Separate urinary bladder and prostate neurons in the central nervous system of the rat: simultaneous labeling with two immunohistochemically distinguishable pseudorabies viruses

BACKGROUND: This work examines the central nervous system distribution of virus-labeled neurons from the rat urinary bladder and the prostate simultaneously within the same tissue sections. Two immunohistochemically distinct pseudorabies virus strains were simultaneously injected into male Sprague Dawley rats (~280 gm). One virus was injected into the bladder and the other into the prostate. After incubation intervals of 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3 and 4 days, sections from the spinal cord and brain were processed immunohistochemically to detect cells, within a single section, which were labeled separately by each virus or were labeled by both viruses. RESULTS: Each strain of virus labeled a separate population of neurons and some neurons were labeled by both strains. The majority of neurons labeled by virus from the urinary bladder were found in the L6-S1 spinal cord segments within the dorsal gray commissure, the intermediolateral area and the superficial dorsal horn. Neurons labeled by virus from the prostate were mainly found in the L1-L2 spinal cord segments in the dorsal gray commissure and the intermediolateral areas. Double-labeled interneurons in L1-L2 were mainly located in the intermediolateral area. In L6-S1 they were divided between the dorsal gray commissure and the intermediolateral area. CONCLUSIONS: Spinal neurons innervating the bladder are clearly separate and different from those innervating the prostate. This difference also persists in the brain. In disagreement with previous reports, no direct anatomical evidence of parasympathetic innervation of the prostate was observed

Central effects of clozapine in regulating micturition in anesthetized rats

BACKGROUND: We previously showed that systemic administration of the atypical neuroleptic clozapine in the rat altered a number of urodynamic variables and inhibited the external urethral sphincter. Since clozapine acts at several receptor types both at the periphery and the central nervous system, the site of action remained uncertain. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of central administration of clozapine on the bladder and the external urethral sphincter during cystometry and to examine differences in spinal versus supraspinal administration. We extended our observations by delivering clozapine centrally in anesthetized rats instrumented with either an intrathecal (L6-S1 spinal segment) or an intracerebroventricular (lateral ventricle) catheter. RESULTS: Clozapine decreased micturition volume and increased residual volume possibly by acting at a supraspinal site. Expulsion time and amplitude of the high frequency oscillations were reduced by clozapine possibly by acting at a spinal site. Bladder capacity was increased after central clozapine but probably due to a peripheral effect. Clozapine acting at spinal and supraspinal sites increased pressure threshold. Contraction time and peak pressure were not affected by clozapine. The EMG from the external urethral sphincter was also reduced following clozapine centrally and suggests a spinal and a supraspinal site of action. CONCLUSIONS: The results from the present study suggest that spinal and supraspinal central sites mediate clozapine's action in inhibiting expulsion parameters and the external urethral sphincter of the rat. Therefore, the reduction in the voiding efficiency observed after clozapine appears to be mediated by spinal and supraspinal sites

Sex Differences in the Brain: A Whole Body Perspective

Most writing on sexual differentiation of the mammalian brain (including our own) considers just two organs: the gonads and the brain. This perspective, which leaves out all other body parts, misleads us in several ways. First, there is accumulating evidence that all organs are sexually differentiated, and that sex differences in peripheral organs affect the brain. We demonstrate this by reviewing examples involving sex differences in muscles, adipose tissue, the liver, immune system, gut, kidneys, bladder, and placenta that affect the nervous system and behavior. The second consequence of ignoring other organs when considering neural sex differences is that we are likely to miss the fact that some brain sex differences develop to compensate for differences in the internal environment (i.e., because male and female brains operate in different bodies, sex differences are required to make output/function more similar in the two sexes). We also consider evidence that sex differences in sensory systems cause male and female brains to perceive different information about the world; the two sexes are also perceived by the world differently and therefore exposed to differences in experience via treatment by others. Although the topic of sex differences in the brain is often seen as much more emotionally charged than studies of sex differences in other organs, the dichotomy is largely false. By putting the brain firmly back in the body, sex differences in the brain are predictable and can be more completely understood

