Parkinson's Disease and Systemic Inflammation

Peripheral inflammation triggers exacerbation in the central brain's ongoing damage in several neurodegenerative diseases. Systemic inflammatory stimulus induce a general response known as sickness behaviour, indicating that a peripheral stimulus can induce the synthesis of cytokines in the brain. In Parkinson's disease (PD), inflammation was mainly associated with microglia activation that can underlie the neurodegeneration of neurons in the substantia nigra (SN). Peripheral inflammation can transform the “primed” microglia into an “active” state, which can trigger stronger responses dealing with neurodegenerative processes. Numerous evidences show that systemic inflammatory processes exacerbate ongoing neurodegeneration in PD patient and animal models. Anti-inflammatory treatment in PD patients exerts a neuroprotective effect. In the present paper, we analyse the effect of peripheral infections in the etiology and progression in PD patients and animal models, suggesting that these peripheral immune challenges can exacerbate the symptoms in the disease

Visually Grounded Meaning Representations

In this paper we address the problem of grounding distributional representations of lexical meaning. We introduce a new model which uses stacked autoencoders to learn higher-level representations from textual and visual input. The visual modality is encoded via vectors of attributes obtained automatically from images. We create a new large-scale taxonomy of 600 visual attributes representing more than 500 concepts and 700K images. We use this dataset to train attribute classifiers and integrate their predictions with text-based distributional models of word meaning. We evaluate our model on its ability to simulate word similarity judgments and concept categorization. On both tasks, our model yields a better fit to behavioral data compared to baselines and related models which either rely on a single modality or do not make use of attribute-based input

Neuroinflammation in cortical and meningeal pathology in multiple sclerosis: understanding from animal models

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative and inflammatory disease usually presenting with acute demyelinating events that can start as, or progress to, chronic damage. The development of animal experimental models, specific for each stage of MS will aid in the design of new drugs specific for the different forms of the disease. Animal models of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis successfully reflect the pathophysiological mechanisms of the early phases of MS. However, few models resemble the features of the progressive forms of MS such as cortical demyelination and meningeal inflammation. Recently, a few auspicious animal models recapitulating many of the characteristics of progressive MS, aimed at a better understanding of the pathology of these forms of the disease, have been developed. In this review, we will summarize the latest developments in animal models reflecting the cortical and meningeal pathological features of progressive MS, as well as their response to drugs specifically targeting for these forms.Fil: Silva, Berenice Anabel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Medicina Traslacional E Ingenieria Biomedica. - Hospital Italiano. Instituto de Medicina Traslacional E Ingenieria Biomedica. - Instituto Universitario Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Medicina Traslacional E Ingenieria Biomedica.; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Miglietta, Esteban Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Ferrari, Carina Cintia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Medicina Traslacional E Ingenieria Biomedica. - Hospital Italiano. Instituto de Medicina Traslacional E Ingenieria Biomedica. - Instituto Universitario Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Medicina Traslacional E Ingenieria Biomedica.; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Neurogenic niche modulation by activated microglia: Transforming growth factor β increases neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus

Adult neural stem cells (NSC) proliferate and differentiate depending on the composition of the cellular and molecular niche in which they are immersed. Until recently, microglial cells have been ignored as part of the neurogenic niche. We studied the dynamics of NSC proliferation and differentiation in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus (DG) and characterized the changes of the neurogenic niche in adrenalectomized animals (ADX). At the cellular level, we found increased NSC proliferation and neurogenesis in the ADX animals. In addition, a morphologically distinct subpopulation of NSC (Nestin+/GFAP-) with increased proliferating profile was detected. Interestingly, the number of microglial cells at stages 2 and 3 of activation correlated with increased neurogenesis (r2 = 0.999) and the number of Nestin-positive cells (r2 = 0.96). At the molecular level, transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) mRNA levels were increased 10-fold in ADX animals. Interestingly, TGF-β levels correlated with the amount of neurogenesis detected (r 2 = 0.99) and the number of stage 2 and 3 microglial cells (r 2 = 0.94). Furthermore, blockade of TGF-β biological activity by administration of an anti-TGF-β type II receptor antibody diminished the percentage of 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU)/q1PSA-NCAM-positive cells in vivo. Moreover, TGF-β was able to promote neurogenesis in NSC primary cultures. This work supports the idea that activated microglial cells are not pro- or anti-neurogenic per se, but the balance between pro- and anti-inflammatory secreted molecules influences the final effect of this activation. Importantly, we identified an anti-inflammatory cytokine, TGF-β, with neurogenic potential in the adult brain.Fil: Battista, Daniela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Ferrari, Carina Cintia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Gage, Fred H.. Salk Institute for Biological Studies; Estados UnidosFil: Pitossi, Fernando Juan. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Models of Semantic Representation with Visual Attributes

We consider the problem of grounding the meaning of words in the physical world and focus on the visual modality which we represent by visual attributes. We create a new large-scale taxonomy of visual attributes covering more than 500 concepts and their corresponding 688K images. We use this dataset to train attribute classifiers and integrate their predictions with text-based distributional models of word meaning. We show that these bimodal models give a better fit to human word association data compared to amodal models and word representations based on handcrafted norming data.

