Equity and Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Non-communicable diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, are the leading cause of decreased life expectancy and death in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although a lifestyle, which includes no tobacco use, good nutrition, and regular physical activity is touted as key to health, the environmental, racial, social and economic conditions, which underpin lifestyle are often ignored or considered only secondarily. Placing the main responsibility on a patient to change their lifestyle or to simply comply with pharmacological treatment ignores the specific conditions in which the individual lives.

Upregulation of GH, but not IGF1, in the hippocampus of the lactating dam after kainic acid injury.

Lactation embodies a natural model of morphological, neurochemical, and functional brain plasticity. In this reproductive stage, the hippocampus of the female is less sensitive to excitotoxins in contrast to nulliparity. Growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) are known to be neuroprotective in several experimental models of brain lesion.

Reproductive Stage and Modulation of Stress-Induced Tau Phosphorylation in Female Rats.

Chronic stress is implicated as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders. Although the specific mechanisms linking stress exposure and AD vulnerability have yet to be fully determined, our laboratory and others have shown that acute and repeated restraint stress in rodents leads to an increase in hippocampal tau phosphorylation (tau-P) and tau insolubility, a critical component of tau pathology in AD. Although tau phosphorylation induced by acute psychological stress is dependent on intact signaling through the type 1 corticotropin-releasing factor receptor, how sex steroids or other modulators contribute to this effect is unknown.

Lactation is a natural model of hippocampus neuroprotection against excitotoxicity.

Lactation is a temporary but complex physiological condition in which hormones and neurogenic stimulation from suckling cause maternal brain plasticity. It has been shown that lactation prevents cell damage induced by excitotoxicity in the dorsal hippocampus of the dam after peripheral administration of kainic acid (KA). The aim of this study was to determine whether lactation protects the maternal hippocampus against damage induced by intracerebral application (ICV) of KA and if lactation decreases, or only delays, this damaging effect of KA.

Changes in c-Fos and NOS expression in the PVH of lactating rats in response to excitotoxicity and stress.

This study investigated how lactation modified the expression patterns of Fos and nitric oxide synthase in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVH) induced by excitotoxicity and stress. Kainic acid or egg white treatment weakly activated Fos expression in the PVH of lactating in comparison to diestrus or ovariectomized (OVX) rats. Labels for NADPH-diaphorase and nNOS revealed a different distribution pattern in the PVH depending on the physiological condition and challenge.

Fos expression induced by milk ingestion in the caudal brainstem of neonatal rats.

Prominent Fos expression in the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) related to feeding has been reported in the brainstem of adult animals. In this study, we used a Fos-guided immunohistochemical approach to determine the brainstem areas activated specifically in response to milk ingestion in rat pups at two different ages. Rats at 9 or 18 days postpartum were isolated from the mother for a 6-h period, after which they were returned to the mother for a suckling period of either 5 or 90 min and then perfused at 90 min after the beginning of suckling.

Suckling-induced oxytocin increase in the spinal cord of the rat.

Oxytocin (OT) is essential for parturition and milk ejection, and OT-containing fibers are present in several regions of the brain and in the spinal cord. During lactation, activation of spinal cord neurons by suckling stimulation involves deep laminae III-X including sympathetic preganglionic neurons of the intermedio-medial cell column. In the present study, experiments were designed to determine if the suckling provided by the litter increased OT levels in the spinal cord of dams, as determined by competitive immunoassay.

Neuroprotective effects of lactation against kainic acid treatment in the dorsal hippocampus of the rat.

Marked hippocampal changes in response to excitatory amino acid agonists occur during pregnancy (e.g. decreased frequency in spontaneous recurrent seizures in rats with KA lesions of the hippocampus) and lactation (e.

A Simple Chemical Method for Rendering Wild-Type Yeast Permeable to Brefeldin A That Does Not Require the Presence of an erg6 Mutation.

The present work aims to develop a growth medium to render a wild-type strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae permeable to the antifungal drug Brefeldin A. In the current study, a synthetic medium containing 0.1% L-proline and supplemented with $3.