Cortical control of forelimb movement

Cortical control of movement is mediated by wide-spread projections impacting many nervous system regions in a top-down manner. Although much knowledge about cortical circuitry has been accumulated from local cortical microcircuits, cortico-cortical and cortico-subcortical networks, how cortex communicates to regions closer to motor execution, including the brainstem, is less well understood. In this dissertation, we investigate the organization of cortico-medulla projections and their roles in controlling forelimb movement. We focus on anatomical and functional relationships between cortex and lateral rostral medulla (LatRM), a region in caudal brainstem which is shown to be key in the control of forelimb movement. Our findings reveal the precise anatomical and functional organization between different cortical regions and matched postsynaptic neurons in the caudal brainstem, tuned to different phases of one carefully orchestrated behavior, which advance the our knowledge on circuit mechanisms involved in the control of body movements, and unravel the logic of how the top-level control region in the mammalian nervous system – the cortex – intersects with a high degree of specificity with command centers in the brainstem and beyond

Structural and functional map for forelimb movement phases between cortex and medulla

The cortex influences movement by widespread top-down projections to many nervous system regions. Skilled forelimb movements require brainstem circuitry in the medulla; however, the logic of cortical interactions with these neurons remains unexplored. Here, we reveal a fine-grained anatomical and functional map between anterior cortex (AC) and medulla in mice. Distinct cortical regions generate three-dimensional synaptic columns tiling the lateral medulla, topographically matching the dorso-ventral positions of postsynaptic neurons tuned to distinct forelimb action phases. Although medial AC (MAC) terminates ventrally and connects to forelimb-reaching-tuned neurons and its silencing impairs reaching, lateral AC (LAC) influences dorsally positioned neurons tuned to food handling, and its silencing impairs handling. Cortico-medullary neurons also extend collaterals to other subcortical structures through a segregated channel interaction logic. Our findings reveal a precise alignment between cortical location, its function, and specific forelimb-action-tuned medulla neurons, thereby clarifying interaction principles between these two key structures and beyond

Eupatilin attenuates diabetic nephropathy by upregulating matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression in diabetic rat kidney

Purpose: To evaluate the nephro-protective effect of eupatilin in diabetic nephropathic (DN) rats.Method: Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal administration of streptozotocin (STZ, 55 mg/kg) and confirmed by fasting blood glucose results, while DN was determined by measuring serum urea and creatinine levels on day 40 after STZ administration. The eupatilin-treated group received eupatilin at 50 and 100 mg/kg, p.o. for 20 days, after which blood levels of some biochemical parameters, glomerulosclerosis index, eosinophilic cast index, and expression of MMP-9 were determined using standard procedures.Results: Treatment with eupatilin significantly decreased serum levels of glucose, creatinine and urea, and increased creatinine clearance, compared to the negative control group. Moreover, eupatilin attenuated changes in kidney histopathology, and significantly enhanced the expression of MMP-9 in the kidney tissues of the DN rats, relative to negative control group.Conclusion: These results indicate that eupatilin attenuates renal failure in STZ-induced DN rats by upregulating the expression of MMP-9.Keywords: Eupatilin, Streptozotocin, Diabetic nephropathy, MMP-

Pregabalin alleviates postherpetic neuralgia by downregulating spinal TRPV1 channel protein

Purpose: To determine the mechanism involved in pregabalin-induced alleviation of postherpetic neuralgia in a rat model.Methods: Ninety-sixty healthy Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were assigned to sham, model andpregabalin groups (32 rats per group). A model of postherpetic neuralgia (PN) was established. The expressions of IL-1β and TNF-α in spinal cord tissue were determined 7 days after administration of treatments. The proportions of fluorescence areas in astrocytes in the dorsal horn, prefrontal lobe and hippocampus, and level of spinal cord TRPV1 channel protein in each group were evaluated.Results: Relative to model rats, IL-1β and TNF-α in spinal cord of pregabalin rats were significantly reduced (p < 0.05). The areas of fluorescence in astrocytes in dorsal horn of spinal cord, prefrontal lobe and hippocampus of model group were significantly increased, relative to sham, but were decreased in rats in pregabalin group (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Pregabalin significantly alleviates postherpetic neuralgia via mechanisms which may be related to the inflammatory response of spinal dorsal horn and downregulation of TRPV1 channel protein expression. This finding may be useful in developing new drugs for alleviating postherpetic neuralgia

Optofluidic differential spectroscopy for absorbance detection of sub-nanolitre liquid samples

We present a novel optofluidic differential method for carrying out absorbance spectroscopy of subnanolitre volumes of liquid samples on a microfluidic chip. Due to the reduction of liquid volume, the absorbance detection in microfluidics is often hindered by either low sensitivity or complex fabrication. To address this issue, we introduced an optofluidic modulator which can be easily integrated into a PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) based microfluidic chip. The modulator was controlled by the fluid pressure and the absorbance spectrum of the analyte was obtained by taking differential measurements between the analyte and reference medium. An advantage is that this method doesn't need a complicated fabrication step. It is compatible with conventional microfluidic chips and measurements can be carried out on a normal transmission microscope. The performance of the device was tested by measuring solutions containing methylene blue, with concentrations as low as 13 mu M

Effects of Dietary Supplementation of Lauric Acid on Lactation Function, Mammary Gland Development, and Serum Lipid Metabolites in Lactating Mice

Our previous studies demonstrated that lauric acid (LA) stimulated mammary gland development during puberty. However, the roles of LA on lactation in mice remain indeterminate. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary LA supplementation on lactation functioning and to study the potential mechanisms during lactation. in vivo, there was no effect of 1% LA dietary supplementation during lactation on the feed intake or body weight of breast-feeding mice. However, maternal LA supplementation significantly expanded the number of mammary gland alveoli of mice during lactation and the average body weight of the offspring, suggesting that LA supplementation enhanced the development and lactation function of the mammary glands. in vitro, 100 μM of LA significantly increased the content of triglycerides (TG) in the cell supernatant of induced HC11 cells, however, with no effect on the expression of the genes associated with fatty acid synthesis. LA also activated the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signaling pathway. LA dietary supplementation significantly expanded the serum levels of lipid metabolites, including sphingomyelin and other metabolites with the sn-2 position of C12 and sn-1 position of C18 in the TG of the lactating mice. Taken together, dietary supplementation of LA during lactation could promote the lactation function of mice, which might be related to increasing the development of the mammary glands and alternation of serum lipid metabolites. These findings provided more theoretical and experimental basis for the application of lauric acid in the development of mammary glands and lactation function of lactating animals

CAPTCHA design based on moving object recognition problem

Abstract—CAPTCHA is a test that can tell humans and computer programs apart automatically. The aim is to allow the server to identify the visitor is a human or a computer, and only provide services to human. It can improve the current server system and user information security. The static plane visual CAPTCHA based on OCR problems with the advantages of implementation and operation [1] become the mainstream of the current CAPTCHA technology application form. However, with a variety of targeted text segmentation technologies merging, such CAPTCHA based on OCR problems is faced with increasing security threats. In this paper, a new CAPTCHA based on the moving object identification and tracking problems is proposed, which is referred to biological motion vision model. An Innovative Single-frame Zero-knowledge rule is also put forward to make the CAPTCHA generation algorithm based on Edge Mutation. An attacker can log on the test service system, only after he solves the moving object recognition problem. Such animation CAPTCHA will be able to resist the attacks of all the static OCR technology, and resist the mainstream of attacks against the moving object detection