Age- and Gender-Based Differences in Nest-Building Behavior and Learning and Memory Performance Measured Using a Radial Six-Armed Water Maze in C57BL/6 Mice.

Background: Understanding age-based and gender-based behavioral changes is becoming more important as a greater percentage of people lives longer worldwide. In this study, a C57BL/6 mouse animal model was used to study age-based and gender-based behavioral differences using nest building and radial six-armed water maze (RAWM) testing.

Methods: In C57BL/6 mice, nest-building behavior was recorded as nesting scores, while spatial learning and memory behaviors were assessed using RAWM platform search errors and latencies.

Research Progress on the Risk Factors and Outcomes of Human Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaques.

Objective: Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory process that results in complex lesions or plaques that protrude into the arterial lumen. Carotid atherosclerotic plaque rupture, with distal atheromatous debris embolization, causes cerebrovascular events. This review aimed to explore research progress on the risk factors and outcomes of human carotid atherosclerotic plaques, and the molecular and cellular mechanisms of human carotid atherosclerotic plaque vulnerability for therapeutic intervention.

Immunological thresholds in neurological gene therapy: highly efficient elimination of transduced cells might be related to the specific formation of immunological synapses between T cells and virus-infected brain cells.

First-generation adenovirus can be engineered with powerful promoters to drive expression of therapeutic transgenes. Numerous clinical trials for glioblastoma multiforme using first generation adenoviral vectors have either been performed or are ongoing, including an ongoing, Phase III, multicenter trial in Europe and Israel (Ark Therapeutics, Inc.).

Immune responses to adenovirus and adeno-associated vectors used for gene therapy of brain diseases: the role of immunological synapses in understanding the cell biology of neuroimmune interactions.

Researchers have conducted numerous pre-clinical and clinical gene transfer studies using recombinant viral vectors derived from a wide range of pathogenic viruses such as adenovirus, adeno-associated virus, and lentivirus. As viral vectors are derived from pathogenic viruses, they have an inherent ability to induce a vector specific immune response when used in vivo. The role of the immune response against the viral vector has been implicated in the inconsistent and unpredictable translation of pre-clinical success into therapeutic efficacy in human clinical trials using gene therapy to treat neurological disorders.

In vivo mature immunological synapses forming SMACs mediate clearance of virally infected astrocytes from the brain.

The microanatomy of immune clearance of infected brain cells remains poorly understood. Immunological synapses are essential anatomical structures that channel information exchanges between T cell-antigen-presenting cells (APC) during the priming and effector phases of T cells' function, and during natural killer-target cell interactions. The hallmark of immunological synapses established by T cells is the formation of the supramolecular activation clusters (SMACs), in which adhesion molecules such as leukocyte function-associated antigen 1 segregate to the peripheral domain of the immunological synapse (p-SMAC), which surrounds the T cell receptor-rich or central SMAC (c-SMAC).

Effective high-capacity gutless adenoviral vectors mediate transgene expression in human glioma cells.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common subtype of primary malignant brain tumor. Although serotype 5 adenoviral vectors (Ads) have been used successfully in clinical trials for GBM, the capacity of Ads to infect human glioma cells and the expression of adenoviral receptors in GBM cells have been challenged. In this report, we studied the expression of three molecules that have been shown to mediate adenoviral entry into cells, i.