Age-related declines in a two-day reference memory task are associated with changes in NMDA receptor subunits in mice

Background  

C57BL/6 mice show a relationship during aging between NMDA receptor expression and spatial reference memory performance in a 12-day task. The present study was designed to determine if age-related deficits could be detected with a shorter testing protocol and whether these deficits showed a relationship with NMDA receptors. Mice were trained in a reference memory task for two days in a Morris water maze. Cued testing was performed either after or prior to reference memory testing. Crude synaptosomes were prepared from prefrontal/frontal cortex and hippocampus of the mice that underwent reference memory testing first. NMDA receptor subunit and syntaxin proteins were analyzed with Western blotting.     

An immune system model in discrete time based on the analogy with the central nervous system

Jerne's model for the immune system formulated in terms of a neural network recently proposed by Weisbuch and Atlan is generalized to interactions with continuous coupling coefficients. It is shown that even the extended model can be solved analytically without the aid of computer simulations and exhibits one additional attractor, which corresponds to a configuration with high concentrations of active killer cells eventually causing death of the organism.     

Social defeat stress before pregnancy induces depressive-like behaviours and cognitive deficits in adult male offspring: correlation with neurobiological changes

Background

Epidemiological surveys and studies with animal models have established a relationship between maternal stress and affective disorders in their offspring. However, whether maternal depression before pregnancy influences behaviour and related neurobiological mechanisms in the offspring has not been studied.

Results

A social defeat stress (SDS) maternal rat model was established using the resident-intruder paradigm with female specific pathogen-free Wistar rats and evaluated with behavioural tests. SDS maternal rats showed a significant reduction in sucrose preference and locomotor and exploratory activities after 4 weeks of stress. In the third week of the experiment, a reduction in body weight gain was observed in SDS animals. Sucrose preference, open field, the elevated-plus maze, light–dark box, object recognition, the Morris water maze, and forced swimming tests were performed using the 2-month-old male offspring of the female SDS rats. Offspring subjected to pre-gestational SDS displayed enhanced anxiety-like behaviours, reduced exploratory behaviours, reduced sucrose preference, and atypical despair behaviours. With regard to cognition, the offspring showed significant impairments in the retention phase of the object recognition test, but no effect was observed in the acquisition phase. These animals also showed impairments in recognition memory, as the discrimination index in the Morris water maze test in this group was significantly lower for both 1 h and 24 h memory retention compared to controls. Corticosterone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and monoamine neurotransmitters levels were determined using enzyme immunoassays or radioimmunoassays in plasma, hypothalamus, left hippocampus, and left prefrontal cortex samples from the offspring of the SDS rats. These markers of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis responsiveness and the monoaminergic system were significantly altered in pre-gestationally stressed offspring. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element binding protein (CREB), phosphorylated CREB (pCREB), and serotonin transporter (SERT) protein levels were evaluated using western blotting with right hippocampus and right prefrontal cortex samples. Expression levels of BDNF, pCREB, and SERT in the offspring were also altered in the hippocampus and in the prefrontal cortex; however, there was no effect on CREB.

Conclusion

We conclude that SDS before pregnancy might induce depressive-like behaviours, cognitive deficits, and neurobiological alterations in the offspring.

     

Phase formation and structural changes in the chromium-silicon system exposed to compressed plasma fluxes

The results of the study of structural and phase transformations in the silicon substrate-chromium coating system exposed to compression plasma fluxes with power densities of 0.3–1.2 GW/m² are discussed. The formation of hexagonal chromium disilicide and an amorphous phase, the growth of silicon dendrites, and the appearance of a chromium-enriched near-surface layer are revealed effects. The mechanisms of structural and phase transformations caused by rapid cooling of a mixed melt and concentration overcooling during solidification are analyzed.     

Separate urinary bladder and prostate neurons in the central nervous system of the rat: simultaneous labeling with two immunohistochemically distinguishable pseudorabies viruses

Background

This work examines the central nervous system distribution of virus-labeled neurons from the rat urinary bladder and the prostate simultaneously within the same tissue sections. Two immunohistochemically distinct pseudorabies virus strains were simultaneously injected into male Sprague Dawley rats (~280 gm). One virus was injected into the bladder and the other into the prostate. After incubation intervals of 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3 and 4 days, sections from the spinal cord and brain were processed immunohistochemically to detect cells, within a single section, which were labeled separately by each virus or were labeled by both viruses.

