Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)-induced post-traumatic headache (PTH) is a pressing public health concern and leading cause of disability worldwide. Although PTH is often accompanied by neurological disorders, the exact underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. Identifying potential biomarkers may prompt the diagnosis and development of effective treatments for mTBI-induced PTH.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInositol requiring enzyme 1 (IRE1) is generally thought to control the most conserved pathway in the unfolded protein response (UPR). Two isoforms of IRE1, IRE1α and IRE1β, have been reported in mammals. IRE1α is a ubiquitously expressed protein whose knockout shows marked lethality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSynapse loss in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been implicated in stress-related mood disorders, such as depression. However, the exact effect of synapse elimination in the depression and how it is triggered are largely unknown. Through repeated longitudinal imaging of mPFC in the living brain, we found both presynaptic and postsynaptic components were declined, together with the impairment of synapse remodeling and cross-synaptic signal transmission in the mPFC during chronic stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpecificity protein (Sp) is a famous family of transcription factors including Sp1, Sp2 and Sp3. Sp1 is the first one of Sp family proteins to be characterized and cloned in mammalian. It has been proposed that Sp1 acts as a modulator of the expression of target gene through interacting with a series of proteins, especially with transcriptional factors, and thereby contributes to the regulation of diverse biological processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnimal contextual fear conditioning (CFC) models are the most-studied forms used to explore the neural substances of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In addition to the well-recognized hippocampal-amygdalar system, the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) is getting more and more attention due to substantial involvement in CFC, but with a poor understanding of the specific roles of its two major constituents-dysgranular (RSCd) and granular (RSCg). The current study sought to identify their roles and underlying brain network mechanisms during the encoding processing of the rat CFC model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHypothermia is an important protective strategy against global cerebral ischemia following cardiac arrest. However, the mechanisms of hypothermia underlying the changes in different regions and connections of the brain have not been fully elucidated. This study aims to identify the metabolic nodes and connection integrity of specific brain regions in rats with global cerebral ischemia that are most affected by hypothermia treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing is widely applied to mimic human disorders, whether acute manipulation of disease-causing genes in the brain leads to behavioral abnormalities in non-human primates remains to be determined. Here we induced genetic mutations in MECP2, a critical gene linked to Rett syndrome (RTT) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), in the hippocampus (DG and CA1-4) of adolescent rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) in vivo via adeno-associated virus (AAV)-delivered Staphylococcus aureus Cas9 with small guide RNAs (sgRNAs) targeting MECP2. In comparison to monkeys injected with AAV-SaCas9 alone (n = 4), numerous autistic-like behavioral abnormalities were identified in the AAV-SaCas9-sgMECP2-injected monkeys (n = 7), including social interaction deficits, abnormal sleep patterns, insensitivity to aversive stimuli, abnormal hand motions, and defective social reward behaviors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBehav Brain Res
February 2021
The burden of depression is enormous, and numerous studies have found that major depressive disorder (MDD) induces cardiovascular disorders (CVD) and functional dyspepsia (FD). Excitingly, meranzin hydrate (MH), an absorbed bioactive compound of Aurantii Fructus Immaturus, reverses psychosocial stress-induced mood disorders, gastrointestinal dysfunction and cardiac disease. Pharmacological methods have repeatedly failed in antidepressant development over the past few decades, but repairing aberrant neural circuits might be a reasonable strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is commonly observed in Parkinson's disease (PD), even in the early stages. However, the neural substrates of cognitive impairment in PD remain unclear. The aim of the current study was to investigate the change of local brain function in PD patients with MCI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccurate dosimetry of a specific brain region in rats exposed to an electromagnetic field (EMF) is essential for studies focusing on dose-effect relationship of the region. However, only dosimetry of whole brain or whole body were evaluated in most of previous studies. In this study, a numerical voxel rat model with 10 segmented brain regions was constructed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncidence of diabetes has increased dramatically. Consequently, diabetes-induced cognitive impairment has attracted increasing attention. This study aimed to explore the changes in brain structure in the diabetic rats with and without cognitive impairment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDysfunction of neuronal activity is a major and early contributor to cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD). To investigate neuronal activity alterations at early stage of AD, we encompassed behavioral testing and in vivo manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI) in 5XFAD mice at early ages (1-, 2-, 3- and 5-month). The 5XFAD model over-express human amyloid precursor protein (APP) and presenilin 1 (PS1) harboring five familial AD mutations, which have a high APP expression correlating with a high burden and an accelerated accumulation of the 42 amino acid species of amyloid-β.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: People exposed to stressful experience are at increased risk of the development of depression. A number of functional imaging studies have found disturbances in the mood-regulating circuit of the stress-exposed depressed patients, although few animal imaging studies have been undertaken addressing the brain functional changes of depression.
Methods: Two rat models of depression: maternal separation (MS) and chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS), imitating early life stress and adult stress respectively, were administered with escitalopram.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med
October 2015
Acupoint specificity is a foundational concept in acupuncture theory. It is closely related to the function of the acupoint. In this study, we sought to probe the central mechanisms of the specific correlation between LI4 and orofacial part in Bell's palsy patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Recent studies have suggested that rehabilitation therapy can accelerate functional recovery after a stroke. Although often overlooked, the cortical hemisphere contralateral to an infarction plays an important role. This study investigates alterations in metabolism of both the damaged ('ipsilateral') as well as the undamaged ('contralateral') hemisphere using (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-micro-positron emission tomography (PET) in a rat permanent stroke model (with or without post-injury exercise) in order to elucidate the relative importance of either hemisphere to the recovery process following stroke.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvid Based Complement Alternat Med
June 2013
Objectives. Acupoint specificity is the foundation of acupuncture treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the acupoint specificity exists in two adjacent acupoints.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo investigate fluctuations in the amplitude of low-frequency blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI during acute brain ischemia, and to evaluate the use of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) in resting state fMRI for assessing super-acute focal cerebral ischemic stroke. A super-acute stroke model with middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in the rat was employed. Spontaneous fluctuations were recorded using a series of gradient echo-planar imaging (EPI) images before and 30 min, 60 min, 2 h, 6 h, 12 h, and 24 h after MCAO.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExposure to early life stress results in behavioural changes, and these dysfunctions may persist throughout adulthood. In this study, we investigated whether hippocampus volume and neurochemical changes were involved in the appearance of these effects in the maternal separation (MS) animal model using the noninvasive techniques of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Sprague-Dawley rats exposed to MS for 180 min from postnatal days (PND) 2-14 demonstrated decreased sucrose preference, increased immobility in the forced swimming test (FST), and impaired memory in the Morris water maze in adulthood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF