Psychogenic Stress Activates C-Fos in Nucleus Accumbens-Projecting Neurons of the Hippocampal Ventral Subiculum.

Background: The ventral subiculum is known to be activated by the presentation of novel stressors. It has been hypothesized that neuronal ensembles at the ventral aspect of the hippocampal formation are involved in context-dependent processing and can guide the learning of appropriate action selections in response to threatening contexts. Artificial activation of the ventral subiculum can excite medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens and can increase the excitability of mesolimbic dopamine neurons via a polysynaptic pathway through the basal ganglia.

Evidence for an anterior-posterior differentiation in the human hippocampal formation revealed by meta-analytic parcellation of fMRI coordinate maps: focus on the subiculum.

Previous studies, predominantly in experimental animals, have suggested the presence of a differentiation of function across the hippocampal formation. In rodents, ventral regions are thought to be involved in emotional behavior while dorsal regions mediate cognitive or spatial processes. Using a combination of modeling the co-occurrence of significant activations across thousands of neuroimaging experiments and subsequent data-driven clustering of these data we were able to provide evidence of distinct subregions within a region corresponding to the human subiculum, a critical hub within the hippocampal formation.

Inflammatory and procoagulant cytokine levels during pregnancy as predictors of adverse obstetrical complications.

Introduction: Disturbances in cytokine networks are believed to be associated with increased risk of adverse pregnancy complications.

Methods: Plasma samples collected from pregnant women with preterm deliveries, high-risk pregnancy complications including postpartum hemorrhage, hypertensive disorders, and multiple gestations, and normal pregnancies were analyzed at different periods throughout gestation and postpartum. Interleukin (IL) 1β , IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, tumor necrosis factor α, and antiprotein Z antibody levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.