Neuroscience
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The development of chronically painful states following peripheral nerve injury may involve different mechanisms depending on the nature and extent of the nerve lesion. The altered spinal neurochemistry of two substances, the excitatory amino acid glutamate operating via the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor and the endogenous opioid peptide dynorphin, have been implicated in behavioral sequelae that follow partial peripheral nerve injury. In addition, dynorphin has nonopioid functions which may involve the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor. ⋯ We conclude that the development of allodynia following sciatic cryoneurolysis peripheral nerve injury involved a minimal contribution from N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor activity. In addition, this study demonstrated that decreasing available dynorphin using antiserum had a significant and lasting effect on spinal glutamate expression without altering the outcome of allodynia. These conclusions suggest that etiological mechanisms leading to pain behaviors are not equal for all nerve injuries, and that altering kappa opioid levels can affect glutaminergic pathways at a substantially later time.
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Comparative Study
The serotonergic agent fluoxetine reduces neuropeptide Y levels and neuropeptide Y secretion in the hypothalamus of lean and obese rats.
Evidence suggests that serotonin and neuropeptide Y neurons in the hypothalamus, which respectively inhibit and stimulate food intake, may interact to control energy homoeostasis. We therefore investigated the effects of fluoxetine, which inhibits serotonin reuptake, on food intake and the activity of the neuropeptide Yergic arcuato-paraventricular projection in lean Wistar and Zucker rats. We also studied its effects in obese Zucker rats, in which obesity is postulated to be due to overactivity of the arcuato-paraventricular projection. ⋯ Furthermore, seven days fluoxetine treatment prevented the significant increases in hypothalamic neuropeptide Y messenger RNA which were induced in lean rats by food restriction which precisely matched the hypophagia induced by the drug. We conclude that fluoxetine inhibits various aspects of the activity of the neuropeptide Yergic arcuato-paraventricular neurons, and suggest that reduced neuropeptide Y release in the paraventricular nucleus may mediate, at least in part, the drug's hypophagic action. We further suggest that serotonin may influence food intake and energy balance by inhibiting the arcuato-paraventricular projection, and that the two neurotransmitters may act together to regulate feeding and energy homoeostasis.
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Corneal afferent nerves project to two spatially distinct sites within the spinal trigeminal nucleus: the subnucleus interpolaris/caudalis transition and the subnucleus caudalis/upper cervical spinal cord transition. The role of these two regions in processing corneal input is uncertain. To determine if neurons in these regions encode different features of an applied corneal stimulus, immunoreactivity for the immediate early gene protein product, Fos, was quantified in barbiturate-anesthetized rats. ⋯ Double-labeling revealed that Fos immunoreactive neurons within the spinal trigeminal nucleus were restricted to regions densely labeled for calcitonin gene-related peptide. These results indicate that select features of corneal stimuli such as modality are encoded differently by neurons in the trigeminal subnucleus interpolaris/caudalis transition compared with those located in the subnucleus caudalis/cervical cord transition. It is likely that neurons in these two brainstem regions subserve different aspects of corneal sensation.
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Neurons containing a calcium-binding protein parvalbumin in the external plexiform layer of the rat olfactory bulb were identified light microscopically with the pre-embedding immunocytochemistry and were subsequently analysed with the electron microscopic serial-sectioning and three-dimensional reconstructions. In the present study we chose several different types of parvalbumin-immunoreactive neurons identified light microscopically as Van Gehuchten cell type, superficial short-axon cell type and multipolar cell type. Parvalbumin-immunoreactive somata were similar to one another in their ultrastructural characteristics, showing nuclear indentations, moderately developed Golgi apparatus and abundant mitochondria; these structural features appeared to resemble those of the short axon cells around the glomeruli and in the granule cell layer reported in previous electron microscopic studies. ⋯ Until now, it has been believed that in the external plexiform layer only granule cells form reciprocal synapses with mitral/tufted cells. However, the present study clearly demonstrates that interneurons different from granule cells, namely GABAergic neurons containing a calcium-binding protein parvalbumin, also make reciprocal synapses with mitral/tufted cells in the external plexiform layer. Therefore, neuronal processes making reciprocal synapses with mitral/tufted cells in the external plexiform layer cannot be determined a priori as granule cell processes.