Showing papers in "Current Opinion in Neurobiology in 1996"

TL;DR: The analysis of the behavioural and neural mechanisms of reinforcement and motivation has benefited from the recent application of learning theory and better anatomical knowledge of the connectivity of certain key neural structures, such as the nucleus accumbens.

TL;DR: Deficits in neurological patients suggest a role for the parietal cortex in the binding process ofceptual representations, which depend on distributed neural codes for relaying the parts and properties of objects.

TL;DR: Although these drugs have many actions that are distinct, their habit-forming actions appear to have a common denominator, namely, similar effects in the brain mechanisms of reward.

TL;DR: Because of new data, anatomical and functional models of the basal ganglia in normal and pathological conditions (e.g. Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases) have recently come under greater scrutiny and an update of these models is clearly timely.

TL;DR: Two subcortical structures, the cerebellum and basal ganglia, play a critical role in the timing of both movement and perception and are examined from both a neurological and a computational perspective.

TL;DR: The concept of ischemic apoptosis has raised exciting prospects of combining anti-apoptotic with anti-excitotoxic treatments to achieve heightened therapeutic benefits in the brains of patients traumatized by cardiac arrest or stroke.

TL;DR: From the secretion of neurotransmitters via synaptic vesicles to the expulsion of cellular waste via contractile vacuoles, exocyTosis and its sequel, endocytosis, are being explored with a variety of new optical tools.

TL;DR: Evidence implicating energy defects in neurodegenerative diseases comes from similarities to known mitochondrial disorders, including delayed and variable age of onset, slow progression, and symmetric degeneration of circumscribed groups of neurons.

TL;DR: The hypothesis that CREB is pivotal in the switch from short-term to long-term memory is supported by results that show agents that disrupt the activity of CREB specifically block the formation of long- term memory, whereas agents that increase the amount or activity of the transcription factor accelerate the process.

TL;DR: The use of animal models has progressively defined the circuitry for these functions within the amygdala and its interconnections with other brain systems, including pathways through which the amygdala modulates memory and regulates attention.

TL;DR: The recent discovery of a P2X purinoceptor that is selectively expressed by small-diameter sensory neurons has led to the exploration of the sources of ATP involved in the initiation of different types of nociception and pain, including sympathetic nerves, endothelial cells and tumour cells.

TL;DR: There is increasing evidence that early exposure to sex hormones has lasting effects on problem-solving behaviour; moreover, current fluctuations in sex hormones in both men and women are associated with changes in cognitive pattern.

TL;DR: Neurotrophins may play a role in linking functional modifications of synapses to the morphological effects of synaptic stabilization and rearrangement, as observed in the neocortex.

TL;DR: Careful analysis of the phenotypes of knock-out mice has been used to test directly the 'neurotrophic hypothesis', and the role of members of the transforming growth factor beta superfamily--in particular, glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor--in regulating neuronal survival has become apparent.

TL;DR: New evidence provides additional support for the view that stress hormones released during emotionally arousing situations modulates memory processes, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the sympathetic adrenomedullary and the pituitary adrenocortical systems interact to modulate memory storage.

TL;DR: Electrophysiological experiments indicate that both inositol trisphosphate and cyclic nucleotides function in both bitter and sweet transduction events.

TL;DR: The neurogenic genes of the Delta-Notch signalling pathway mediate lateral inhibition--a mechanism that controls cell commitment in many tissues and serves in the developing nervous system to single out cells for a neural fate.

TL;DR: The tetraspan group has emerged as a set of proteins with prominent functions in Schwann cell biology that positively and negatively regulate myelin differentiation pathways.

TL;DR: The results of these studies reveal underlying mechanisms not encompassed by classic carrier models and support an emerging view that transporter-mediated ionic currents may contribute to signaling in the nervous system.

TL;DR: The homeodomain of Antennapedia, a Drosophila transcription factor, translocates across biological membranes and a shorter sequence of 16 amino acids was identified that can be used as an internalization vector for several types of cargo into the cytoplasm and nucleus of all cell types.

TL;DR: Functional imaging data support the conclusion that the left hemisphere in right-handers is specialized for controlling cognitive-motor tasks in both arms, with the finding that ipsilateral, as well as contralateral, movements activate the left, but not the right, motor cortex or association areas of either hemisphere.

TL;DR: These results are consistent with neuroanatomical research showing that this area has strong and reciprocal connections with widespread cortical sensory areas and with other memory-related structures, including the hippocampal formation and amygdala.

TL;DR: The supplementaryMotor area, although traditionally defined as a single motor area, is now viewed as including at least three different areas that can be distinguished anatomically and physiologically.

TL;DR: Findings are best illustrated by examining the Shaker superfamily of potassium channels, where phosphorylation of tyrosine residues may produce acute changes in the characteristics of ion channels.

TL;DR: The doctrine of a strict 'homuncular' somatotopical organization of motor areas will have to be abandoned because the engagement of motor Areas in different types of voluntary seems merely a matter of degree of activation rather than exclusive specific contributions.

TL;DR: These findings reveal that the rodent hippocampus mediates memory representations on the basis of non-spatial, as well as spatial, relations among items in memory, and supports access to these memories in a variety of situations.

TL;DR: A diversity of neurotrophic factors are required for the differentiation and survival of neurons and for maintaining their phenotype, and by virtue of the rapid time scale of signal transduction in the cytosol, these factors also acutely regulate neuronal functions as diverse as synaptic transmission and nerve growth.

TL;DR: Although efforts have been made in the past year to correlate the structure and neurite-outgrowth-promoting ability of axonal IgSF members, this work is still at an early stage.

TL;DR: This work has shown that the pre-Bötzinger complex in the ventrolateral medulla is particularly important for respiratory rhythm generation and contains all the known types of respiratory neurons that are now amenable to detailed cellular and molecular analyses.

TL;DR: The secrets underlying these cell fate specifications are beginning to be revealed through the application of several molecular-genetic approaches, including gene expression studies in the early otic epithelium and inner ear sensory epithelia, and large-scale screens of zebrafish mutants to identify ear defects.