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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Tracking The Progression Of Defects At The Neuromuscular Junction In Huntington's Disease, Katherine A. Trittschuh
Tracking The Progression Of Defects At The Neuromuscular Junction In Huntington's Disease, Katherine A. Trittschuh
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Huntington’s disease (HD) is a genetic disorder associated with progressive cognitive and motor decline. Recent studies in HD models suggest primary peripheral pathologies arise independent of changes in the central nervous system. Our lab found defects in skeletal muscle occurring early in the progression of disease in transgenic R6/2 HD mice, resulting in membrane hyperexcitability. Additionally, there is evidence of decreased quantal content in late-stage R6/2 mice. Here, we investigate pre-synaptic and post-synaptic function at single neuromuscular junctions (NMJ) to make direct comparisons of disease progression in the muscle membrane and motor nerve terminal. We hypothesize that muscle membrane defects …
Effects Of Fluoxetine/Simvastatin/Ascorbic Acid Combination Treatment On Neurogenesis And Functional Recovery In A Model Of Multiple Sclerosis, Olivia Cameron Webb
Effects Of Fluoxetine/Simvastatin/Ascorbic Acid Combination Treatment On Neurogenesis And Functional Recovery In A Model Of Multiple Sclerosis, Olivia Cameron Webb
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Whereas immune modulation has proven beneficial in multiple sclerosis (MS), we hypothesized that targeting down-stream modulators of neurogenesis and subsequent remyelination may offer an additional, if not superior, point of intervention in an attempt to repair damage and recover lost function. As such, the present study assessed the effectiveness of 30-day administration of the drug combination fluoxetine (5 mg/kg), simvastatin (1 mg/kg), and ascorbic acid (50 mg/kg) (FSA) on an early marker of neurogenesis, doublecortin (DCX), and functional recovery using the Montoya Staircase following lysolecithin-induced focal demyelination of the corpus callosum in middle-aged (10-11 month) male and female rats. Lysolecithin …
A Novel Method For Analysis Of Proprioceptor Sensory Neuron Subtypes In The Mouse Dorsal Root Ganglia, Delaney C. Grant
A Novel Method For Analysis Of Proprioceptor Sensory Neuron Subtypes In The Mouse Dorsal Root Ganglia, Delaney C. Grant
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Proprioceptive sensory neurons encode critical mechanosensory information that helps determine how the body interacts with the outside world and monitors the proper execution of motor movements. Housed in skeletal muscles lie specialized mechanoreceptors that are critical to this feedback loop: muscle spindles supplied by group Ia & group II afferents, and Golgi tendon organs supplied by group Ib afferents relay information regarding changes in muscle force, length, and tension. All three afferent subtypes originate in the muscle and travel to the dorsal root ganglia, relaying information to the central nervous system. GTO and MS proprioceptive afferent subtypes have been identified, …
Exploring The Impact Of Affective Processing On Visual Perception Of Large-Scale Spatial Environments, Auroabah S. Almufleh
Exploring The Impact Of Affective Processing On Visual Perception Of Large-Scale Spatial Environments, Auroabah S. Almufleh
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This thesis explores the interaction between emotions and visual perception using large scale spatial environment as the medium of this interaction. Emotion has been documented to have an early effect on scene perception (Olofsson, Nordin, Sequeira, & Polich, 2008). Yet, most popularly-used scene stimuli, such as the IAPS or GAPED stimulus sets often depict salient objects embedded in naturalistic backgrounds, or “events” which contain rich social information, such as human faces or bodies. And thus, while previous studies are instrumental to our understanding of the role that social-emotion plays in visual perception, they do not isolate the effect of emotion …
Divalent Metal Cation Entry And Cytotoxicity In Jurkat T Cells: Role Of Trpm7 Channels, Alayna N. Mellott
Divalent Metal Cation Entry And Cytotoxicity In Jurkat T Cells: Role Of Trpm7 Channels, Alayna N. Mellott
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Humans are exposed daily to a variety of metals that can be harmful to our immune system. Although certain divalent metal cations are essential for numerous cellular functions and are critical trace elements in humans, the uptake mechanisms of these ions remain mostly unknown. Transient receptor potential melastatin 7 (TRPM7), which is expressed in a variety of human cell types, including lymphocytes and macrophages, conducts many divalent metal cations. TRPM7 channels are largely inactive under normal physiological conditions due to cytoplasmic magnesium acting as a channel inhibitor. Magnesium is a cofactor for many biochemical reactions. Low serum levels of magnesium, …
