The thalamic reticular nucleus-lateral habenula circuit regulates depressive-like behaviors in chronic stress and chronic pain.

Chronic stress and chronic pain are two major predisposing factors to trigger depression. Enhanced excitatory input to the lateral habenula (LHb) has been implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. However, the contribution of inhibitory transmission remains unclear.

A glutamatergic DRN-VTA pathway modulates neuropathic pain and comorbid anhedonia-like behavior in mice.

Chronic pain causes both physical suffering and comorbid mental symptoms such as anhedonia. However, the neural circuits and molecular mechanisms underlying these maladaptive behaviors remain elusive. Here using a mouse model, we report a pathway from vesicular glutamate transporter 3 neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus to dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VGluT3→DA) wherein population-level activity in response to innocuous mechanical stimuli and sucrose consumption is inhibited by chronic neuropathic pain.

The lateral habenula nucleus regulates pruritic sensation and emotion.

Itch is a complex aversive sensory and emotional experience. As a most upsetting symptom in many dermatological and systemic diseases, it lacks efficient treatments. The lateral habenula nucleus (LHb) encodes negative emotions in the epithalamus and has been implicated in pain and analgesia.

Fatty acid-binding protein 7 triggers α-synuclein oligomerization in glial cells and oligodendrocytes associated with oxidative stress.

We previously show that fatty acid-binding protein 3 (FABP3) triggers α-synuclein (Syn) accumulation and induces dopamine neuronal cell death in Parkinson disease mouse model. But the role of fatty acid-binding protein 7 (FABP7) in the brain remains unclear. In this study we investigated whether FABP7 was involved in synucleinopathies.

Acute downregulation of miR-155 at wound sites leads to a reduced fibrosis through attenuating inflammatory response.

Fibrosis, tightly associated with wound healing, is a significant symptomatic clinical problem. Inflammatory response was reported to be one of the reasons. MiR-155 is relatively related with the development and requirement of inflammatory cells, so we thought reduce the expression of miR-155 in wound sites could improve the quality of healing through reduce inflammatory response.

"Awake" intraoperative functional MRI (ai-fMRI) for mapping the eloquent cortex: Is it possible in awake craniotomy?

As a promising noninvasive imaging technique, functional MRI (fMRI) has been extensively adopted as a functional localization procedure for surgical planning. However, the information provided by preoperative fMRI (pre-fMRI) is hampered by the brain deformation that is secondary to surgical procedures. Therefore, intraoperative fMRI (i-fMRI) becomes a potential alternative that can compensate for brain shifts by updating the functional localization information during craniotomy.