rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
Glucocorticoid hormones are both a major circadian signal and major stress signal: How this shared signal contributes to a dynamic relationship between the circadian and stress systems.
Frontiers in neuroendocrinology, 2018

Glucocorticoid hormones are a powerful mammalian systemic hormonal signal that exerts regulatory effects on almost every cell and system of the body. Glucocorticoids act in a circadian and stress-directed manner to aid in adaptation to an ever-changing environment. Circadian glucocorticoid secretion provides for a daily waxing and waning influence on target cell function. In addition, the daily circadian peak of glucocorticoid secretion serves as a timing signal that helps entrain intrinsic molecular clock phase in tissue cells distributed throughout the body. Stress-induced glucocorticoid secretion also modulates the state of these same cells in response to both physiological and psychological stressors. We review the strong functional interrelationships between glucocorticoids and the circadian system, and discuss how these interactions optimize the appropriate cellular and systems response to stress throughout the day. We also discuss clinical implications of this dual aspect of glucocorticoid signaling, especially for conditions of circadian and HPA axis dysregulation.
Effects of paternal high-fat diet and rearing environment on maternal investment and development of defensive responses in the offspring.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2018

Paternal preconception risk factors (e.g. stress, diet, drug use) correlate with metabolic dysfunction in offspring, which is often comorbid with depressive and anxiety-like phenotypes. Detection of these risk factors or deleterious phenotypes informs a female about prevailing ecological demands, in addition to potential adverse environment-induced phenotypes that may be disseminated to her offspring. We examined whether a F
Topical MTII Therapy Suppresses Melanoma Through PTEN Upregulation and Cyclooxygenase II Inhibition.
International journal of molecular sciences, 2020

Melanotan II (MTII), a synthetic analogue of the alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH), has been applied for skin tanning in humans. However, the carcinogenic consequence of topical MTII has been equivocal. This study aims to delineate the anti-neoplastic efficacy and mechanism of MTII using the B16-F10 melanoma model in vitro and in vivo. It was found that, despite a lack of influence on proliferation, MTII potently inhibited the migration, invasion, and colony-forming capability of melanoma cells. Moreover, topical MTII application significantly attenuated the tumor progression in mice bearing established melanoma. Histological analysis revealed that MTII therapy induced apoptosis while inhibiting the proliferation and neovaluarization in melanoma tissues. By immunoblot and immunohistochemical analysis, it was found that MTII dose-dependently increased the phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) protein level while reducing PTEN phosphorylation, which resulted in the inhibition of AKT/nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) signaling. Consistently, MTII treatment inhibited cyclooxygenase II (COX-2) expression and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production in melanoma cells. Finally, studies of antibody neutralization suggest that the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) plays a critical role in MTII-induced PTEN upregulation and melanoma suppression. Together, these results indicate that MTII elicits PTEN upregulation via MC1R, thereby suppressing melanoma progression through downregulating COX-2/PGE2 signaling. Hence, topical MTII therapy may facilitate a novel therapeutic strategy against melanoma.
Opposing effects of glutamatergic and GABAergic pharmacological manipulations on a visual perception task with relevance to schizophrenia.
Psychopharmacology, 2015

Numerous psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases have been associated with differences in visual perception, and it has been proposed that the treatment of these differences may represent a novel means to treat disorders like schizophrenia. Unfortunately, few methods exist to study visual perception in pre-clinical species.
N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antibody-mediated neurological disease: results of a UK-based surveillance study in children.
Archives of disease in childhood, 2015

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antibody (NMDAR-Ab) encephalitis is a well-recognised clinico-immunological syndrome that presents with neuropsychiatric symptoms cognitive decline, movement disorder and seizures. This study reports the clinical features, management and neurological outcomes of paediatric NMDAR-Ab-mediated neurological disease in the UK.
Epilepsy mortality trends in Cuba compared with England and Wales: 1987-2010.
Epilepsy & behavior : E&B, 2018

There are limited epilepsy mortality data from developing countries and Latin America in particular. We examined national epilepsy mortality data from Cuba and contrasted them with comparable data from England and Wales. National epilepsy mortality data for Cuba between the years 1987 and 2010 were obtained from the Medical Records and Health Statistics Bureau of the Cuban Public Health Ministry (www.sld.cu/sitios/dne/) with the corresponding mortality data from England and Wales obtained from the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS, www.ons.gov.uk). Indirect standardization with calculation of a standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was used to compare trends. The overall trend was of a slight decrease in mortality rates over the 23 years in Cuba, with higher mortality rates primarily occurring in young people. Annual age-adjusted rates were consistently lower in Cuba than those seen in England and Wales, with the SMR ranging from 0.35 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.30 to 0.48) in 2007 to 1.00 (95% CI: 0.85 to 1.15) in 1994. Cuban epilepsy mortality rates are consistently lower than those of England and Wales. Reasons for this disparity in mortality rates are not immediately apparent but are likely to be multifactorial.
Communication: Potassium Channels Define the Dialect.
Current biology : CB, 2018

