Cooperative Glutamatergic and Cholinergic Mechanisms Generate Short-Term Modifications of Synaptic Effectiveness in Prepositus Hypoglossi Neurons

To maintain horizontal eye position on a visual target after a saccade, extraocular motoneurons need a persistent (tonic) neural activity, called "eye-position signal," generated by prepositus hypoglossi (PH) neurons. We have shown previously in vitro and in vivo that this neural activity depends, among others mechanisms, on the interplay of glutamatergic transmission and cholinergic synaptically triggered depolarization. Here, we used rat sagittal brainstem slices, including PH nucleus and paramedian pontine reticular formation (PPRF). We made intracellular recordings of PH neurons and studied their synaptic activation from PPRF neurons. Train stimulation of the PPRF area evoked a cholinergic-sustained depolarization of PH neurons that outlasted the stimulus. EPSPs evoked in PH neurons by single pulses applied to the PPRF presented a short-term potentiation (STP) after train stimulation. APV (an NMDA-receptor blocker) or chelerythrine (a protein kinase-C inhibitor) had no effect on the sustained depolarization, but they did block the evoked STP, whereas pirenzepine (an M1 muscarinic antagonist) blocked both the sustained depolarization and the STP of PH neurons. Thus, electrical stimulation of the PPRF area activates both glutamatergic and cholinergic axons terminating in the PH nucleus, the latter producing a sustained depolarization probably involved in the genesis of the persistent neural activity required for eye fixation. M1-receptor activation seems to evoke a STP of PH neurons via NMDA receptors. Such STP could be needed for the stabilization of the neural network involved in the generation of position signals necessary for eye fixation after a saccade

Role of Cerebellar Interpositus Nucleus in the Genesis and Control of Reflex and Conditioned Eyelid Responses

The role of cerebellar circuits in the acquisition of new motor abilities is still a matter of intensive debate. To establish the contribution of posterior interpositus nucleus (PIN) to the performance and/or acquisition of reflex and classically conditioned responses (CRs) of the eyelid, the effects of microstimulation and/or pharmacological inhibition by muscimol of the nucleus were investigated in conscious cats. Microstimulation of the PIN in naive animals evoked ramp-like eyelid responses with a wavy appearance, without producing any noticeable plastic functional change in the cerebellar and brainstem circuits involved. Muscimol microinjections decreased the amplitude of reflex eyeblinks evoked by air puffs, both when presented alone or when paired with a tone as conditioned stimulus (CS). In half-conditioned animals, muscimol injections also decreased the amplitude and damped the typical wavy profile of CRs, whereas microstimulation of the same sites increased both parameters. However, neither muscimol injections nor microstimulation modified the expected percentage of CRs, suggesting a major role of the PIN in the performance of eyelid responses rather than in the learning process. Moreover, the simultaneous presentation of CS and microstimulation in well trained animals evoked CRs similar in amplitude to the added value of those evoked by the two stimuli presented separately. In contrast, muscimol-injected animals developed CRs to paired CS and microstimulation presentations, larger than those evoked by the two stimuli when presented alone. It is concluded that the PIN contributes to the enhancement of both reflex and conditioned eyelid responses and to the damping of resonant properties of neuromuscular elements controlling eyelid kinematics

Extending and factorizing bounded bilinear maps defined on order continuous Banach function spaces

