Neurobiology of Stress
Laboratory of Electrophysiology and Behavior
Serotoninergic modulation of excitatory sensory synaptic transmission in the Auditory Cortex
Heterogeneous effects of nicotine on GABAergic synaptic transmission in the mPFCtx
IL-6 dependent Social Defeat induced plasticity in the PFCtx
Low cost system cerebral imaging
Morphological study of erythrocyte in diabetes mellitus type 2
Review: a new theory of Clinical Depression
morphological changes in erythrocites in diabetes type II patients review Micron 2017
Synaptic peculiarities of GFAP-sgp130Fc vs WT mice
Effect of the peptidic mixture cerebrolysin on behavior and synaptic transmission in a rodent autism model
Review: the role of norepinephrine in setting CNS activity and energy levels. The review includes 3 tables with centrl NE effects and 8 figures illustrating the central position of the NE/LC system in the CNS.
Review on the anti-inflammatory role of Acetylcholine in the modulation of neuropsychiatric disease.
Review on the function of cortical norepinephrine
Review on the role of nicotinic receptors as attenuators of inflammation as a cause of neuropsychiatric disease
Activation of anti-inflammatory reflex by vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) or admnistration of nicotinic agonists to reduce central effects of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injetion in the rodent temporal cortex
Effect of 5HT on GABAergic transmission in the neocortex
Multiple effects of norepinephrine on neocortical synapses
Activation of anti-inflammatory reflex by vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) or admnistration of nicotinic agonists to reduce central effects of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injetion in the rodent Pre-Frontal Cortex. A Transgenic mouse (GFAP-sgp130Fc) from Christian Albrecht Universitet (Kiel, from Dr. Stefan Rose-John) was used in the study, besides wild type C57BL6 mice and Sprague Dawley rats.
Study on the anatomical alterations in hippocampus and amygdala in a rat model (VPA) of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
Review on the potential of the peptide mixture cerebrolysin as a treatment for neurodevelopmental disorders (schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder)
Anatomical alterations in limbic areas of an animal model (VPA) of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)
The study describes an extreme impairment of the inhibitory (GABAergic) synaptic system in an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) animal model based on the prenatal injection of valproic acid (VPA)
Review on the correlation between pre-, peri-, and post-natal stress, interleukin 6 (IL-6) and neuropsychiatric disease
Effect of nortriptyline on attention in the rat, using an operating chamber behavioral system with delayed reward
Activation of the noradrenergic system is known to augment attentional processes, specifically through simultaneous enhancement of sensory inputs and inhibition of background activity (Harley, 1987). Noradrenergic (NA) projections from locus coeruleus (LC) innervate the spinal cord, brain stem, amygdala, cerebellum, hypothalamus, and thalamic...
Temporary stress-induced increase in excitability is a symptom common to many psychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenic psychoses (1,2), posttraumatic stress disorder (3), anxiety (4), depression (1), and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) (5–7), but also to neurological conditions, including epilepsy (8,9) and tinnitus (10). Such increase in...
The noradrenergic system that originates from the brainstem projects to widespread brain areas including the totality of the cortical mantle. From here, norepinephrine (NE) controls complex cognitive functions including perception, alertness, and attention. Both clinical and behavioral data suggest a role of the noradrenergic system in the pathophysiology of...
Electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve (VNS) has been used to treat more than 60,000 patients with drug-resistant epilepsy and is under investigation as a treatment for several other neurological disorders and conditions. Among these, VNS increases alertness (Malow et al., 2001; Rizzo et al., 2003), and enhances recovery of motor and cognitive function in...
The auditory cortex integrates tonotopic information from the auditory thalamus and non-tonotopic information originating from other cortical and sub-cortical regions (Donishi et al., 2006; Falchier et al., 2009; Hu, 2003; Radtke-Schuller et al., 2004). Thalamic afferents of two parallel projections have been described: the lemniscal and extra-lemniscal...
The auditory cortex displays large variability in response to biologically or otherwise relevant stimuli (Ja¨a¨skela¨inen et al. 2007; Pantev et al. 2009). Acute changes of the topographic representation of auditory stimuli and other types of short-term synaptic plasticity contribute to experience-dependent modifi- cations and auditory cortical map...
Ample evidence regarding nicotine’s overall effect as a cognitive enhancer is well documented. Previous findings indicate that in the presence of nicotine, subjects consistently show improvement in tasks designed to test the sustainability of attention over time, through stimulus variation regarding localization, duration, or modulation. And...
The morphological and physiological characteristics of the central nervous system are the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors (Bartoletti et al., 2004). Several studies report anatomical and physiological consequences of exposure to a sensory enriched environment (EE) (Diamond et al., 1964; Volkmar and Greenough...
Chronic stress affects the hippocampus, the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), leading to impairments in learning and emotional responses [19,25]. These alterations may contribute to the cognitive deficits of major depression [39]. In addition, chronic stress produces dendritic atrophy in the rat inferior colliculus (IC), a main...
Norepinephrine (NE) is a monoamine synthesized and released in the brain from neurons of the locus coeruleus (LC) and the lateral tegmental field, which project to multiple brain areas including the amygdala, spinal cord, hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus, and importantly, the neocortex. NE is released by volume transmission under...
N-methyl-D aspartate receptors (NMDARs) mediate excitatory transmission and are involved in synaptic function associated with long-term synaptic changes, oscillations, bursting behavior, learning, and memory (Burgos-Robles et al., 2007; Castellano et al., 2001; Chub et al., 1998; Nicoll and Malenka, 1999). Acetylcholine (ACh) released from terminals of...
