Since its discovery in 2007, the encephalitis associated with antibodies against the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) has entered the mainstream of neurology and other disciplines. Most patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis develop a multistage illness that progresses from psychosis, memory deficits, seizures, and language disintegration into a state of unresponsiveness with catatonic features often associated with abnormal movements, and autonomic and breathing instability. The disorder predominantly affects children and young adults, occurs with or without tumour association, and responds to treatment but can relapse. The presence of a tumour (usually an ovarian teratoma) is dependent on age, sex, and ethnicity, being more frequent in women older than 18 years, and slightly more predominant in black women than it is in white women. Patients treated with tumour resection and immunotherapy (corticosteroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, or plasma exchange) respond faster to treatment and less frequently need second-line immunotherapy (cyclophosphamide or rituximab, or both) than do patients without a tumour who receive similar initial immunotherapy. More than 75% of all patients have substantial recovery that occurs in inverse order of symptom development and is associated with a decline of antibody titres. Patients' antibodies cause a titre-dependent, reversible decrease of synaptic NMDAR by a mechanism of crosslinking and internalisation. On the basis of models of pharmacological or genetic disruption of NMDAR, these antibody effects reveal a probable pathogenic relation between the depletion of receptors and the clinical features of anti-NMDAR encephalitis.

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/laneur/PIIS1474-4422(10)70253-2.pdf

Clinical experience and laboratory investigations in patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis

Applications of the Morris water maze in the study of learning and memory.

http://yael-nissan.weebly.com/uploads/5/2/9/2/5292348/the_introduction_to_pain_an_integrative_review_-_millan.pdf

The induction of pain: an integrative review

Lynch, MA. Long-Term Potentiation and Memory. Physiol Rev 84: 87–136, 2004; 10.1152/physrev.00014.2003.—One of the most significant challenges in neuroscience is to identify the cellular and molecu...

/pdf/long-term-potentiation-and-memory-3o23qnxlkq.pdf

Long-Term Potentiation and Memory

Animal models of memory have been considered as the subject of many scientific publications at least since the beginning of the twentieth century. In humans, memory is often accessed through spoken or written language, while in animals, cognitive functions must be accessed through different kind of behaviors in many specific, experimental models of memory and learning. Among them, the novel object recognition test can be evaluated by the differences in the exploration time of novel and familiar objects. Its application is not limited to a field of research and enables that various issues can be studied, such as the memory and learning, the preference for novelty, the influence of different brain regions in the process of recognition, and even the study of different drugs and their effects. This paper describes the novel object recognition paradigms in animals, as a valuable measure of cognition. The purpose of this work was to review the neurobiology and methodological modifications of the test commonly used in behavioral pharmacology.

/pdf/the-novel-object-recognition-memory-neurobiology-test-1k2knvdoy1.pdf

Atsumi Nitta

Papers

N-acetyltransferase 8-like accelerates lipid turnover and increases energy in brown adipocytes

β-Amyloid protein-induced Alzheimer's disease animal model

Production and functions of IL-17 in microglia

A natural scavenger of peroxynitrites, rosmarinic acid, protects against impairment of memory induced by Aβ25–35

Behavioral abnormality and pharmacologic response in social isolation-reared mice