Trazodone counteracts the response of microglial cells to inflammatory stimuli.

Microglia are resident brain cells that regulate neuronal development and innate immunity. Microglia activation participates in the cellular response to neuroinflammation, thus representing a possible target for pharmacological strategies aimed to counteract the onset and progression of brain disorders, including depression. Antidepressant drugs have been reported to reduce neuroinflammation by acting also on glial cells.

Olfactory cues and memories in animal navigation.

Thierry Emonet and Massimo Vergassola discuss what research shows about how animals perform the feat of navigating by smell.

Uncovering multiscale structure in the variability of larval zebrafish navigation.

Animals chain movements into long-lived motor strategies, exhibiting variability across scales that reflects the interplay between internal states and environmental cues. To reveal structure in such variability, we build Markov models of movement sequences that bridges across time scales and enables a quantitative comparison of behavioral phenotypes among individuals. Applied to larval zebrafish responding to diverse sensory cues, we uncover a hierarchy of long-lived motor strategies, dominated by changes in orientation distinguishing cruising versus wandering strategies.

Uncovering multiscale structure in the variability of larval zebrafish navigation.

Animals chain movements into long-lived motor strategies, resulting in variability that ultimately reflects the interplay between internal states and environmental cues. To reveal structure in such variability, we build models that bridges across time scales that enable a quantitative comparison of behavioral phenotypes among individuals. Applied to larval zebrafish exposed to diverse sensory cues, we uncover a hierarchy of long-lived motor strategies, dominated by changes in orientation distinguishing cruising and wandering strategies.

Long-wavelength traveling waves of vasomotion modulate the perfusion of cortex.

Brain arterioles are active, multicellular complexes whose diameters oscillate at ∼ 0.1 Hz. We assess the physiological impact and spatiotemporal dynamics of vaso-oscillations in the awake mouse.

Sticky issues in turbulent transport.

We investigate the role of partial stickiness among particles or with a surface for turbulent transport. For the former case, we re-derive known results for the case of the compressible Kraichnan model by using a method based on bi-orthogonality for the expansion of the propagator in terms of left and right eigenvectors. In particular, we show that enforcing the constraints of orthogonality and normalization yields results that were previously obtained by a rigorous, yet possibly less intuitive method.

Two-fluid dynamics and micron-thin boundary layers shape cytoplasmic flows in early embryos.

Cytoplasmic flows are widely emerging as key functional players in development. In early embryos, flows drive the spreading of nuclei across the embryo. Here, we combine hydrodynamic modeling with quantitative imaging to develop a two-fluid model that features an active actomyosin gel and a passive viscous cytosol.

Benzydamine plays a role in limiting inflammatory pain induced by neuronal sensitization.

Benzydamine is an active pharmaceutical compound used in the oral care pharmaceutical preparation as NSAID. Beside from its anti-inflammatory action, benzydamine local application effectively reliefs pain showing analgesic and anaesthetic properties. Benzydamine mechanism of action has been characterized on inflammatory cell types and mediators highlighting its capacity to inhibit pro-inflammatory mediators' synthesis and release.

Effect of Sodium Hypochlorite 0.05% on MMP-9 Extracellular Release in Chronic Wounds.

Background: In chronic wounds, high concentrations of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) can cause excessive proteolysis and slow wound healing. Consequently, restoring a proper MMP balance can help reduce the risk of a chronic wound. An antiseptic solution containing 0.

Design and validation of neuronal exocytosis blocking peptides as potential novel antiperspirants.

Thermoregulation and heat dissipation by sweat production and evaporation are vital for human survival. However, hyperhidrosis or excessive perspiration might affect people's quality of life by causing discomfort and stress. The prolonged use of classical antiperspirants, anticholinergic medications or botulinum toxin injections for persistent hyperhidrosis might produce diverse side effects that limit their clinical use.

Two-fluid dynamics and micron-thin boundary layers shape cytoplasmic flows in early embryos.

Cytoplasmic flows are widely emerging as key functional players in development. In early embryos, flows drive the spreading of nuclei across the embryo. Here, we combine hydrodynamic modeling with quantitative imaging to develop a two-fluid model that features an active actomyosin gel and a passive viscous cytosol.

Fluctuating landscapes and heavy tails in animal behavior.

Animal behavior is shaped by a myriad of mechanisms acting on a wide range of scales, which hampers quantitative reasoning and the identification of general principles. Here, we combine data analysis and theory to investigate the relationship between behavioral plasticity and heavy-tailed statistics often observed in animal behavior. Specifically, we first leverage high-resolution recordings of locomotion to show that stochastic transitions among long-lived behaviors exhibit heavy-tailed first passage time distributions and correlation functions.

Fluctuating landscapes and heavy tails in animal behavior.

