Peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and salivary cortisol levels in college students with different levels of academic stress. Study protocol.

Introduction: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is essential for brain physiological processes influencing memory and learning. BDNF levels can be affected by many factors, including stress. Stress increase serum and salivary cortisol levels.

[Association between serotonin transporter and monoamine oxidase A gene polymorphisms and depression].

Background: Serotonin plays a central role regulating mood and on the development of depressive disorders.

Aim: To study whether 5HTTLPR functional polymorphisms in the serotonin transporter gene or the Monoamine oxidase A gene (uMAOA) were risk markers for depression.

Material And Methods: The Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) was applied to 1,062 consultants in primary health care centers aged between 18 and 75 years to establish the diagnosis of depression.

Serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor and glucocorticoid receptor levels in lymphocytes as markers of antidepressant response in major depressive patients: a pilot study.

Depressive patients often have altered cortisol secretion, an effect that likely derives from impaired activity of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), the main regulator of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Glucocorticoids reduce the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a downstream target of antidepressants. Antidepressants promote the transcriptional activity of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) response element binding protein (CREB), a regulator of BDNF expression.

Hyperglycaemia inhibits thymidine incorporation and cell growth via protein kinase C, mitogen-activated protein kinases and nitric oxide in human umbilical vein endothelium.

An elevated extracellular concentration of D-glucose (i.e. hyperglycaemia) inhibits cell proliferation and incorporation of the endogenous nucleoside thymidine into DNA in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs).