Publications by authors named "Berta Sanz Morello"

Background: Progressive retinal ganglion cell (RGC) dysfunction and death are common characteristics of retinal neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, hydroxycarboxylic acid receptor 1 (HCAR, GPR81) was identified as a key modulator of mitochondrial function and cell survival. Thus, we aimed to test whether activation of HCAR with 3,5-Dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHBA) also promotes RGC survival and improves energy metabolism in mouse retinas.

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Increasing evidence indicates that changes in the redox system may contribute to the pathogenesis of multiple optic neuropathies. Optic neuropathies are characterized by the neurodegeneration of the inner-most retinal neurons, the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), and their axons, which form the optic nerve. Often, optic neuropathies are asymptomatic until advanced stages, when visual impairment or blindness is unavoidable despite existing treatments.

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Visual changes are some of the earliest symptoms that patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) experience. Pathophysiological processes such as amyloid-β plaque formation, vascular changes, neuroinflammation, and loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) have been detected in the retina of AD patients and animal models. However, little is known about the molecular processes that underlie retinal neurodegeneration in AD.

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Parvalbumin-positive (PV ) fast-spiking interneurons are essential to control the firing activity of principal neuron ensembles, thereby regulating cognitive processes. The high firing frequency activity of PV interneurons imposes high-energy demands on their metabolism that must be supplied by distinctive machinery for energy generation. Exploring single-cell transcriptomic data for the mouse cortex, we identified a metabolism-associated gene with highly restricted expression to PV interneurons: Cox6a2, which codes for an isoform of a cytochrome c oxidase subunit.

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Astrogliosis as seen in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) develops into astroglial scarring, which is beneficial because it seals off the site of central nervous system (CNS) damage. However, astroglial scarring also forms an obstacle that inhibits axon outgrowth and (re)myelination in brain lesions. This is possibly an important cause for incomplete remyelination in the CNS of early stage MS patients and for failure in remyelination when the disease progresses.

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Cladistians are primitive actinopterygian fishes mostly neglected in neuroanatomical studies. In the present study, the detailed neuroanatomical distribution of orexin (hypocretin)-like immunoreactive (OX-ir) cell bodies and fibers was analyzed in the brain of two species representative of the two extant genera of cladistians. Antibodies against mammalian orexin-A and orexin-B peptides were used.

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