Related Experiment Videos
Selective neuronal vulnerability and the distribution of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors
1Department of Anatomy, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadephia, PA 19107.
Neurobiology of Aging
|September 1, 1989
Abstract:
N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) receptors are believed to play a critical role in excitotoxic cell death in the CNS. The distribution of NMDA-preferring binding sites is compared here with the patterns of selective neuronal death observed in Alzheimer's disease and following transient ischemia. The distribution of NMDA receptors, by itself, is unable to account for the characteristic patterns of selective neuronal vulnerability observed in conjunction with these types of neuropathology.