background and objective: as apoptotic cell death is extremely involved in physiological development and many pathological situations such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, the understanding of its molecular machinery can be useful in designing new therapeutic strategies. the present study investigated the temporal expression of the proapoptotic protein bax in adult spinal motoneurons. ...

s100ß a neurotrophic factor mainly released by astrocytes, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of bipolar disorder. thus, lithium may exert its neuroprotective effects to some extent through s100ß. furthermore, the possible effects of lithium on astrocytes as well as on interactions between neurons and astrocytes as a part of its mechanisms of actions are unknown. this study was undertaken...

introduction: dark neurons which their morphological characteristics are consistent with those of cells undergoing apoptosis, are generated as an acute or delayed consequence of several pathological situations. the present study was designed to evaluate whether inflammatory pain regarding the role of no and jnk lead to the formation of dark neurons in the dorsal horn of the lumbar spinal cord i...

Staining the entire chain of paravertebral sympathetic ganglia in the bullfrog with an antiserum against porcine neuropeptide Y (NPY) revealed that, in each ganglion, a subpopulation of neurons expresses NPY-like immunoreactivity. Chromaffin cells in the sympathetic ganglia and in the adrenal gland were not stained by the anti-NPY serum. Since neurons in ganglia 9 and 10 of the sympathetic chai...

The results of psychophysical studies suggest that displacement velocity may contribute significantly to the sensation of subcortical somatosensory neurons. The cortical correlates of these phenomena, however, are not known. In the present study the responses of rapidly adapting (RA) neurons in the forelimb region of cat primary somatosensory cortex (SI) to controlled displacement of skin and h...

Introduction: Beta-carboline alkaloids of P. harmala are shown to have immune-modulatory effects in several studies. Extracts of this plant have significant anti-inflammatory effect via the inhibition of some inflammatory mediators including PGE2 and TNF-α. In postmortem studies, structural alterations to the cerebellum have been recognized, including Purkinje cell loss being re...

The songbird area X is a basal ganglia homolog that contains two pallidal cell types-local neurons that project within the basal ganglia and output neurons that project to the thalamus. Based on these projections, it has been proposed that these classes are structurally homologous to the primate external (GPe) and internal (GPi) pallidal segments. To test the hypothesis that the two area X pall...

Hypothalamic proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons are critical for controlling homeostatic functions in mammals. We used a transgenic mouse model in which the POMC neurons were labeled with enhanced-green fluorescent protein (EGFP) to perform visualized, whole-cell patch recordings from pre-pubertal female hypothalamic slices. The mouse POMC-EGFP neurons expressed the same endogenous conductance ...

Several studies revealed that orexins may take part in the regulation of the different forms of affective and cognitive processes during wakefulness. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as an important part of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) have a crucial role in cognitive processes such as reward and decision-making and has a high density of orexin receptor type 1 (...

spasticity is one of the common complications in upper motor neuron lesions and without appropriate treatment it causes disturbances in movement pattern. assessments of patients are effective in patient`s management. modified ashworth scale (mas) is one of the criteria in qualitative assessment of spasticity, and there are lots of controversies about its validity. the purpose of this study is t...