Postnatal development of NMDA, AMPA and kainate receptors in individual layers of rat visual cortex and the effect of monocular deprivation

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Abstract
The postnatal development of the ligand binding to n-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA), alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionic acid (AMPA), and kainate receptor sites was studied in individual layers of rat visual cortex with [3H]MK-801, [3H]CNQX and [3H]kainate, respectively. The studies were performed by quantitative receptor autoradiography in the different visual cortical layers from normally raised rats and from monocularly deprived animals. In normally raised rats, in all visual cortical layers, [3H]MK-801 and [3H]CNQX binding increased significantly from birth to around postnatal day 20, at which age already the adult values are reached. In contrast, the increase in [3H]kainate binding from day 1 to day 15 is followed by a significant decrease in binding sites up to day 25; at this age the adult binding level is nearly attained. Monocular deprivation, by unilateral eyelid suture at the age of 11 days onwards, leads to a transient decrease in [3H]CNQX binding in all visual cortical layers, whereas [3H]kainate binding results to a permanent decrease in AMPA receptor sites in cortical layers II to VI in both sides of the cortex. In contrast, only long-term monocular deprivation until the age of 90 days resulted in decreased [3H]MK-801 binding levels as compared to age-matched controls. The data suggest that the laminar development of glutamate receptor subtypes is differentially affected by visual experience during early brain maturation.