Astragalus membranaceus is a medicinal plant traditionally used in China for a variety of conditions, including inflammatory and neural diseases. Astragalus polysaccharides are shown to reduce the adverse effect of levodopa which is used to treat Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the neuroprotective effect of Astragalus polysaccharides per se in PD is lacking. Using Caenorhabditis elegans mode...

Nonimmunosuppressant immunophilin ligands have been found previously to stimulate neurite growth in culture and to promote regeneration of peripheral and central nerve fibers in vivo. To further characterize the effectiveness of these ligands, we have investigated the effect of the immunophilin ligand GPI-1046 in 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned rats. In unlesioned rats, tetanic stimulation ...

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and the 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) lesioned rat model share blink abnormalities. In view of the evolutionarily conserved organization of blinking, characterization of blink reflex circuits in rodents may elucidate the neural mechanisms of PD reflex abnormalities. We examine the extent of this shared pattern of blink abnormalities by measuring blink reflex excit...

OBJECTIVE High frequency stimulation (HFS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is recognized as an effective treatment of advanced Parkinson's disease. However, the neurochemical basis of its effects remains unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of STN HFS in intact and 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned hemiparkinsonian rat model on changes of principal neurotransmitters, ...

In postnatal tissues, angiogenesis occurs in nontumoral conditions on appropriate stimuli. In the nervous tissue, hypoxia, neural graft, increased neural function, and synaptic activity are associated with neoangiogenesis. We have investigated the occurrence of neoangiogenesis in the superior cervical ganglia (scg) of newborn rats treated for 8--21 days with 6-hydroxy-dopamine (6-OHDA), nerve g...

Depression is a frequent comorbid disorder in Parkinson's disease (PD) which may precede appearance of its motor symptoms by several years. Pathomechanisms underlying PD have been suggested to be responsible for the PD-related depression. The aim of the study was to examine the influence of a partial lesion of striatal dopaminergic terminals on the "depressive-like" behavior of rats in the forc...

It is important to elucidate the mechanism of dysautonomias in patients with Parkinson's disease; therefore, this study aimed to investigate the cardiovascular and autonomic changes that occur in an animal model of Parkinsonism. Adult male Wistar rats were anesthetized before bilateral microinfusions of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) into the substantia nigra. The sham group underwent the same surg...

In the present study, changes in the neuronal activity of serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) and the effect of the selective 5-HT1A receptor antagonist WAY-100635 in a rat model of Parkinson’s disease (PD) were investigated by using extracellular single unit recording. Rat model of PD was produced by microinjection of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) into the substantia nigra pars...

We have shown that buspirone, a partial agonist of 5-hydroxytryptamine 1A (5-HT1A) receptors, improves motor dysfunctions induced by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) and haloperidol in rats. The present work extends these findings by investigating the role of 5-HT1A receptors on catalepsy-like immobilization in rats, a model of Parkinson's disease. Catalepsy was induced by unilateral infusion of 6-OH...

A novel bis-lipoyl derivative containing 8-hydroxyquinoline scaffold (LA-HQ-LA, 5) was synthesized as a new multifunctional drug candidate with antioxidant, chelant, and neuroprotective properties for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. We have investigated the potential effectiveness of LA-HQ-LA against the cytotoxicity induced by 6-OHDA and H2O2 on human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cell li...