The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
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Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) display significant sleep disturbances and daytime sleepiness. Dopaminergic treatment dramatically improves PD motor symptoms, but its action on sleep remains controversial, suggesting a causal role of nondopaminergic lesions in these symptoms. Because the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) regulates sleep and arousal, and in view of the loss of its cholinergic neurons in PD, the PPN could be involved in these sleep disorders. ⋯ It also induced a reduction in time spent in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and slow-wave sleep and an increase in muscle tone during REM and non-REM sleep episodes and in the number of awakenings and movements. l-Dopa treatment resulted in a partial but significant improvement of almost all sleep parameters. PPN lesion induced a transient decrease in REM sleep and in slow-wave sleep followed by a slight improvement of sleep quality. Our data demonstrate the efficacy of l-dopa treatment in improving sleep disorders in parkinsonian monkeys, and that adding a cholinergic PPN lesion improves sleep quality after transient sleep impairment.
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Control over postinjury CNS plasticity is a major frontier of science that, if conquered, would open new avenues for treatment of neurological disorders. Here we investigate the functional, physiological, and structural changes in the cerebral cortex associated with chronic deep brain stimulation of the cerebellar output, a treatment approach that has been shown to improve postischemia motor recovery in a rodent model of cortical infarcts. Long-Evans rats were pretrained on the pasta-matrix retrieval task, followed by induction of focal cortical ischemia and implantation of a macroelectrode in the contralesional lateral cerebellar nucleus. ⋯ Stimulation-treated animals showed a twofold increase in synaptic density compared with SHAM. In addition, treated animals demonstrated increased expression of synaptic markers of long-term potentiation and plasticity, including synaptophysin, NMDAR1, CaMKII, and PSD95. These findings provide a critical foundation of how deep cerebellar stimulation may guide plastic reparative reorganization after nonprogressive brain injury and indicate strong translational potential.
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Activity-based therapies are routinely integrated in spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation programs because they result in a reduction of hyperreflexia and spasticity. However, the mechanisms by which exercise regulates activity in spinal pathways to reduce spasticity and improve functional recovery are poorly understood. Persisting alterations in the action of GABA on postsynaptic targets is a signature of CNS injuries, including SCI. ⋯ Acutely altering chloride extrusion using the KCC2 blocker DIOA masked the effect of exercise on FDD, whereas blocking NKCC1 with bumetanide returned FDD toward intact levels after SCI. Our results indicate that exercise contributes to reflex recovery and restoration of endogenous inhibition through a return to chloride homeostasis after SCI. This lends support for CCCs as part of a pathway that could be manipulated to improve functional recovery when combined with rehabilitation programs.
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Alternative activation of microglia/macrophages (M2a) by interleukin (IL)-4 is purported to support intrinsic growth and repair processes after CNS injury. Nonetheless, alternative activation of microglia is poorly understood in vivo, particularly in the context of inflammation, injury, and aging. Here, we show that aged mice (18-19 months) had reduced functional recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI) associated with impaired induction of IL-4 receptor α (IL-4Rα) on microglia. ⋯ In addition, IL-4-mediated reprogramming of active microglia enhanced neurite growth ex vivo and increased inflammatory gene expression (i.e., IL-1β and CCL2) and the corresponding recruitment of CCR2(+)/IL-4Rα(+)/arginase(+) myeloid cells in vivo. IL-4 reprogrammed active microglia to a unique and previously unreported phenotype (arginase(+)/IL-1β(+)) that augmented neurite growth and enhanced recruitment of peripheral IL-4Rα(+) myeloid cells to the CNS. Moreover, this key signaling cascade was impaired with age corresponding with reduced functional recovery after SCI.
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The primate brain successfully recognizes objects, even when they are partially occluded. To begin to elucidate the neural substrates of this perceptual capacity, we measured the responses of shape-selective neurons in visual area V4 while monkeys discriminated pairs of shapes under varying degrees of occlusion. We found that neuronal shape selectivity always decreased with increasing occlusion level, with some neurons being notably more robust to occlusion than others. ⋯ The time course of the decision signals in V4 paralleled that of shape selectivity in curvature-tuned neurons: shape selectivity in curvature-tuned neurons, but not others, emerged earlier than the decision signals. These findings provide evidence for the involvement of contour-based mechanisms in the segmentation and recognition of partially occluded objects, consistent with psychophysical theory. Furthermore, they suggest that area V4 participates in the representation of the relevant sensory signals and the generation of decision signals underlying discrimination.