Kainate Receptors Multiple Roles in Neuronal Plasticity

I've not heard of these before so ask your all-knowing doctor how this is going to be used in your stroke protocol.
http://nro.sagepub.com/content/20/1/29.abstract?etoc

1. Talvinder S. Sihra1
2. Gonzalo Flores2
3. Antonio Rodríguez-Moreno3

1. ¹Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, London, UK
2. ²Instituto de Fisiología, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
3. ³Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Cellular Biology, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, Spain

1. Antonio Rodríguez-Moreno, Laboratory of Cellular Neuroscience and Plasticity, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Cellular Biology, University Pablo de Olavide, Ctra. de Utrera, Km. 1, 41013, Sevilla, Spain; Talvinder S. Sihra, Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK Email: arodmor@upo.es; t.sihra@ucl.ac.uk

Abstract

Ionotropic glutamate receptors of the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)- and AMPA-type, as well as metabotropic glutamate receptors have been extensively invoked in plasticity. Until relatively recently, however, kainate-type receptors (KARs) had been the most elusive to study because of the lack of appropriate pharmacological tools to specifically address their roles. With the development of selective glutamate receptor antagonists, and knockout mice with specific KAR subunits deleted, the functions of KARs in neuromodulation and synaptic transmission, together with their involvement in some types of plasticity, have been extensively probed in the central nervous system. In this review, we summarize the findings related to the roles of KARs in short- and long-term forms of plasticity, primarily in the hippocampus, where KAR function and synaptic plasticity have received avid attention.