Comparative study of some numerical schemes for a fractional order model of HIV infection treatment

A fractional order mathematical model that already exists in the literature, was considered. This model was established to study the effects of medicinal treatment in people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The importance of this study is that the model evaluates, among other parameters, the density of healthy and HIV-infected CD$4^+$ T cells. These data are very necessary for the subject infected by the virus given the effects that an antiretroviral treatment causes in it. The objective of this work is to consider several numerical schemes that involve fractional derivatives in order to compare their behaviors and to obtain a good approximation of the mentioned model solution. Convergence of these schemes will be studied as well as sensitivity with respect to the variation of the parameters eta (drug efficacy) and alpha (fractional derivative order). Furthermore, through the collection of medical records of people living with HIV, it is intended to determine the optimal fractional derivative order for the model and to compare it with the classical model.Fil: Ferrari, Alberto José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura. Escuela de Formación Básica; ArgentinaFil: Lara, Luis Pedro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Física de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Instituto de Física de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Olguin, Mariela Carina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura. Escuela de Formación Básica; ArgentinaFil: Santillan Marcus, Eduardo Adrian. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura. Escuela de Formación Básica; Argentin

Central and systemic IL-1 exacerbates neurodegeneration and motor symptoms in a model of Parkinson‘s disease

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder with uncertain aetiology and ill-defined pathophysiology. Activated microglial cells in the substantia nigra (SN) are found in all animal models of Parkinson's disease and patients with the illness. Microglia may, however, have detrimental and protective functions in this disease. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that a sub-toxic dose of an inflammogen (lipopolysaccharide) can shift microglia to a pro-inflammatory state and exacerbate disease progression in an animal model of Parkinson's disease. Central lipopolysaccharide injection in a degenerating SN exacerbated neurodegeneration, accelerated and increased motor signs and shifted microglial activation towards a pro-inflammatory phenotype with increased interleukin-1β (IL-1β) secretion. Glucocorticoid treatment and specific IL-1 inhibition reversed these effects. Importantly, chronic systemic expression of IL-1 also exacerbated neurodegeneration and microglial activation in the SN. In vitro, IL-1 directly exacerbated 6-OHDA-triggered dopaminergic toxicity. In vivo, we found that nitric oxide was a downstream molecule of IL-1 action and partially responsible for the exacerbation of neurodegeneration observed. Thus, IL-1 exerts its exacerbating effect on degenerating dopaminergic neurons by direct and indirect mechanisms. This work demonstrates an unequivocal association between IL-1 overproduction and increased disease progression, pointing to inflammation as a risk factor for Parkinson's disease and suggesting that inflammation should be efficiently handled in patients to slow disease progression.Fil: Pott Godoy, María Clara. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Departamento de Físico Matemática. Cátedra de Matemáticas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Tarelli, Rodolfo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Departamento de Físico Matemática. Cátedra de Matemáticas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; ArgentinaFil: Ferrari, Carina Cintia. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Departamento de Físico Matemática. Cátedra de Matemáticas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; ArgentinaFil: Sarchi, María Inés. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Departamento de Físico Matemática. Cátedra de Matemáticas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; ArgentinaFil: Pitossi, Fernando Juan. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Departamento de Físico Matemática. Cátedra de Matemáticas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular; Argentin

