Disturbance of the balance between the production of reactive oxygen species such as superoxide; hydrogen peroxide; hypochlorous acid; hydroxyl, alkoxyl, and peroxyl radicals; and antioxidant defenses against them produces oxidative stress, which amplifies tissue damage by releasing prooxidative forms of reactive iron that are able to drive Fenton chemistry and lipid peroxidation and by eroding...

Naturally occurring variations in maternal care in early postnatal life are associated with the development of individual differences in behavioral and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress in the rat. These effects appear to be mediated by the influence of maternal licking/grooming on the development of central systems that serve to activate (corticotropin-releasing factor) or inh...

Alterations of gastrointestinal (GI) motor function are part of the visceral responses to stress. Inhibition of gastric emptying and stimulation of colonic motor function are the commonly encountered patterns induced by various stressors. Activation of brain corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) receptors mediates stress-related inhibition of upper GI and stimulation of lower GI motor function t...

Chronic neuroinflammation and oxidative stress contribute to the neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer's disease and represent targets for therapy. Ferulic acid is a natural compound that expresses antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Nitric oxide is also a key modulator of inflammatory responses. Grafting a nitric oxide-releasing moiety onto anti-inflammatory drugs results in en...

Variations in maternal care affect the development of individual differences in neuroendocrine responses to stress in rats. As adults, the offspring of mothers that exhibited more licking and grooming of pups during the first 10 days of life showed reduced plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone and corticosterone responses to acute stress, increased hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor messenger RNA...

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) is the hallmark brain peptide triggering the response to stress and mediates-in addition to the stimulation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis-other hormonal, behavioral, autonomic and visceral components. Earlier reports indicate that somatostatin-28 injected intracerebroventricularly counteracts the acute stress-induced ACTH and catecholamine...

this study explored the effects of gnrh agonist (gnrha) immunity on expression of fshr mrna in pituitary and fshr protein in uteri, and also confirmed its efficacy on uterine development. 42 prepuberty and non cyclic ewes were assigned to 6 experimental groups (eg) during anestrus season. animals in eg-i, eg-ii and eg-iii were subcutaneously injected with 200, 300 and 400 μg alarelin antigens (...

The basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) plays a key role in emotional arousal and anxiety, and expresses high levels of corticotropin-releasing factor receptor (CRFR)1. In rat brain slices, we have recently shown that afferent activation of the BLA is increased following application of exogenous corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). Here we examined the impact of chronic unpredictable str...

Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) is a key mediator of endocrine, autonomic, behavioral, and immune responses to stress. The ability of CRH to induce hormonal stress responses has been used to investigate the functionality of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, and consequently the activity of hypothalamic CRH neuronal systems. Indeed, CRH administration to humans causes prompt release...

This study was performed in order to assess whether acute stress can increase mast cell and enterochromaffin (EC) cell numbers, and proteinase-activated receptor-2 (PAR2) expression in the rat colon. In addition, we aimed to investigate the involvement of corticotrophin-releasing factor in these stress-related alterations. Eighteen adult rats were divided into 3 experimental groups: 1) a saline...