Altered muscarinic and nicotinic receptor densities in cortical and subcortical brain regions in Parkinson's disease

Muscarinic and nicotinic cholinergic receptors and choline acetyltransferase activity were studied in postmortem brain tissue from patients with histopathologically confirmed Parkinson's disease and matched control subjects. Using washed membrane homogenates from the frontal cortex, hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and putamen, saturation analysis of specific receptor binding was performed for the total number of muscarinic receptors with [3H]quinuclidinyl benzilate, for muscarinic M1 receptors with [3H]pirenzepine, for muscarinic M2 receptors with [3H]oxotremorine-M, and for nicotinic receptors with (-)-[3H]nicotine. In comparison with control tissues, choline acetyl-transferase activity was reduced in the frontal cortex and hippocampus and unchanged in the caudate nucleus and putamen of parkinsonian patients. In Parkinson's disease the maximal binding site density for [3H]quinuclidinyl benzilate was increased in the frontal cortex and unaltered in the hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and putamen. Specific [3H]pirenzepine binding was increased in the frontal cortex, unaltered in the hippocampus, and decreased in the caudate nucleus and putamen. In parkinsonian patients Bmax values for specific [3H]oxotremorine-M binding were reduced in the cortex and unchanged in the hippocampus and striatum compared with controls. Maximal (-)-[3H]nicotine binding was reduced in both the cortex and hippocampus and unaltered in both the caudate nucleus and putamen. Alterations of the equilibrium dissociation constant were not observed for any ligand in any of the brain areas examined. The present results suggest that both the innominatocortical and the septohippocampal cholinergic systems degenerate in Parkinson's disease.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS

Binary Asteroid Observation Orbits from a Global Dynamical Perspective

We study spacecraft motion near a binary asteroid by means of theoretical and computational tools from geometric mechanics and dynamical systems. We model the system assuming that one of the asteroids is a rigid body (ellipsoid) and the other a sphere. In particular, we are interested in finding periodic and quasi-periodic orbits for the spacecraft near the asteroid pair that are suitable for observations and measurements. First, using reduction theory, we study the full two body problem (gravitational interaction between the ellipsoid and the sphere) and use the energy-momentum method to prove nonlinear stability of certain relative equilibria. This study allows us to construct the restricted full three-body problem (RF3BP) for the spacecraft motion around the binary, assuming that the asteroid pair is in relative equilibrium. Then, we compute the modified Lagrangian fixed points and study their spectral stability. The fixed points of the restricted three-body problem are modified in the RF3BP because one of the primaries is a rigid body and not a point mass. A systematic studydepending on the parameters of the problem is performed in an effort to understand the rigid body effects on the Lagrangian stability regions. Finally, using frequency analysis, we study the global dynamics near these modified Lagrangian points. From this global picture, we are able to identify (almost-) invariant tori in the stability region near the modified Lagrangian points. Quasi-periodic trajectories on these invariant tori are potentially convenient places to park the spacecraft while it is observing the asteroid pair

Brain muscarinic cholinergic receptors in Huntington's disease

Muscarinic cholinergic receptors and choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity were studied in postmortem brain tissue from patients with Huntington's disease and matched control subjects. In comparison with controls, reductions in ChAT activity were found in the hippocampus, but not in the temporal cortex in Huntington's disease. Patients with Huntington's disease showed reduced densities of the total number of muscarinic receptors and of M-2 receptors in the hippocampus while the density of M-1 receptors was unaltered. Muscarinic receptor binding was unchanged in the temporal cortex. These results indicate a degeneration in Huntington's disease of the septo-hippocampal cholinergic pathway, but no impairment of the innominato-cortical cholinergic system

Un-reduction

This paper provides a full geometric development of a new technique called un-reduction, for dealing with dynamics and optimal control problems posed on spaces that are unwieldy for numerical implementation. The technique, which was originally concieved for an application to image dynamics, uses Lagrangian reduction by symmetry in reverse. A deeper understanding of un-reduction leads to new developments in image matching which serve to illustrate the mathematical power of the technique.Comment: 25 pages, revised versio

Mapping of serotype-specific, immunodominant epitopes in the NS-4 region of hepatitis C virus (HCV):use of type-specific peptides to serologically differentiate infections with HCV types 1, 2, and 3

