Ibotenic acid (60573-88-8) is a conformationally restricted analog of glutamate which occurs naturally in Amanita mascaria and related mushrooms.  It is a non-specific glutamate receptor (both NMDA and mGluR) agonist.¹ May be used to induce hippocampal lesioning in rat neurodegeneration models.^2,3 Induces lesions in the subiculum in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.⁴

References/Citations

1) Nakanishi (1992), Molecular diversity of glutamate receptors and implications for brain function; Science 258 597
2) Jarrard (1989), On the use of ibotenic acid to lesion selectively different components of the hippocampal formation; J. Neurosci. Methods 29 251
3) Isacson and Peschanski (1992), Is there capacity for anatomical and functional repair in the adult somatosensory thalamus?; Exp. Neurol. 115 173
4) George et al. (2014), Lesion of the subiculum reduces the spread of amyloid beta pathology to interconnected brain regions in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease; Acta Neuropathol. Commun. 2 17