We consider the problem of extending or factorizing a bounded bilinear map defined on a couple of order continuous Banach function spaces to its optimal domain, i.e. the biggest couple of Banach function spaces to which the bilinear map can be extended. As in the case of linear operators, we use vector measure techniques to find this space, and we show that this procedure cannot be always successfully used for bilinear maps. We also present some applications to find optimal factorizations of linear operators between Banach function spaces.J. M. Calabuig was supported by Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Spain) (project MTM2011-23164) and by "Jose Castillejo 2009" (MEC). E. A. Sanchez-Perez was supported by MEC and FEDER (project MTM2009-14483-C02-02). J. M. Calabuig and E. A. Sanchez-Perez were also supported by Ayuda para Estancias de PDI de la UPV en Centros de Investigacion de Prestigio (PAID-00-11).Calabuig Rodriguez, JM.; Fernandez Unzueta, M.; Galaz Fontes, F.; Sánchez Pérez, EA. (2014). Extending and factorizing bounded bilinear maps defined on order continuous Banach function spaces. Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Serie A: Matemáticas (RACSAM). 108(2):353-367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-012-0101-7S3533671082Calabuig, J.M., Galaz-Fontes, F., Jiménez Fernández, E., Sánchez Pérez, E.A.: Strong factorization of operators on spaces of vector measure integrable functions and unconditional convergence of series. Math. Z. 257, 381–402 (2007)Calabuig, J.M., Delgado, O., Sánchez Pérez, E.A.: Factorizing operators on Banach function spaces through spaces of multiplication operators. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 364, 88–103 (2010)Curbera, G.P.: Operators into $$L^1$$ of a vector measure and applications to Banach lattices. Math. Ann. 293, 317–330 (1992)Curbera, G.P., Ricker, W.J.: Optimal domains for kernel operators via interpolation. Math. Nachr. 244, 47–63 (2002)Curbera, G.P. , Ricker, W.J.: Optimal domains for the kernel operator associated with Sobolev’s inequality. Studia Math. 158(2), 131–152 (2003) [see also Corrigenda in the same journal, 170 (2005) 217–218)]Delgado, O.: Banach function subspaces of $$L^1$$ of a vector measure and related Orlicz spaces. Indag. Math. (N. S.) 15, 485–495 (2004)Delgado, O.: Optimal domains for kernel operators on $$[0,\infty )\times [0,\infty )$$ . Studia Math. 174, 131–145 (2006)Delgado, O., Soria, J.: Optimal domain for the Hardy operator. J. Funct. Anal. 244, 119–133 (2007)Diestel, J., Uhl, J.J.: Vector measures. In: Math. Surveys, vol. 15. Amer. Math. Soc., Providence (1977)Lindenstrauss, J., Tzafriri, L.: Classical Banach Spaces II. Springer, Berlin (1979)Galdames, O., Sánchez Pérez, E.A.: Optimal range theorems for operators with $$p$$ -th power factorable adjoints. Banach J. Math. Anal. 6(1), 61–73 (2012)Okada, S., Ricker, W.J., Sánchez Pérez, E.A.: Optimal domain and integral extension of operators acting in function spaces. In: Oper. Theory Adv. Math. Appl., vol. 180. Birkäuser, Basel (2008

A Cholinergic Synaptically Triggered Event Participates in the Generation of Persistent Activity Necessary for Eye Fixation

An exciting topic regarding integrative properties of the nervous system is how transient motor commands or brief sensory stimuli are able to evoke persistent neuronal changes, mainly as a sustained, tonic action potential firing. A persisting firing seems to be necessary for postural maintenance after a previous movement. We have studied in vitro and in vivo the generation of the persistent neuronal activity responsible for eye fixation after spontaneous eye movements. Rat sagittal brainstem slices were used for the intracellular recording of prepositus hypoglossi (PH) neurons and their synaptic activation from nearby paramedian pontine reticular formation (PPRF) neurons. Single electrical pulses applied to the PPRF showed a monosynaptic glutamatergic projection on PH neurons, acting on AMPA-kainate receptors. Train stimulation of the PPRF area evoked a sustained depolarization of PH neurons exceeding (by hundreds of milliseconds) stimulus duration. Both duration and amplitude of this sustained depolarization were linearly related to train frequency. The train-evoked sustained depolarization was the result of interaction between glutamatergic excitatory burst neurons and cholinergic mesopontine reticular fibers projecting onto PH neurons, because it was prevented by slice superfusion with cholinergic antagonists and mimicked by cholinergic agonists. As expected, microinjections of cholinergic antagonists in the PH nucleus of alert behaving cats evoked a gaze-holding deficit consisting of a re-centering drift of the eye after each saccade. These findings suggest that a slow, cholinergic, synaptically triggered event participates in the generation of persistent activity characteristic of PH neurons carrying eye position signals

Hernioplasty in One-Day Surgery: result of 228 self-adhesive prosthesis

Aim: To evaluate the outcomes of inguinal hernia repair with ProGrip® mesh in same-day surgery Methods: Follow-up data was collected at 24 hours and 30 days after surgery. Results: In one year, 228 patients underwent surgical repair of unilateral inguinal hernia. At 24 hours after surgery, 50.64% of patients reported some degree of pain and 66.3% were able to move around the house with few limitations. Thirty days after surgery, 94.39% of patients had returned to their routine activities. Conclusions: The use of the ProGrip® mesh is associated with low post-operative pain and rapid recovery

