Neuroscience letters
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2001
Co-distribution of Fos- and mu opioid receptor immunoreactivity within the rat septopreoptic area and hypothalamus during acute glucose deprivation: effects of the mu receptor antagonist CTOP.
Mu opioid receptors occur throughout the brain, but central sites where ligand neuromodulatory effects occur during glucopenia have not been identified. The present studies investigated whether septal, preoptic, and hypothalamic neurons that express immunoreactivity for this receptor are transcriptionally activated in response to the glucose antimetabolite, 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG), and if intracerebroventricular (icv) administration of the selective mu receptor antagonist, CTOP, modifies this functional response to glucose substrate imbalance. ⋯ These results provide evidence for transactivational effects of glucopenia on mu opioid receptor-expressing neurons within the septum, preoptic area, and hypothalamus, and suggest that the functional status of these receptors within discrete septopreoptic sites may be critical for maximal glucoprivic induction of the Fos stimulus-transcription cascade within local cells. These results thus support the view that the neural loci described above may serve as substrates for regulatory effects of mu opioid receptor ligands on central compensatory activities during acute glucose deprivation.
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2001
Allele varepsilon4 of apolipoprotein E gene is less frequent in Down syndrome patient of the Sicilian population and has no influence on the grade of mental retardation.
We evaluated the allele (and genotype frequencies in 60 Down syndrome (DS), 25 mothers and 57 controls from Sicily and its relation with mental retardation. DS patients and sex ratio (M:F) was 22.1+/-10.5 and 1.14, respectively. ⋯ No difference of allele (distribution was found in function of the grades of mental retardation according to DMS-IV. Our results show that the implication of Apo-E4 in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease cannot be extrapolated in that of dementia of DS.
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2001
Intraneuronal Abeta accumulation precedes plaque formation in beta-amyloid precursor protein and presenilin-1 double-transgenic mice.
beta-Amyloid peptides are key molecules that are involved in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The source and place of the neurotoxic action of Abeta, however, is still a matter of controversial debates. ⋯ At later stages, many neuritic Abeta positive plaques were found in all cortical, hippocampal and many other brain areas. Interestingly, intraneuronal Abeta staining was no longer detected in the brain of aged double-transgenic mice, which correlates with the typical neuropathology in the brain of chronic AD patients.
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Neuroscience letters · Jun 2001
The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor channel blockers memantine, MRZ 2/579 and other amino-alkyl-cyclohexanes antagonise 5-HT(3) receptor currents in cultured HEK-293 and N1E-115 cell systems in a non-competitive manner.
The type 3 serotonin (5-HT(3)) receptor is a ligand-gated ion channel. In concentration-clamp experiments, we investigated the effects of the uncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists memantine, amantadine and MRZ 2/579 on 5-HT receptors stabley expressed in HEK-293 cells and on native 5-HT(3) receptors in the N1E-115 cell line. ⋯ In contrast, (S)-ketamine was much weaker as an antagonist of 5-HT(3) receptors than NMDA receptors. Similar effects on 5-HT(3) receptors have been reported previously for a variety of anti-depressants and it is possible that the clinical anti-depressant effects reported for both memantine and amantadine are mediated, at least in part, by antagonistic effects at 5-HT(3) receptors.