Specific binding of [3H]phenytoin in the human brain

1985 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 517-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Spero

Competition between cold phenytoin and [3H]phenytoin binding was observed in normal human brain. Binding was observed in all areas examined. The highest number of sites was in the amygdala (a total of 717.71 fmol/mg protein) and the lowest in the Brodman area (BA) 4 of the motor cortex (153.91 fmol/mg protein) and cerebellar cortex (154.4 fmol/mg protein). In three areas, amygdala, cortex area BA 38 (inferior parietal lobe), and cortex area BA 8 (premotor cortex), two sets of binding sites were observed. In these areas the Kd for the higher affinity sites ranged from 35 to 116 nM, and for the lower affinity site, from 328 to 866 nM. In the four areas where only one binding site was observed the Kds ranged from 164 to 311 nM and the Scatchard plot was linear.

Author(s):  
Santiago Arteaga

Ever since the discovery of mirror neurons in the ventral premotor cortex (area F5) of the macaque brain, in the late 1980s, by Rizzolatti and his University of Parma colleagues, the question was put forward whether the same type of neurons could be found in the human brain. Could it be possible that these same neurons that activate not only when the monkey reaches for or takes a bite out of some sort of food -like a nut or a raisin- but also when someone picks it up to hand it to the monkey, be found in our brains? This essay does not have the scope to consider all concepts of empathy nor to include all relevant studies on mirror neurons concerning its relation to empathy. That being so, I shall take the following path: 1) introduce mirror neurons, what they are, where they are and their implications; 2) consider some aspects of empathy from different areas of research and present Edith Stein and Theodor Lipps's ideas; 3) relate the philosophers' ideas with the discussion put forward by Iacoboni, Gallese, Rizzolatti and Ramachandran concerning mirror neurons and empathy.


2003 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 832-842 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Cerri ◽  
H. Shimazu ◽  
M. A. Maier ◽  
R. N. Lemon

We demonstrate that in the macaque monkey there is robust, short-latency facilitation by ventral premotor cortex (area F5) of motor outputs from primary motor cortex (M1) to contralateral intrinsic hand muscles. Experiments were carried out on two adult macaques under light sedation (ketamine plus medetomidine HCl). Facilitation of hand muscle electromyograms (EMG) was tested using arrays of fine intracortical microwires implanted, respectively, in the wrist/digit motor representations of F5 and M1, which were identified by previous mapping with intracortical microstimulation. Single pulses (70–200 μA) delivered to F5 microwires never evoked any EMG responses, but small responses were occasionally seen with double pulses (interval: 3 ms) at high intensity. However, both single- and double-pulse stimulation of F5 could facilitate the EMG responses evoked from M1 by single shocks. The facilitation was large (up to 4-fold with single and 12-fold with double F5 shocks) and occurred with an early onset, with significant effects at intervals of only 1–2 ms between conditioning F5 and test M1 stimuli. A number of possible pathways could be responsible for these effects, although it is argued that the most likely mechanism would be the facilitation, by cortico-cortical inputs from F5, of corticospinal I wave activity evoked from M1. This facilitatory action could be of considerable importance for the coupling of grasp-related neurons in F5 and M1 during visuomotor tasks.


1998 ◽  
Vol 157 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Muccioli ◽  
C Ghe ◽  
MC Ghigo ◽  
M Papotti ◽  
E Arvat ◽  
...  

In vitro studies have been performed to demonstrate and characterize specific binding sites for synthetic GH secretagogues (sGHS) on membranes from pituitary gland and different human brain regions. A binding assay for sGHS was established using a peptidyl sGHS (Tyr-Ala-hexarelin) which had been radioiodinated to high specific activity at the Tyr residue. Specific binding sites for 125I-labelled Tyr-Ala-hexarelin were detected mainly in membranes isolated from pituitary gland and hypothalamus, but they were also present in other brain areas such as choroid plexus, cerebral cortex, hippocampus and medulla oblongata with no sex-related differences. In contrast, negligible binding was found in the thalamus, striatum, substantia nigra, cerebellum and corpus callosum. The binding of 125I-labelled Tyr-Ala-hexarelin to membrane-binding sites is a saturable and reversible process, depending on incubation time and pH of the buffer. Scatchard analysis of the binding revealed a finite number of binding sites in the hypothalamus and pituitary gland with a dissociation constant (Kd) of (1.5 +/- 0.3) x 10(-9) and (2.1 +/- 0.4) x 10(-9) mol/l respectively. Receptor activity is sensitive to trypsin and phospholipase C digestion, suggesting that protein and phospholipids are essential for the binding of 125I-labelled Tyr-Ala-hexarelin. The binding of 125I-labelled Tyr-Ala-hexarelin to pituitary and hypothalamic membranes was displaced in a dose-dependent manner by different unlabelled synthetic peptidyl (Tyr-Ala-hexarelin, GHRP2, hexarelin, GHRP6) and non-peptidyl (MK 0677) sGHS. An inhibition of the specific binding was also observed when binding was performed in the presence of [D-Arg1-D-Phe5-D-Trp7,9-Leu11]-substance P, a substance P antagonist that has been found to inhibit GH release in response to sGHS. In contrast, no competition was observed in the presence of other neuropeptides (GHRH, somatostatin, galanin or Met-enkephalin) which have a known influence on GH release. In conclusion, the present data demonstrate that sGHS have specific receptors in human brain and pituitary gland and reinforce the hypothesis that these compounds could be the synthetic counterpart of an endogenous GH secretagogue involved in the neuroendocrine control of GH secretion and possibly in other central activities.


