Editor's Note: These short reviews of a recent paper in the Journal, written exclusively by graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, are intended to mimic the journal clubs that exist in your own departments or institutions. For more information on the format and purpose of the Journal Club, please see Review of Larsen et al. Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movem...

Methylphenidate (MPD) modulates dopamine (DA) overflow in part by redistributing vesicle pools, a function shared by the presynaptic protein α-synuclein (α-syn). We suggest that α-syn modifies the effect of MPD on DA neurotransmission. The effect was studied in the dorsal striatum in wild-type mice and two mouse lines lacking α-syn by using in vivo voltammetry and microdialysis. MPD (1 mg/kg) a...

The formation of Lewy bodies containing α-synuclein (α-syn), prominent loss of dopaminergic neurons and dopamine (DA) deficiency in substantia nigra and striatum are histopathological and biochemical hallmarks of Parkinson's disease (PD). Multiple lines of evidence have indicated that a critical pathogenic factor causing PD is enhanced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which reacts r...

Address correspondence to: Farah A. Ramírez-Marrero, PhD, MSc, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus,Department of Physical Education and Recreation, PO Box 23311, San Juan, PR 00931-3311. Email: [email protected] Objective: Hispanics in Puerto Rico (PR) have a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome (met-syn), partially explained by low physical activity (PA) and possibly low cardio...

The protein α-synuclein (α-Syn) has a central role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD) and immunotherapeutic approaches targeting this molecule have shown promising results. In this study, novel antibodies were generated against specific peptides from full length human α-Syn and evaluated for effectiveness in ameliorating α-Syn-induced cell death and behavioral deficits in an AAV-α-...

Overexpression of human alpha-synuclein (alpha-syn) using recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors provides a novel tool to study neurodegenerative processes seen in Parkinson's disease and other synucleinopathies. We used a pseudotyped rAAV2/5 vector to express human wild-type (wt) alpha-syn, A53T mutated alpha-syn, or the green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the primate ventral midbrai...

The chigger mite genus Leptotrombidium Nagayo, Miyagawa, Mitamura and Imamura, 1916 is reviewed using literature data. For 340 larval species brief diagnoses, synonymy, data on type hosts and type localities are provided. The genus is divided into species-groups based on morphological evidence enabling easier establishment of group-membership of un-known specimens in the future. Some species gr...

Eighteen species of the bee genus Sphecodes are recorded from the Russian Far East. Sphecodes orientalis Astafurova & Proshchalykin, sp. nov. is described from Primorskiy Territory, Jewish Autonomous Province, Khabarovsk Territory and Sakhalin. Five species: S. laticaudatus Tsuneki 1983, S. nippon Meyer 1922, S. okuyetsu Tsuneki 1983, S. simillimus Smith 1873, and S. tanoi Tsuneki 1983 are reco...

Probiotics (PRO) are known to modulate immunity in animals and human subjects and to inhibit colon carcinogenesis in experimental models, but the effects of synbiotics (SYN) are not well understood. Therefore, the effects of PRO (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12), PRE (inulin-based enriched with oligofructose, 100 g/kg) and SYN (combination of PRO and PRE) on the immun...