Weakly electric fishes use electric pulses to interact with conspecifics, but the molecular origin of species-specific communication is unknown. A new study shows that some properties of the electric fish 'language' are dictated by the activity of a voltage-gated potassium channel in electrocytes.
Binocular eye movements evoked by self-induced motion parallax.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2011

Perception often triggers actions, but actions may sometimes be necessary to evoke percepts. This is most evident in the recovery of depth by self-induced motion parallax. Here we show that depth information derived from one's movement through a stationary environment evokes binocular eye movements consistent with the perception of three-dimensional shape. Human subjects stood in front of a display and viewed a simulated random-dot sphere presented monocularly or binocularly. Eye movements were recorded by a head-mounted eye tracker, while head movements were monitored by a motion capture system. The display was continuously updated to simulate the perspective projection of a stationary, transparent random dot sphere viewed from the subject's vantage point. Observers were asked to keep their gaze on a red target dot on the surface of the sphere as they moved relative to the display. The movement of the target dot simulated jumps in depth between the front and back surfaces of the sphere along the line of sight. We found the subjects' eyes converged and diverged concomitantly with changes in the perceived depth of the target. Surprisingly, even under binocular viewing conditions, when binocular disparity signals conflict with depth information from motion parallax, transient vergence responses were observed. These results provide the first demonstration that self-induced motion parallax is sufficient to drive vergence eye movements under both monocular and binocular viewing conditions.
Graspable Objects Grab Attention More Than Images Do.
Psychological science, 2018

The opportunity an object presents for action is known as an affordance. A basic assumption in previous research was that images of objects, which do not afford physical action, elicit effects on attention and behavior comparable with those of real-world tangible objects. Using a flanker task, we compared interference effects between real graspable objects and matched 2-D or 3-D images of the items. Compared with both 2-D and 3-D images, real objects yielded slower response times overall and elicited greater flanker interference effects. When the real objects were positioned out of reach or behind a transparent barrier, the pattern of response times and interference effects was comparable with that for 2-D images. Graspable objects exert a more powerful influence on attention and manual responses than images because of the affordances they offer for manual interaction. These results raise questions about whether images are suitable proxies for real objects in psychological research.
Loss of peripheral vestibular input alters the statistics of head movement experienced during natural self-motion.
The Journal of physiology, 2021

Sensory systems are adapted to the statistical structure of natural stimuli, thereby optimizing neural coding. Head motion during natural activities is first sensed and then processed by central vestibulo-motor pathways to influence subsequent behaviour, thereby establishing a feedback loop. To investigate the role of this vestibular feedback on the statistical structure of the head movements, we compared head movements in patients with unilateral vestibular loss and healthy controls. We show that the loss of vestibular feedback substantially alters the statistical structure of head motion for activities that require rapid online feedback control and predict this change by modelling the effects of increased movement variability. Our findings suggest that, following peripheral vestibular loss, changes in the reliability of the sensory input to central pathways impact the statistical structure of head motion during voluntary behaviours.
A cluster randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the Implementation of Infant Pain Practice Change (ImPaC) Resource to improve pain practices in hospitalized infants: a study protocol.
Trials, 2020

Hospitalized infants undergo multiple painful procedures daily. Despite the significant evidence, procedural pain assessment and management continues to be suboptimal. Repetitive and untreated pain at this vital developmental juncture is associated with negative behavioral and neurodevelopmental consequences. To address this knowledge to practice gap, we developed the web-based Implementation of Infant Pain Practice Change (ImPaC) Resource to guide change in healthcare professionals' pain practice behaviors. This protocol describes the evaluation of the intervention effectiveness and implementation of the Resource and how organizational context influences outcomes.
Temporally distinct myeloid cell responses mediate damage and repair after cerebrovascular injury.
Nature neuroscience, 2021

