Corticotrophin Releasing Hormone: Chemistry and Recent Developments

2004 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 393 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Garner ◽  
Paul A. Keller ◽  
Adam McCluskey

Corticotrophin Releasing Hormone [CRH; also known as Corticotrophin Releasing Factor (CRF)], a 41-amino-acid hormone, is one of the body’ major modulators of the stress response. CRH coordinates the endocrine, autonomic, and behavioural responses to stress through actions in both the brain and the periphery activating the ‘fight or flight’ response. CRH is also implicated in various neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and anorexia nervosa, and it has been described as a biological clock controlling the length of gestation in humans and other higher-order primates. In the past decade there has been an enormous effort expended in the design and development of new therapeutic agents targetting CRHs in the central nervous and peripheral systems. In this review, we examine the chemistry and recent developments in this exciting field.

Author(s):  
Angela Duckworth ◽  

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.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 1117-1132
Author(s):  
Samaa S. Abdulwahab ◽  
Hussain K. Khleaf ◽  
Manal H. Jassim

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is an external system that controls activities and processes in the physical world based on brain signals. In Passive BCI, artificial signals are automatically generated by a computer program without any input from nerves in the body. This is useful for individuals with mobility issues. Traditional BCI has been dependent only on recording brain signals with Electroencephalograph (EEG) and has used a rule-based translation algorithm to generate control commands. These systems have developed very accurate translation systems. This paper is about the different methods for adapting the signals from the brain. It has been mentioned that various kinds of surveys in the past to serve the purpose of the present research. This paper shows a simple and easy analysis of each technique and its respective benefits and drawbacks, including signal acquisition, signal pre-processing, feature classification and classification. Finally,  discussed is the application of EEG-based BCI.


Author(s):  
Kristy Tan ◽  
Shaokoon Cheng ◽  
Lynne E. Bilston

The mechanical properties of soft biological tissues have been widely investigated over the past five decades [1–5]. Reported measurements of soft biological tissues such as the brain, spinal cord, liver and muscle vary by orders of magnitude, depending on the sample preparation, anisotropy and loading regime. Knowing the accurate mechanical properties of biological tissues is important for many applications, for example car crash testing and simulations require accurate information on how different parts of the body deform due to a combination of loads. Deformation of tissues around prosthetics and artificial limbs are critical in understanding load transfer at interfaces with the body. The recent use of Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) in diagnostic imaging has resulted in a surge of interest in accurate measurements of mechanical properties of tissues [6].


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. e636 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Stankiewicz ◽  
Howard L. Weiner

Two different treatment paradigms are most often used in multiple sclerosis (MS). An escalation or induction approach is considered when treating a patient early in the disease course. An escalator prioritizes safety, whereas an inducer would favor efficacy. Our understanding of MS pathophysiology has evolved with novel in vivo and in vitro observations. The treatment landscape has also shifted significantly with the approval of over 10 new medications over the past decade alone. Here, we re-examine the treatment approach in light of these recent developments. We believe that recent work suggests that early prediction of the disease course is fraught, the amount of damage to the brain that MS causes is underappreciated, and its impact on patient function oftentimes is underestimated. These concerns, coupled with the recent availability of agents that allow a better therapeutic effect without compromising safety, lead us to believe that initiating higher efficacy treatments early is the best way to achieve the best possible long-term outcomes for people with MS.


2018 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 505-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robson Augusto Souza Santos ◽  
Walkyria Oliveira Sampaio ◽  
Andreia C. Alzamora ◽  
Daisy Motta-Santos ◽  
Natalia Alenina ◽  
...  

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is a key player in the control of the cardiovascular system and hydroelectrolyte balance, with an influence on organs and functions throughout the body. The classical view of this system saw it as a sequence of many enzymatic steps that culminate in the production of a single biologically active metabolite, the octapeptide angiotensin (ANG) II, by the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE). The past two decades have revealed new functions for some of the intermediate products, beyond their roles as substrates along the classical route. They may be processed in alternative ways by enzymes such as the ACE homolog ACE2. One effect is to establish a second axis through ACE2/ANG-(1–7)/MAS, whose end point is the metabolite ANG-(1–7). ACE2 and other enzymes can form ANG-(1–7) directly or indirectly from either the decapeptide ANG I or from ANG II. In many cases, this second axis appears to counteract or modulate the effects of the classical axis. ANG-(1–7) itself acts on the receptor MAS to influence a range of mechanisms in the heart, kidney, brain, and other tissues. This review highlights the current knowledge about the roles of ANG-(1–7) in physiology and disease, with particular emphasis on the brain.


