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Astrocytes, from brain glue to communication elements: the revolution continues.
Andrea Volterra,Jacopo Meldolesi +1 more
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The recent recognition that astrocytes are organized in separate territories and possess active properties — notably a competence for the regulated release of 'gliotransmitters', including glutamate — has enabled us to develop an understanding of previously unknown functions for astroCytes.Abstract:
For decades, astrocytes have been considered to be non-excitable support cells of the brain. However, this view has changed radically during the past twenty years. The recent recognition that they are organized in separate territories and possess active properties — notably a competence for the regulated release of 'gliotransmitters', including glutamate — has enabled us to develop an understanding of previously unknown functions for astrocytes. Today, astrocytes are seen as local communication elements of the brain that can generate various regulatory signals and bridge structures (from neuronal to vascular) and networks that are otherwise disconnected from each other. Examples of their specific and essential roles in normal physiological processes have begun to accumulate, and the number of diseases known to involve defective astrocytes is increasing.read more
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Astrocytes: biology and pathology
TL;DR: Astrocyte functions in healthy CNS, mechanisms and functions of reactive astrogliosis and glial scar formation, and ways in which reactive astrocytes may cause or contribute to specific CNS disorders and lesions are reviewed.
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Inflammation and Its Discontents: The Role of Cytokines in the Pathophysiology of Major Depression
TL;DR: Preliminary data from patients with inflammatory disorders, as well as medically healthy depressed patients, suggest that inhibiting proinflammatory cytokines or their signaling pathways may improve depressed mood and increase treatment response to conventional antidepressant medication.
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Brain energy metabolism: focus on astrocyte-neuron metabolic cooperation
TL;DR: This review focuses on the cellular aspects of brain energy metabolism, with a particular emphasis on the metabolic interactions between neurons and astrocytes.
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Mammalian nicotinic acetylcholine receptors: from structure to function.
TL;DR: This review provides a comprehensive overview of the advancement of functional and genetic studies in the late 1980s and the more recent revelations of the impact that the rich diversity in function and expression of this receptor family has on neuronal and nonneuronal cells throughout the body.
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Immune modulation of learning, memory, neural plasticity and neurogenesis
Raz Yirmiya,Inbal Goshen +1 more
TL;DR: These effects are mediated by inflammation-induced neuronal hyper-excitability and adrenocortical stimulation, followed by reduced production of neurotrophins and other plasticity-related molecules, facilitating many forms of neuropathology associated with normal aging as well as neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases.
References
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Dynamic predictions: Oscillations and synchrony in top–down processing
TL;DR: It is argued that coherence among subthreshold membrane potential fluctuations could be exploited to express selective functional relationships during states of expectancy or attention, and these dynamic patterns could allow the grouping and selection of distributed neuronal responses for further processing.
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Molecular Physiology of P2X Receptors
TL;DR: P2X receptors are membrane ion channels that open in response to the binding of extracellular ATP and are involved in the initiation of afferent signals in several viscera and play a key role in sensing tissue-damaging and inflammatory stimuli.
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Tripartite synapses : Glia, the unacknowledged partner
TL;DR: It is suggested that perisynaptic Schwann cells and synaptically associated astrocytes should be viewed as integral modulatory elements of tripartite synapses.
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Glutamate-mediated astrocyte-neuron signalling.
Vladimir Parpura,Trent A. Basarsky,Fang Liu,Ksenija Jeftinija,Srdija Jeftinija,Philip G. Haydon +5 more
TL;DR: Astrocytes regulate neuronal calcium levels through the calcium-dependent release of glutamate, and an NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate) receptor-mediated increase in neuronal calcium is demonstrated.
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CNS synaptogenesis promoted by glia-derived cholesterol
Daniela H. Mauch,Karl Nägler,Stefan Schumacher,Christian Göritz,Eva-Christina Müller,Albrecht Otto,Frank W. Pfrieger +6 more
TL;DR: Cholesterol complexed to apolipoprotein E-containing lipoproteins may explain the delayed onset of CNS synaptogenesis after glia differentiation and neurobehavioral manifestations of defects in cholesterol or lipoprotein homeostasis.