Effect Of Administration Of Somatostatin Analogue On Blood Pressure In Chronic Intermittent Hypoxic Rats, Kajal Kamra
Effect Of Administration Of Somatostatin Analogue On Blood Pressure In Chronic Intermittent Hypoxic Rats, Kajal Kamra
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The cardiorespiratory system in our bodies does not adapt to Chronic Intermittent Hypoxia (CIH) and consequently syndromes such as sleep apnea lead to pathophysiological conditions like Hypertension. It has been demonstrated that the peripheral chemoreceptors underpin the development of these conditions and at present, there are no selective drug therapies for this form of hypertension. However, evidence suggests that peripheral chemoreflex sensitivity to CO2 & hypoxia is reduced by Somatostatin (SST) in humans. Our preliminary in-vitro studies have demonstrated that SST will blunt the response of the carotid body to hypoxia and decrease the baseline activity of the carotid body. …
Osmotic Activation Of Sperm Motility Via Water Flow Through Aquaporins In The Freeze-Tolerant Cope's Gray Treefrog, Dryophytes Chrysoscelis, Deja Miller
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Gametes of gray treefrogs, Dryophytes chrysoscelis, are deposited into freshwater ponds. Sperm undergo spermatogenesis and maturation beginning in the seminiferous tubules and migrating to the lumen. In mammals and fishes, these cells are immotile within the isosmotic fluid of the testes and have motility activated by exposure to a hyper- or hypoosmotic medium. Water flows into or out of the sperm cell, altering intracellular ionic concentrations, and ultimately stimulates flagellar movement. We tested the hypothesis that exposure to a hypotonic environment activates motility of gray treefrog sperm. We also hypothesized that osmotic water uptake is facilitated by expression of water …
Fast Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Currents And Action Potential Firing In R6/2 Skeletal Muscle, Eric Joshua Reed
Fast Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Currents And Action Potential Firing In R6/2 Skeletal Muscle, Eric Joshua Reed
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Huntington’s disease (HD) is a degenerative disorder caused by expanded CAG repeats in the Huntingtin gene, which results in cognitive problems as well as muscle weakness, chorea, rigidity, and dystonia. Most research in HD has focused on neurodegeneration, but recent studies have found peripheral defects that may help explain the debilitating motor symptoms of HD. We have shown that skeletal muscle from the R6/2 transgenic mouse model of HD is hyperexcitable due to decreases in resting chloride and potassium currents. Other groups have speculated that the fast voltage-gated sodium channels may be affected in Huntington’s disease as well. To fully …
Is Mitochondrial Development Impaired In Hyperoxic Rats And Does This Underpin The Blunting Of The Acute Hypoxic Ventilatory Response?, Tariq Hasan Fayyad
Is Mitochondrial Development Impaired In Hyperoxic Rats And Does This Underpin The Blunting Of The Acute Hypoxic Ventilatory Response?, Tariq Hasan Fayyad
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Carotid body (CB) responses to hypoxia are low at birth and increase over time to mature responses. Using an in vitro rat CB-carotid sinus nerve (CSN) preparation, Kholwadwala and Donnelly (1992) demonstrated that the CSN activity in response to hypoxia increased from low levels to robust adult responses after two weeks. This time course of maturation was paralleled by an increase in TASK channel sensitivity to hypoxia in the O2-sensing Type I cells (Kim et al, 2011). Previous studies have indicated that a fall in Type I cell mitochondrial volume and an increase in the rate of oxidative phosphorylation may …
Interaction Of Na+/K+ Atpase With Bcl-2 Proteins: Isolated Enzyme Vs Epithelial Cell Extracts, Chandra Kumar Maharjan
Interaction Of Na+/K+ Atpase With Bcl-2 Proteins: Isolated Enzyme Vs Epithelial Cell Extracts, Chandra Kumar Maharjan
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The nearly complete inhibition of Na+/K+ ATPase (NKA) in fetal human lens (FHL) epithelial cells by chelerythrine (CHE), a Bcl-2 homology (BH)3-mimetic quaternary benzophenanthridine alkaloid was proposed to be the consequence of CHE binding at a BH1-like hydrophobic groove at the cytosolic aspect of NKA. This conclusion was based on in silico analysis showing at least two motifs in the N-terminal domain of NKA’s a1 subunit- i) aa 59-71 (ARAAEILARDGPN) and ii) aa 42-48 (DELHRKY) homologous to the BH1 and BH3 motifs of Bcl-2 (B-cell lymphoma) respectively, leading to a novel hypothesis that NKA could interact with these proteins by …