888 results match your criteria: "Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases[Affiliation]"

Paracrine relationship between incretin hormones and endogenous 5-hydroxytryptamine in the small and large intestine.

Neurogastroenterol Motil

August 2023

Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, King's College London, Hodgkin Building, Guy's Campus, London, SE1 1UL, UK.

Background: Enterochromaffin (EC) cell-derived 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) is a mediator of toxin-induced reflexes, initiating emesis via vagal and central 5-HT receptors. The amine is also involved in gastrointestinal (GI) reflexes that are prosecretory and promotile, and recently 5-HT's roles in chemosensation in the distal bowel have been described. We set out to establish the efficacy of 5-HT signaling, local 5-HT levels and pharmacology in discrete regions of the mouse small and large intestine.

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Objectives: Migraine is one of the most frequent clinical manifestations of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS). The comorbidity between these two diseases has been only partially investigated. We aimed to observe whether neurophysiological alterations described in migraineurs in visual evoked potentials (VEPs) were present in hEDS patients with migraine.

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Effectiveness and safety profile of greater occipital nerve blockade in cluster headache: a systematic review.

J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry

December 2023

Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK

Background: Greater occipital nerve (GON) blockade is a short-term preventive therapy for cluster headache (CH). We conducted a systematic review to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of GON blockade in patients with CH.

Methods: On 23 October 2020, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, Embase Classic, PsycINFO, CINAHL, CENTRAL and Web of Science databases from their inception date.

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The impact of low dementia research funding on brain health for decision makers: A reflection on current health statistics.

J Neurol Sci

April 2023

Centre for Age-Related Medicine (SESAM), Stavanger University Hospital, Stavanger, Norway; Department of Old Age Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.

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An evaluation of the role of miR-361-5p in senescence and systemic ageing.

Exp Gerontol

April 2023

University of Exeter Medical School, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Barrack Road, Exeter EX2 5DW, UK. Electronic address:

Senescent cells are key regulators of ageing and age-associated disease. MicroRNAs (miRs) are a key component of the molecular machinery governing cellular senescence, with several known to regulate important genes associated with this process. We sought to identify miRs associated with both senescence and reversal by pinpointing those showing opposing directionality of effect in senescence and in response to senotherapy.

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Introduction: Headache is the most prevalent neurological manifestation in adults and one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. In children and adolescents, headaches are arguably responsible for a remarkable impact on physical and psychological issues, yet high-quality evidence is scarce.

Material And Methods: We searched cross-sectional and cohort studies in Embase, Medline, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases from January 1988 to June 2022 to identify the prevalence of headaches in 8-18 years old individuals.

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Oligodendrocytes are highly specialized glial cells characterized by their production of multilayer myelin sheaths that wrap axons to speed up action potential propagation. It is due to their specific role in supporting axons that impairment of myelin structure and function leads to debilitating symptoms in a wide range of degenerative diseases, including Multiple Sclerosis and Leukodystrophies. It is known that myelin damage can be receptor-mediated and recently oligodendrocytes have been shown to express Ca -permeable Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin-1 (TRPA1) channels, whose activation can result in myelin damage in ischemia.

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Enrichment of human embryonic stem cell-derived V3 interneurons using an Nkx2-2 gene-specific reporter.

Sci Rep

February 2023

Centre for Gene Therapy and Regenerative Medicine, Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King's College London, 28th Floor Tower Wing, Guy's Campus, Great Maze Pond, London, SE1 9RT, UK.

V3 spinal interneurons are a key element of the spinal circuits, which control motor function. However, to date, there are no effective ways of deriving a pure V3 population from human pluripotent stem cells. Here, we report a method for differentiation and isolation of spinal V3 interneurons, combining extrinsic factor-mediated differentiation and magnetic activated cell sorting.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Diaphanous-related formins are proteins that help regulate the structure of the cytoskeleton, and defects in two of the three diaphanous genes are linked to various types of hearing loss in humans.
  • - The study focuses on the third diaphanous gene, DIAPH2, identified through exome sequencing in an Italian family with nonsyndromic X-linked hearing loss, revealing a likely pathogenic variant affecting a conserved site.
  • - Although the mutant DIAPH2 protein showed functional impairment in lab studies and mouse models were created to study its effects on hearing, no hearing loss was observed in the mice, suggesting the need for further research to determine DIAPH2's exact role in deafness. *
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HCN2 Ion Channels Drive Pain in Rodent Models of Migraine.

J Neurosci

October 2022

Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, King's College London, London SE1 1UL, United Kingdom

Migraine is believed to be initiated by neuronal activity in the CNS, that triggers excitation of nociceptive trigeminal ganglion (TG) nerve fibers innervating the meninges and thus causes a unilateral throbbing headache. Drugs that precipitate or potentiate migraine are known to elevate intracellular levels of the cyclic nucleotides cAMP or cGMP, while anti-migraine treatments couple to signaling pathways that reduce cAMP or cGMP, suggesting an involvement of these cyclic nucleotides in migraine. Members of the HCN ion channel family are activated by direct binding of cAMP or cGMP, suggesting in turn that a member of this family may be a critical trigger of migraine.

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Moderate coolness is sensed by TRPM8 ion channels in peripheral sensory nerves, but the mechanism by which noxious cold is detected remains elusive. Here, we show that somatosensory and sympathetic neurons express two distinct mechanisms to detect noxious cold. In the first, inhibition by cold of a background outward current causes membrane depolarization that activates an inward current through voltage-dependent calcium (Ca ) channels.