Results

Each strain of virus labeled a separate population of neurons and some neurons were labeled by both strains. The majority of neurons labeled by virus from the urinary bladder were found in the L6-S1 spinal cord segments within the dorsal gray commissure, the intermediolateral area and the superficial dorsal horn. Neurons labeled by virus from the prostate were mainly found in the L1-L2 spinal cord segments in the dorsal gray commissure and the intermediolateral areas. Double-labeled interneurons in L1-L2 were mainly located in the intermediolateral area. In L6-S1 they were divided between the dorsal gray commissure and the intermediolateral area.

Conclusions

Spinal neurons innervating the bladder are clearly separate and different from those innervating the prostate. This difference also persists in the brain. In disagreement with previous reports, no direct anatomical evidence of parasympathetic innervation of the prostate was observed.     

Characterization of the beta amyloid precursor protein-like gene in the central nervous system of the crab <Emphasis Type="Italic">Chasmagnathus</Emphasis>. Expression during memory consolidation

Background  

Human β-amyloid, the main component in the neuritic plaques found in patients with Alzheimer's disease, is generated by cleavage of the β-amyloid precursor protein. Beyond the role in pathology, members of this protein family are synaptic proteins and have been associated with synaptogenesis, neuronal plasticity and memory, both in vertebrates and in invertebrates. Consolidation is necessary to convert a short-term labile memory to a long-term and stable form. During consolidation, gene expression and de novo protein synthesis are regulated in order to produce key proteins for the maintenance of plastic changes produced during the acquisition of new information.     

Efficacy of magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging and three-dimensional fiber tractography in the detection of clinical manifestations of central nervous system lupus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease frequently associated with neuropsychiatric manifestations. No follow-up case report has characterized white matter alterations in patients with neuropsychiatric lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) before and after treatment. In this study, a 16-year-old NPSLE patient with severe neuropsychological symptoms was treated with steroid pulse therapy, and was scanned with conventional magnetic resonance (MR) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) at onset and 17 months after treatment. Conventional MR images showed diffuse brain atrophy and focal vasogenic edema in the putamen, but they did not reveal abnormalities in the corpus callosum. Region-of-interest analysis of DTI images showed that fractional anisotropy and fiber tracts increased significantly, while axial diffusivity, radial, and mean diffusivity decreased significantly in the corpus callosum after treatment. The results indicated that the vasogenic edema was present in the corpus callosum at onset and was significantly reduced after treatment. These changes were generally compatible with the patient’s clinical manifestations. Hence, we concluded that MR-DTI and fiber tractography are helpful to reveal the relationship between white matter alterations and neurological dysfunctions in NPSLE patients.     

Investigation of metabolic changes in blood and tissue of mice γ-irradiated with sublethal doses by direct observation of EPR signals from Hb-NO complexes

The metabolic changes in probes of blood and tissue (spleen, liver and kidney) of mice under total γ-irradiation with the doses varied in the interval of 1–10 Gy at the dose rate of 0.073 Gy/min were studied in the early postirradiation period by ex vivo electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). It was established that the impact with the lower dose rate leads to more intensive nitric monoxide biosynthesis in comparison with higher dose rates. In the early postirradiation period (from 2 up to 6 h), irradiation with doses higher than 2 Gy brings about an increase of the NO concentration and, hence, the appearance of nitrosyl complexes which were registered directly by EPR in blood and spleen. The observed line is identified as the signal from α-(Fe²⁺-NO)₂β(Fe³⁺)₂ or α-(Fe²⁺-NO) α(Fe²⁺)β(Fe³⁺)₂ complexes since the methemoglobin concentration also increases in comparison with the control level. The concentration of Hb-NO complexes in blood and spleen depends on the dose and individual radiosensitivity of the organism. Therefore, the intensity of the Hb-NO signal may serve as a criterion of the radiation injury level during the first hours after the irradiation. 30 h after the impact, the Hb-NO complexes were no longer detected. For the first day, the concentration of Fe³⁺-transferrin in blood increases with the dose and time passed after the irradiation. The intensity of the EPR signal from Fe³⁺-transferrin in blood may also serve as a measure of the radiation injury level.     