1989 ◽  
Vol 260 (2) ◽  
pp. 593-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Palmer ◽  
M J O Wakelam

Adrenocortical microsomes possess a single population of Ins(1,4,5)P3-specific binding sites [IC50 5.9 +/- 0.9 nM; Palmer, Hughes, Lee & Wakelam (1988) Cell. Signalling 1, 147-156]. Competition studies showed that Ins(1:2-cyclic,4,5)P3 exhibits a 21-fold lower affinity for the site than Ins(1,4,5)P3 (IC50 124 +/- 16 nM). The affinity of the binding sites for Ins(1,4,5)P3 was not influenced by the non-hydrolysable GTP analogues GTP gamma S and Gpp[NH]p or by preincubation of the binding protein with a preparation of partially purified protein kinase C in the presence of ATP and TPA (12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate). These observations are discussed with reference to the identify and function of the Ins(1,4,5)P3 binding site.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jocelynn R. Pearl ◽  
Dani E. Bergey ◽  
Cory C. Funk ◽  
Bijoya Basu ◽  
Rediet Oshone ◽  
...  

AbstractGenetic and genomic studies suggest an important role for transcriptional regulatory changes in brain diseases, but roles for specific transcription factors (TFs) remain poorly understood. We integrated human brain-specific DNase I footprinting and TF-gene co-expression to reconstruct a transcriptional regulatory network (TRN) model for the human brain, predicting the brain-specific binding sites and target genes for 741 TFs. We used this model to predict core TFs involved in psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. Our results suggest that disease-related transcriptomic and genetic changes converge on small sets of disease-specific regulators, with distinct networks underlying neurodegenerative vs. psychiatric diseases. Core TFs were frequently implicated in a disease through multiple mechanisms, including differential expression of their target genes, disruption of their binding sites by disease-associated SNPs, and associations of the genetic loci encoding these TFs with disease risk. We validated our model’s predictions through systematic comparison to publicly available ChIP-seq and TF perturbation studies and through experimental studies in primary human neural stem cells. Combined genetic and transcriptional evidence supports roles for neuronal and microglia-enriched, MEF2C-regulated networks in Alzheimer’s disease; an oligodendrocyte-enriched, SREBF1-regulated network in schizophrenia; and a neural stem cell and astrocyte-enriched, POU3F2-regulated network in bipolar disorder. We provide our models of brain-specific TF binding sites and target genes as a resource for network analysis of brain diseases.


2003 ◽  
Vol 90 (5) ◽  
pp. 3304-3316 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Henrik Ehrsson ◽  
Stefan Geyer ◽  
Eiichi Naito

We investigate whether imagery of voluntary movements of different body parts activates somatotopical sections of the human motor cortices. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to detect the cortical activity when 7 healthy subjects imagine performing repetitive (0.5-Hz) flexion/extension movements of the right fingers or right toes, or horizontal movements of the tongue. We also collected functional images when the subjects actually executed these movements and used these data to define somatotopical representations in the motor areas. In this study, we relate the functional activation maps to cytoarchitectural population maps of areas 4a, 4p, and 6 in the same standard anatomical space. The important novel findings are 1) that imagery of hand movements specifically activates the hand sections of the contralateral primary motor cortex (area 4a) and the contralateral dorsal premotor cortex (area 6) and a hand representation located in the caudal cingulate motor area and the most ventral part of the supplementary motor area; 2) that when imagining making foot movements, the foot zones of the posterior part of the contralateral supplementary motor area (area 6) and the contralateral primary motor cortex (area 4a) are active; and 3) that imagery of tongue movements activates the tongue region of the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex bilaterally (areas 4a, 4p, and 6). These results demonstrate that imagery of action engages the somatotopically organized sections of the primary motor cortex in a systematic manner as well as activating some body-part-specific representations in the nonprimary motor areas. Thus the content of the mental motor image, in this case the body part, is reflected in the pattern of motor cortical activation.


1982 ◽  
Vol 242 (1) ◽  
pp. F63-F68 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Farman ◽  
A. Vandewalle ◽  
J. P. Bonvalet

Microbiochemical methods were applied to proximal tubules (PCT) and a mixture of distal and cortical collecting tubules (D + C) of rabbit kidney in order to define aldosterone binding sites. For each experiment, after incubation of kidney pyramids with [3H]aldosterone ([3H]A), either alone or in the presence of an excess unlabeled A, 100-150 mm of both categories of tubules were microdissected using collagenase. Specific binding was determined on the nuclear fraction of each sample. Aldosterone concentrations ranged from 2 X 10(-9) to 4.5 X 10(-8) M. No specific binding was detectable in PCT. Specific binding in D + C increased rapidly as a function of [3H]A concentration up to 5 X 10(-9) M and then more slowly. No plateau was reached. Both the absence of saturation of the binding curve and the curvilinear aspect of the Scatchard plot suggested the presence of two binding sites, one of high affinity, presumably a mineralocorticoid site, and the other of lower affinity, possibly a glucocorticoid site. These experiments suggest that the distal structures of the nephron, located in the cortex, are the main sites of binding of aldosterone and contain a high number of specific binding sites for this hormone.


1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Williams

ABSTRACT Using picomolar concentrations of [125I]iodomelatonin and in-vitro autoradiography, specific melatonin-binding sites have been mapped in the rat brain and pituitary. Using this same technique, high-affinity melatonin receptors had previously been identified in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and median eminence regions of the rat hypothalamus. The presence of melatonin binding in the SCN has been confirmed, but the second area of binding has been identified as the pars tuberalis of the pituitary, and a completely novel area of binding is also reported in the area postrema. The existence of lower affinity melatonin receptors in the rat brain was also investigated using in-vitro autoradiography and higher concentrations of [125I]iodomelatonin. No further sites of specific binding were, however, disclosed.


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