Journal ArticleDOI
Amelioration of cholinergic neuron atrophy and spatial memory impairment in aged rats by nerve growth factor.
Walter Fischer,Klas Wictorin,Anders Björklund,Lawrence R. Williams,Silvio Varon,Fred H. Gage +5 more
TLDR
Continuous intracerebral infusion of NGF over a period of four weeks can partly reverse the cholinergic cell body atrophy and improve retention of a spatial memory task in behaviourally impaired aged rats.Abstract:
In aged rodents, impairments in learning and memory have been associated with an age-dependent decline in forebrain of cholinergic function, and recent evidence indicates that the cholinergic neurons in the nucleus basalis magnocellularis, the septal-diagonal band area and the striatum undergo age-dependent atrophy. Thus, as in Alzheimer-type dementia in man, degenerative changes in the forebrain cholinergic system may contribute to age-related cognitive impairments in rodents. The cause of these degenerative changes is not known. Recent studies have shown that the central cholinergic neurons in the septal-diagonal band area, nucleus basalis and striatum are sensitive to the neurotrophic protein nerve growth factor (NGF). In particular, intraventricular injections or infusions of NGF in young adult rats have been shown to prevent retrograde neuronal cell death and promote behavioural recovery after damage to the septo-hippocampal connections. It is so far not known, however, whether the atrophic cholinergic neurons in aged animals are responsive to NGF treatment. We report here that continuous intracerebral infusion of NGF over a period of four weeks can partly reverse the cholinergic cell body atrophy and improve retention of a spatial memory task in behaviourally impaired aged rats.read more
Citations
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Book ChapterDOI
Twelve – Synaptic Plasticity, Neurotrophic Factors, and Transplantation in the Aged Brain
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Chronic infusions of GABA into the medial prefrontal cortex induce spatial alternation deficits in aged rats
TL;DR: The results suggest that aged prefrontal cortex and/or related areas participating in the acquisition of the delayed alternation task are more sensitive to aging processes.
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Accelerating behavioral recovery after cortical lesions. I. Homotopic implants plus NGF.
TL;DR: It is suggested that NGF associated with homotopic implants facilitates recovery of learning abilities in insular cortex-lesioned rats and suggest that similar treatments with NTFs may have analogous effects when lesions involve other brain areas.
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Cyclic AMP regulation of the human choline acetyltransferase gene
TL;DR: It is suggested that cAMP regulates choline acetyltransferase gene transcription through an indirect mechanism by regulating the gene response to 8-bromo-cAMP.
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Nerve Growth Factor and autophagy: effect of nasal Anti-NGF-Antibodies administration on Ambra1 and Beclin-1 expression in rat brain.
TL;DR: This study provides a nongenetically modified, NGF-defective animal model, representing a suitable tool to investigate novel properties of the neurotrophin, especially in relation to autophagy, and demonstrates that intranasally administered ANA reaches brain N GF-target neurons and lowers the levels of endogenous NGF and its receptors.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Nerve growth factor promotes survival of septal cholinergic neurons after fimbrial transections
TL;DR: It is suggested that fimbrial transections resulted in retrograde degeneration of cholinergic septo-hippocampal neurons and that NGF treatment strongly attenuated this lesion-induced degeneration.
Journal ArticleDOI
Nerve growth factor treatment after brain injury prevents neuronal death
TL;DR: Cholinergic neuronal degeneration after axotomy has been proposed to be due to the loss of a retrogradely transported neurotrophic factor, possibly nerve growth factor (NGF), and NGF was continuously infused into the lateral ventricles of adult rats that had received bilateral lesions of all cholinergic axons projecting from the medial septum to the dorsal hippocampus.