The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 86 No. 5 November 2001, pp. 2642-2646
Copyright ©2001 by the American Physiological Society

RAPID COMMUNICATION

Distinct NMDA and AMPA Receptor-Mediated Responses in Mouse and Human Cajal-Retzius Cells

 ¹Center for Aging and Developmental Biology and Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York 14642; and  ²Department of Neuroscience, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-3041

Lu, Shao-Ming, Nada Zecevic, and Hermes H. Yeh. Distinct NMDA and AMPA Receptor-Mediated Responses in Mouse and Human Cajal-Retzius Cells. J. Neurophysiol. 86: 2642-2646, 2001. This study examined glutamate-activated current responses of mouse and human Cajal-Retzius (C-R) cells. Thin cortical slices were prepared from the brains of mice 4-6 days after birth and from those of midgestational human fetuses. Both human and mouse C-R cells displayed glutamate-induced whole-cell current responses that were voltage-dependent and included an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-mediated component that was differentially sensitive to blockade by the NMDA receptor antagonists 2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid and ifenprodil. -Amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA), a non-NMDA glutamate receptor agonist, induced current responses in human but not in mouse C-R cells. These results, taken together, lead us to conclude that human C-R cells express both NMDA and AMPA types of glutamate receptors very early during development of the cortex. In contrast, mouse C-R cells express only the NMDA type of glutamate receptor. Thus we demonstrate a species-dependent sensitivity of C-R cells to glutamate and postulate that this differential sensitivity may account in part for a species-dependent difference in the persistence of C-R cells during cortical development.