Systemic administration of a fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 agonist rescues the cognitive deficit in aged socially isolated rats.

Social isolation predominantly occurs in elderly people and it is strongly associated with cognitive decline. However, the mechanisms that produce isolation-related cognitive dysfunction during aging remain unclear. Here, we evaluated the cognitive, electrophysiological, and morphological effects of short- (4 weeks) and long-term (12 weeks) social isolation in aged male Wistar rats. Long-term but not short-term social isolation increased the plasma corticosterone levels and impaired spatial memory in the Morris water maze. Moreover, isolated animals displayed dampened hippocampal long-term potentiation in vivo, both in the dentate gyrus (DG) and CA1, as well as a specific reduction in the volume of the stratum oriens and spine density in CA1. Interestingly, social isolation induced a transient increase in hippocampal basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF2), whereas fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1) levels only increased after long-term isolation. Importantly, subchronic systemic administration of FGL, a synthetic peptide that activates FGFR1, rescued spatial memory in long-term isolated rats. These findings provide new insights into the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the detrimental effects on memory of chronic social isolation in the aged.pre-print507 K

Emotional intelligence impairments in women with fibromyalgia: Associations with widespread pain.

This study aimed at testing the differences in emotional intelligence ability between women with fibromyalgia (cases) and their age-matched counterparts not with fibromyalgia from the general population (controls) and analysing the association between emotional intelligence ability and widespread pain in women with fibromyalgia. A total of 133 cases and 77 controls participated in this cross-sectional study. Controls performed better than cases on emotion understanding. Higher emotion perception and management were significantly associated with lower widespread pain. Therefore, women with fibromyalgia may experience difficulties in understanding emotional information. In fibromyalgia, higher emotion perception and management abilities are independently related to lower widespread pain.pre-print424 K

Is type of work associated with physical activity and sedentary behaviour in women with fibromyalgia? A cross-sectional study from the al-Ándalus project

Objectives To analyse the association between the type of work (productive vs reproductive work) and the levels of physical activity and sedentary behaviour in women with fibromyalgia. Method This cross-sectional study involved 258 women with fibromyalgia from southern Spain. Of them, 55% performed reproductive work (unpaid, associated with caregiving and domestic roles) exclusively, while 45% had productive job (remunerated, that results in goods or services). Physical activity of light, moderate and vigorous intensity in the leisure time, at home, at work, and totally were measured through the leisure time physical activity instrument and with the physical activity at home and work instrument, respectively. Sedentary behaviour was measured by the Sedentary Behaviour Questionnaire. Results After adjusting for age, fat percentage, education level and marital status, the multivariate analysis of covariance model informed the existence of significant differences between type of work groups (p<0.001). Women with productive work engaged in more light physical activity at work (mean difference =448.52 min; 95 % CI 179.66 to 717.38; p=0.001), and total physical activity of light (809.72 min; 535.91 to 1085.53; p<0.001) and moderate (299.78 min; 97.31 to 502.25; p=0.004) intensity. Women with reproductive work engaged in more light physical activity at home (379.14; 175.64 to 582.64; p<0.001). Leisure time physical activity and sedentary behaviour were similar in both groups (p>0.05 for all comparisons). Conclusions Women with productive work had greater levels of physical activity compared with those who only did reproductive work, except for physical activity at home. Having productive work might facilitate movement of women with fibromyalgia towards a more active lifestyle.Spanish Ministries of Economy and Competitiveness I+D+i DEP2010-15639 I+D+i DEP2013-40908-RSpanish Government FPU15/00002University of Granada, Plan Propio de Investigacion 2016, Excellence actions: Units of Excellence; Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES)Junta de Andalucia, Consejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y Universidades and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) SOMM17/6107/UGREuropean Union (EU) 70740

Upgrade of a climate service tailored to water reservoirs management

We present the upgrade of a web tool designed to help in the decision making process for water reservoirs management in Spain. The tool, called S-ClimWaRe (Seasonal Climate predictions in support of Water Reservoirs management), covers the extended winter season (from November to March), when the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pattern strongly influences the hydrological interannual variability in South-Western Europe. This climate service is fully user driven, and aims at meeting their requirements incorporating recent scientific progress.The research leading to these results has received funding from the MEDSCOPE project co-funded by the European Commission as part of ERA4CS, an ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate, grant agreement 690462

Impact of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism within and beyond the retrosplenial cortex in females with Mild Cognitive Impairment: A magnetoencephalography study

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) can be influenced by genetic risk factors. The Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor Val66Met polymorphism is one of them. This mutation may affect the brain functional connectivity (FC), especially for those carriers of the Met allele (A). The retrosplenial cortex (RSC), essential component of the Default Mode Network (DMN), could be altered by this polymorphism. Our aim was to examine the influence of the Val66Met polymorphism within the RSC?s functional network, and its interconnections between the frontal medial cortex (FMC) and the anterior cingulate (ACC)

Is type of work associated with physical activity and sedentary behaviour in women with fibromyalgia A cross-sectional study from the al-Ándalus project

Objectives To analyse the association between the type of work (productive vs reproductive work) and the levels of physical activity and sedentary behaviour in women with fibromyalgia. Method This cross-sectional study involved 258 women with fibromyalgia from southern Spain. Of them, 55% performed reproductive work (unpaid, associated with caregiving and domestic roles) exclusively, while 45% had productive job (remunerated, that results in goods or services). Physical activity of light, moderate and vigorous intensity in the leisure time, at home, at work, and totally were measured through the leisure time physical activity instrument and with the physical activity at home and work instrument, respectively. Sedentary behaviour was measured by the Sedentary Behaviour Questionnaire. Results After adjusting for age, fat percentage, education level and marital status, the multivariate analysis of covariance model informed the existence of significant differences between type of work groups (p<0.001). Women with productive work engaged in more light physical activity at work (mean difference =448.52 min; 95 % CI 179.66 to 717.38; p=0.001), and total physical activity of light (809.72 min; 535.91 to 1085.53; p<0.001) and moderate (29

