Iontophoretic application of glutamate alone produces a modest increase in glutamate current via endogenously released BDNF. A: example sweeps of glutamate currents during baseline period and 20 min into the recording. Repetitive glutamate application at 0.1 Hz (activity protocol) produced an increase in glutamate current (left), which was prevented by bath application of K-252a (right). B: averaged time courses of 0.1-Hz stimulation alone + the K-252a/b vehicle (▪, n = 7) and 0.1-Hz stimulation in the presence of antagonists of neurotrophin signaling. K-252a (▿, n = 7), anti-BDNF function-blocking antibody (▵, n = 5), and TrkB-Fc (○, n = 6) reduced the increase in current seen in response to stimulation alone. The control compounds heat inactivated anti-BDNF antibody (▴, n = 7), and K-252b (▾, n = 7) had no effect. and □ (bars), application of the indicated compounds in separate sets of experiments. For all conditions, the activity protocol (0.1-Hz stimulation frequency) was used.