scholarly journals Vascular Changes in Rat Hippocampus following a High Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Diet

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linnea R Freeman ◽  
Ann-Charlotte E Granholm
Keyword(s):  
Tight Junction ◽  
Saturated Fat ◽  
Mossy Fibers ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Behavioral Deficits ◽  
Protein Levels ◽  
Junction Protein ◽  
Hilar Neurons ◽  
The Brain

The long-term effects of a diet rich in saturated fat and cholesterol on the hippocampus were evaluated in this study. It has previously been shown that this type of diet is detrimental to health, particularly affecting peripheral organs such as the heart and liver. However, effects on the brain have not been fully evaluated. This study focused on the hippocampus, a brain region instrumental for learning and memory and vulnerable to ischemic damage. Reduced blood—brain barrier (BBB) integrity and increased microgliosis were observed in the hippocampus of rats fed a high-saturated-fat and cholesterol (HFHC) diet for 6 months. Interestingly, an increase in hippocampal protein levels of occludin, a tight junction protein, was found in HFHC-treated rats as well. Further investigation revealed decreased expression of the occludin protein in blood vessels and increased expression in the dentate gyrus hilar neurons and mossy fibers of the hippocampal cornus ammonis 3 in HFHC-treated rats. Our results show alterations in BBB integrity and expression of tight junction proteins after long-term exposure to HFHC diet in rats. These findings may suggest a biologic mechanism for previously observed behavioral deficits occurring in rats fed this diet.

scholarly journals Functional Connectivity within Brain Networks of Long Term and Short term Meditators

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2S) ◽  
pp. 29-34
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Temporal Correlation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Invasive Technique ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Statistical Concept ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Meditative Practices

Meditation refers to a state of mind of relaxation and concentration, where generally the mind and body is at rest. The process of meditation reflects the state of the brain which is distinct from sleep or typical wakeful states of consciousness. Meditative practices usually involve regulation of emotions and monitoring of attention. Over the past decade there has been a tremendous increase in an interest to study the neural mechanisms involved in meditative practices. It could also be beneficial to explore if the effect of meditation is altered by the number of years of meditation practice. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a very useful imaging technique which can be used to perform this analysis due to its inherent benefits, mainly it being a non-invasive technique. Functional activation and connectivity analysis can be performed on the fMRI data to find the active regions and the connectivity in the brain regions. Functional connectivity is defined as a simple temporal correlation between anatomically separate, active neural regions. Functional connectivity gives the statistical dependencies between regional time series. It is a statistical concept and is quantified using metrics like Correlation. In this study, a comparison is made between functional connectivity in the brain regions of long term meditation practitioners (LTP) and short-term meditation practitioners (STP) to see the differences and similarities in the connectivity patterns. From the analysis, it is evident that in fact there is a difference in connectivity between long term and short term practitioners and hence continuous practice of meditation can have long term effects.

Long-term effects of early life stress on the brain monoamines level in the rats

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
R. Ghalamghash ◽  
H.Z. Mammedov ◽  
H. Ashayeri ◽  
A. Hosseini
Keyword(s):  
Life Stress ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Early Life Stress ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Brain Monoamines ◽  
The Brain

Environments, Past and Present

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Duckworth ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Acute Stress ◽  
The Body ◽  
Physiological Changes ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Flight Response ◽  
Fight Or Flight Response ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Fight Or Flight

For more than a century, scientists have known that acute stress activates the fight-or-flight response. When your life is on the line, your body reacts instantly: your heart races, your breath quickens, and a cascade of hormones sets off physiological changes that collectively improve your odds of survival. More recently, scientists have come to understand that the fight-or-flight response takes a toll on the brain and the body—particularly when stress is chronic rather than acute. Systems designed to handle transient threats also react to stress that occurs again and again, for weeks, months, or years. It turns out that poverty, abuse, and other forms of adversity repeatedly activate the fight-or-flight response, leading to long-term effects on the immune system and brain, which in turn increase the risk for an array of illnesses, including asthma, diabetes, arthritis, depression, and cardiovascular disease. Pioneering neuroscientist Bruce McEwen called this burden of chronic stress “allostatic load.”

scholarly journals The Use of Botulinum Toxin for the Treatment of Chronic Joint Pain: Clinical and Experimental Evidence

Toxins ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Blanshan ◽  
Hollis Krug
Keyword(s):  
Pain Relief ◽  
Joint Pain ◽  
Peripheral Sensitization ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Neuropeptide Release ◽  
Osteoarthritis Pain ◽  
Catalytically Active ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
The Brain

Chronic osteoarthritis pain is an increasing worldwide problem. Treatment for osteoarthritis pain is generally inadequate or fraught with potential toxicities. Botulinum toxins (BoNTs) are potent inhibitors of neuropeptide release. Paralytic toxicity is due to inhibition at the neuromuscular junction, and this effect has been utilized for treatments of painful dystonias. Pain relief following BoNT muscle injection has been noted to be more significant than muscle weakness and hypothesized to occur because of the inhibition of peripheral neuropeptide release and reduction of peripheral sensitization. Because of this observation, BoNT has been studied as an intra-articular (IA) analgesic for chronic joint pain. In clinical trials, BoNT appears to be effective for nociceptive joint pain. No toxicity has been reported. In preclinical models of joint pain, BoNT is similarly effective. Examination of the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) and the central nervous system has shown that catalytically active BoNT is retrogradely transported by neurons and then transcytosed to afferent synapses in the brain. This suggests that pain relief may also be due to the central effects of the drug. In summary, BoNT appears to be safe and effective for the treatment of chronic joint pain. The long-term effects of IA BoNT are still being determined.

