A joint publication of BMC, part of Springer Nature, and the Editorial Group of Molecular Brain since 2008.
Molecular Brain is affiliated with the Association for the Study of Neurons and Disease (AND).
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Recent studies have indicated that Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), a pathogen-recognition receptor that triggers inflammatory signals in innate immune cells, is also expressed on sensory neurons, implicating its ...
Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is motile within dendritic spines, but the mechanisms underlying its regulation are poorly understood. To address this issue, we have simultaneously imaged morphology and ER content ...
Animal aggressiveness is controlled by genetic and environmental factors. Among environmental factors, social experience plays an important role in modulating aggression in vertebrates and invertebrates. In Droso...
Dendrites of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) synapse with axon terminals of bipolar cells in the inner plexiform layer (IPL). Changes in RGC dendrites and synapses between bipolar cells in the inner retinal laye...
Histamine (HA) regulates the sleep-wake cycle, synaptic plasticity and memory in adult mammals. Dopaminergic specification in the embryonic ventral midbrain (VM) coincides with increased HA brain levels. To st...
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the major neurodegenerative disorders. Mitochondrial malfunction is implicated in PD pathogenesis. Phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN)-induced puta...
Alzheimer s disease (AD) is characterized by cerebral deposition of β-amyloid peptide (Aβ). Aβ is produced by sequential cleavage of the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) by β- and γ-secretases. Many studies hav...
Manipulation of gene expression via recombinant viral vectors and creation of transgenic knock-out/in animals has revolutionized our understanding of genes that play critical roles during neuronal development ...
TRPM4 channels are Ca2+-activated nonselective cation channels which are deeply involved in physiological and pathological conditions. However, their trafficking mechanism and binding partners are still elusive.
Many electrophysiological properties of neuron including firing rates and rhythmicaloscillation change in response to a temperature variation, but the mechanismunderlying these correlations remains unverified....
Serotonin receptors are G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) involved in a variety of psychiatric disorders. G-proteins, heterotrimeric complexes that couple to multiple receptors, are activated when their rece...
Despite the importance of 5-HT1A as a major target for the action of several anxiolytics/antidepressant drugs, little is known about its regulation in central serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) neurons.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is characterized by recurrent abdominal discomfort, spontaneous pain, colorectal hypersensitivity and bowel dysfunction. Patients with IBS also suffer from emotional anxiety and ...
Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is an inherited human retinal disorder that causes progressive photoreceptor cell loss, leading to severe vision impairment or blindness. However, no effective therapy has been establ...
Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with a single causal mutation in the Huntingtin (HTT) gene. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have recently been implicated as epigenetic regulators of neuro...
Voltage-dependent block of the NMDA receptor by Mg2+ is thought to be central to the unique involvement of this receptor in higher brain functions. However, the in vivo role of the Mg2+ block in the mammalian bra...
Mutant mice have been used successfully as a tool for investigating the mechanisms of memory at multiple levels, from genes to behavior. In most cases, manipulating a gene expressed in the brain impairs cognit...
Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is a highly charged polyanion capable of interacting with a number of molecular targets. This signaling molecule is released into the extracellular matrix by central astrocytes ...
Schizophrenia, a severe psychiatric disorder, has a lifetime prevalence of 1%. The exact mechanisms underlying this disorder remain unknown, though theories abound. Recent studies suggest that particular cell ...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology occurs in part as the result of excessive production of β-amyloid (Aβ). Metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) is now considered a receptor for Aβ and consequently contri...
The gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA) system is a critical mediator of fear extinction process. GABA can induce “phasic” or “tonic” inhibition in neurons through synaptic or extrasynaptic GABAA receptors, respectiv...
Cerebral overexcitation needs inhibitory neurons be functionally upregulated to rebalance excitation vs. inhibition. For example, the intensive activities of GABAergic neurons induce spontaneous spikes, i.e., ...
HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND) is characterized by development of cognitive, behavioral and motor abnormalities, and occurs in approximately 50% of HIV infected individuals. In the United States...
Low-voltage-activated (T-type) calcium channels play a crucial role in a number of physiological processes, including neuronal and cardiac pacemaker activity and nociception. Therefore, finding specific modula...
Functional heterologous expression of naturally-expressed and apparently functional mammalian α6*-nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs; where ‘*’ indicates presence of additional subunits) has been diffic...
The L-type calcium channel Cav1.2 is important for brain and heart function. The ubiquitous calcium sensing protein calmodulin (CaM) regulates calcium dependent gating of Cav1.2 channels by reducing calcium in...
Neuroinflammation plays a key role in the initiation and progression of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Chronic neuroinflammation results in diminished synaptic plasticity and loss of GluN1 N-methy...
Chronic stress is generally known to exacerbate the development of numerous neuropsychiatric diseases such as fear and anxiety disorders, which is at least partially due to the disinhibition of amygdala subseq...
We previously performed systematic association studies of glutamate receptor gene family members with schizophrenia, and found positive associations of polymorphisms in the GRM3 (a gene of metabotropic glutamate ...
Prolonged re-exposure to a fear-eliciting cue in the absence of an aversive event extinguishes the fear response to the cue, and has been clinically used as an exposure therapy. Arc (also known as Arg3.1) is i...
Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) mutations are the most common cause of dominant and sporadic Parkinson’s disease (PD), a common neurodegenerative disorder. Yeast-two-hybrid screening using human LRRK2 kin...
Inflammatory reaction in blood–spinal cord barrier (BSCB) plays a crucial role in ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. It has been shown that microglia could be activated through Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Ther...
One major interest in the study of transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) in sensory system is that it may serve as a drug target for treating chronic pain. While the roles of TRPV1 in periphera...
Action potentials can be initiated at various subcellular compartments, such as axonal hillock, soma and dendrite. Mechanisms and physiological impacts for this relocation remain elusive, which may rely on inp...
Itch, chronic itch in particular, can have a significant negative impact on an individual’s quality of life. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying itch processing in the central nervous system remain la...
The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a New World primate sharing many similarities with humans. Recently developed technology for generating transgenic marmosets has opened new avenues for faithful recapit...
Different pools and functions have recently been attributed to spontaneous and evoked vesicle release. Despite the well-established function of evoked release, the neuronal information transmission, the origin...
In 2006, we demonstrated that mature somatic cells can be reprogrammed to a pluripotent state by gene transfer, generating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Since that time, there has been an enormous incr...
Loss of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene function results in constitutive activation of the canonical Wnt pathway and represents the main initiating and rate-limiting event in colorectal tumorigenesis. APC i...
Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) is conventionally considered a critical enzyme that involves in glycolysis for energy production. Recent previous studies have suggested that GAPDH is important...
Higher brain function is supported by the precise temporal and spatial regulation of thousands of genes. The mechanisms that underlie transcriptional regulation in the brain, however, remain unclear. The Ntng1 an...
Whole-cell patch clamp recording has been successfully used in identifying the voltage-dependent gating and conductance properties of ion channels in a variety of cells. However, this powerful technique is of ...
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors can deliver transgenes to diverse cell types and are therefore useful for basic research and gene therapy. Although AAV has many advantages over other viral vectors, its re...
Rats exhibit extremely limited motor function recovery after total transection of the spinal cord (SCT). We previously reported that SM-216289, a semaphorin3A inhibitor, enhanced axon regeneration and motor fu...
Zinc concentrates at excitatory synapses, both at the postsynaptic density and in a subset of glutamatergic boutons. Zinc can modulate synaptic plasticity, memory formation and nociception by regulating transm...
Excess expression of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in the cortex and hippocampus causes a decrease in the number of glutamatergic synapses and alters the expression of neurexin and neuroligin, trans-synaptic pro...
Acquired memory is initially dependent on the hippocampus (HPC) for permanent memory formation. This hippocampal dependency of memory recall progressively decays with time, a process that is associated with a ...
We have previously identified BRINP (BMP/RA-inducible neural-specific protein-1, 2, 3) family genes that possess the ability to suppress cell cycle progression in neural stem cells. Of the three family members...
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)/ Deep-brain Magnetic Stimulation (DMS) is an effective therapy for various neuropsychiatric disorders including major depression disorder. The molecular and ...
VPS35 (vacuolar protein sorting 35) is a major component of retromer that selectively promotes endosome-to-Golgi retrieval of transmembrane proteins. Dysfunction of retromer is a risk factor for the pathogenes...
A joint publication of BMC, part of Springer Nature, and the Editorial Group of Molecular Brain since 2008.
Molecular Brain is affiliated with the Association for the Study of Neurons and Disease (AND).
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