Publications by authors named "A Louredo Mendez"

Those with diabetes mellitus are at high-risk of developing psychiatric disorders, especially mood disorders, yet the link between hyperglycemia and altered motivation has not been thoroughly explored. Here, we characterized value-based decision-making behavior of a streptozocin-induced diabetic mouse model on Restaurant Row, a naturalistic neuroeconomic foraging paradigm capable of behaviorally capturing multiple decision systems known to depend on dissociable neural circuits. Mice made self-paced choices on a daily limited time-budget, accepting or rejecting reward offers based on cost (delays cued by tone pitch) and subjective value (flavors), in a closed-economy system tested across months.

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Introduction: Disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBIs), like functional dyspepsia (FD), are prevalent and challenging conditions. In other gastrointestinal (GI) disorders, individuals from underserved areas (UAs) have difficulty accessing care. Little is known about UA FD patient perspectives of their care, especially in those with limited English proficiency (LEP).

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The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) and its receptor (OXTR) have been shown to play an important role in glucose metabolism, and pancreatic islets express this ligand and receptor. In the current study, OXTR expression was identified in α-, β-, and δ-cells of the pancreatic islet by RNA hybridization, and OXT protein expression was observed only in β-cells. In order to examine the contribution of islet OXT/OXTR in glycemic control and islet β-cell heath, we developed a β-cell specific OXTR knock-out (β-KO) mouse.

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CDKN2A is a tumor suppressor located in chromosome 9p21 and frequently lost in Barrett's esophagus (BE) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). How CDKN2A and other 9p21 gene co-deletions affect EAC evolution remains understudied. We explored the effects of 9p21 loss in EACs and cancer progressor and non-progressor BEs with matched genomic, transcriptomic and clinical data.

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