Health seeking behavior during high health-risk period: a bibliometric analysis.

Health-seeking behavior represents the actions taken to prevent the disease and promote health. It emphasizes both the illness response and the healthcare utilization driven by perceived threat and effectiveness of the preventive behavior. This study aims to scrutinize the progression of research conducted on health-seeking behavior in high-risk period such as COVID-19 using bibliometric analysis.

Competition between stochastic neuropeptide signals calibrates the rate of satiation.

We investigated how transmission of hunger- and satiety-promoting neuropeptides, NPY and αMSH, is integrated at the level of intracellular signaling to control feeding. Receptors for these peptides use the second messenger cAMP. How cAMP integrates opposing peptide signals to regulate energy balance, and the spatiotemporal dynamics of endogenous peptidergic signaling, remain largely unknown.

A Bioluminescent Activity Dependent (BLADe) Platform for Converting Neuronal Activity to Photoreceptor Activation.

We developed a platform that utilizes a calcium-dependent luciferase to convert neuronal activity into activation of light sensing domains within the same cell. The platform is based on a luciferase variant with high light emission split by calmodulin-M13 sequences that depends on influx of calcium ions (Ca) for functional reconstitution. In the presence of its luciferin, coelenterazine (CTZ), Ca influx results in light emission that drives activation of photoreceptors, including optogenetic channels and LOV domains.

Restoring Function After Severe Spinal Cord Injury Through BioLuminescent-OptoGenetics.

Unlabelled: The ability to manipulate specific neuronal populations of the spinal cord following spinal cord injury (SCI) could prove highly beneficial for rehabilitation in patients through maintaining and strengthening still existing neuronal connections and/or facilitating the formation of new connections. A non-invasive and highly specific approach to neuronal stimulation is bioluminescent-optogenetics (BL-OG), where genetically expressed light emitting luciferases are tethered to light sensitive channelrhodopsins (luminopsins, LMO); neurons are activated by the addition of the luciferase substrate coelenterazine (CTZ). This approach utilizes ion channels for current conduction while activating the channels through the application of a small chemical compound, thus allowing non-invasive stimulation and recruitment of all targeted neurons.

Selective control of synaptically-connected circuit elements by all-optical synapses.

Understanding percepts, engrams and actions requires methods for selectively modulating synaptic communication between specific subsets of interconnected cells. Here, we develop an approach to control synaptically connected elements using bioluminescent light: Luciferase-generated light, originating from a presynaptic axon terminal, modulates an opsin in its postsynaptic target. Vesicular-localized luciferase is released into the synaptic cleft in response to presynaptic activity, creating a real-time Optical Synapse.

Selective postnatal excitation of neocortical pyramidal neurons results in distinctive behavioral and circuit deficits in adulthood.

In genetic and pharmacological models of neurodevelopmental disorders, and human data, neural activity is altered within the developing neocortical network. This commonality begs the question of whether early enhancement in excitation might be a common driver, across etiologies, of characteristic behaviors. We tested this concept by chemogenetically driving cortical pyramidal neurons during postnatal days 4-14.

Imaging voltage and brain chemistry with genetically encoded sensors and modulators.

Neurons and glia are functionally organized into circuits and higher-order structures that allow the precise information processing required for complex behaviors. To better understand the structure and function of the brain, we must understand synaptic connectivity, action potential generation and propagation, as well as well-orchestrated molecular signaling. Recently, dramatically improved sensors for voltage, intracellular calcium, and neurotransmitters/modulators, combined with advanced microscopy provide new opportunities for in vivo dissection of cellular and circuit activity in awake, behaving animals.

Altered Behavior in Mice Socially Isolated During Adolescence Corresponds With Immature Dendritic Spine Morphology and Impaired Plasticity in the Prefrontal Cortex.

Mice socially isolated during adolescence exhibit behaviors of anxiety, depression and impaired social interaction. Although these behaviors are well documented, very little is known about the associated neurobiological changes that accompany these behaviors. It has been hypothesized that social isolation during adolescence alters the development of the prefrontal cortex, based on similar behavioral abnormalities observed in isolated mice and those with disruption of this structure.

Novel luciferase-opsin combinations for improved luminopsins.

Previous work has demonstrated that fusion of a luciferase to an opsin, to create a luminescent opsin or luminopsin, provides a genetically encoded means of manipulating neuronal activity via both chemogenetic and optogenetic approaches. Here we have expanded and refined the versatility of luminopsin tools by fusing an alternative luciferase variant with high light emission, Gaussia luciferase mutant GLucM23, to depolarizing and hyperpolarizing channelrhodopsins with increased light sensitivity. The combination of GLucM23 with Volvox channelrhodopsin-1 produced LMO4, while combining GLucM23 with the anion channelrhodopsin iChloC yielded iLMO4.