Fig. 2.

Effect of NMDA on caspase-3-like activity in cerebellar granule neurons. Cerebellar granule neurons were prepared as described in Materials and Methods and maintained in medium containing either 5 or 25 mm KCl. On day 4 in vitro, NMDA (100 μm) was added to cells grown in 5 mm KCl. Caspase-3-like activity was also measured in neurons maintained in 5 mm KCl and treated on day 4in vitro with the specific caspase-3-like inhibitor DEVD–fmk (10 μm). Caspase-3-like activity was measured fluorimetrically on the day in vitro(DIV) indicated, as described in Materials and Methods (i.e., cells were treated with NMDA or inhibitor for 24 hr). Values are expressed as the percent of caspase activity in cells grown in 5 mm KCl for 5 d in vitro in the absence of NMDA (control cells) and represent the mean ± SEM of three observations. Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA revealed a significant effect of treatment (H = 13.5; df = 4;p = 0.009); *p < 0.05 compared with all other groups (post hoccomparisons).