Animal behavior is shaped by a myriad of mechanisms acting on a wide range of scales. This immense variability hampers quantitative reasoning and renders the identification of universal principles elusive. Through data analysis and theory, we here show that slow non-ergodic drives generally give rise to heavy-tailed statistics in behaving animals.

Manipulating the nature of embryonic mitotic waves.

Early embryogenesis is characterized by rapid and synchronous cleavage divisions, which are often controlled by wave-like patterns of Cdk1 activity. Two mechanisms have been proposed for mitotic waves: sweep and trigger waves. The two mechanisms give rise to different wave speeds, dependencies on physical and molecular parameters, and spatial profiles of Cdk1 activity: upward sweeping gradients versus traveling wavefronts.

Alternation emerges as a multi-modal strategy for turbulent odor navigation.

Foraging mammals exhibit a familiar yet poorly characterized phenomenon, 'alternation', a pause to sniff in the air preceded by the animal rearing on its hind legs or raising its head. Rodents spontaneously alternate in the presence of airflow, suggesting that alternation serves an important role during plume-tracking. To test this hypothesis, we combine fully resolved simulations of turbulent odor transport and Bellman optimization methods for decision-making under partial observability.

α-Glyceryl-phosphoryl-ethanolamine protects human hippocampal neurons from ageing-induced cellular alterations.

Brain ageing has been related to a decrease in cellular metabolism, to an accumulation of misfolded proteins and to an alteration of the lipid membrane composition. These alterations act as contributive aspects of age-related memory decline by reducing membrane excitability and neurotransmitter release. In this sense, precursors of phospholipids (PLs) can restore the physiological composition of cellular membranes and ameliorate the cellular defects associated with brain ageing.

Cullin-5 mutants reveal collective sensing of the nucleocytoplasmic ratio in Drosophila embryogenesis.

In most metazoans, early embryonic development is characterized by rapid division cycles that pause before gastrulation at the midblastula transition (MBT). These cleavage divisions are accompanied by cytoskeletal rearrangements that ensure proper nuclear positioning. However, the molecular mechanisms controlling nuclear positioning are not fully elucidated.

Affinity maturation for an optimal balance between long-term immune coverage and short-term resource constraints.

In order to target threatening pathogens, the adaptive immune system performs a continuous reorganization of its lymphocyte repertoire. Following an immune challenge, the B cell repertoire can evolve cells of increased specificity for the encountered strain. This process of affinity maturation generates a memory pool whose diversity and size remain difficult to predict.

Waves in Embryonic Development.

Embryonic development hinges on effective coordination of molecular events across space and time. Waves have recently emerged as constituting an ubiquitous mechanism that ensures rapid spreading of regulatory signals across embryos, as well as reliable control of their patterning, namely, for the emergence of body plan structures. In this article, we review a selection of recent quantitative work on signaling waves and present an overview of the theory of waves.

Sector search strategies for odor trail tracking.

Ants, mice, and dogs often use surface-bound scent trails to establish navigation routes or to find food and mates, yet their tracking strategies remain poorly understood. Chemotaxis-based strategies cannot explain casting, a characteristic sequence of wide oscillations with increasing amplitude performed upon sustained loss of contact with the trail. We propose that tracking animals have an intrinsic, geometric notion of continuity, allowing them to exploit past contacts with the trail to form an estimate of where it is headed.

A Suite of Neurophotonic Tools to Underpin the Contribution of Internal Brain States in fMRI.

Recent developments in optical microscopy, applicable for large-scale and longitudinal imaging of cortical activity in behaving animals, open unprecedented opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of neurovascular and neurometabolic coupling during different brain states. Future studies will leverage these tools to deliver foundational knowledge about brain state-dependent regulation of cerebral blood flow and metabolism as well as regulation as a function of brain maturation and aging. This knowledge is of critical importance to interpret hemodynamic signals observed with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Pharmacological activation of mGlu5 receptors with the positive allosteric modulator VU0360172, modulates thalamic GABAergic transmission.

Previous studies have shown that injection of the mGlu5 receptor positive allosteric modulator (PAM) VU0360172 into either the thalamus or somatosensory cortex markedly reduces the frequency of spike-and-wave discharges (SWDs) in the WAG/Rij model of absence epilepsy. Here we have investigated the effects of VU0360172 on GABA transport in the thalamus and somatosensory cortex, as possible modes of action underlying the suppression of SWDs. Systemic VU0360172 injections increase GABA uptake in thalamic synaptosomes from epileptic WAG/Rij rats.

A mechanism for promoters to readout morphogenetic positional information in less than a minute.

Cell fate decisions in the fly embryo are rapid: hunchback genes decide in minutes whether nuclei follow the anterior/posterior developmental blueprint by reading out positional information in the Bicoid morphogen. This developmental system is a prototype of regulatory decision processes that combine speed and accuracy. Traditional arguments based on fixed-time sampling of Bicoid concentration indicate that an accurate readout is impossible within the experimental times.