Carbon source feeding strategies for recombinant protein expression in Pichia pastoris and Pichia methanolica

Pichia pastoris and Pichia methanolica have been used as expression systems for the production of recombinant protein. The main problems of the production are the slow hierarchic consumption of ethanol and acetate which cause toxicity problems due to methanol accumulation when this surpasses 0.5 gl-1. In some cases, the laboratory scale cultures does not show the methanol accumulation problems because the cells are usually washed before changing the depleted carbon source culture media, by a fresh one, supplemented with methanol; a strategy that is clearly inapplicable in the industrial productions. Other authors use to feed the methanol before the depletion of glycerol or Dglucose, but this practice does not guaranty the ethanol and acetate fast consumption; leading to methanol accumulation and toxicity problems. It was concluded that pre-induction stage strategy should be studied in detail and that it is very important to start the induction stage with a concentration of biomass as great as possible. On the other side, it is essential that there should be a monitoring of ethanol and acetate until reaching non-toxic methanol stable-concentration and these conditions should be maintained till the end of the process

Modelling for the inheritance of multiple births and fertility in endangered equids: Determining risk factors and genetic parameters in donkeys (Equus asinus).

Multiple births or twinning in equids are dangerous, undesirable situations that compromise the life of the dam and resulting offspring. However, embryo vitrification and freezing techniques take advantage of individuals whose multiple ovulations allow flushing more fertilised embryos from the oviduct to be collected, increasing the productivity and profitability of reproductive techniques. Embryo preservation is especially important in highly endangered populations such as certain donkey (Equus asinus) breeds; for which conventional reproductive techniques have previously been deemed inefficient. For instance, becoming an effective alternative to artificial insemination with frozen semen to preserve the individuals' genetic material. The objective of this study was to examine the historical foaling records of Andalusian donkeys to estimate prevalence, risk factors, phenotypic and genetic parameters for multiple births, assessing the cumulative foal number born per animal, maximum foal number per birth and multiple birth number per animal. We designed a Bayesian General Animal Mixed Model with single records considering the 'fixed' effects of birth year, birth season, birth month, sex, farm, location, and husbandry system. Age was considered and included as a linear and quadratic covariate. Gibbs sampling reported heritability estimates ranging from 0.18 ± 0.101 to 0.24 ± 0.078. Genetic and phenotypic correlations ranged from 0.496 ± 0.298 to 0.846 ± 0.152 and 0.206 ± 0.063 to 0.607 ± 0.054, respectively. Predicted breeding values obtained enable the potential selection against/for these traits, offering a new perspective for donkey breeding and conservation

Stealth Supersymmetry

We present a broad class of supersymmetric models that preserve R-parity but lack missing energy signatures. These models have new light particles with weak-scale supersymmetric masses that feel SUSY breaking only through couplings to the MSSM. This small SUSY breaking leads to nearly degenerate fermion/boson pairs, with small mass splittings and hence small phase space for decays carrying away invisible energy. The simplest scenario has low-scale SUSY breaking, with missing energy only from soft gravitinos. This scenario is natural, lacks artificial tunings to produce a squeezed spectrum, and is consistent with gauge coupling unification. The resulting collider signals will be jet-rich events containing false resonances that could resemble signatures of R-parity violation. We discuss several concrete examples of the general idea, and emphasize gamma + jet + jet resonances, displaced vertices, and very large numbers of b-jets as three possible discovery modes.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Uso de benzodiacepinas por adictos a heroína a propósito de una revisión bibliográfica.

En este trabajo se aborda una revisión bibliográfica sobre la relación existente entre la dependencia a la heroína y el uso, abuso y dependencia a las benzodiacepinas (BZD). Se señala la amplia extensión del consumo de BZD por adictos en general y por los dependientes a heroína en particular, así como la posible naturaleza de tal consumo por este tipo de adictos. En nuestro medio las moléculas de BZD de las que más abusan los pacientes heroinómanos tratados son cloracepato dipotásico y flunitrazepam. Se analizan las posibles causas de esta preferencia en función de los resultados de los estudios revisados. Igualmente se señala la posible existencia de un patrón de uso y abuso particular para este tipo de adicto