Expression and function of G-protein-coupled receptorsin the male reproductive tract

This review focuses on the expression and function of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChRs), α1-adrenoceptors and relaxin receptors in the male reproductive tract. The localization and differential expression of mAChR and α1-adrenoceptor subtypes in specific compartments of the efferent ductules, epididymis, vas deferens, seminal vesicle and prostate of various species indicate a role for these receptors in the modulation of luminal fluid composition and smooth muscle contraction, including effects on male fertility. Furthermore, the activation of mAChRs induces transactivation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and the Sertoli cell proliferation. The relaxin receptors are present in the testis, RXFP1 in elongated spermatids and Sertoli cells from rat, and RXFP2 in Leydig and germ cells from rat and human, suggesting a role for these receptors in the spermatogenic process. The localization of both receptors in the apical portion of epithelial cells and smooth muscle layers of the vas deferens suggests an involvement of these receptors in the contraction and regulation of secretion.Esta revisão enfatiza a expressão e a função dos receptores muscarínicos, adrenoceptores α1 e receptores para relaxina no sistema reprodutor masculino. A expressão dos receptores muscarínicos e adrenoceptores α1 em compartimentos específicos de dúctulos eferentes, epidídimo, ductos deferentes, vesícula seminal e próstata de várias espécies indica o envolvimento destes receptores na modulação da composição do fluido luminal e na contração do músculo liso, incluindo efeitos na fertilidade masculina. Além disso, a ativação dos receptores muscarínicos leva à transativação do receptor para o fator crescimento epidermal e proliferação das células de Sertoli. Os receptores para relaxina estão presentes no testículo, RXFP1 nas espermátides alongadas e células de Sertoli de rato e RXFP2 nas células de Leydig e germinativas de ratos e humano, sugerindo o envolvimento destes receptores no processo espermatogênico. A localização de ambos os receptores na porção apical das células epiteliais e no músculo liso dos ductos deferentes de rato sugere um papel na contração e na regulação da secreção.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Escola Paulista de Medicina Departamento de FarmacologiaUNIFESP, EPM, Depto. de FarmacologiaSciEL

For Every Wrong There Is a Remedy : Changing Law and Fleeing Wives in Nineteenth-century America

Throughout the nineteenth century, husbands were jailed, wives won divorces, alimony, support, and, indeed, in many states, a clear right to run away and to enlist the help of neighbors, relatives, and friends, although none of those protections separately, and not all of them together, effectively protected wives from husbands who wanted to beat them. Illegality was simply not enough for protection, and certainly not when abuse was lightly punished. Moreover, the widespread incidence of abuse led to legal confusion, or at least led many people to the wrong conclusions. If abuse was so prevalent, some seemed to reason, it must have been legal. Illegality, then, did not adequately define how Americans understood or responded to wife abuse. Court rulings did not adequately reflect either the pervasiveness of abuse or society\u27s toleration of it and its consignment of abused wives to continued pain and often horrific suffering. Wife abuse had a resiliency that the law was hopeless to overcome.Still, court decisions need to be considered if only to highlight the suffering--often vividly pictured4--and the tragedy. Indeed, this is a story with a great many \u27if onlys\u27 centered around the legal system, alternate scenarios which might have flowed from openings provided by humane judges: their decisions, their sometimes eloquent words, might have penetrated peoples\u27s psyches if only they had been publicized, made part of the public record by mainstream newspapers or those devoted to women’s oppression; they might have filtered down to lower courts, to magistrates, to justices of the peace, to anyone responsible for maintaining order. Unfortunately, however, often only the horrible was publicized. Judicial attacks on wife abuse scarcely made it out of the legal environment, never had a chance to alter peoples\u27s consciences.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/fac_monographs/1314/thumbnail.jp

