Background The chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9ORF72) has been proposed as the causative gene of frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism (FTDP), but its pathophysiological mechanism is poorly understood. Method To explore roles striatal motor subdivisions in pathogenesis resulting from C9ORF72 repeat expansions FTDP, two patients FTDP one pedigree and seventeen healthy controls were enr...

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by degeneration of motor neurons resulting in muscle atrophy. In contrast to the lower neurons, role upper (cortical) ALS yet unclear. Maturation locomotor networks supported dopaminergic (DA) projections from substantia nigra spinal cord and striatum. Objective: To examine contribution DA mediation striatum-cortex progression. Me...

Parkinson's disease results from the death of the dopamine-containing neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNC). This is accompanied by a loss of dopamine in brain regions, such as the corpus striatum, which receives input from dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN). Since the corpus striatum is the primary target for these dopaminergic neurons, it has long been thought tha...

BACKGROUND Dyskinesias associated with involuntary movements and painful muscle contractions are a common and severe complication of standard levodopa (L-DOPA, L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine) therapy for Parkinson's disease. Pathologic neuroplasticity leading to hyper-responsive dopamine receptor signaling in the sensorimotor striatum is thought to underlie this currently untreatable condition. ...

Motivated behavior exhibits properties that change with experience and partially dissociate among a number of brain structures. Here, we review evidence from rodent experiments demonstrating that multiple brain systems acquire information in parallel and either cooperate or compete for behavioral control. We propose a conceptual model of systems interaction wherein a ventral emotional memory ne...

Introduction. Few published studies have examined the role of glia-neuron interactions in neurodegen-eration. In this regard, search for new experimental models is important. L-alpha-aminoadipic acid (L-AA), being a structural analogue glutamate with selective toxic effect on astroglia, particular interest. However, morphological and neurochemical changes caused by L-AA still remain unclear. Th...

The basal ganglia (BG), and more specifically the striatum, have long been proposed to play an essential role in action-selection based on a reinforcement learning (RL) paradigm. However, some recent findings, such as striatal spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) or lateral connectivity, require further research modelling their respective roles are still not well understood. Theoretical mod...

Humans appear to have an inherent prosocial tendency toward one another in that we often take pleasure in seeing others succeed. This fact is almost certainly exploited by game shows, yet why watching others win elicits a pleasurable vicarious rewarding feeling in the absence of personal economic gain is unclear. One explanation is that game shows use contestants who have similarities to the vi...

This study investigates differential neural activation patterns in response to reward-related feedback depending on various reward contingencies. Three types of reward contingencies were compared: a "gain" contingency (a monetary reward for correct answer/no monetary penalty for incorrect answer); a "lose" contingency (no monetary reward for correct answer/a monetary penalty for incorrect answe...