{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,14]],"date-time":"2026-05-14T14:15:48Z","timestamp":1778768148911,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,4,15]],"date-time":"2020-04-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1586908800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJMS"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The motor thalamus (MTh) plays a crucial role in the basal ganglia (BG)-cortical loop in motor information codification. Despite this, there is limited evidence of MTh functionality in normal and Parkinsonian conditions. To shed light on the functional properties of the MTh, we examined the effects of acute and chronic dopamine (DA) depletion on the neuronal firing of MTh neurons, cortical\/MTh interplay and MTh extracellular concentrations of glutamate (GLU) and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in two states of DA depletion: acute depletion induced by the tetrodotoxin (TTX) and chronic denervation obtained by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), both infused into the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) in anesthetized rats. The acute TTX DA depletion caused a clear-cut reduction in MTh neuronal activity without changes in burst content, whereas the chronic 6-OHDA depletion did not modify the firing rate but increased the burst firing. The phase correlation analysis underscored that the 6-OHDA chronic DA depletion affected the MTh-cortical activity coupling compared to the acute TTX-induced DA depletion state. The TTX acute DA depletion caused a clear-cut increase of the MTh GABA concentration and no change of GLU levels. On the other hand, the 6-OHDA-induced chronic DA depletion led to a significant reduction of local GABA and an increase of GLU levels in the MTh. These data show that MTh is affected by DA depletion and support the hypothesis that a rebalancing of MTh in the chronic condition counterbalances the profound alteration arising after acute DA depletion state.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijms21082734","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,4,16]],"date-time":"2020-04-16T05:15:41Z","timestamp":1587014141000},"page":"2734","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Acute and Chronic Dopaminergic Depletion Differently Affect Motor Thalamic Function"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"21","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2006-563X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Giuseppe","family":"Di Giovanni","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Msida MSD 2080, Malta"},{"name":"Neuroscience Division, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AX, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Laura Clara","family":"Grandi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory for Biomedical Neurosciences, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, 6900 Taverne, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0386-0925","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ernesto","family":"Fedele","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Section of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Department of Pharmacy, Center of Excellence for Biomedical Research, University of Genoa, 16148 Genoa, Italy"},{"name":"IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, 16132 Genoa, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Gergely","family":"Orban","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory for Biomedical Neurosciences, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, 6900 Taverne, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Agnese","family":"Salvad\u00e8","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory for Biomedical Neurosciences, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, 6900 Taverne, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Song","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory for Biomedical Neurosciences, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, 6900 Taverne, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Eleonora","family":"Cuboni","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Msida MSD 2080, Malta"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Alessandro","family":"Stefani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of system medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome \u201cTor Vergata\u201d, 00133 Rome, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Alain","family":"Kaelin-Lang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory for Biomedical Neurosciences, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, 6900 Taverne, Switzerland"},{"name":"Medical Faculty, University of Bern, 3008 Bern, Switzerland"},{"name":"Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Universit\u00e0 della Svizzera Italiana, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Salvatore","family":"Galati","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory for Biomedical Neurosciences, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, 6900 Taverne, Switzerland"},{"name":"Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Universit\u00e0 della Svizzera Italiana, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland"},{"name":"Center for Movement Disorders, Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,4,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"163","article-title":"Motor thalamus integration of cortical, cerebellar and basal ganglia information: Implications for normal and parkinsonian conditions","volume":"7","author":"Hyland","year":"2013","journal-title":"Front. 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