The Public Gaze and the Prying Eye : Privacy, Slavery and Wife Abuse in 19th-Century Courts

“It is difficult to define with precision what is and what is not extreme and repeated cruelty,” an Illinois judge noted in 1882. Throughout the century, some courts acted in accordance with the words of an anonymous author of an 1831 piece in the Carolina Law Journal: “The indurance of partial suffering, from incompatibility of tempers, or vicious habits, among married people is an evil vastly less... than that which arises” from easy divorce. Judicially, for some courts the tone had been set by an often cited late eighteenth-century English case, Evans v. Evans. In a long drawn out judgment, Sir William Scott had declared: “the happiness of some individuals must be sacrificed to the greater and more general good.” In New York in 1863 Hannah Solomon accused her husband of attempting to break her arm, of pulling a chair out from under her while she was holding her child, and of kicking her several times. The judge was not convinced she was telling the truth, but in the end he decided it really did not matter. If true, this “single instance” of cruelty “should receive the reprobation of every just person,” but still, it ought to be forgiven. Husbands and wives “should bear long and patiently with each other.” As Iowa Chief Justice Day put it in 1871, “married couples, for the good of their common offspring, the conservation of social order, and the maintenance of general morality, must bear with patience and composure the occasional disquietudes growing out of inharmonious tempers and dispositions.” Ruling in an 1890 case which involved at least one act of violence, “outbursts of temper,” an undescribed incident with a poker,“It is difficult to define with precision what is and what is not extreme and repeated cruelty,” an Illinois judge noted in 1882, although for some judges it hardly mattered. Throughout the century, some courts, fortunately only a minority, acted in accordance with the words of an anonymous author of an 1831 piece in the Carolina Law Journal: “The indurance of partial suffering, from incompatibility of tempers, or vicious habits, among married people is an evil vastly less... than that which arises” from easy divorce. Judicially, for some courts the tone had been set by an often cited late eighteenth-century English case, Evans v. Evans. In a long drawn out judgment, Sir William Scott had declared: “the happiness of some individuals must be sacrificed to the greater and more general good.” In New York in 1863 Hannah Solomon accused her husband of attempting to break her arm, of pulling a chair out from under her while she was holding her child, and of kicking her several times. The judge was not convinced she was telling the truth, but in the end he decided it really did not matter. If true, this “single instance” of cruelty “should receive the reprobation of every just person,” but still, it ought to be forgiven. Husbands and wives “should bear long and patiently with each other.” As Iowa Chief Justice Day put it in 1871, “married couples, for the good of their common offspring, the conservation of social order, and the maintenance of general morality, must bear with patience and composure the occasional disquietudes growing out of inharmonious tempers and dispositions.” Ruling in an 1890 case which involved at least one act of violence, “outbursts of temper,” an undescribed incident with a poker, the display of a pistol, and a broken promise not to drink, a New York Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s grant of separation. It might well be disagreeable for a woman to continue an association with such a man, but “the necessity to endure... is one of the evils attending the marriage state.”1 Or, as Sir William Scott had put it one hundred years earlier, marriage was “for better, for worse,” to be “submitted to with patience” even when it “exhibit[s] a great deal of the misery that clouds human life.”https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/fac_monographs/1313/thumbnail.jp

Disorders of War: The Revolution in South Carolina

Perhaps historians neglected South Carolina because the more populous Massachusetts and Virginia seemed more active in precipitating the Revolution and because they produced men who became presidents and vice presidents. Perhaps they were wooed by the published collections of revolutionary era documents and the massive unpublished private papers. By comparison, few of South Carolina\u27s records have been published and few private papers have survived. There is little personal material for Christopher Gadsden, less still for John Rutledge, and less still for Alexander Gillon. This book is an attempt to help redress the old imbalance, to describe the consequences of American Independence and the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/fac_monographs/1312/thumbnail.jp