptic Plasticity.- 12. Alcohol, Memory, and Molecules.- 13. Of Mice and Minis: Novel Forms and Analyses of Ethanol Effects on Synaptic Plasticity.- 14. Ethanol Suppression of Hippocampal Plasticity: Role of Subcortical Inputs.- 15. Questions and Answers of Session III: Synaptic Plasticity.- Contributors.
