Background: Chronic social stress triggers the development of major depression in humans and depression-like behavior in animal models. Hyperexcitability of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has been implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. The HPA axis is tightly controlled by GABAergic inhibition at the level of corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons in the paraven...

Temperature trends in the UTLS region are under-reported, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, and yet temperature is one of the most important indicators of changes in dynamical and radiative processes in the atmosphere. Here radiosonde data from Durban, South Africa (30.0 S, 30.9 E) over the period 1980 to 2001 (22 years) between 250 and 20 hPa are used to derive a mean temperature climat...

BACKGROUND Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system activation is adaptive in response to stress, and HPA dysregulation occurs in stress-related psychopathology. It is important to understand the mechanisms that modulate HPA output, yet few studies have addressed the neural circuitry associated with HPA regulation in primates and humans. Using high-resolution F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron...

Exercise can activate the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, and regular exercise training can impact how the HPA axis responds to stress. The mechanism by which acute exercise induces HPA activity is unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that nitric oxide modulates the neuroendocrine component of the HPA axis during exercise. Female Yucatan mini...

Pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH) is one pregnant related disease. Heparanase (HPA) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) are important degradation enzymes of extracellular matrix. This study established PIH rat model, on which low molecular heparin sodium was applied to analyze its effect on HPA and MMP-9 expression. SPF grade healthy Wistar rats were generated for PIH model using nitro L ...

BACKGROUND The HPA-1 alloimmune system carried by the platelet integrin αIIbβ3 is the primary cause of alloimmune thrombocytopenia in Caucasians and the HPA-1b allele might be a risk factor for thrombosis. HPA-1a and -1b alleles are defined by a leucine and a proline, respectively, at position 33 in the β3 subunit. Although the structure of αIIbβ3 is available, little is known about structural ...

In recent years, special attention is being paid to sex differences in susceptibility to disease. In this regard, there is evidence that male rats present higher levels of both cued and contextual fear conditioning than females. However, little is known about the concomitant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response to those situations which are critical in emotional memories. Here, we...

Chronic stress is capable of exacerbating each major, modifiable, endogenous risk factor for cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease. Indeed, exposure to stress can increase both the incidence and severity of stroke, presumably through activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Now that characterization of the mechanisms underlying epigenetic programming of the HPA axis is ...