Further Evidence for the Neuroplastic Role of Cannabinoids: A Study in Organotypic Hippocampal Slice Cultures.

Endocannabinoid receptors CB1R and CB2R are present in the CNS and modulate synaptic activity. By using an in vitro model, two concentrations of CB1R agonist ACEA at 0.5 and 5 μM doses and CB1R antagonist AM251 at 1 and 10 μM doses were administered in organotypic slice cultures of mouse hippocampus, and their effects on neurons and glial cells were analyzed at different time points.

Changes in CNS cells in hyperammonemic portal hypertensive rats.

Rats with pre-hepatic portal hypertension because of partial portal vein ligation develop minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) with hyperammonemia, impaired blood-brain barrier, mild brain edema, and severe mitochondrial changes in the hippocampus. The aim of this study was to evaluate changes of different neural cells in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus. Animals were divided into two groups, MHE and sham.

Effects of two commonly found strains of influenza A virus on developing dopaminergic neurons, in relation to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

Influenza virus (InfV) infection during pregnancy is a known risk factor for neurodevelopment abnormalities in the offspring, including the risk of schizophrenia, and has been shown to result in an abnormal behavioral phenotype in mice. However, previous reports have concentrated on neuroadapted influenza strains, whereas increased schizophrenia risk is associated with common respiratory InfV. In addition, no specific mechanism has been proposed for the actions of maternal infection on the developing brain that could account for schizophrenia risk.

A low chronic ethanol exposure induces morphological changes in the adolescent rat brain that are not fully recovered even after a long abstinence: an immunohistochemical study.

Little is known about the morphological effects of alcoholism on the developing adolescent brain and its consequences into adulthood. We studied here the relationship between two neurotransmitter systems (the serotoninergic and nitrergic) and the astrocytic and neuronal cytoskeleton immediately and long after drinking cessation of a chronic, but low, ethanol administration. Adolescent male Wistar rats were exposed to ethanol 6.