About the Authors

Shuhua Chen

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Science, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Jun Ming Wang

Affiliation Department of Pathology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, United States of America

Ronald W. Irwin

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Science, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Jia Yao

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Science, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Lifei Liu

Affiliation Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Roberta Diaz Brinton

rbrinton@usc.edu

Affiliations Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Science, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America, Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors report the filing of the following patents based relevant to this research: 1) AGENTS, COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS FOR ENHANCING NEUROLOGICAL FUNCTION (Application number: 12/701,309, Publication number: US 2010/0204192 A1, and Filing date: Feb 5, 2010). 2) ALLOPREGNANOLONE IN A METHOD FOR ENHANCING NEUROLOGICAL FUNCTION (Application number: 12/526,604, Publication number: US 2010/0105646 A1, and Filing date: Jun 11, 2008). This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SC JMW RDB. Performed the experiments: SC JMW RWI JY LL. Analyzed the data: SC JMW RWI JY LL RDB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SC JMW RWI JY LL RDB. Wrote the paper: SC JMW RWI JY RDB.