The ROCK inhibitor Fasudil prevents chronic restraint stress-induced depressive-like behaviors and dendritic spine loss in rat hippocampus

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.Background: Dendritic arbor simplification and dendritic spine loss in the hippocampus, a limbic structure implicated in mood disorders, are assumed to contribute to symptoms of depression. These morphological changes imply modifications in dendritic cytoskeleton. Rho GTPases are regulators of actin dynamics through their effector Rho kinase. We have reported that chronic stress promotes depressive-like behaviors in rats along with dendritic spine loss in apical dendrites of hippocampal pyramidal neurons, changes associated with Rho kinase activation. The present study proposes that the Rho kinase inhibitor Fasudil may prevent the stress-induced behavior and dendritic spine loss. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with saline or Fasudil (i.p., 10 mg/kg) starting 4 days prior to and maintained during the restraint stress procedure (2.5 h/d for 14 days). Nonstressed control animals were injected with saline or Fasudil for 18 days. At 24 hours after treatment, forced swimming test, Golgi-staining, and immuno-western blot were performed. Results: Fasudil prevented stress-induced immobility observed in the forced swimming test. On the other hand, Fasudiltreated control animals showed behavioral patterns similar to those of saline-treated controls. Furthermore, we observed that stress induced an increase in the phosphorylation of MYPT1 in the hippocampus, an exclusive target of Rho kinase. This change was accompanied by dendritic spine loss of apical dendrites of pyramidal hippocampal neurons. Interestingly, increased pMYPT1 levels and spine loss were both prevented by Fasudil administration. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Fasudil may prevent the development of abnormal behavior and spine loss induced by chronic stress by blocking Rho kinase activity.https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/article/20/4/336/263217

Biochemistry and functional aspects of human glandular kallikreins

Human urinary kallikrein was purified by gel filtration on Sephacryl S-200 and affinity chromatography on aprotinin-Sepharose, followed by ion exchange chromatography on DEAE-Sepharose. In dodecylsulfate gel electrophoresis two protein bands with molecular weights of 41,000 and 34,000 were separated. The amino acid composition and the carbohydrate content of the kallikrein preparation were determined; isoleucine was identified as the only aminoterminal amino acid. The bimolecular velocity constant for the inhibition by diisopropyl fluorophosphate was determined as 9±2 l mol–1 min–1. The hydrolysis of a number of substrates was investigated and AcPheArgOEt was found to be the most sensitive substrate for human urinary kallikrein. Using this substrate an assay method for kallikrein in human urine was developed. It was shown by radioimmunoassay that pig pancreatic kallikrein can be absorbed in the rat intestinal tract. Furthermore, in dogs the renal excretion of glandular kallikrein from blood was demonstrated by radioimmunological methods

Chronic Stress Triggers Expression of Immediate Early Genes and Differentially Affects the Expression of AMPA and NMDA Subunits in Dorsal and Ventral Hippocampus of Rats

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.Previous studies in rats have demonstrated that chronic restraint stress triggers anhedonia, depressive-like behaviors, anxiety and a reduction in dendritic spine density in hippocampal neurons. In this study, we compared the effect of repeated stress on the expression of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor subunits in dorsal and ventral hippocampus (VH). Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into control and stressed groups, and were daily restrained in their motion (2.5 h/day) during 14 days. We found that chronic stress promotes an increase in c-Fos mRNA levels in both hippocampal areas, although it was observed a reduction in the immunoreactivity at pyramidal cell layer. Furthermore, Arc mRNAs levels were increased in both dorsal and VH, accompanied by an increase in Arc immunoreactivity in dendritic hippocampal layers. Furthermore, stress triggered a reduction in PSD-95 and NR1 protein levels in whole extract of dorsal and VH. Moreover, a reduction in NR2A/NR2B ratio was observed only in dorsal pole. In synaptosomal fractions, we detected a rise in NR1 in dorsal hippocampus (DH). By indirect immunofluorescence we found that NR1 subunits rise, especially in neuropil areas of dorsal, but not VH. In relation to AMPA receptor (AMPAR) subunits, chronic stress did not trigger any change, either in dorsal or ventral hippocampal areas. These data suggest that DH is more sensitive than VH to chronic stress exposure, mainly altering the expression of NMDA receptor (NMDAR) subunits, and probably favors changes in the configuration of this receptor that may influence the function of this area.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2017.00244/ful