Cerebrovascular injuries can cause severe edema and inflammation that adversely affect human health. Here, we observed that recanalization after successful endovascular thrombectomy for acute large vessel occlusion was associated with cerebral edema and poor clinical outcomes in patients who experienced hemorrhagic transformation. To understand this process, we developed a cerebrovascular injury model using transcranial ultrasound that enabled spatiotemporal evaluation of resident and peripheral myeloid cells. We discovered that injurious and reparative responses diverged based on time and cellular origin. Resident microglia initially stabilized damaged vessels in a purinergic receptor-dependent manner, which was followed by an influx of myelomonocytic cells that caused severe edema. Prolonged blockade of myeloid cell recruitment with anti-adhesion molecule therapy prevented severe edema but also promoted neuronal destruction and fibrosis by interfering with vascular repair subsequently orchestrated by proinflammatory monocytes and proangiogenic repair-associated microglia (RAM). These data demonstrate how temporally distinct myeloid cell responses can contain, exacerbate and ultimately repair a cerebrovascular injury.
Comprehensive bioimaging with fluorinated nanoparticles using breathable liquids.
Nature communications, 2015

Fluorocarbons are lipophobic and non-polar molecules that exhibit remarkable biocompatibility, with applications in liquid ventilation and synthetic blood. The unique properties of these compounds have also enabled mass spectrometry imaging of tissues where the fluorocarbons act as a Teflon-like coating for nanostructured surfaces to assist in desorption/ionization. Here we report fluorinated gold nanoparticles (f-AuNPs) designed to facilitate nanostructure imaging mass spectrometry. Irradiation of f-AuNPs results in the release of the fluorocarbon ligands providing a driving force for analyte desorption. The f-AuNPs allow for the mass spectrometry analysis of both lipophilic and polar (central carbon) metabolites. An important property of AuNPs is that they also act as contrast agents for X-ray microtomography and electron microscopy, a feature we have exploited by infusing f-AuNPs into tissue via fluorocarbon liquids to facilitate multimodal (molecular and anatomical) imaging.
The association between blood pressure decreasing rates and survival time in patients with acute intracerebral hemorrhage.
Journal of the neurological sciences, 2019

There was no established consensus on the optimal blood pressure management protocol in patients with acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). This study was to explore the association between blood pressure decreasing rates and survival time in patients with acute ICH.
Activity-dependent degeneration of axotomized neuromuscular synapses in Wld S mice.
Neuroscience, 2015

Activity and disuse of synapses are thought to influence progression of several neurodegenerative diseases in which synaptic degeneration is an early sign. Here we tested whether stimulation or disuse renders neuromuscular synapses more or less vulnerable to degeneration, using axotomy as a robust trigger. We took advantage of the slow synaptic degeneration phenotype of axotomized neuromuscular junctions in flexor digitorum brevis (FDB) and deep lumbrical (DL) muscles of Wallerian degeneration-Slow (Wld(S)) mutant mice. First, we maintained ex vivo FDB and DL nerve-muscle explants at 32°C for up to 48 h. About 90% of fibers from Wld(S) mice remained innervated, compared with about 36% in wild-type muscles at the 24-h checkpoint. Periodic high-frequency nerve stimulation (100 Hz: 1s/100s) reduced synaptic protection in Wld(S) preparations by about 50%. This effect was abolished in reduced Ca(2+) solutions. Next, we assayed FDB and DL innervation after 7 days of complete tetrodotoxin (TTX)-block of sciatic nerve conduction in vivo, followed by tibial nerve axotomy. Five days later, only about 9% of motor endplates remained innervated in the paralyzed muscles, compared with about 50% in 5 day-axotomized muscles from saline-control-treated Wld(S) mice with no conditioning nerve block. Finally, we gave mice access to running wheels for up to 4 weeks prior to axotomy. Surprisingly, exercising Wld(S) mice ad libitum for 4 weeks increased about twofold the amount of subsequent axotomy-induced synaptic degeneration. Together, the data suggest that vulnerability of mature neuromuscular synapses to axotomy, a potent neurodegenerative trigger, may be enhanced bimodally, either by disuse or by hyperactivity.
Cognitive effects of the ANK3 risk variants in patients with bipolar disorder and healthy individuals.
Journal of affective disorders, 2014

Genetic variants within the ankyrin 3 gene (ANK3) have been identified as a risk factor for bipolar disorder. ANK3 influences action potential generation by clustering sodium gated channels and plays an integral role in neurotransmission. Thus, this gene may influence cognition, a process compromised in bipolar disorder. We investigated whether genetic variants of ANK3 would be associated with an array of cognitive functions in patients with bipolar disorder and healthy individuals.
Prenatal choline availability alters the context sensitivity of Pavlovian conditioning in adult rats.
Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), 2008

The effects of prenatal choline availability on Pavlovian conditioning were assessed in adult male rats (3-4 mo). Neither supplementation nor deprivation of prenatal choline affected the acquisition and extinction of simple Pavlovian conditioned excitation, or the acquisition and retardation of conditioned inhibition. However, prenatal choline availability significantly altered the contextual control of these learned behaviors. Both control and choline-deprived rats exhibited context specificity of conditioned excitation as exhibited by a loss in responding when tested in an alternate context after conditioning; in contrast, choline-supplemented rats showed no such effect. When switched to a different context following extinction, however, both choline-supplemented and control rats showed substantial contextual control of responding, whereas choline-deficient rats did not. These data support the view that configural associations that rely on hippocampal function are selectively sensitive to prenatal manipulations of dietary choline during prenatal development.
Learning neural connectivity from firing activity: efficient algorithms with provable guarantees on topology.
Journal of computational neuroscience, 2018

