Recognition, presence, and survival of locust central nervous glia in situ and in vitro.

Insect glial cells serve functions for the formation, maintenance, and performance of the central nervous system in ways similar to their vertebrate counterparts. Characterization of physiological mechanisms that underlie the roles of glia in invertebrates is largely incomplete, partly due to the lack of markers that universally label all types of glia throughout all developmental stages in various species. Studies on primary cell cultures from brains of Locusta migratoria demonstrated that the absence of anti-HRP immunoreactivity, which has previously been used to identify glial cells in undissociated brains, can also serve as a reliable glial marker in vitro, but only in combination with a viability test.

Effect of interleukin-10 gene polymorphisms on clinical outcome of patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: an exploratory study.

Purpose: Current chemotherapy can achieve high response rates in aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), but the factors that influence regression and survival remain unknown. The present exploratory study tested the hypothesis whether interleukin-10 (IL-10) polymorphisms predict clinical outcome, leukocytopenia, or infectivity during therapy. IL-10 was chosen because immune alterations are a major risk factor for NHL, and IL-10 is a cytokine involved in inflammatory processes associated with clinical outcome.

Muscarinic excitation in grasshopper song control circuits is limited by acetylcholinesterase activity.

The species- and situation-specific sound production of grasshoppers can be stimulated by focal application of both nicotinic and muscarinic receptor agonists into the central body complex of the protocerebrum. Pressure injection of the intrinsic transmitter acetylcholine only elicits fast and short-lived responses related to nicotinic receptor-mediated excitation. Prolonged sound production that includes complex song patterns requires muscarinic receptor-mediated excitation.

Postactivation inhibition of spontaneously active neurosecretory neurons in the medicinal leech.

Spontaneously active neurosecretory neurons in vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems share similarities in firing frequencies, spike shapes, inhibition by the transmitters they themselves release and postactivation inhibition, an intensity-dependent period of suppressed spontaneous generation of action potentials following phases of high-frequency activity. High-frequency activation of spontaneously active serotonin-containing Retzius cells in isolated ganglia of the leech Hirudo medicinalis induced prolonged membrane hyperpolarisations causing periods of postactivation inhibition of up to 33 s. The duration of the inhibitory periods was directly related to both the number and rate of spikes during activation and was inversely proportional to a cell's spontaneous firing frequency.