Author(s):  
Serena Lee-Cultura ◽  
Michail Giannakos

Abstract Embodied interaction describes the interplay between the brain and the body and its influence on the sharing, creation and manipulation of meaningful interactions with technology. Spatial skills entail the acquisition, organization, utilization and revision of knowledge about spatial environments. Embodied interaction is a rapidly growing topic in human–computer interaction with the potential to amplify human interaction and communication capacities, while spatial skills are regarded as key enablers for the successful management of cognitive tasks. This work provides a systematic review of empirical studies focused on embodied interaction and spatial skills. Thirty-six peer-reviewed articles were systematically collected and analysed according to their main elements. The results summarize and distil the developments concerning embodied interaction and spatial skills over the past decade. We identify embodied interaction capacities found in the literature review that help us to enhance and develop spatial skills. Lastly, we discuss implications for research and practice and highlight directions for future work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Shochat ◽  
Eran Tauber

Earth’s rotation creates a cycle of day and night, which is observed as changes in light levels and temperature. During evolution, plants and animals adapted to these cycles, developing daily cycles of physical and behavioral processes that are driven by a central biological clock, also known as the circadian clock. Even in the absence of changes in light between day and night, the biological clock creates cycles called circadian rhythms. The nervous system transfers information about the external light level to the biological clock in the brain, which matches the clock’s cycle to the external environment. The biological clock prepares the body for environmental changes. The modern world has created disruptions in the circadian clock’s timing, because of electrical lighting, flights to other time zones, and work during the night. The study of chronobiology studies the mechanisms of the biological clock and the clock’s influence on human health.


Author(s):  
Aruthra Devi ◽  
Rita Narayanan

Nutrition is a basic human need and a prerequisite to a healthy life. Since it is bonded with food, it is essential to advocate nutrition in terms of food. A proper diet is important from the very early stages (gestation period) of life for proper growth and development. Neuronutrition portrays how food affects the brain and its function. Brain is where the performances begin and end. It monitors and controls all the energy metabolism of the body and it never stops working. Neuronutrition is the nutrition needed to achieve healthy brain and good neurocognitive function. Dietary manipulations are a viable strategy for enhancing cognitive abilities and protecting the brain from damage. No single food is key to good brain health but rather a combination of food. Neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, mental fatigue, and memory problems are prevalent across the world, and this opens the door to provide tailormade products which cater to consumer's desire for better neuronutrition.


2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1525) ◽  
pp. 1955-1967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Wittmann

The striking diversity of psychological and neurophysiological models of ‘time perception’ characterizes the debate on how and where in the brain time is processed. In this review, the most prominent models of time perception will be critically discussed. Some of the variation across the proposed models will be explained, namely (i) different processes and regions of the brain are involved depending on the length of the processed time interval, and (ii) different cognitive processes may be involved that are not necessarily part of a core timekeeping system but, nevertheless, influence the experience of time. These cognitive processes are distributed over the brain and are difficult to discern from timing mechanisms. Recent developments in the research on emotional influences on time perception, which succeed decades of studies on the cognition of temporal processing, will be highlighted. Empirical findings on the relationship between affect and time, together with recent conceptualizations of self- and body processes, are integrated by viewing time perception as entailing emotional and interoceptive (within the body) states. To date, specific neurophysiological mechanisms that would account for the representation of human time have not been identified. It will be argued that neural processes in the insular cortex that are related to body signals and feeling states might constitute such a neurophysiological mechanism for the encoding of duration.


2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Petrov

Less than a decade after the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, some of the popular music stars from its former republics began giving concerts in new post-Yugoslav spaces, provoking divergent receptions, especially in Serbia and Croatia. Taking as a point of departure recent developments in the sociology of the body, sociology of emotions, and affect theory, I discuss here the political implications of enjoyment in these concerts, particularly by showing how they engage in the construction of multifarious emotional reactions concerning the sentimental remembrance of the past. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s discussions of ‘collective feelings’ and the argument that emotions are not a private matter, I will show how the concerts’ spaces offer channels for ‘emotions to work’, securing collectives via the process of reading the bodies of others. Using Tereza Kesovija’s comeback in Belgrade as a case study, I discuss the narratives of the past, according to which the concerts have been either just a continuation of the ‘perfect past’ in Yugoslavia, or a way of creating distance from it. I specifically focus on the issue of how the seemingly neutral concept of love is embedded in the memory practices of the Yugoslav past. I also discuss the refusal of nostalgia evident in the tendency of certain concert-goers to distance themselves from the past by claiming that this music is transcultural, transnational, and transtemporal. In both cases, I will point to the multifarious and ambiguous meanings of the concept of love as understood in the post-Yugoslav musical space.


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