In vivo MRI reveals the dynamics of pathological changes in the brains of cathepsin D-deficient mice and correlates changes in manganese-enhanced MRI with microglial activation

Cathepsin D (CTSD; EC 3.4.23.5) is essential for normal development and/or maintenance of neurons in the central nervous system: its deficiency causes a devastating neurological disorder with severely shortened life span in man, sheep and mouse. Neuropathologically, the CTSD deficiencies are characterized by selective neuronal degeneration, gliosis and accumulation of autofluorescent proteinaceous storage material in neurons. Our aim was to study the dynamics behind the pathological alterations occurring in the brains of CTSD-deficient (CTSD-/-) mice by using in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and histology. In order to do this, we measured T(2) signal intensity (SI), apparent diffusion coefficient, area and volume of multiple brain structures from MR images acquired using T(2)-, T(1)- and diffusion-weighted sequences at three time points during disease progression. MRI revealed no differences in the brains between CTSD-/- and control mice at postnatal day 15+/-1 (P15+/-1), representing an initial stage of the disease. In the intermediate stage of the disease, P19(+/-1), SI alterations in the thalami of the affected mice became evident in both T(1)- and T(2)-weighted images. The terminal stage of the disease, P25, was characterized by marked alterations in the T(2) SI, apparent diffusion coefficient and volume of multiple brain structures in CTSD-/- mice. In addition, manganese enhanced high-resolution T(1)-weighted 3D sequences (MEMRI) and histological stainings revealed that the hyperintense signal areas in MEMRI matched perfectly with areas of microglial activation in the brains of CTSD-/- mice at the terminal disease stage. In conclusion, the SI alterations in the thalami of CTSD-/- mice preceded other changes, and the degenerative process was greatly enhanced at the age P19(+/-1), leading to severely reduced brain volume in just 6 days.     

Absolutely Continuous Spectrum for the Isotropic Maxwell Operator with Coefficients that are Periodic in Some Directions and Decay in Others

The purpose of this paper is to prove that the spectrum of an isotropic Maxwell operator with electric permittivity and magnetic permeability that are periodic along certain directions and tending to a constant super-exponentially fast in the remaining directions is purely absolutely continuous. The basic technical tools is a new “operatorial” identity relating the Maxwell operator to a vector-valued Schrödinger operator. The analysis of the spectrum of that operator is then handled as in [3,4].     

A study of the EXAFS associated with the K absorption discontinuity of copper in CuGa and CuGe alloys

The extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) associated with the K absorption discontinuity of copper has been studied in the pure metal and in some copper-gallium and copper-germanium alloys, using a bent crystal X-ray spectrograph. The results obtained are discussed in the light of the recent theory of EXAFS proposed by Lytle, Sayers and Stern. It has been shown for the first time that there exists in alloys a correlation between the EXAFS parameter α₁ and e/a ratio. This correlation has been used to obtain the value of the lattice parameter “a” for Cu-27 at.% Ge alloy, which is not available in literature.     

Collective behaviour of climate indices in the North Pacific air-sea system and its potential relationships with decadal climate changes

A climate network of six climate indices of the North Pacific air-sea system is constructed during the period of 1948-2009.In order to find out the inherent relationship between the intrinsic mechanism of climate index network and the important climate shift,the synchronization behaviour and the coupling behaviour of these indices are investigated.Results indicate that climate network synchronization happened around the beginning of the 1960s,in the middle of the 1970s and at the beginnings of the 1990s and the 2000s separately.These synchronization states were always followed by the decrease of the coupling coefficient.Each synchronization of the network was well associated with the abrupt phase or trend changes of annually accumulated abnormal values of North Pacific sea-surface temperature and 500-hPa height,among which the one that happened in the middle of the 1970s is the most noticeable climate shift.We can also obtain this mysterious shift from the first mode of the empirical orthogonal function of six indices.That is to say,abrupt climate shift in North Pacific air-sea system is not only shown by the phase or trend changes of climate indices,but also might be indicated by the synchronizing and the coupling of climate indices.Furthermore,at the turning point of 1975,there are also abrupt correlation changes in the yearly mode of spatial degree distribution of the sea surface temperature and 500-hPa height in the region of the North Pacific,which further proves the probability of climate index synchronization and coupling shift in air-sea systems.     