Stanilov-Tsankov-Videv Theory

We survey some recent results concerning Stanilov-Tsankov-Videv theory, conformal Osserman geometry, and Walker geometry which relate algebraic properties of the curvature operator to the underlying geometry of the manifold.Comment: This is a contribution to the Proceedings of the 2007 Midwest Geometry Conference in honor of Thomas P. Branson, published in SIGMA (Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications) at http://www.emis.de/journals/SIGMA

A Non-Algebraic Patchwork

Itenberg and Shustin's pseudoholomorphic curve patchworking is in principle more flexible than Viro's original algebraic one. It was natural to wonder if the former method allows one to construct non-algebraic objects. In this paper we construct the first examples of patchworked real pseudoholomorphic curves in $\Sigma_n$ whose position with respect to the pencil of lines cannot be realised by any homologous real algebraic curve.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Emotion and memory: Event-related potential indices predictive for subsequent successful memory depend on the emotional mood state.

The present research investigated the influencesof emotional mood states on cognitive processes and neural circuits during long-term memory encoding using event-related potentials (ERPs). We assessed whether the subsequent memory effect (SME), an electrophysiological index of successful memory encoding, varies as a function of participants’ current mood state. ERPs were recorded while participants in good or bad mood states were presented with words that had to be memorized for subsequent recall. In contrast to participants in bad mood, participants in good mood most frequently applied elaborative encoding styles. At the neurophysiological level, ERP analyses showed that potentials to subsequently recalled words were more positive than to forgotten words at central electrodes in the time interval of 500-650 ms after stimulus onset (SME). At fronto-central electrodes, a polarity-reversed SME was obtained. The strongest modulations of the SME by participants’ mood state were obtained at fronto-temporal electrodes. These differences in the scalp topography of the SME suggest that successful recall relies on partially separable neural circuits for good and bad mood states. The results are consistent with theoretical accounts of the interface between emotion and cognition that propose mood-dependent cognitive styles

Leibnizian, Robinsonian, and Boolean Valued Monads

This is an overview of the present-day versions of monadology with some applications to vector lattices and linear inequalities.Comment: This is a talk prepared for the 20th St. Petersburg Summer Meeting in Mathematical Analysis, June 24-29, 201

Optical study of superconducting Ga-rich layers in silicon

We performed phase-sensitive terahertz (0.12 - 1.2 THz) transmission measurements of Ga-enriched layers in silicon. Below the superconducting transition, T_{c} = 6.7 K, we find clear signatures of the formation of a superconducting condensate and of the opening of an energy gap in the optical spectra. The London penetration depth, \lambda(T), and the condensate density, n_{s} = \lambda^{2} 0)/\lambda^{2}(T), as functions of temperature demonstrate behavior, typical for conventional superconductors with \lambda(0) = 1.8 \mu m. The terahertz spectra can be well described within the framework of Eliashberg theory with strong electron-phonon coupling: the zero-temperature energy gap is 2\Delta(0) = 2.64 meV and 2\Delta(0)/k_{B}T_{c} = 4.6 \pm 0.1, consistent with the amorphous state of Ga. At temperatures just above T_{c}, the optical spectra demonstrate Drude behavior.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Study of the time and space distribution of beta+ emitters from 80 MeV/u carbon ion beam irradiation on PMMA

Proton and carbon ion therapy is an emerging technique used for the treatment of solid cancers. The monitoring of the dose delivered during such treatments and the on-line knowledge of the Bragg peak position is still a matter of research. A possible technique exploits the collinear 511\ \kilo\electronvolt photons produced by positrons annihilation from $\beta^+$ emitters created by the beam. This paper reports rate measurements of the 511\ \kilo\electronvolt photons emitted after the interactions of a 80\ \mega\electronvolt / u fully stripped carbon ion beam at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) of INFN, with a Poly-methyl methacrylate target. The time evolution of the $\beta^+$ rate was parametrized and the dominance of $^{11}C$ emitters over the other species ($^{13}N$, $^{15}O$, $^{14}O$) was observed, measuring the fraction of carbon ions activating $\beta^+$ emitters $A_0=(10.3\pm0.7)\cdot10^{-3}$. The average depth in the PMMA of the positron annihilation from $\beta^+$ emitters was also measured, D_{\beta^+}=5.3\pm1.1\ \milli\meter, to be compared to the expected Bragg peak depth D_{Bragg}=11.0\pm 0.5\ \milli\meter obtained from simulations