Within the central nervous system (CNS) ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) is expressed by astrocytes where it remains stored as an intracellular protein; its release and function as an extracellular ligand are thought to occur in the event of cellular injury. We find that overexpression of CNTF in transgenic mice recapitulates the glial response to CNS lesion, as does its injection into the un...

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized clinically by impairments in social interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication skills as well as restricted interests and repetitive behavior. It has been hypothesized that altered brain environment including an imbalance in neurotrophic support during early development contributes to the pathophysiology of autism. Here we report th...

Neurotrophic factor expression in the adult mammalian CNS is largely neuronal. However, upon traumatic injury reactive astrocytes express a number of neurotrophic factors including ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), and NGF. In this study, we examined whether the upregulation of neurotrophic factors in reactive astrocytes and cultured astrocytes is a consequence...

The dentate gyrus of adult mammalian brain contains neural progenitor cells with self-renewal and multi-lineage potential. The lineage and maturation of the neural progenitors are determined by the composition and levels of the trophic factors in their microenvironment. In Alzheimer disease (AD) brain, especially the hippocampus, the level of basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2) is markedly e...

background: the induction of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (bdnf) expression in the hippocampus has shown to play a role in the beneficial effects of resveratrol (rsv) on the learning and memory. the bdnf gene has a complicated structure with eight 5’ noncoding exons (i-ixa), each of which can splice to a common coding exon (ix) to form a functional transcript. estrogens increase levels of ...

The short-term survival of highly purified embryonic spinal motor neurons (SMNs) in culture can be promoted by many peptide trophic factors, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). We have asked whether these peptides are sufficient to pro...

conclusions this study shows that bdnf and ngf expression decreases in diabetic neuropathy. however, this decrease can be reversed through endurance training. these results also indicate that endurance training may have a potential role in compensating for neurotrophin deficiency following diabetic neuropathy. objectives this experimental study was designed and carried out at the tarbiat modare...

First described as a survival factor for chick ciliary ganglion neurons, ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) has recently been shown to promote survival of chick embryo motor neurons. We now report neurotrophic effects of CNTF toward three populations of rat hippocampal neurons, the first demonstration of effects of CNTF upon rodent CNS neurons in culture. CNTF elicited an increase in the neurof...

Oligodendrocytes are vulnerable to CNS injury and disease. Because oligodendrocytes myelinate CNS axons, their death leads to demyelination and impaired axon conductance, which in turn contribute to neurologic deficits. Replacing oligodendrocytes requires proliferation and differentiation of endogenous NG2+ progenitor cells, a process that can be potently influenced by activated macrophages, wh...