Early-life seizures alter synaptic calcium-permeable AMPA receptor function and plasticity

Calcium (Ca²⁺)-mediated⁴ signaling pathways are critical to synaptic plasticity. In adults, the NMDA glutamate receptor (NMDAR) represents a major route for activity-dependent synaptic Ca²⁺ entry. However, during neonatal development, when synaptic plasticity is particularly high, many AMPA glutamate receptors (AMPARs) are also permeable to Ca²⁺ (CP-AMPAR) due to low GluA2 subunit expression, providing an additional route for activity- and glutamate-dependent Ca²⁺ influx and subsequent signaling. Therefore, altered hippocampal Ca²⁺ signaling may represent an age-specific pathogenic mechanism. We thus aimed to assess Ca²⁺ responses 48 h after hypoxia-induced neonatal seizures (HS) in postnatal day (P)10 rats, a post-seizure time point at which we previously reported LTP attenuation. We found that Ca²⁺ responses were higher in brain slices from post-HS rats than in controls and that this increase was CP-AMPAR-dependent. To determine whether synaptic CP-AMPAR expression was also altered post-HS, we assessed the expression of GluA2 at hippocampal synapses and the expression of long-term depression (LTD), which has been linked to the presence of synaptic GluA2. Here we report a decrease 48 h after HS in synaptic GluA2 expression at synapses and LTD in hippocampal CA1. Given the potentially critical role of AMPAR trafficking in disease progression, we aimed to establish whether post-seizure in vivo AMPAR antagonist treatment prevented the enhanced Ca²⁺ responses, changes in GluA2 synaptic expression, and diminished LTD. We found that NBQX treatment prevents all three of these post-seizure consequences, further supporting a critical role for AMPARs as an age-specific therapeutic target.