Cognitive Enhancer Donepezil Attenuates Heroin-Seeking Behavior Induced by Cues in Rats.

Purpose: Opioid use disorder is a significant global problem. Chronic heroin use is associated with impairment of cognitive function and conscious control ability. The cholinergic system can be disrupted following heroin administration, indicating that activation of the cholinergic system may prevent chronic heroin misuse.

Chronic multiple mild stress induces sustained adverse psychological states in rats.

Adverse psychological states are stimulated by multiple types of environmental factors in human being. However, only few animal models of adverse psychological states were established by applying multiple types of stressors to mimic real conditions. A multisensory stress simulation device was designed to apply a combination of stressors to animals.

A Signature of Genes Featuring Revealed Aberrant Fibroblast Activation and Immune Infiltration Properties in Keloid Tissue.

Keloid is a fibroproliferative disorder in the skin, which manifested with extensive deposition of collagen and extracellular matrix. Its etiology remains a mystery and its recurrence rate remains high despite combinative treatment regimens. Current hypotheses of its pathogenesis centered on the role of inflammatory processes as well as immune infiltration in the microenvironment.

Value of a Signature of Immune-Related Genes in Predicting the Prognosis of Melanoma and Its Responses to Immune Checkpoint Blocker Therapies.

Melanoma is becoming increasingly common worldwide, with high rates of transformation into malignancy compared to other skin lesions. The prognosis of patients with melanoma at an advanced stage is highly unsatisfying despite the development of immunotherapy, target therapy, or combinative therapy. The major barrier to exploiting immune checkpoint therapies and achieving the best benefits clinically is resistance that can easily develop if regimens are not selected appropriately.

Efficacy of uremic pruritus treatment in patients undergoing hemodialysis, a network meta-analysis for randomized clinical trials.

Introduction: Uremic pruritus is very common in hemodialysis or renal failure patients, there were lots of available treatments such as gabapentin, pregabalin, ondansetron, etc. However, there is no quantified study comparing these treatments together, it is impossible to conduct a clinical trial involving so many treatments, so we conduct a network meta-analysis to compare them.

Method: We collected mean difference and standard error of visual analogue scale data as outcome.

Reciprocal Substitution Between Methamphetamine and Heroin in Terms of Reinforcement Effects in Rats.

Heroin and methamphetamine are both popular illicit drugs in China. Previous clinical data showed that habitual users of either heroin or methamphetamine abuse the other drug for substitution in case of unavailability of their preferred drug. The present study aimed to observe whether heroin can substitute the methamphetamine reinforcement effect in rats, and vice versa.

Cognitive enhancers as a treatment for heroin relapse and addiction.

Heroin addiction is a disorder that stems from maladaptive plasticity within neural circuits and produces broad cognitive deficits. Despite considerable advances in psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for heroin relapse and addiction, effective treatments for heroin use disorder are still lacking. Increasing preclinical evidence indicates that heroin seeking behavior is persistent after withdrawal, while cognitive dysfunctions associated with chronic heroin use are an important contributing factor to risk of heroin relapse and addiction.

N-acetylaspartylglutamate Inhibits Heroin Self-Administration and Heroin-Seeking Behaviors Induced by Cue or Priming in Rats.

Activation of presynaptic group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR2/3) inhibits drug reward and drug-seeking behavior, but the role of N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG), an agonist of endogenous mGluR2/3, in heroin reward and heroin-seeking behavior remained unclear. Here, we aimed to explore the effects of exogenous NAAG on heroin self-administration and heroin-seeking behavior. First, rats were trained to self-administer heroin under a fixed ratio 1 (FR1) schedule for 10 days, then received NAAG (50 or 100 μg/10 μL in each nostril) in the absence or presence of LY341495 (1 mg/kg, i.

Cloning, expression, purification and characterization of the cholera toxin B subunit and triple glutamic acid decarboxylase epitopes fusion protein in Escherichia coli.

Induction of specific immunological unresponsiveness by oral autoantigens such as glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 (GAD65) is termed oral tolerance and may be a potential therapy for autoimmune diabetes. However, the requirement for large amounts of protein will limit clinical testing of autoantigens, which are difficult to produce. Mucosal adjuvants such as cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) may lower the level of autoantigens required.

[COX-2 mediates U50488H-induced delayed cardioprotection in isolated rat heart].

Objective: To determine whether U50488H, a selective agonist of kappa-opioid receptor, could induce biphasic (early and late) cardioprotection against myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury and to explore the underlying mechanisms.

Methods: Isolated perfused rat hearts were subjected to 30 min of ischemia followed by 120 min reperfusion and the cardiac function was evaluated.

Result: Left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP), left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP) and maximal velocity of contraction and relaxation (+/-dP/dtmax) were improved when U50488H was administered 1 or 24 h before ischemia (P<0.