Neuropathy is one of the most debilitating complications of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, with estimates of prevalence between 50-90% depending on the means of detection. Diabetic neuropathies are heterogeneous and there is variable involvement of large myelinated fibers and small, thinly myelinated fibers. Many of the neuronal abnormalities in diabetes can be duplicated by experimental depl...

The development of nerve connections is thought to involve competition among axons for survival promoting factors, or neurotrophins, which are released by the cells that are innervated by the axons. Although the notion of competition is widely used within neurobiology, there is little understanding of the nature of the competitive process and the underlying mechanisms. We present a new theoreti...

The cross-talk between the immune and nervous systems is becoming an interesting field of research and there is accumulating evidence supporting this notion. In the present study we investigated the levels of nerve growth factor in a murine model of cutaneous leishmaniasis, using a two-site ELISA. Two strains of inbred mice were used for this purpose, namely BALB/c and C57BL/6, genetically susc...

Meningitis is one of the most common infectious cerebral nervous system (CNS), defined as an inflammation of the meninges. It is clinically categorized into a chronic and acute based on the acuity of symptoms. Vomiting, bulging fontanel and fever are the main symptoms in the patients with meningitis. Bacterial meningitis is a severe, potentially life-threatening infection that is associated wit...

Nerve growth factor is a therapeutic candidate for Alzheimer's disease. Due to its pain-inducing activity, in current clinical trials nerve growth factor is delivered locally into the brain by neurosurgery, but data on the efficacy of local nerve growth factor delivery in decreasing amyloid-β deposition are not available. To reduce the nerve growth factor pain-inducing side effects, thus avoidi...

Although trophic factors and neuronal activity have been implicated in regulating functional synaptic circuits, the relationship of trophic interaction to impulse activity in synaptogenesis remains unclear. Using cultured hippocampus as a model system, we provide direct evidence that depolarization and impulse activity specifically increase nerve growth factor gene expression in neurons. Depola...