Recently, a consanguineous family was identified in Israel with three children affected by Infantile Nystagmus and Foveal Hypoplasia, following an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance. A homozygous stop mutation c.1861C > T; p.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Psychiatric conditions, in many cases, arise from social interactions necessary for optimal mental functioning. Dominance and submissiveness are two opposite poles of behavior, stemming from processes of social interactions between members inside one group or species. Extreme dominance and submissiveness expressions in humans is accompanied by mental impairments, including mania and depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpatial memory depends on the hippocampus, which is particularly vulnerable to aging. This vulnerability has implications for the impairment of navigation capacities in older people, who may show a marked drop in performance of spatial tasks with advancing age. Contemporary understanding of long-term memory formation relies on molecular mechanisms underlying long-term synaptic plasticity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent studies have suggested antidepressant involvement in synaptic plasticity, possibly mediated by neurotrophins and neuropeptides. Pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a neuropeptide and neuromodulator. Since its discovery, PACAP has been extensively investigated with regard to its neurotrophic properties including regulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression, a neurotrophin postulated to be involved in the mechanism of antidepressant action and etiology of affective disorders.
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