Publications by authors named "Aroa Manas-Ojeda"

Early postnatal development is a critical period for the configuration of neural networks that support social and affective-like behaviors. In this sense, children raised in stressful environments are at high risk to develop maladaptive behaviors immediately or later in life, including anti-social and aggressive behaviors. However, the neurobiological bases of such phenomena remain poorly understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alcohol withdrawal affects social behavior differently in male and female rodents, which can be measured using the three-chamber test; however, traditional automatic tracking methods often yield inaccurate results due to their inability to capture direct interactions.* -
  • The study utilized DeepLabCut, an AI-based pose-estimation toolkit, to score social behavior in mice during alcohol withdrawal and demonstrated that it could detect significant social deficits in female mice, contrary to results from conventional automatic tracking methods like AnyMaze.* -
  • Results indicated that DeepLabCut and manual scoring methods showed strong agreement and lower biases in analyzing social deficits during acute withdrawal, suggesting that this AI approach provides a more accurate assessment of social behavior compared to existing commercial tracking systems.*
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Spatial learning and memory processes depend on anatomical and functional interactions between the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex. A key neurophysiological component of these processes is hippocampal theta rhythm, which can be driven from subcortical areas including the pontine (NI). The NI contains the largest population of neurons that produce and presumably release the neuropeptide, relaxin-3, which acts via the G -protein-coupled receptor, relaxin-family peptide 3 receptor (RXFP3).

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Telencephalic cognitive and emotional circuits/functions are strongly modulated by subcortical inputs. The main focus of past research on the nature of this modulation has been on the widespread monoamine projections to the telencephalon. However, the (NI) of the pontine tegmentum provides a strong GABAergic and peptidergic innervation of the hippocampus, basal forebrain, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and related regions; and represents a parallel source of ascending modulation of cognitive and emotional domains.

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Social and affective relations occur at every stage of our lives. Impairments in the quality of this "social world" can be exceptionally detrimental and lead to psychopathology or pathological behavior, including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, affective disorders, social phobia or violence, among other things. Exposure to highly stressful or traumatic events, depending on the stage of life in which stress exposure occurs, could severely affect limbic structures, including the amygdala, and lead to alterations in social and affective behaviors.

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Neuroinflammation and insulin resistance in the brain are intimately linked to neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Even though traditionally Alzheimer´s disease has been associated to Aβ deposits and hyperphosphorylated Tau intracellular tangles, several studies show that neuroinflammation may be the initial cause that triggers degeneration. Accordingly, a number of natural supplements that improves brain insulin sensitivity and reduce neuroinflammation have been proposed as good choices in the therapeutic prevention of cognitive decline.

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