Seasonal climate predictions in support of water reservoirs management in Spain

Póster presentado en: 1st Climateurope festival celebrado en Valencia, del 5 al 7 de abril de 2017.This work has been partially funded by the FP7 EUPORIAS projec

Interferon-stimulated gene 15 pathway is a novel mediator of endothelial dysfunction and aneurysms development in angiotensin II infused mice through increased oxidative stress

AIMS: Interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15) encodes a ubiquitin-like protein that induces a reversible post-translational modification (ISGylation) and can also be secreted as a free form. ISG15 plays an essential role as host-defence response to microbial infection; however, its contribution to vascular damage associated with hypertension is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS: Bioinformatics identified ISG15 as a mediator of hypertension-associated vascular damage. ISG15 expression positively correlated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure and carotid intima-media thickness in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Consistently, Isg15 expression was enhanced in aorta from hypertension models and in angiotensin II (AngII)-treated vascular cells and macrophages. Proteomics revealed differential expression of proteins implicated in cardiovascular function, extracellular matrix and remodelling, and vascular redox state in aorta from AngII-infused ISG15-/- mice. Moreover, ISG15-/- mice were protected against AngII-induced hypertension, vascular stiffness, elastin remodelling, endothelial dysfunction, and expression of inflammatory and oxidative stress markers. Conversely, mice with excessive ISGylation (USP18C61A) show enhanced AngII-induced hypertension, vascular fibrosis, inflammation and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation along with elastin breaks, aortic dilation, and rupture. Accordingly, human and murine abdominal aortic aneurysms showed augmented ISG15 expression. Mechanistically, ISG15 induces vascular ROS production, while antioxidant treatment prevented ISG15-induced endothelial dysfunction and vascular remodelling. CONCLUSION: ISG15 is a novel mediator of vascular damage in hypertension through oxidative stress and inflammation.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)/FSE (SAF2016-80305P; SAF2017-88089-R; SAF2016-79151-R; RTI2018-099246-B-I00), Ministerio de Innovación, Cultura y Deportes (PGC2018-097019-B-I00), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII; FIS PI18/0919); Comunidad de Madrid (CM) (AORTASANA B2017/BMD-3676) FEDER-a way to build Europe, Bayer AG (2019-09-2433), CM-Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (SI1-PJI-2019-00321), and British Heart Foundation (CH/12/4/29762; RE//18/6/34217). M.G.-A. was supported by an FPI-UAM fellowship, R.R.-D. by a Juan de la Cierva contract (IJCI-2017-31399), and A.C.M. by a Walton Fellowship, University of Glasgow. The CNIC is supported by ISCIII, the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, and the Pro CNIC Foundation, and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505)

LPA1 receptor and chronic stress: Effects on behaviour and the genes involved in the hippocampal excitatory/inhibitory balance.

The LPA1 receptor, one of the six characterized G protein-coupled receptors (LPA1-6) through which lysophosphatidic acid acts, is likely involved in promoting normal emotional behaviours. Current data suggest that the LPA-LPA1-receptor pathway may be involved in mediating the negative consequences of stress on hippocampal function. However, to date, there is no available information regarding the mechanisms whereby the LPA1 receptor mediates this adaptation. To gain further insight into how the LPA-LPA1 pathway may prevent the negative consequences of chronic stress, we assessed the effects of the continuous delivery of LPA on depressive-like behaviours induced by a chronic restraint stress protocol. Because a proper excitatory/inhibitory balance seems to be key for controlling the stress response system, the gene expression of molecular markers of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission was also determined. In addition, the hippocampal expression of mineralocorticoid receptor genes and glucocorticoid receptor genes and proteins as well as plasma corticosterone levels were determined. Contrary to our expectations, the continuous delivery of LPA in chronically stressed animals potentiated rather than inhibited some (e.g., anhedonia, reduced latency to the first immobility period), though not all, behavioural effects of stress. Furthermore, this treatment led to an alteration in the genes coding for proteins involved in the excitatory/inhibitory balance in the ventral hippocampus and to changes in corticosterone levels. In conclusion, the results of this study reinforce the assumption that LPA is involved in emotional regulation, mainly through the LPA1 receptor, and regulates the effects of stress on hippocampal gene expression and hippocampus-dependent behaviour.This study was supported by FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades – Agencia Estatal de Investigación/__(PSI2017-83408-P) to C.P., Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía (SEJ1863 to C.P. and CTS-643 to G.E.-T), Consejería de Salud, Junta de Andalucía, (NICOLÁS MONARDE to G.E-T). Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (FPU14/01610 to R.D.M.-F. and intramural funding from the EPFL to C.S

Evidence of association of the NLRP1 gene with giant cell arteritis

Recent studies have focused attention on the involvement of NLRP1 to confer susceptibility for extended autoimmune/inflammatory disorders, being considered a common risk factor in autoimmunity. NLRP1 provides a scaffold for the assembly of the inflammasome that activates caspases 1 and 5, required for processing and activation of the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin 1β (IL-1β), IL-18 and IL-33 and promoting inflammation