Finneganmohamad2893

Interestingly, abundant PrPres was reduced in brains of mice infected with prion strain when treated with BMD42- 2910, and the mice survived longer than control mice and even that treated with BMD42-29. see more Finally, high binding affinity was predicted in the virtual binding sites (Asn159, Gln 160, Lys194, and Glu196) when PrPC was combined with BMD-42-2910. Our findings showed that BMD42-2910 sufficiently reduces PrPres generation in vitro and in vivo and may be a promising novel anti-prion compound.An important challenge in Parkinson's disease (PD) based neuroscience and neuroimaging is mapping the neuronal connectivity of the basal ganglia to understand how the disease affects brain circuitry. However, a majority of diffusion tractography studies have shown difficulties in revealing connections between distant anatomic brain regions and visualizing basal ganglia connectome. In this current study, we investigated the differences in basal ganglia connectivity between 6-OHDA induced ex-vivo PD mouse model and normal ex-vivo mouse model by using diffusion tensor imaging tractography from diffusion-weighted images obtained with a high resolution 9.4 T MR scanner. Connectivity pattern of the basal ganglia were compared between five 6-OHDA and five control ex-vivo mouse brains using results of probabilistic tractography generated with PROBTRACKX. When compared with control mouse, 6-OHDA mouse showed significant enhancements to motor territory-related subthalamopallidal and pallido-subthalamic connectivity. Multi-fiber tractography combined with diffusion MRI data has the potential to help recognize the abnormalities found in connectivity of psychiatric and neurologic disease models.Many previous studies have shown reduced glucose uptake in the ischemic brain. In contrast, in a permanent unilateral common carotid artery occlusion (UCCAO) mouse model, our pilot experiments using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET) revealed that a subset of mice exhibited conspicuously high uptake of glucose in the ipsilateral hemisphere at 1 week post-occlusion (asymmetric group), whereas other mice showed symmetric uptake in both hemispheres (symmetric group). Thus, we aimed to understand the discrepancy between the two groups. Cerebral blood flow and histological/metabolic changes were analyzed using laser Doppler flowmetry and immunohistochemistry/Western blotting, respectively. Contrary to the increased glucose uptake observed in the ischemic cerebral hemisphere on FDG PET (p less then 0.001), cerebral blood flow tended to be lower in the asymmetric group than in the symmetric group (right to left ratio [%], 36.4±21.8 vs. 58.0±24.8, p=0.059). Neuronal death was observed only in the ischemic hemisphere of the asymmetric group. In contrast, astrocytes were more activated in the asymmetric group than in the symmetric group (p less then 0.05). Glucose transporter-1, and monocarboxylate transporter-1 were also upregulated in the asymmetric group, compared with the symmetric group (p less then 0.05, respectively). These results suggest that the increased FDG uptake was associated with relatively severe ischemia, and glucose transporter-1 upregulation and astrocyte activation. Glucose metabolism may thus be a compensatory mechanism in the moderately severe ischemic brain.Neuron-glial antigen-2 (NG2) glia undergo proliferation and morphological changes following brain insults. Here, we show that NG2 glia is activated in a characteristic time- and layer-specific manner in the ischemia-vulnerable CA1 region of the rat hippocampus. Resting NG2 glia of the pyramidal cell layer (somatic region) shared morphological features with those of the neighboring dendritic stratum radiatum. During the postischemic period, reactive NG2 glia of the pyramidal cell layer exhibited shortened, scarcely branched processes, while those of the stratum radiatum had multiple branching processes with their arborization being almost indiscernible 7~14 days after reperfusion. Immunoelectron microscopy demonstrated that NG2 immunoreactivity was specifically associated with the plasma membrane and the adjacent extracellular matrix of NG2 glia in the stratum radiatum at 14 days. NG2 glia also exhibited differences in their numbers and proliferation profiles in the two examined hippocampal strata after ischemia. In addition, induced NG2 expression in activated microglia/macrophages exhibited a characteristic strata-dependent pattern in the ischemic CA1 hippocampus. NG2 induction was prominent in macrophage-like phenotypes which were predominantly localized in the pyramidal cell layer, compared with activated stellate microglial cells in the stratum radiatum. Thus, our data demonstrate that activation of NG2 glia and the induction of NG2 expression in activated microglia/macrophages occur in a distinct time- and layer-specific manner in the ischemic CA1 hippocampus. These characteristic profiles of reactive NG2 glia could be secondary to the degeneration processes occurring in the cell bodies or dendritic domains of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons after ischemic insults.Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) encode various spatiotemporal features of visual information into spiking patterns. The receptive field (RF) of each RGC is usually calculated by spike-triggered average (STA), which is fast and easy to understand, but limited to simple and unimodal RFs. As an alternative, spike-triggered covariance (STC) has been proposed to characterize more complex patterns in RFs. This study compares STA and STC for the characterization of RFs and demonstrates that STC has an advantage over STA for identifying novel spatiotemporal features of RFs in mouse RGCs. We first classified mouse RGCs into ON, OFF, and ON/OFF cells according to their response to full-field light stimulus, and then investigated the spatiotemporal patterns of RFs with random checkerboard stimulation, using both STA and STC analysis. We propose five sub-types (T1-T5) in the STC of mouse RGCs together with their physiological implications. In particular, the relatively slow biphasic pattern (T1) could be related to excitatory inputs from bipolar cells.