Interneurons in lateral part of neostriatum were studied in isolated slices from juvenile rats (16-20 d postnatal) by whole-cell, current-clamp recording at 33-34 degrees C, followed by intracellular staining with biocytin and double immunocytochemical or histochemical staining for parvalbumin, ChAT, and NADPH diaphorase. Medium-sized spiny neurons (MS cells) had distal dendrites with many spin...

Nitric oxide-producing neurons, identified by the presence of neuronal nitric oxyde synthase (nNOS), are widely distributed within the CNS, including regions involved in the control of reproduction and sexual behavior (like the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST), the amygdala, the medial preoptic area (MPA), the mediobasal hypothalamus, or the magnocellular nuclei), where the distributio...

Purified ferredoxin has been shown to inhibit reactions mediated by the flavoprotein ferredoxin-NADP reductase. Ferredoxin inhibits the transfer of electrons from NADPH to ferricyanide (diaphorase activity) to NAD (transhydrogenase) and the photoreduction of pyridine nucleotides during the Hill reaction. On the basis of the kinetics of inhibition, it is suggested that the flavoprotein has two b...

In Dictyostelium discoideum (D. discoideum), compounds generating nitric oxide (NO) inhibit its aggregation and differentiation without altering cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) production. They do it by preventing initiation of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) pulses. Furthermore, these compounds stimulate adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-ribosylation of a 41 kDa cytosolic protein and reg...

The gaseous messenger NO has repeatedly been suggested to play a role in the pathogenesis of psychoses. Following a pilot study, we investigated whether the number of nitrinergic neurons in the putamen of patients suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression is altered. Post-mortem striatum sections of 15 brains from patients with either disease were examined by NADPH-diap...

Intermittent hypobaric hypoxia induces functional and morphological changes of the brain in 25-day-old rats. Administration of magnesium has partial pro-convulsion effect in hypoxia not exposed rats and it practically does not influence the excitability of cortical neurones in rats exposed to intermittent hypoxia. Magnesium administration decreases the number of NADPH-diaphorase neurones in rat...

Astrogliosis, oligodendroglial death and motor deficits have been observed in the offspring of female rats that had their uterine arteries clamped at the 18(th) gestational day. Since nitric oxide has important roles in several inflammatory and developmental events, here we evaluated NADPH-diaphorase (NADPH-d) distribution in the cerebellum of rats submitted to this hypoxia-ischemia (HI) model....

The purpose of this study was to analyze the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate - diaphorase (NADPH-d) activity in the rat jejunum after a mesenteric ischemia/reperfusion injury. Nitric oxide, synthetised from L-arginine by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase, is a nonadrenergic noncholinergic relaxant neurotransmitter of the intestinal smooth muscle. It plays an important role in the pro...