Neurobehavioral development prior to term-age of preterm infants and acute stressful events during neonatal hospitalization.

Background: Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) protect preterm infants; otherwise, this is a stressful environment including painful stimuli.

Aims: To compare early neurobehavioral development prior to term-age in preterm infants at 34-36weeks of post-conceptional age in different gestational ages, and to examine the effects of prematurity level and acute stressful events during NICU hospitalization on neurobehavioral development.

Study Design: Cross-sectional design.

Proteomic analysis of the nucleus accumbens of rats with different vulnerability to cocaine addiction.

Vulnerability to the addictive effects of drugs of abuse varies among individuals, but the biological basis of these differences are poorly known. This work tries to increase this knowledge by comparing the brain proteome of animals with different rate of extinction of cocaine-seeking behaviour. To achieve this goal, we used a place-preference paradigm to separate Sprague Dawley rats in two groups: rats that extinguished (E) and rats that did not extinguish (NE) cocaine-seeking behaviour after a five-day period of drug abstinence.

Elastic image registration of 2-D gels for differential and repeatability studies.

One of the main applications of electrophoretic 2-D gels is the analysis of differential responses between different conditions. For this reason, specific spots are present in one of the images, but not in the other. In some other occasions, the same experiment is repeated between 2 and 12 times in order to increase statistical significance.

Morphine and yohimbine regulate midkine gene expression in the rat hippocampus.

Pleiotrophin and midkine are two recently discovered growth factors that promote survival and differentiation of catecholaminergic neurons. Chronic opioid stimulation has been reported to induce marked alterations of the locus coeruleus-hippocampus noradrenergic pathway, an effect that is prevented when opioids are coadministered with the alpha2-adrenoceptor antagonist yohimbine. The present work tries to examine a possible link between yohimbine reversal of morphine effects and pleiotrophin/midkine activation in the rat hippocampus by studying the levels of expression of pleiotrophin and midkine in response to acute and chronic administration of morphine, yohimbine and combinations of both drugs.

Yohimbine prevents morphine-induced changes of glial fibrillary acidic protein in brainstem and alpha2-adrenoceptor gene expression in hippocampus.

The alpha(2)-adrenoceptor antagonist yohimbine is known to oppose to several pharmacological effects of opioid drugs, but the consequences and the mechanisms involved remain to be clearly established. In the present study we have checked the effects of yohimbine on morphine-induced alterations of the expression of key proteins (glial fibrillary acidic protein, GFAP) and genes (alpha(2)-adrenoceptors) in rat brain areas known to be relevant in opioid dependence, addiction and individual vulnerability to drug abuse. Rats were treated with morphine in the presence or absence of yohimbine.

The alpha2-adrenoceptor antagonist yohimbine reduces glial fibrillary acidic protein upregulation induced by chronic morphine administration.

Previous literature data show prominent interactions between alpha(2)-adrenoceptor ligands and opioid drugs, however, the nature of such interactions is still largely unknown. In the present study, we aimed to examine the potential protective effect of yohimbine, a alpha(2)-adrenoceptor antagonist, against glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) alterations elicited by chronic morphine treatment. Increased astrogliosis, as indicated by increased GFAP immunohistochemical staining, was observed in the ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens shell, and frontal cortex of chronic morphine-treated (10 mg kg(-1), i.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel 2-(1H-imidazol-4-yl)cyclopropane carboxylic acids: key intermediates for H3 histamine receptor ligands.

A new synthetic methodology to provide cis-2-(1H-imidazol-4-yl)-cyclopropane carboxylic acids is described. These cyclopropanes are useful for the preparation of novel H(3) receptor agents.