The GANE (glutamate amplifies noradrenergic effects) model proposed by Mather et al. attempts to explain how norepinephrine enhances processing in highly activated brain regions. Careful perusal of the sparse data available from recording studies in animals reveals that noradrenergic neurons are excited mainly by any change in the environment - a salient, novel, or unexpected sensory stimulus o...

MORA, F., E. T. ROLLS, M. J. BURTON AND S. G. SHAW. Effects ofdopamine-receptor blockade on self-stimulation in the monkey. PHARMAC. BIOCHEM. BEHAV. 4(2) 211-216 , 1976. In a do~-response experiment it was shown that intraperitoneal injections of 0.062 mg/kg, and 0.1 mg/kg of the dopamine-receptor blocking agent and neuroleptic spiroperidol severely attenuate self-stimulation in the orbitofront...

Background: Literature findings have suggested that brain morphological changes may underlie behavioral disturbances such as depression. In depressed patients, alteration in the volume of some brain regions were described and in laboratory animals antidepressant treatments change neuronal nuclei volume and axon densities in some brain regions. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep deprivation has anti...

Antidepressants that block the reuptake of noradrenaline and/or serotonin are among the first-line treatments for neuropathic pain, although the mechanisms underlying this analgesia remain unclear. The noradrenergic locus coeruleus is an essential element of both the ascending and descending pain modulator systems regulated by these antidepressants. Hence, we investigated the effect of analgesi...

Our previous studies have suggested that dopamine and noradrenaline may be coreleased from noradrenergic nerve terminals in the cerebral cortex. To further clarify this issue, the effect of electrical stimulation of the locus coeruleus on extracellular noradrenaline, dopamine and DOPAC in the medial prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex and caudate nucleus was analysed by microdialysis in freely m...

Most everyday memories including many episodic-like memories that we may form automatically in the hippocampus (HPC) are forgotten, while some of them are retained for a long time by a memory stabilization process, called initial memory consolidation. Specifically, the retention of everyday memory is enhanced, in humans and animals, when something novel happens shortly before or after the time ...

Using both direct neural recordings and electrical microstimulation, Joshi et al. (2016) show that locus coeruleus (LC) activity closely matches moment-to-moment changes in pupil size. But what causes these two measures to be related is not straightforward.

Age-dependent changes in the axonal branching patterns of single locus coeruleus neurons, which innervate both the frontal cortex and hippocampus dentate gyrus, have been studied in male F344 rats. We used an electrophysiological approach involving antidromic activation to differentiate single from multi-threshold locus coeruleus neurons in each terminal field with age (7-27 mo of age). Most of...

The adrenergic system has an important role in normal central nervous system function as well as in brain disease. The locus coeruleus, the main source of norepinephrine in brain, is involved in the regulation of learning and memory, reinforcement of sleep-wake cycle and synaptic plasticity. In Alzheimer’s disease, locus coeruleus degeneration is observed early in the course of the disease, yea...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder and is characterized pathologically by degeneration of catecholaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta and locus coeruleus, among other regions. Autosomal-recessive juvenile Parkinsonism (ARJP) is caused by mutations in the PARK2 gene coding for parkin and constitutes the most common familial form of...