Collective behaviour of climate indices in the North Pacific airben sea system and its potential relationships with decadal climate changes

A climate network of six climate indices of the North Pacific air-sea system is constructed during the period of 1948-2009. In order to find out the inherent relationship between the intrinsic mechanism of climate index network and the important climate shift, the synchronization behaviour and the coupling behaviour of these indices are investigated. Results indicate that climate network synchronization happened around the beginning of the 1960s, in the middle of the 1970s and at the beginnings of the 1990s and the 2000s separately. These synchronization states were always followed by the decrease of the coupling coefficient. Each synchronization of the network was well associated with the abrupt phase or trend changes of annually accumulated abnormal values of North Pacific sea-surface temperature and 500-hPa height, among which the one that happened in the middle of the 1970s is the most noticeable climate shift. We can also obtain this mysterious shift from the first mode of the empirical orthogonal function of six indices. That is to say, abrupt climate shift in North Pacific air-sea system is not only shown by the phase or trend changes of climate indices, but also might be indicated by the synchronizing and the coupling of climate indices. Furthermore, at the turning point of 1975, there are also abrupt correlation changes in the yearly mode of spatial degree distribution of the sea surface temperature and 500-hPa height in the region of the North Pacific, which further proves the probability of climate index synchronization and coupling shift in air-sea systems.     

Acute and chronic MRI changes in the spine and spinal cord after surgical stem cell grafting in patients with definite amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Post-infusion injuries are unrelated with clinical impairment

ObjectiveTo report MRI spinal changes after surgical infusion of bone marrow stem cells (BMSc) in ALS patients and assess their correlation with clinical events and functional performance.MethodsBMSc were surgically injected in the thoracic spinal cord of 11 ALS patients (6/5 male/female; median age 46 years). We performed first-week and third, sixth, ninth and twelfth post-surgical months spinal MRIs. The spinal changes in the postsurgical week and follow-up MRIs, as well as clinical events, functional scales and respiratory and electromyography data, were longitudinally monitored. Correlations between the imaging and clinical data were evaluated with the Spearman's test.ResultsTransient extradural fluid collections (100%), transient spinal cord T2 hyperintensity (81.8%), and chronic spinal cord deformities (63.6%) were the dominating MRI changes. Spinal cord hemorrhages (27.3%) and cystic myelomalacia (1/11 patients) were important although unusual findings. During the follow-up, minor adverse events of mild to moderate intensity eventually improved. Initial and follow-up imaging scores showed a strongly positive correlation (r 0.879, P < 0.001). The initial and delayed clinical scores did not correlate. There was no significant correlation between any of the imaging scores and clinical data.ConclusionsInfusion of BMSc produces a variety of spinal changes apparently unrelated with clinical events and disease worsening.     

A search for extra lattice distortions associated with the superconductivity and the charge inhomogeneities in the high-Tc La1.85Sr0.15CuO4 system

Precise measurements of the temperature-dependent lattice parameters in a single crystal of La_1.85Sr_0.15CuO₄ are made by X-ray bond method and analyzed comparing the normal thermal expansion term, proportional to T⁴. A spontaneous lattice contraction of about 2.3×10⁻⁵ Å was found in the ab-plane, while along the c-axis a small expansion of about 1.5×10⁻⁵ Å was observed below the superconducting transition temperature of the system, showing some correlation between the structure and the high-T_c superconductivity. A careful search has been made for existence of any extra lattice distortion above the T_c, that might be associated with the stripe inhomogeneities in the title system, however, within the experimental sensitivity we could not find such distortions.     

Doping dependent metal to insulator transition in the (Bi,Pb)-2212 system: The evolution of structural and electronic properties with europium substitution

The present work investigates the effect of europium substitution on the(Bi,Pb)-2212 system in the concentration range 0.5 ≤ x ≤ 1.0.Phase analysis and lattice parameter calculations on the powder diffraction data and the elemental analysis of EDX show that the Eu atoms are successfully substituted into the(Bi,Pb)-2212 system.Resistivity measurements(64-300 K) reveal that the system exhibits superconductivity at x ≤ 0.5 and semiconductivity at x > 0.5.With the complete suppression of superconductivity which is known to be a quasi-two dimensional phenomenon in these materials,a metal to insulator transition takes place at x = 0.6 and the predominant conduction mechanism is found to be variable range hopping between localized states,resulting in macroscopic semiconducting behaviour.The results of electrical and structural properties of the doped(Bi,Pb)-2212 compounds suggest that the decrease of charge carrier concentration and the induced structural disorder are the more effective and dominant mechanisms in the origin of the metal to insulator transition and suppression of superconductivity due to Eu substitution at its Sr site.