Neuroscience
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The influence of neuroinflammation in the development and progression of Parkinson's disease (PD) remains unknown. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a multipotent and key cytokine involved in the pathogenesis of acute and chronic inflammatory and immune disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate the neuroprotective effects mediated by MIF in PD. ⋯ Upregulating MIF expression resulted in a higher concentration of LC3B-II than the control group (P < 0.001). Finally, LC3 puncta were markedly increased in the MIF upregulated group and in the MIF + MPP+ group. This study indicates that MIF mediates a neuroprotective effect via suppressing inflammatory responses, inhibiting apoptosis and inducing autophagy in PD.
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Hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) is a key transcription factor that maintains oxygen homeostasis. Hypoxic stress is related to the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and impaired HIF-1α induces motor neuron degeneration in ALS. Dimethyloxalylglycine (DMOG) upregulates the stability of HIF-1α expression and shows neuroprotective effects, but has not been used in ALS as an anti-hypoxic stress treatment. ⋯ DMOG treatment significantly ameliorated the decrease in HIF-1α expression, the degeneration of both spinal motor neurons and myofibers in lower limbs, gliosis and apoptosis in the spinal cord. This was accompanied by prolonged survival. The present study suggests that in vivo bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) HIF-1α imaging is useful for evaluating hypoxic stress in ALS, and that the enhancement of HIF-1α is a therapeutic target for ALS patients.
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Addiction to prescribed opioids including oxycodone has reached tragic levels. Herein, we investigated the relevance of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) and immediate early genes (IEGs) to withdrawal-induced incubation of drug craving following escalated oxycodone self-administration (SA). Rats were trained to self-administer oxycodone for 4 weeks. ⋯ Similarly, striatal c-fos and junB mRNA levels showed greater increases in LgA rats. The observations that fgf mRNA levels were more altered in the dorsal striatum than in the NAc of LgA rats suggest that changes in striatal FGF expression may be more salient to incubation of oxycodone craving than alterations in the NAc. Targeting FGF signaling pathways might offer novel strategies against opioid addiction.
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Understanding and predicting the intentions of others through limb movements are vital to social interaction. The processing of biological motion is unique from the processing of motion of inanimate objects. Presently, there is controversy over whether visual consciousness of biological motion is regulated by visual attention. ⋯ Late processing was localized to frontal-parietal regions, such as the right dorsal superior frontal gyrus, the left medial superior frontal gyrus, and the occipito-temporal regions. Congruency-related processing occurred in the 246-260-ms window and was localized to the right superior occipital gyrus. In summary, due to its complexity, biological motion awareness has a unique neural basis.