Rhythmic movements of crayfish swimmerets are coordinated by a neural circuit that links their four abdominal ganglia. Each swimmeret is driven by its own small local circuit, or pattern-generating module. We modeled this network as a chain of four oscillators, bidirectionally coupled to their nearest neighbors, and tested the model's ability to reproduce experimentally observed changes in intersegmental phases and in period caused by differential excitation of selected abdominal ganglia. The choices needed to match the experimental data lead to the following predictions: coupling between ganglia is asymmetric; the ascending and descending coupling have approximately equal strengths; intersegmental coupling does not significantly affect the frequency of the system; and excitation affects the intrinsic frequencies of the oscillators and might also change properties of intersegmental coupling.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1008891328882 | DOI Listing |
The pathophysiology of dystonia in Wilson disease (WD) is complex and poorly understood. Copper accumulation in the basal ganglia, disrupts dopaminergic pathways, contributing to dystonia's development via neurotransmitter imbalance. Despite advances in diagnosis and management, WD with dystonia remains a challenging condition to treat.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCephalalgia
January 2025
Department of Pharmacology, University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson, AZ, USA.
Background: Women with endometriosis are more likely to have migraine. The mechanisms underlying this co-morbidity are unknown. Prolactin, a neurohormone secreted and released into circulation from the anterior pituitary, can sensitize sensory neurons from female, but not male, rodents, monkeys and human donors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRadiol Case Rep
March 2025
Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.
Whipple's disease, caused by the gram-positive actinomycete , is a rare chronic systemic illness with significant diagnostic and therapeutic challenges, particularly when the CNS is involved. This case report details a 46-year-old man presenting with a constellation of symptoms including fatigue, hypersomnia, weight loss, bifrontal headaches, abdominal pain, treatment-unresponsive diarrhea, and skin hyperpigmentation. Neurological examination revealed oculomasticatory myorhythmia, and imaging studies showed nodular enhancement of the hypothalamus and basal ganglia, along with retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnn Pathol
December 2024
Institute of Tissue Medicine and Pathology, University of Bern, 3008 Bern, Suisse.
Neuroblastoma is a rare tumour originating from neural crest cells, primarily occurring in the adrenal glands and sympathetic ganglia, with prenatal diagnosis often complicated by the difficulty in distinguishing it from other foetal abdominal or paraspinal masses. We present a case of foetal neuroblastoma in a 26-year old woman who, at 36 weeks of gestation, experienced absent foetal movements, leading to ultrasound confirmation of foetal demise with associated effusions. An emergency caesarean section revealed a stillborn male foetus with a previously undetected encapsulated mass in the posterior mediastinum, which was confirmed as neuroblastoma through histopathological analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNature
January 2025
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
The autonomic nervous system orchestrates the functions of the brain and body through the sympathetic and parasympathetic pathways. However, our understanding of the autonomic system, especially the sympathetic system, at the cellular and molecular levels is severely limited. Here we show topological representations of individual visceral organs in the major abdominal sympathetic ganglion complex.
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