scholarly journals Repeated neonatal isoflurane exposures in the mouse induce apoptotic degenerative changes in the brain and relatively mild long-term behavioral deficits

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Maloney ◽  
Carla M. Yuede ◽  
Catherine E. Creeley ◽  
Sasha L. Williams ◽  
Jacob N. Huffman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Degenerative Changes ◽  
Behavioral Deficits ◽  
The Brain

scholarly journals Normalizing the Abnormal: Do Antipsychotic Drugs Push the Cortex Into an Unsustainable Metabolic Envelope?

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico E Turkheimer ◽  
Pierluigi Selvaggi ◽  
Mitul A Mehta ◽  
Mattia Veronese ◽  
Fernando Zelaya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Psychotic Symptoms ◽  
Antipsychotic Treatment ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Extrapyramidal Syndrome ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Cardiac Disorders ◽  
Positive Symptoms Of Psychosis ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Novel Model

Abstract The use of antipsychotic medication to manage psychosis, principally in those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, is well established. Antipsychotics are effective in normalizing positive symptoms of psychosis in the short term (delusions, hallucinations and disordered thought). Their long-term use is, however, associated with side effects, including several types of movement (extrapyramidal syndrome, dyskinesia, akathisia), metabolic and cardiac disorders. Furthermore, higher lifetime antipsychotic dose-years may be associated with poorer cognitive performance and blunted affect, although the mechanisms driving the latter associations are not well understood. In this article, we propose a novel model of the long-term effects of antipsychotic administration focusing on the changes in brain metabolic homeostasis induced by the medication. We propose here that the brain metabolic normalization, that occurs in parallel to the normalization of psychotic symptoms following antipsychotic treatment, may not ultimately be sustainable by the cerebral tissue of some patients; these patients may be characterized by already reduced oxidative metabolic capacity and this may push the brain into an unsustainable metabolic envelope resulting in tissue remodeling. To support this perspective, we will review the existing data on the brain metabolic trajectories of patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia as indexed using available neuroimaging tools before and after use of medication. We will also consider data from pre-clinical studies to provide mechanistic support for our model.

scholarly journals Protein Level and Infantile Diarrhea in a Postweaning Piglet Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Jing Gao ◽  
Jie Yin ◽  
Kang Xu ◽  
Hui Han ◽  
ZeMin Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tight Junction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Infantile Diarrhea ◽  
Ampk Signaling ◽  
Protein Sources ◽  
Protein Levels ◽  
Junction Protein ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Postweaning Diarrhea

Infantile diarrhea is a serious public health problem around worldwide and results in millions of deaths each year. The levels and sources of dietary protein are potential sources of diarrhea, but the relationship between the pathogenesis causes of infantile diarrhea and protein intake remains poorly understood. Many studies have indicated that the key to understanding the relationship between the protein in the diet and the postweaning diarrhea of piglets is to explore the influences of protein sources and levels on the mammalian digestion system. The current study was designed to control diarrhea control by choosing different protein levels in the diet and aimed at providing efficient regulatory measures for infantile diarrhea by controlling the protein levels in diets using a postweaning piglets model. To avoid influences from other protein sources, casein was used as the only protein source in this study. Fourteen piglets (7.98±0.14 kg, weaned at 28 d) were randomly allotted to two dietary treatments: a control group (Cont, containing 17% casein) and a high protein group (HP, containing 30% casein). The experiment lasted for two weeks and all animals were free to eat and drink water ad libitum. The diarrhea score (1=normal; 3=watery diarrhea) and growth performance were recorded daily. The results showed that the piglets in HP group had persistent diarrhea during the whole study, while no diarrhea was noticed in the control groups. Also, the feed intake and body weights were reduced in the HP groups compared with the other group (P<0.05). The diarrhea-related mRNA abundances were analyzed by real-time PCR; the results showed that HP treatment markedly decreased the expression of aquaporin (AQP, P<0.05) and the tight junction protein (P<0.05), but increased inflammatory cytokines (P<0.01) than those in control group. In addition, the Adenosine 5′-monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathway (P<0.01) was inhibited in the HP group. Intestinal microbiota was tested by 16S sequencing, and we found that the HP group had a low diversity compared the other group. In conclusion, despite being highly digestible, a high casein diet induced postweaning diarrhea and reduced the growth performance of the postweaning piglets. Meanwhile, AQP, tight junction protein, and intestinal immune were compromised. Thus, the mechanism of how a highly digestible protein diet induces diarrhea might be associated with the AMPK signaling pathway and intestinal microbiome.

scholarly journals 137 RIPK4 maintains epidermal barrier integrity by regulating tight junction protein levels

2016 ◽  
Vol 136 (9) ◽  
pp. S184
Author(s):  
G. Tanghe ◽  
C. Urwyler ◽  
P. De Groote ◽  
K. Leurs ◽  
B. Gilbert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tight Junction ◽  
Tight Junction Protein ◽  
Epidermal Barrier ◽  
Barrier Integrity ◽  
Protein Levels ◽  
Junction Protein
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