The connectivity of a neuronal network has a major effect on its functionality and role. It is generally believed that the complex network structure of the brain provides a physiological basis for information processing. Therefore, identifying the network's topology has received a lot of attentions in neuroscience and has been the center of many research initiatives such as Human Connectome Project. Nevertheless, direct and invasive approaches that slice and observe the neural tissue have proven to be time consuming, complex and costly. As a result, the inverse methods that utilize firing activity of neurons in order to identify the (functional) connections have gained momentum recently, especially in light of rapid advances in recording technologies; It will soon be possible to simultaneously monitor the activities of tens of thousands of neurons in real time. While there are a number of excellent approaches that aim to identify the functional connections from firing activities, the scalability of the proposed techniques plays a major challenge in applying them on large-scale datasets of recorded firing activities. In exceptional cases where scalability has not been an issue, the theoretical performance guarantees are usually limited to a specific family of neurons or the type of firing activities. In this paper, we formulate the neural network reconstruction as an instance of a graph learning problem, where we observe the behavior of nodes/neurons (i.e., firing activities) and aim to find the links/connections. We develop a scalable learning mechanism and derive the conditions under which the estimated graph for a network of Leaky Integrate and Fire (LIf) neurons matches the true underlying synaptic connections. We then validate the performance of the algorithm using artificially generated data (for benchmarking) and real data recorded from multiple hippocampal areas in rats.
Translation of an evidence-based social skills intervention for children with prenatal alcohol exposure in a community mental health setting.
Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 2012

Children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) have significant social skills deficits and are often treated in community mental health settings. However, it remains unclear whether these children can be effectively treated using manualized, evidence-based interventions that have been designed for more general mental health populations.
Fingolimod enhances myelin repair of hippocampus in pentylenetetrazol-induced kindling model.
European journal of pharmaceutical sciences : official journal of the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2017

Recent evidence indicates that demyelination occurs in epilepsy patients and kindling animal models. Regarding the well-known literature on anti-inflammatory and myelin protective effects of fingolimod (FTY720) in multiple sclerosis patients and animal models, we hypostatized whether FTY720 administration could exert myelin protective effects in pentylenetetrazol (PTZ)-induced kindling model. To end this, animals received 0.3 or 1mg/kg dosage of FTY720, 1h before PTZ injections. In another approach, after achieving fully kindling stage, FTY720 was administrated i.p. once daily for 7 consecutive days. Treatment with FTY720 (especially lower dose) reduced the frequency of seizures and epileptiform discharges in both approaches. We found that FTY720 administration decreases cell death and glial activation in CA1 and CA3 regions of hippocampus. Myelin protection effect was shown by increasing myelin levels. Furthermore, post-treatment of FTY720 enhanced endogenous remyelination and the number of oligodendrocyte precursor cells in fully kindled animals. Together, these results demonstrate that FTY720 behind the anti-inflammatory and neuroprotection effects has beneficial role in myelin protection and remyelination enhancement in PTZ kindling model of seizure and it may be provide a new therapeutic option for demyelination associated with epilepsy.
Advanced Parkinson's or "complex phase" Parkinson's disease? Re-evaluation is needed.
Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996), 2017

Holistic management of Parkinson's disease, now recognised as a combined motor and nonmotor disorder, remains a key unmet need. Such management needs relatively accurate definition of the various stages of Parkinson's from early untreated to late palliative as each stage calls for personalised therapies. Management also needs to have a robust knowledge of the progression pattern and clinical heterogeneity of the presentation of Parkinson's which may manifest in a motor dominant or nonmotor dominant manner. The "advanced" stages of Parkinson's disease qualify for advanced treatments such as with continuous infusion or stereotactic surgery yet the concept of "advanced Parkinson's disease" (APD) remains controversial in spite of growing knowledge of the natural history of the motor syndrome of PD. Advanced PD is currently largely defined on the basis of consensus opinion and thus with several caveats. Nonmotor aspects of PD may also reflect advancing course of the disorder, so far not reflected in usual scale based assessments which are largely focussed on motor symptoms. In this paper, we discuss the problems with current definitions of "advanced" PD and also propose the term "complex phase" Parkinson's disease as an alternative which takes into account a multimodal symptoms and biomarker based approach in addition to patient preference.