Since the serendipitous discovery of drugs with antipsychotic properties in the '50s prolonged hospitalizations were no longer necessary for most patients with schizophrenia (Beasley et al., 2006; Freedman, 2005; Meltzer et al., 1990; Wiersma et al., 2000). During the '60s, the discovery of clozapine, an antipsychotic drug exempt from extra-pyramidal...
Acetylcholine is released by a nonsynaptic network of axon terminals originating from the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NB) into the neocortex where it regulates attention (Passetti et al. 2000; Voytko et al. 1994), cortical rhythms (Buhl et al. 1998; Podol’skii et al. 2000), and plasticity (Kilgard and Merzenich 1998). The attentional control of cortical acetylcholine...
The anatomic connectivity and physiological properties of the CNS are determined by a combination of genetic programs and by the type and amount of sensory input (Bartoletti et al., 2004). Many studies have shown anatomical and cellular consequences of the exposure to a sensory enriched environment (EE, Diamond et al., 1964; Volkmar and Greenough...
The physiological role of cholesterol in the brain is still unclear. Recent studies have implicated cholesterol in synaptic plasticity and learning, but its physiological relevance in this context is still enigmatic. Both local synthesis and external transport contribute to enrich the brain pool of cholesterol: astrocytes synthesize cholesterol (Dietschy and Turley, 2001)...
Functional integration of glutamate and dopamine neurotransmitter systems has been implicated in playing crucial roles in cognition, motor control, and a variety of neurological disorders (Greengard, 2001; Cepeda and Levine, 2006). Accumulating evidence demonstrates that dopamine or dopamine receptors modulate excitatory glutamatergic synaptic...
In most mammalian species, the appearance of salient stimuli into the sensory field elicits the activation of several subcortical nuclei, which, in turn, supply cortex with a modulatory feedback. Among these corticopetal nuclei are the cholinergic nucleus of Meynert in the basal forebrain, which is activated during selective attention and presentation of...
The primary auditory cortex is the area of convergence for the auditory information transferred through the thalamic relay. Anatomical studies con¢rm, by and large (Smith and Populin, 2001), a similar interlaminar connectivity in auditory and other sensory cortices, where cells of a middle layer receive thalamic a¡erents and project to the supragranular...
Schizophrenia is a neurological disease whose precise anatomic substrate and cellular mechanisms are largely unknown. Internally generated voices and auditory hallucinations are among the recurrent symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia, suggestive of an impaired function of the temporal lobes. Several neurotransmitters appear to be...
In this study we analyzed the effect of 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) on free cytosolic calcium concentration ([Ca 21]i) in basal conditions, after stimulation with neurotransmitters, and during capacitative calcium entry. Using fura-2 ratiometric calcium imaging, we found that 4-AP increased [Ca 21]i in type I astrocytes, neurons, and in skeletal muscle cells. The...
Sensory cortices perform sophisticated pattern recognition tasks, elaborating the thalamic input via a variety of functionally different synapses across the six layers. The role of the auditory cortex in processing and modifying auditory signals, however, is largely unknown. Thalamic inputs to primary auditory cortex (A1) show several types of responses to acoustic stimuli, which fall into two broad classes of ‘transient’ and ‘sustained’ firing patterns1–3...
Histamine-containing neurons of the posterior hypothalamic tuberomammilary nucleus make a widespread projection throughout the mammalian central nervous system, which includes all fields of the hippocampus1–6. Activation of this histaminergic system is crucial in the sleep–waking cycle and attentiveness, and is implicated in various behavioral...
Effect of nitrous oxide (NO) on the giant depolarizing potentials (GDPs) through the gap junctions of the hippocampus
The sensitivity of the mammalian inner ear is extraordinary. At the threshold of hearing, the incoming sound produces vibrations inside the organ of Corti that are of the same order of magnitude or less than the thermal noise motion (Hudspeth, 1989, 1997; Dallos, 1996). Such sensitivity is achieved through an energy-dependent process commonly...
Highly correlated, spontaneous burst activity is one of the most intriguing electrophysiological features observed during the period of synapse formation (Spear et al., 1972; Rapisardi et al., 1975; Galli and Maffei, 1988; Ben Ari et al., 1989; Meister et al., 1991; MacLeod et al., 1994; Xie et al., 1994). Insights into its developmental role have come from studies of...
The entire hippocampus is infiltrated by a wide network of GABAergic interneurons with various morphological and membrane properties. Indeed, pyramidal cells (PCs) receive an extensive GABAergic input (Miles and Wong, 1987; Lambert and Wilson, 1993; Pearce, 1993). Similarly, hippocampal interneurons (INS) express GABA receptors and receive...
Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) is a naturally occurring neuropeptide which is found in high concentration in the hippocampus (Sharif, 1989). The origin of the TRH-containing fibres is currently unclear, although a major component seems to course through the fornix (Low et al., 1989). TRH-containing fibres appear to make a diffuse mesh through...
Hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP)
Short-term changes in synaptic transmission following repetitive stimulation have been extensively studied at the vertebrate neuromuscular junction, in which the purely monosynaptic innervation by a motor axon to muscle fibres simplifies these investigations. Facilitation, depression, potentiation and related phenomena can therefore be...
Multiple effects of furosamide on inhibitory (GABAergic) transmission
NMR study of the chemical structure of hyaluronic acid oligomers
NMR study of the chemical structure of polymers of hyaluronic acid