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Intramuscular injection of an Adeno-associated viral vector serotype 1 (AAV1) encoding Neurotrophin-3 (NT3) into hindlimb muscles 24 h after a severe T9 spinal level contusion in rats has been shown to induce lumbar spinal neuroplasticity, partially restore locomotive function and reduce spasms during swimming. Here we investigate whether a targeted delivery of NT3 to lumbar and thoracic motor neurons 48 h following a severe contusive injury aids locomotive recovery in rats. AAV1-NT3 was injected bilaterally into the tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius and rectus abdominus muscles 48-h following trauma, persistently elevating serum levels of the neurotrophin.

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Chronic pain is undertreated in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of chronic pain in this neurodegenerative disease is essential. Neuropathic pain and AD share a significant involvement of the peripheral immune system. Therefore, we examined the development of nerve injury-induced allodynia in TASTPM (APPsweXPS1.

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Temperature-dependent structural plasticity of hippocampal synapses.

Front Cell Neurosci

October 2022

Department of Pathophysiology, Institute of Neuroregeneration and Neurorehabilitation, School of Basic Medicine, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.

The function of the central nervous system (CNS) is strongly affected by temperature. However, the underlying processes remain poorly understood. Here, we show that hypothermia and hyperthermia trigger bidirectional re-organization of presynaptic architecture in hippocampal neurons, resulting in synaptic strengthening, and weakening, respectively.

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Microglia states and nomenclature: A field at its crossroads.

Neuron

November 2022

Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Microglial research has advanced considerably in recent decades yet has been constrained by a rolling series of dichotomies such as "resting versus activated" and "M1 versus M2." This dualistic classification of good or bad microglia is inconsistent with the wide repertoire of microglial states and functions in development, plasticity, aging, and diseases that were elucidated in recent years. New designations continuously arising in an attempt to describe the different microglial states, notably defined using transcriptomics and proteomics, may easily lead to a misleading, although unintentional, coupling of categories and functions.

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Recent Advances and Updates in Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalalgias.

Semin Neurol

August 2022

Headache Group, Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.

Trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (TACs) are discrete primary headache disorders, characterized by severe unilateral head pain, typically trigeminal distribution, with ipsilateral cranial autonomic symptoms. The conditions within this group are hemicrania continua, cluster headache, paroxysmal hemicrania, and short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache with conjunctival injection and tearing and short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache with autonomic symptoms. Several advances have been made in understanding the pathogenesis and evolving treatment options in TACs.

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Background: Pain is a common non-motor symptom of Parkinson`s disease (PD), however, its pathomechanism remains elusive.

Objective: We aimed to investigate the local gene expression of selected proinflammatory mediators in patients with PD and correlated our data with patients`pain phenotype.

Methods: We recruited 30 patients with PD and 30 healthy controls.

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Article Synopsis
  • Peroxisome biogenesis disorders caused by gene mutations can lead to severe symptoms, including hearing impairment and early childhood death.
  • A study on mice with these mutations showed normal hearing development at first, but they later experienced increasing hearing loss linked to issues in synapses beneath inner ear hair cells.
  • The research indicated that local expression of certain genes in the cochlea is crucial for normal hearing and identified a reduction in plasmalogens in the inner ear, mirroring findings in humans with similar disorders.
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Sham interventions in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of physical, psychological, and self-management (PPS) therapies for pain are highly variable in design and believed to contribute to poor internal validity. However, it has not been formally tested whether the extent to which sham controls resemble the treatment under investigation consistently affects trial outcomes, such as effect sizes, differential attrition, participant expectancy, and blinding effectiveness. Placebo- or sham-controlled RCTs of PPS interventions of clinical pain populations were searched in 12 databases.

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Article Synopsis
  • Blinding in randomized controlled trials for pain therapies is difficult due to the complex and interactive nature of these treatments, necessitating a review of current sham interventions and blinding methods.
  • A systematic search of twelve databases identified 198 unique control interventions from clinical trials published between 2008 and December 2021, primarily focusing on patients with chronic pain, especially in manual therapies.
  • The study highlighted varying degrees of similarity between active and control treatments, and provided insights into improving blinding methods and reporting practices for future trials.
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Angiotensin type 2 receptor antagonism as a new target to manage gout.

Inflammopharmacology

December 2022

Graduate Program in Genetics and Biochemistry, Institute of Biotechnology, Federal University of Uberlândia, Uberlândia, MG, 38408-100, Brazil.

Background: There is a growing search for therapeutic targets in the treatment of gout. The present study aimed to evaluate the analgesic and anti-inflammatory potential of angiotensin type 2 receptor (ATR) antagonism in an acute gout attack mouse model.

Methods: Male wild-type (WT) C57BL/6 mice either with the ATR antagonist, PD123319 (10 pmol/joint), or with vehicle injections, or ATR KO mice, received intra-articular (IA) injection of monosodium urate (MSU) crystals (100 µg/joint), that induce the acute gout attack, and were tested for mechanical allodynia, thermal hyperalgesia, spontaneous nociception and ankle edema development at several times after the injections.

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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease characterized by the progressive accumulation of amyloid-beta and neurofibrillary tangles of tau in the neocortex. We profiled DNA methylation in two regions of the cortex from 631 donors, performing an epigenome-wide association study of multiple measures of AD neuropathology. We meta-analyzed our results with those from previous studies of DNA methylation in AD cortex (total n = 2013 donors), identifying 334 cortical differentially methylated positions (DMPs) associated with AD pathology including methylomic variation at loci not previously implicated in dementia.

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Pain is a persistent symptom of Rheumatoid Arthritis, and the K/BxN serum transfer model recapitulates both association and dissociation between pain and joint inflammation in RA. Furthermore, this model features monocyte/macrophage infiltration in joints and lumbar dorsal root ganglia (DRG), where these immune cells are close to nociceptive neurons. We focussed on CXCR-monocyte/macrophage trafficking and show that at peak paw swelling associated with nociception, CXCR deletion altered neither swelling nor macrophage infiltration/phenotype in paws.

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