Histaminergic Innervation of the Ventral Anterior Thalamic Nucleus Alleviates Motor Deficits in a 6-OHDA-Induced Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease.

The ventral anterior (VA) nucleus of the thalamus is a major target of the basal ganglia and is closely associated with the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Notably, the VA receives direct innervation from the hypothalamic histaminergic system. However, its role in PD remains unknown.

Suppression of excitatory synaptic transmission in the centrolateral amygdala via presynaptic histamine H3 heteroreceptors.

The central histaminergic system has a pivotal role in emotional regulation and psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. However, the effect of histamine on neuronal activity of the centrolateral amygdala (CeL), an essential node for fear and anxiety processing, remains unknown. Here, using immunostaining and whole-cell patch clamp recording combined with optogenetic manipulation of histaminergic terminals in CeL slices prepared from histidine decarboxylase (HDC)-Cre rats, we show that histamine selectively suppresses excitatory synaptic transmissions, including glutamatergic transmission from the basolateral amygdala, on both PKC-δ- and SOM-positive CeL neurons.

Oxytocinergic neurons, but not oxytocin, are crucial for male penile erection.

The cumulative evidence suggests that oxytocin is involved in the male sexual behaviors. However, no significant sexual impairments were observed in oxytocin gene knock-out (KO) mice, suggesting that oxytocin is not necessary for sexual behavior in male mice. To better understand the role of oxytocin in male erection, two types of oxytocin gene KO mice were created.

Suppression of microglial activation and monocyte infiltration ameliorates cerebellar hemorrhage induced-brain injury and ataxia.

Ataxia, characterized by uncoordinated movement, is often found in patients with cerebellar hemorrhage (CH), leading to long-term disability without effective management. Microglia are among the first responders to CNS insult. Yet the role and mechanism of microglia in cerebellar injury and ataxia after CH are still unknown.

Assessing the Impacts of Drought on Grassland Net Primary Production at the Global Scale.

Quantitatively assessing the impacts of drought on grassland has significant implications to understand the degradation mechanism and prevention degraded grassland. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between grassland drought and grassland Net Primary Productivity (NPP) based on the self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) from 1982 to 2008. The results showed that the global grassland scPDSI value had a slightly increasing trend with the rate of 0.

Interspecies introgressive hybridization in spiny frogs (Family Dicroglossidae) revealed by analyses on multiple mitochondrial and nuclear genes.

Introgression may lead to discordant patterns of variation among loci and traits. For example, previous phylogeographic studies on the genus detected signs of genetic introgression from genetically and morphologically divergent or . In this study, we used mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data to verify the widespread introgressive hybridization in the closely related species of the genus , evaluate the level of genetic diversity, and reveal the formation mechanism of introgressive hybridization.

The advertisement calls of (Ahl, 1930) (Anura: Dicroglossidae).

The genus Quasipaa (Family Dicroglossidae) is currently composed of 11 species distributed in China and Southeast Asia: Quasipaa acanthophora (Dubois & Ohler 2009), Q. boulengeri (Günther 1889), Q. courtoisi (Angel 1922), Q.

MicroRNA-200a is up-regulated in aged rats with erectile dysfunction and could attenuate endothelial function via SIRT1 inhibition.

MiR-200a was shown to be upregulated in the corpus cavernosum (CC) of rats with aging-related erectile dysfunction (A-ED) in our previous study. Among its target genes, SIRT1 was also reported as a protective factor in erectile function by our groups previously. Thus, miR-200a might attenuate the erectile function in A-ED via SIRT1 inhibition.

[Prediction of the microRNAs related to cardiovascular diseases by bioinformatics].

Objective: To predict the microRNAs (miRNAs) related to cardiovascular diseases.

Methods: Bioinformatics was used to find all cardiovascular disease related and cardiovascular function related protein-coding genes, and miRNAs were identified that localized the same transcription units as the above genes. Then other cardiovascular disease related miRNAs were identified by an miRNAs set and family analysis and Gene Ontology(GO).

[caCORE: core architecture of bioinformation on cancer research in America].

A critical factor in the advancement of biomedical research is the ease with which data can be integrated, redistributed and analyzed both within and across domains. This paper summarizes the Biomedical Information Core Infrastructure built by National Cancer Institute Center for Bioinformatics in America (NCICB). The main product from the Core Infrastructure is caCORE--cancer Common Ontologic Reference Environment, which is the infrastructure backbone supporting data management and application development at NCICB.

[The application of biomed-informatics in cardiovascular research--data and knowledge].

With the development of biotechnology, especially the projects which lead to high throughout experimental results, lots of data have been jammed in every related fields, and broke the balance between data and knowledge in these fields. It is urgent to refine these data, and let them be more productive. To avoid these data being decaying into rubbish, technology and theory such as database, statistics, data mining, knowledge management, and artificial intelligence had been applied into biologic and medical study fields.

[Progress in National Institutes of Health roadmap initiatives].

National Institutes of Health (NIH) released the biomedical research project NIH Roadmap Initiatives, including 3 themes, new pathways to discovery, research teams of the future, and re-engineering the clinical research enterprise. The purpose of the project is to catalyze to transform our new scientific knowledge into tangible benefits for people. Now, mostly of the project have begin to carry into practice.

[Construction of directory for biomedical databases on INTERNET].

Objective: To construct a global directory of biomedical databases(DBD), which can be used free of charge on INTERNET. It will be convenient for researchers to find out related databases quickly, easily and accurately by using DBD since there are not enough useful tools for database retrieval. Biomedical databases will be an accelerator in development of biomedicine with the help of DBD.