The effects of trans-ACPD on long-term potentiation in the rat hippocampal slice

Trans-ACPD, a metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist, enhanced both the short-term potentiation (STP) at 1 and 5 min, and long-term potentiation (LTP) at 20 min, following tetanic stimulation, of the population, excitatory postsynaptic potential (epsp) recorded from CA1 of the rat hippocampal slice. The enhancement of both STP and LTP also occurred in the presence of the protein kinase inhibitor sphingosine, indicating that the enhancement is most likely to occur through the inositol phosphate rather than the protein kinase limb following receptor activation and phosphoinositide hydrolysis. LTP of the low frequency population epsp was not induced by t-ACPD, even at 100 microM. The metabotropic glutamate receptor may have an important role in LTP induction or modulation.