Static Magnetic Stimulation Induces Changes in the Oxidative Status and Cell Viability Parameters in a Primary Culture Model of Astrocytes.

Astrocytes play an important role in the central nervous system function and may contribute to brain plasticity response during static magnetic fields (SMF) brain therapy. However, most studies evaluate SMF stimulation in brain plasticity while few studies evaluate the consequences of SMF at the cellular level. Thus, we here evaluate the effects of SMF at 305 mT (medium-intensity) in a primary culture of healthy/normal cortical astrocytes obtained from neonatal (1 to 2-day-old) Wistar rats.

Enhanced cholinergic-tone during the stress induce a depressive-like state in mice.

Major depressive disorder has a heterogeneous etiology, since it arises from the interaction of multiple factors and different pathophysiological mechanisms are involved in the symptomatology. This study aimed to investigate the role of the cholinergic system in the susceptibility to stress and, consequently, in the depression-like behavior. C57BL/6 mice were treated with Physostigmine (PHYS), an acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor, and were submitted to the social defeat stress.

Participation of group I p21-activated kinases in neuroplasticity.

PAKs are a family of serine/threonine protein kinases activated by small GTPases of the Rho family, including Rac and Cdc42, and are categorized into group I (isoforms 1, 2 and 3) and group II (isoforms 4, 5 and 6). PAK1 and PAK3 are critically involved in biological mechanisms associated with neurodevelopment, neuroplasticity and maturation of the nervous system, and changes in their activity have been detected in pathological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease and mental retardation. The group I PAKs have been associated with neurological processes due to their involvement in intracellular mechanisms that result in molecular and cellular morphological alterations that promote cytoskeletal outgrowth, increasing the efficiency of synaptic transmission.

Participation of hippocampal cholinergic system in memory persistence for inhibitory avoidance in rats.

Memory persistence needs a new event of consolidation 12h after the acquisition. We investigated the role of the cholinergic activity on the persistence of memory. For this purpose, we performed the treatments 9 or 12h after acquisition and the memory tested 2 or 7 days after inhibitory avoidance (IA) training.