Gama aminobutyric acid (GABA) is a kind of inhibitory neurotransmitter in CNS. In recent years, evidences showed that
GABA could protect
neurons against ischemia in the brain but the detailed mechanism remained to be unclear. Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF) and neurotrophin 3 (NT 3) are from the same family and are found in the
hippocampus. In order to study the mechanism of GABA against anoxia, with the method of in situ hybridization, we observed the anoxia induced changes of BDNF mRNA, NGF mRNA and NT 3 mRNA in cultured hippocampal CA1 neurons and the modulatory effect of GABA on these changes. The results indicated that the expression of BDNF mRNA and NGF mRNA were upregulated and NT 3 mRNA downregulated by the anoxia. While the extent of these anoxia induced changes in mRNA was significantly attenuated in the neurons treated with 20 μM GABA.Our results suggest that during anoxia,GABA can make the expression of BDNF mRNA, NGF mRNA and NT 3 mRNA more stable. These may have the relation with the functions of GABA such as increasing CI - conductance, keeping Ca 2+ hemostasis and protection against anoxia.