BioQuery: an object framework for building queries to biomedical databases.

Summary: BioQuery is an application that helps scientists automate database searches. Users can build and store queries to public biomedical databases, and receive periodic updates on the results of those queries when new data is available. The application is implemented on a portable object framework that can provide database-searching capability to other applications.

Delivering bioinformatics training: bridging the gaps between computer science and biomedicine.

Biomedical researchers have always sought innovative methodologies to elucidate the underlying biology in their experimental models. As the pace of research has increased with new technologies that 'scale-up' these experiments, researchers have developed acute needs for the information technologies which assist them in managing and processing their experiments and results into useful data analyses that support scientific discovery. The application of information technology to support this discovery process is often called bioinformatics.

Differential modulation of nucleus accumbens synapses.

The nucleus accumbens (NAcc) is a brain region involved in functions ranging from motivation and reward to feeding and drug addiction. The NAcc is typically divided into two major subdivisions, the shell and the core. The primary output neurons of both of these areas are medium spiny neurons (MSNs), which are quiescent at rest and depend on the relative input of excitatory and inhibitory synapses to determine when they fire action potentials.

Increase in adenosine sensitivity in the nucleus accumbens following chronic morphine treatment.

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the neuromodulator adenosine is involved in drug addiction and withdrawal and that adenosine signaling pathways may offer new targets for therapeutic treatments of addiction. Recent studies have suggested that chronic exposure to drugs of abuse may alter adenosine metabolism in the nucleus accumbens, a brain region critically involved in drug addiction and withdrawal. The present study examined the effects of chronic morphine treatment on the ability of adenosine to inhibit excitatory postsynaptic currents in nucleus accumbens medium spiny neurons.