Background Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) frequently affects the nervous system (NPSLE), however, its pathogenesis is only partly understood. We have previously characterized behavioral phenotype of NZΒ/W-F1 lupus-prone mouse which recapitulates NPSLE exhibiting hippocampal-linked behavior including depressive-like disorder, anxiety and cognitive impairment both at early late stages disease...

Age-dependent variations in the pathophysiology of blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) may influence efficacy of therapies for mitigation of damage. Since War fighters who sustain bTBI are typically exposed to a combination of blast overpressure (BOP) and a biomechanical perturbation related to acceleration and/or impact, BOP and weight drop injury were combined into a dual insult model...

Within hours after stroke, potentially cytotoxic pro-inflammatory mediators are elevated within the brain; thus, one potential therapeutic strategy is to reduce them and skew the brain toward an anti-inflammatory state. Because interleukin-4 (IL-4) treatment induces an anti-inflammatory, "alternative-activation" state in microglia and macrophages in vitro, we tested the hypothesis that early su...

OBJECTIVE To quantitatively analyze the temporal and spatial pattern of RhoA expression in injured spinal cord of adult mice. METHODS A spinal cord transection model was established in adult mice. At 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 56 and 112 days after the surgery, the spinal cords were dissected and cryosectioned for RhoA/NF200, RhoA/GFAP, RhoA/CNPase or RhoA/IBA1 double fluorescent immunohistochemistry t...

Studies with animal models have suggested that reaction of glia, including microglia and astrocytes, critically contributes to the development and maintenance of chronic pain. However, the involvement of glial reaction in human chronic pain is unclear. We performed analyses to compare the glial reaction profiles in the spinal dorsal horn (SDH) from three cohorts of sex- and age-matched human po...

Binge drinking is common among adolescents, and this type of ethanol exposure may lead to long-term nervous system damage. In the current study, we evaluated motor performance and tissue alterations in the cerebral cortex of rats subjected to intermittent intoxication with ethanol from adolescence to adulthood. Adolescent male Wistar rats (35 days old) were treated with distilled water or ethan...

Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes not only loss of sensory and motor function below the level of injury but also chronic pain, which is difficult and challenging of the treatment. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to the motor cortex, of non-invasive therapeutic methods, has the motor and sensory consequences and modulates pain in SCI-patients. In the present study, we studied t...

Phospholipase D4 (PLD4) is a recently identified protein that is mainly expressed in the ionized calcium binding adapter molecule 1 (Iba1)-positive microglia in the early postnatal mouse cerebellar white matter. Unlike PLD1 and PLD2, PLD4 exhibits no enzymatic activity for conversion of phosphatidylcholine into choline and phosphatidic acid, and its function is completely unknown. In the presen...

BACKGROUND Nasu-Hakola disease (NHD) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by sclerosing leukoencephalopathy and multifocal bone cysts, caused by a loss-of-function mutation of either DAP12 or TREM2. TREM2 and DAP12 constitute a receptor/adaptor signaling complex expressed exclusively on osteoclasts, dendritic cells, macrophages, and microglia. Neuropathologically, NHD exhibits p...

We investigated the fate of proliferating cells in the adult monkey brain after global ischemia. We used the thymidine analogue bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) to label S-phase cells and their progeny in Japanese macaques subjected to global cerebral ischemia for 20 min or to a sham operation. Subsequently, newly generated cells were identified by BrdU immunohistochemistry, and their immunophenotype w...