Las colecciones óseas humanas del Museo Nacional de Antropología del Uruguay

El Museo Nacional de Antropología de Uruguay, creado en el año 1981, cuenta en su acervo con colecciones arqueológicas, etnográficas y folklóricas, conformadas desde el siglo XIX hasta el presente. Las diferentes formas de ingreso, las técnicas empleadas durante la recuperación y/o adquisición de los materiales, el registro, los trabajos y análisis practicados, han generado un producto muy heterogéneo, tanto en la información como en la forma de tratamiento y conservación de los mismos. Desde al año 1995, se comienzan las tareas iniciales de mejoras de las condiciones de los reservorios, aplicando nuevos estándares de conservación y realizando un inventario general básico. A partir de allí, comienzan a generarse proyectos puntuales en relación a las diferentes colecciones con la finalidad de sistematizar su información, generar nuevos conocimientos y mejorar las condiciones de almacenamiento, acceso y preservación. En esta línea de trabajo, a finales del año 2008, se inicia el Proyecto "Reacondicionamiento, Registro y Análisis de las Colecciones Oseas Humanas". En esta oportunidad, presentamos los resultados parciales de la Primera Etapa del Proyecto entre los que destacamos la elaboración de una Base de Datos, donde se sistematizó la información lograda hasta el presente, que incluye entre otros, los datos del contexto de hallazgo, la biografía de los restos, publicaciones y/o trabajos realizados sobre este material por diferentes investigadores, contexto arqueológico y el análisis bioantropológico realizado por el equipo. Los resultados hasta el presente han permitido un acceso y monitoreo más eficiente de las colecciones y de su información en el marco de las actividades de investigación y conservación que debe desarrollar todo museo.Comunicaciones libres: Temas variosAsociación de Antropología Biológica de la República Argentin

Environmental enrichment improves cognitive symptoms and pathological features in a focal model of cortical damage of multiple sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a neuroinflammatory disease affecting white and grey matter, it is characterized by demyelination, axonal degeneration along with loss of motor, sensitive and cognitive functions. MS is a heterogeneous disease that displays different clinical courses: relapsing/remitting MS (RRMS), and MS progressive forms: primary progressive (PPMS) and secondary progressive (SPMS). Cortical damage in the progressive MS forms has considerable clinical relevance due to its association with cognitive impairment and disability progression in patients. One treatment is available for the progressive forms of the disease, but none are specific for cognitive deficits. We developed an animal model that reflects most of the characteristics of the cortical damage, such as cortical neuroinflammation, demyelination, neurodegeneration and meningeal inflammation, which was associated with cognitive impairment. Cognitive rehabilitation, exercise and social support have begun to be evaluated in patients and animal models of neurodegenerative diseases. Environmental enrichment (EE) provides exercise as well as cognitive and social stimulation. EE has been demonstrated to exert positive effects on cognitive domains, such as learning and memory, and improving anxiety-like symptoms. We proposed to study the effect of EE on peripherally stimulated cortical lesion induced by the long term expression of interleukin IL-1β (IL-1β) in adult rats. Here, we demonstrated that EE: 1) reduces the peripheral inflammatory response to the stimulus, 2) ameliorates cognitive deficits and anxiety-like symptoms, 3) modulates neurodegeneration, demyelination and glial activation, 4) regulates neuroinflammation by reducing the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and enhancing the expression of anti-inflammatory ones. Our findings correlate with the fact that EE housing could be considered an effective non- pharmacological therapeutic agent that can synergistically aid in the rehabilitation of the disease.Fil: Silva, Berenice Anabel. Instituto Universidad Escuela de Medicina del Hospital Italiano; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Leal, Maria Celeste. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Farias, Maria Isabel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Erhardt, Brenda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Galeano, Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Pitossi, Fernando Juan. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Ferrari, Carina Cintia. Instituto Universidad Escuela de Medicina del Hospital Italiano; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentin

DETERMINATION OF THE PHYSICAL-CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF SOLID WASTE FOR USE IN THE PYROLYSIS PROCESS

Brazil is still very incipient in the use of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) for the generation of fuels and electric energy. Law No. 12.305/10 establishes the National Solid Waste Policy (NSWP), considered efficient and adequate for solving the problems caused by MSW. However,  NSWP is considered a process of high cost when compared to  landfill. Due to the need to seek clean and renewable forms of energy, the pyrolysis process can be an alternative in the  primary energy production. This is a thermochemical conversion process, which occurs at high temperatures and involves several chemical reactions, whose liquid organic aqueous fraction is called bio-oil. This work studied the physicochemical characteristics of some types of waste (food scraps, cardboard and paper) and their potential for power generation. The samples presented similar elemental composition and the moisture content for energy generation: 7 % for food scraps (FS), 6 % for cardboard and 4 % for paper. Thermogravimetric analysis were performed to establish that the optimum temperature pyrolysis, in addition to determining  the ash content, values above 20 % may cause loss of energy in the process or soot in the liquid fraction. The lowest  heating value (LHV) presented typical values of biomasses, between 13 MJ/kg and 20/MJ kg. Considering the obtained results, these samples presented energetic potential for use in the pyrolysis process