Subchronic vortioxetine enhances cortical activity

Vortioxetine (VOR) is a multimodal antidepressant drug. VOR is a 5-HT3-R, 5-HT7-R and 5-HT1D-R antagonist, 5-HT1B-R partial agonist, 5-HT1A-R agonist, and serotonin transporter (SERT) inhibitor. VOR shows pro-cognitive activity in animal models and beneficial effects on cognitive dysfunction in major depressive patients. Here we compared the effects of 14-day treatments with VOR and escitalopram (ESC, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) on neuronal activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Ten groups of rats (5 standard, 5 depleted of 5-HT with p-chlorophenylalanine-pCPA-, used as model of cognitive impairment) were fed with control food or with two doses of VOR-containing food. Four groups were implanted with minipumps delivering vehicle or ESC 10 mg/kg·day s.c. The two VOR doses enable occupation by VOR of SERT+5-HT3-R and all targets, respectively, and correspond to SERT occupancies in patients treated with 5 and 20 VOR mg/day, respectively. Putative pyramidal neurons (n=985) were recorded extracellularly in the mPFC of anesthetized rats. Sub-chronic VOR administration (but not ESC) significantly increased neuronal discharge in standard and 5-HT-depleted conditions, with a greater effect of the low VOR dose in standard rats. VOR increased neuronal discharge in infralimbic (IL) and prelimbic (PrL) cortices. Hence, oral VOR doses evoking SERT occupancies similar to those in treated patients increase mPFC neuronal discharge. The effect in 5-HT-depleted rats cannot be explained by an antagonist action of VOR at 5-HT3-R and suggests a non-canonical interaction of VOR with 5-HT3-R. These effects may underlie the superior pro-cognitive efficacy of VOR compared with SSRIs in animal modelsSupported by Lundbeck A/S and grants: SAF2015-68346-P (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, co-financed by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)) and PI12/00156 (Instituto de Salud Carlos III, co-financed by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)). Support from the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM) and Generalitat de Catalunya Grup de Recerca Consolidat, 2014SGR798 is also acknowledgedPeer reviewe

Synchronized activity in the main and accessory olfactory bulbs and vomeronasal amygdala elicited by chemical signals in freely behaving mice

Chemosensory processing in mammals involves the olfactory and vomeronasal systems, but how the activity of both circuits is integrated is unknown. In our study, we recorded the electrophysiological activity in the olfactory bulbs and the vomeronasal amygdala in freely behaving mice exploring a battery of neutral and conspecific stimuli. The exploration of stimuli, including a neutral stimulus, induced synchronic activity in the olfactory bulbs characterized by a dominant theta rhythmicity, with specific theta-gamma coupling, distinguishing between vomeronasal and olfactory structures. The correlated activation of the bulbs suggests a coupling between the stimuli internalization in the nasal cavity and the vomeronasal pumping. In the amygdala, male stimuli are preferentially processed in the medial nucleus, whereas female cues induced a differential response in the posteromedial cortical amygdala. Thus, particular theta-gamma patterns in the olfactory network modulates the integration of chemosensory information in the amygdala, allowing the selection of an appropriate behaviour

NeuroLab: Sistema de adquisición y análisis de registros neurofisiológicos

El registro de la actividad eléctrica extracelular constituye el método principal de análisis del comportamiento y función de neuronas y redes neuronales en estudios experimentales invasivos. Se describe un nuevo programa, NeuroLab, desarrollado para la adquisición, visualización y análisis de este tipo de registros. Permite obtener ficheros de hasta 16 canales de campo, unitarios y estimulación. Se han incluido funciones básicas para facilitar al usuario la comprobación de la adquisición correcta, tanto durante la misma (reproducción visual y acústica) como posteriormente mediante opciones de procesado digital. Su concepción modular permite incrementar sus prestaciones añadiendo nuevas funciones a las ya existentes, y el procesado posterior de los datos adquiridos amplía las posibilidades de análisis de este tipo de estudios frente a soluciones comerciales cerradas

Real-Time Localization of Epileptogenic Foci EEG Signals: An FPGA-Based Implementation

The epileptogenic focus is a brain area that may be surgically removed to control of epileptic seizures. Locating it is an essential and crucial step prior to the surgical treatment. However, given the difficulty of determining the localization of this brain region responsible of the initial seizure discharge, many works have proposed machine learning methods for the automatic classification of focal and non-focal electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. These works use automatic classification as an analysis tool for helping neurosurgeons to identify focal areas off-line, out of surgery, during the processing of the huge amount of information collected during several days of patient monitoring. In turn, this paper proposes an automatic classification procedure capable of assisting neurosurgeons online, during the resective epilepsy surgery, to refine the localization of the epileptogenic area to be resected, if they have doubts. This goal requires a real-time implementation with as low a computational cost as possible. For that reason, this work proposes both a feature set and a classifier model that minimizes the computational load while preserving the classification accuracy at 95.5%, a level similar to previous works. In addition, the classification procedure has been implemented on a FPGA device to determine its resource needs and throughput. Thus, it can be concluded that such a device can embed the whole classification process, from accepting raw signals to the delivery of the classification results in a cost-effective Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA device. This real-time implementation begins providing results after a 5 s latency, and later, can deliver floating-point classification results at 3.5 Hz rate, using overlapped time-windows

"L'organiste de Sollana", escena 2, sainet interpretat pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols

Representació del sainet "L'organiste de Sollana" (1917), de Vicent Martí Molina, pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols, de Castelló, dirigit per Rafael Lloret Teruel, a la I Mostra de teatre i folklore valencià, al Grau de Castelló, juliol del 1980

"L'organiste de Sollana", escena 21, sainet interpretat pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols

Representació del sainet "L'organiste de Sollana" (1917), de Vicent Martí Molina, pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols, de Castelló, dirigit per Rafael Lloret Teruel, a la I Mostra de teatre i folklore valencià, al Grau de Castelló, juliol del 1980

"L'organiste de Sollana", escena 11, sainet interpretat pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols

Representació del sainet "L'organiste de Sollana" (1917), de Vicent Martí Molina, pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols, de Castelló, dirigit per Rafael Lloret Teruel, a la I Mostra de teatre i folklore valencià, al Grau de Castelló, juliol del 1980

"L'organiste de Sollana", escena 7, sainet interpretat pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols

Representació del sainet "L'organiste de Sollana" (1917), de Vicent Martí Molina, pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols, de Castelló, dirigit per Rafael Lloret Teruel, a la I Mostra de teatre i folklore valencià, al Grau de Castelló, juliol del 1980

"L'organiste de Sollana", escena 23, sainet interpretat pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols

Representació del sainet "L'organiste de Sollana" (1917), de Vicent Martí Molina, pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols, de Castelló, dirigit per Rafael Lloret Teruel, a la I Mostra de teatre i folklore valencià, al Grau de Castelló, juliol del 1980

"L'organiste de Sollana", escena 11, sainet interpretat pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols

Representació del sainet "L'organiste de Sollana" (1917), de Vicent Martí Molina, pel grup de teatre Tragapinyols, de Castelló, dirigit per Rafael Lloret Teruel, a la I Mostra de teatre i folklore valencià, al Grau de Castelló, juliol del 1980