Showing papers in "Trends in Neurosciences in 2003"

TL;DR: Analysis of the molecular mechanisms underlying the generation and maintenance of central sensitization and LTP indicates that, although there are differences between the synaptic plasticity contributing to memory and pain, there are also striking similarities.

TL;DR: The net effect is that astroglia demarcate gray matter regions, both cortical and subcortical, into functional compartments whose internal activation thresholds and external outputs are regulated by single glial cells.

TL;DR: Compounds that interdict metal-ion binding to Abeta dissolve brain deposits in vitro and one such compound, clioquinol, inhibits Abeta deposition in the Tg2576 mouse model for AD and could be useful clinically.

TL;DR: Investigation of the conditions controlling this neurobiological reaction could have theoretical and clinical implications on how neurotransmitters and neuropeptides are regulated by chemical messengers.

TL;DR: The cation-chloride co-transporters (CCCs) have been identified as important regulators of neuronal Cl- concentration, and recent work indicates that CCCs play a key role in shaping GABA- and glycine-mediated signaling, influencing not only fast cell-to-cell communication but also various aspects of neuronal development, plasticity and trauma.

TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that large and small spines are "memory spines" and "learning spines", respectively, and that spine structure and the underlying organization of the actin cytoskeleton are major determinants of fast synaptic transmission and therefore are likely to provide a physical basis for memory in cortical neuronal networks.

TL;DR: These findings indicate that the human feeling of pain is both a distinct sensation and a motivation - that is, a specific emotion that reflects homeostatic behavioral drive, similar to temperature, itch, hunger and thirst.

TL;DR: Although investigated for some time in model organisms, IP/IT has recently been shown in human brain and opens a window into endogenous neuroprotection and, potentially, a window of opportunity to utilize these mechanisms in the clinic to treat patients with stroke and other CNS disorders.

TL;DR: A better understanding of the roles of folate and homocysteine in neuronal homeostasis throughout life is revealing novel approaches for preventing and treating neurological disorders.

TL;DR: This work sketches a simplified model, in which the secondary prosencephalon is a complex protosegment not subdivided into prosomeres, which exhibits patterning singularities, and continues to postulate that Prosomeres p1-p3 are the caudal forebrain.

TL;DR: Two long-opposing views of speech perception have posited a basis either in acoustic feature processing or in gestural motor processing; the view put forward here might help reconcile these positions.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present definitions of visual attention and awareness that clearly distinguish between the two, yet explain why attention and attention are so intricately related and why there seems more overlap between mechanisms of memory and awareness than between those of attention.

TL;DR: The hypothesis that reactivation of a consolidated memory can return it to a labile, sensitive state - in which it can be modified, strengthened, changed or even erased is revisited.

TL;DR: Ca(2+) entry through the NMDA subtype of glutamate receptors has the power to determine whether neurons survive or die, and the mechanisms behind this dichotomous signalling are understood.

TL;DR: A highly modifiable interneuron syncytium containing cholecystokinin carries information from subcortical pathways about the emotional, motivational and general physiological state of the animal, and appears to be involved in the fine-tuning of network cooperativity.

TL;DR: Glia should be considered an active partner at the synapse, dynamically regulating synaptic transmission, as well as a passive participants in synaptic function.

TL;DR: In the article ‘Parsing reward’ by Kent C. Berridge and Terry E. Robinson, text in the bottom right corner of Figure 1 should have read “ human unconscious ‘liking’”, rather than “Humanun conscious ‘ liking”.

TL;DR: An alternative, but complementary, hypothesis is discussed: bursts with specific resonant interspike frequencies are more likely to cause a postsynaptic cell to fire than are bursts with higher or lower frequencies, suggesting that bursts of action potentials might provide effective mechanisms for selective communication between neurons.

TL;DR: This review concentrates on recent in vitro evidence revealing a division of labour among different subclasses of interneurons with respect to the frequency of persistent rhythms, and the crucial dependence on gap-junction-mediated intercellular communication for the generation and maintenance of these rhythms.

TL;DR: These intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) help to synchronize circadian rhythms with the solar day and contribute to the pupillary light reflex and other behavioral and physiological responses to environmental illumination.

TL;DR: Recent studies of long-term synaptic plasticity in the Striatum are reviewed, emphasizing that drugs of abuse can exert pronounced influences on these processes, both in the striatum and in the dopaminergic midbrain.

TL;DR: The question of whether tissue pH is subject to quick fluctuations of a magnitude sufficient to activate ASICs is a crucial point that will determine the functional significance of these channels.

TL;DR: Both the role of pharmacological inhibition or lesion of dopaminergic neuron function and the involvement of dopamine in reward prediction for the purpose of reward seeking can be captured in a single computational model.

TL;DR: It can be difficult to harmonize the in vivo and in vitro functional differences between stem and progenitor cells, but these distinctions should be emphasized rather than ignored, as they can be used to test specific hypotheses in neural stem cell biology.

TL;DR: Recent findings indicate that specific non-junctional hemichannels do open under both physiological and pathological conditions, and that opening is functional or deleterious depending on the situation.

TL;DR: Conscious perception, like the sight of a coffee cup, seems to involve the brain identifying a stimulus, but conscious input activates more brain regions than are needed to identify coffee cups and faces, which do not serve stimulus identification as such.

TL;DR: Increased knowledge of plasticity within cortical-basal-ganglia-thalamocortical circuitry as dopaminergic neuron degeneration progresses has implications for understanding plasticity in neural circuits generally and, more specifically, for developing novel therapeutics or presymptomatic diagnostics for PD.

TL;DR: New findings implicate NgR as a point of convergence in signal transduction for several myelin-associated inhibitors in the intact adult CNS, expanding the understanding of the molecular determinants of adult CNS axonal regrowth.

TL;DR: Astrocytes have been presumed to be uninteresting for the better part of a century, but recent findings suggest unexpected new functions for these cells and highlight the importance of viewing most brain activities as a collaboration between astrocytes and neurons.

TL;DR: DNA microarrays have the potential to aid discovery of new targets for neuroprotective or restorative therapeutic approaches and reflect the struggle of the tissue to survive after injury.