85 × 107 μm2, and transport voltage-dependance of e-fold/76 mV ( Wadiche et al., 1995 and Zerangue and Kavanaugh, 1996). Current amplitudes were fitted to the Michaelis–Menten relationship: I[Glu]=Imax[Glu]/KM+[Glu]I[Glu]=Imax[Glu]/KM+[Glu] Our microdialysis probe model can be described by the following diffusion equation in polar coordinates with sink and

source in the right hand side: ∂u/∂t=D·(1/r)·∂/∂r[r·∂u/∂r]-J·u/(Km+u)+KLwhere u corresponds to l-glutamate concentration. The first term in the right hand side is a Laplace operator in polar coordinates multiplied by a diffusion coefficient D. The second term represents the Michaelis–Menten transport sink in the tissue, and the third term KL represents the leak, which is treated selleck as a constant. The parameter J is a function of distance r from the probe center, and describes the spatial dependence of transporter this website impairment between the healthy and damaged tissue. The spatial metabolic damage near the probe is approximated as a Gaussian curve, and we define the function J as: J(r)=0when0≤r≤L J(r)=Jmax·1-e∧[-(r-L)2/2·sigma2]whenr>Lwhere L is the radial boundary for the microdialysis probe and sigma represents the distance

from the probe boundary characterizing the Gaussian damage function. The boundary conditions for the model are: ∂u/∂r|r=0=0∂u/∂r|r=0=0 u(t,∞)=usu(t,∞)=usThe initial condition is u(t,r)=u∗when0≤r≤L u(t,r)=uswhenr>L This model cannot be solved analytically because of the nonlinear term in the right hand side of the equation, so it was solved numerically by space discretization, Pregnenolone which transforms it into system of ordinary differential equations. The leak rate constant (KL) is related to ambient [Glu], volumetric glutamate transporter concentration [GluT] (140 μM, Lehre and Danbolt, 1998), transporter KM value, and

maximal turnover rate Jmax by the equation: KL=[Glu]ambient/(Km+[Glu]ambient)·[GluT]·JmaxKL=[Glu]ambient/(Km+[Glu]ambient)·[GluT]·Jmax Co-expression studies of NMDA receptors with transporters for its co-agonists glycine and glutamate have shown that transporters can limit receptor activity by establishing diffusion-limited transmitter concentration gradients (Supplisson and Bergman, 1997 and Zuo and Fang, 2005). We studied the concentration gradients formed by passive diffusion from a pseudo-infinite glutamate source in a perspex chamber to the glutamate sink established by transporters on the cell surface. Oocytes expressing the human neuronal glutamate transporter EAAT3 were voltage-clamped at −60 mV and superfused with varying concentrations of glutamate at a linear flow rate of 20 mm/s flow followed by a stopped-flow interval (Fig. 1).