Current smoking cessation therapies offer limited success, as relapse rates remain high. Nicotine, which is the major component of tobacco smoke, is thought to be primarily responsible for the addictive properties of tobacco. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying nicotine relapse, hampering development of more effective therapies. The objective of this study was to ...

An increase in the activity of brain stem locus coeruleus noradrenergic neurons has been hypothesised to be a major factor accounting for opiate withdrawal symptoms. These neurons are under GABAergic inhibition. Their GABAA receptors have unique pharmacological properties, most likely due to the enriched expression of GABAA receptor subtypes containing novel å and è subunits. Using in situ hybr...

Ethanol produces changes in GABAA receptor trafficking and function that contribute to ethanol dependence symptomatology. Extrasynaptic γ-aminobutyric acid A receptors (GABAA-R) mediate inhibitory tonic current and are of particular interest because they are potentiated by physiologically relevant doses of ethanol. Here, we isolate GABAA α4δ receptors by western blotting in subsynaptic fraction...

Idiopathic Absence Epilepsies (IAE) are complex syndromes with a strong genetic component. Childhood absence Epilepsy (CAE) is a common form of IAE, affecting children between the age of 3 and 8 years old and that has been associated with mutations in the GABAA receptor. Particularly, a R43Q mutation on the 2 subunit, which impairs GABAA receptor function, has been clearly linked to CAE in ani...

Chronic benzodiazepine treatment can produce tolerance and changes in g-aminobutyric acid (GABA)A receptors. To study the effect of treatment on a selected population of receptors, assays were performed using [H]RY-80, which is selective for GABAA receptors with an a5 subunit. Rats were given a flurazepam treatment known to produce tolerance and down-regulation of benzodiazepine binding, or a d...

Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) is produced by the process of fermentation whereby plant sugars are converted to ethanol by yeast. Products of fermentation include mead from honey, wine from grapes, sake from rice, and beer from grains. Fermented products can also be distilled, for example when whisky is distilled from grains (Herbst and Herbst, 2003). The history of voluntary ethanol use by humans dat...

background: testosterone and its metabolites have important roles in learning and memory. the current study has conducted to assess the effect of pre-training, post-training and pre-probe trial intrahippocampal ca1 administration of 3 alpha-anderostanediol (one of the metabolites of testosterone) and indomethacin (as 3 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzyme blocker) on acquisition, consolida...

silver nanoparticles are increasingly used in various fields of biotechnology and applications in the medicine. objectives of this study were optimization of production of silver nanoparticles using biotransformations by fusarium oxysporum, and a further study on the location of nanoparticles synthesis in this microorganism. the reaction mixture contained the following ingredients (final concen...