Neuroscience
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Immune activation (IA) during the early neonatal period is a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injected in neonates lead to behavioral and brain changes that persist to adult life. We investigated oxidative stress, levels of cytokines, and the locomotor activity of IA in a schizophrenia animal model in which neonatal male Wistar rats were administered with an injection of LPS (50μg/kg) on postnatal day 3 and different doses of ketamine (5, 15 and 25mg/kg) for 7days during adulthood. ⋯ Catalase in the PFC and hippocampus was reduced in the LPS- and saline-induced in the ketamine (25mg/kg)-treated animals. Pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines were lower in the brains of LPS-induced in the higher dose ketamine-treated rats. IA influences the locomotor activity and cytokine levels induced by ketamine, and it has a negative effect in potentiating the oxidative stress by higher doses of ketamine in the brain.
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A number of studies have shown that sensory inputs from the hand can have a profound effect in stabilizing upright posture. This suggests that the central nervous system can extract information about body motion and external forces acting on the body from cutaneous sensory signals. ⋯ In this study we investigate whether this rapid change in activation of lower limb muscles is an invariant response determined by the pattern of somatosensory information arising from sensory receptors in the hand or whether it adapts to changes in postural stability. We manipulated lateral stability of upright stance by changing stance width which had no effect on the activation of upper limb muscles or hand kinematics, but produced profound changes in the activation patterns of lower limb muscles when perturbations were in the medial/lateral direction without affecting the activation patterns of muscles when perturbations were in the anterior/posterior direction.
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The immune/inflammatory signaling molecule tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) is an important mediator of both constitutive and plastic signaling in the brain. In particular, TNFα is implicated in physiological processes, including fever, energy balance, and autonomic function, known to involve the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN). Many critical actions of TNFα are transduced by the TNFα type 1 receptor (TNFR1), whose activation has been shown to potently modulate classical neural signaling. ⋯ Dendritic profiles expressing TNFR1 were contacted by axon terminals, which formed non-synaptic appositions, as well as excitatory-type and inhibitory-type synaptic specializations. A smaller population of TNFR1-labeled axon terminals making non-synaptic appositions, and to a lesser extent synaptic contacts, with unlabeled dendrites was also identified. These findings indicate that TNFR1 is structurally positioned to modulate postsynaptic signaling in the PVN, suggesting a mechanism whereby TNFR1 activation contributes to cardiovascular and other autonomic functions.
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The basal forebrain (BF) controls sleep-wake cycles, attention and reward processing. Compared to cholinergic and GABAergic neurons, BF glutamatergic neurons are less well understood, due to difficulties in identification. Here, we use vesicular glutamate transporter 2 (vGluT2)-tdTomato mice, expressing a red fluorescent protein (tdTomato) in the major group of BF glutamatergic neurons (vGluT2+) to characterize their intrinsic electrical properties and cholinergic modulation. ⋯ In contrast, most vGluT2+ neurons located in lateral BF (magnocellular preoptic area) or dorsal BF did not respond to carbachol. Our results suggest that BF glutamatergic neurons are heterogeneous and have morphological, electrical and pharmacological properties which distinguish them from BF cholinergic and GABAergic neurons. A subset of vGluT2+ neurons, possibly those neurons which project to reward-related areas such as the habenula, are hyperpolarized by cholinergic inputs, which may cause phasic inhibition during reward-related events.
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TRPV4 ion channels have a broad expression profile and were shown to contribute to enhanced pain sensation in inflammation. Directly blocking TRPV4 might run the risk of interfering with normal physiology, and has prompted to explore the interaction with the scaffolding protein AKAP79, an approach successfully used for TRPV1 channels. HEK293t cells express AKAP79, additional transfection did not sensitize human TRPV4. ⋯ A synthetic peptide, resembling these amino acids and extended by a positive region for transmembrane uptake, was tested. Sensitization of TRPV4 responses could be reduced after exposure to this 771-781::TAT peptide but not by a scrambled control peptide. This validates the concept of targeting the interaction between TRPV4 and AKAP79 and controlling increased TRPV4 activity.