The effect of sequence variability between different types of hepatitis C virus (HCV) on the antigenicity of the NS-4 protein was investigated by epitope mapping and by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with branched oligopeptides. Epitope mapping of the region between amino acid residues 1679 and 1768 in the HCV polyprotein revealed two major antigenic regions (1961 to 1708 and 1710 to 1728) that were recognized by antibody elicited upon natural infection of HCV. The antigenic regions were highly variable between variants of HCV, with only 50 to 60% amino acid sequence similarity between types 1, 2, and 3. Although limited serological cross-reactivity between HCV types was detected between peptides, particularly in the first antigenic region of NS-4, type-specific reactivity formed the principal component of the natural humoral immune response to NS-4. Type-specific antibody to particular HCV types was detected in 89% of the samples from anti-HCV-positive blood donors and correlated almost exactly with genotypic analysis of HCV sequences amplified from the samples by polymerase chain reaction. Whereas almost all blood donors appeared to be infected with a single virus type (97%), a higher proportion of samples (40%) from hemophiliacs infected from transfusion of non-heat-inactivated clotting factor contained antibody to two or even all three HCV types, providing evidence that long-term exposure may lead to multiple infection with different variants of HCV

Multisymplectic Geometry and Multisymplectic Preissman Scheme for the KP Equation

The multisymplectic structure of the KP equation is obtained directly from the variational principal. Using the covariant De Donder-Weyl Hamilton function theories, we reformulate the KP equation to the multisymplectic form which proposed by Bridges. From the multisymplectic equation, we can derive a multisymplectic numerical scheme of the KP equation which can be simplified to multisymplectic forty-five points scheme.Comment: 17 papges, 8 figure

The Tulczyjew triple for classical fields

The geometrical structure known as the Tulczyjew triple has proved to be very useful in describing mechanical systems, even those with singular Lagrangians or subject to constraints. Starting from basic concepts of variational calculus, we construct the Tulczyjew triple for first-order Field Theory. The important feature of our approach is that we do not postulate {\it ad hoc} the ingredients of the theory, but obtain them as unavoidable consequences of the variational calculus. This picture of Field Theory is covariant and complete, containing not only the Lagrangian formalism and Euler-Lagrange equations but also the phase space, the phase dynamics and the Hamiltonian formalism. Since the configuration space turns out to be an affine bundle, we have to use affine geometry, in particular the notion of the affine duality. In our formulation, the two maps $\alpha$ and $\beta$ which constitute the Tulczyjew triple are morphisms of double structures of affine-vector bundles. We discuss also the Legendre transformation, i.e. the transition between the Lagrangian and the Hamiltonian formulation of the first-order field theor

The first magnetic maps of a pre-main sequence binary star system - HD 155555

We present the first maps of the surface magnetic fields of a pre-main sequence binary system. Spectropolarimetric observations of the young, 18 Myr, HD 155555 (V824 Ara, G5IV + K0IV) system were obtained at the Anglo-Australian Telescope in 2004 and 2007. Both datasets are analysed using a new binary Zeeman Doppler imaging (ZDI) code. This allows us to simultaneously model the contribution of each component to the observed circularly polarised spectra. Stellar brightness maps are also produced for HD 155555 and compared to previous Doppler images. Our radial magnetic maps reveal a complex surface magnetic topology with mixed polarities at all latitudes. We find rings of azimuthal field on both stars, most of which are found to be non-axisymmetric with the stellar rotational axis. We also examine the field strength and the relative fraction of magnetic energy stored in the radial and azimuthal field components at both epochs. A marked weakening of the field strength of the secondary star is observed between the 2004 and 2007 epochs. This is accompanied by an apparent shift in the location of magnetic energy from the azimuthal to radial field. We suggest that this could be indicative of a magnetic activity cycle. We use the radial magnetic maps to extrapolate the coronal field (by assuming a potential field) for each star individually - at present ignoring any possible interaction. The secondary star is found to exhibit an extreme tilt (~75 deg) of its large scale magnetic field to that of its rotation axis for both epochs. The field complexity that is apparent in the surface maps persists out to a significant fraction of the binary separation. Any interaction between the fields of the two stars is therefore likely to be complex also. Modelling this would require a full binary field extrapolation.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA