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Nervous system

About: Nervous system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 16729 publications have been published within this topic receiving 847181 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is reported that Xwnt3a is a candidate for involvement in anteroposterior neural patterning, as it synergizes with the neural-inducing factors noggin and follistatin to increase the expression of posterior neural genes, and it is shown that beta-catenin, an intracellular protein implicated in the Wnt signal transduction cascade, mimics the activity of XwNT3a.

244 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: These new and detailed anatomical descriptions of the human autonomic cardiac nervous system may provide important clues regarding the morphogenesis of autonomic heart nerves in addition to contributing to the improvement of cardiac surgery.
Abstract: A submacroscopic anatomical investigation of the entire autonomic cardiac nervous system, from origin to peripheral distribution, was performed by examining 36 sides of 18 adult human cadavers under a stereomicroscope. The following new results and points of discussion were obtained: (1) The superior cervical, the middle cervical, the vertebral, and the cervicothoracic (stellate) ganglia, composed of the inferior cervical and 1st thoracic ganglia, were mostly consistent among the specimens. (2) The superior, middle, and inferior cardiac nerves innervated the heart by simply following the descent of the great arteries. In contrast, the thoracic cardiac nerve in the posterior mediastinum followed a complex course because of the long distance to the middle mediastinum. (3) The actual course of the right thoracic cardiac nerve differed from that of the previous descriptions in that it ascended obliquely or ran transversely to the vertebrae, regardless of the intercostal vessels. Regarding the right thoracic cardiac nerve, two descending courses were observed: the descent of the right thoracic cardiac nerve via the azygos vein and right venous porta, and the descent of the recurrent right thoracic cardiac nerve via the aorta. (4) The cranial cardiac nerve and branch tended to distribute into the heart medially, and the caudal cardiac nerve and branch tended to distribute into the heart laterally. (5) The mixing positions (cardiac plexus) of the sympathetic cardiac nerve and the vagal cardiac branch, as well as the definitive morphology of brachial arteries with the recurrent laryngeal nerves, tended to differ on both sides. These new and detailed anatomical descriptions of the human autonomic cardiac nervous system may provide important clues regarding the morphogenesis of autonomic cardiac nerves in addition to contributing to the improvement of cardiac surgery.

243 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is concluded that GDNF mRNA is expressed in many different cellular systems inside and outside the central nervous system during development, suggesting multiple functions of GDNF in the developing organism.
Abstract: Glial-cell-line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a distant member of the transforming growth factor-β family and has potent neurotrophic effects on several classes of neurons including dopamine neurons and motoneurons. Here, we have used in situ hybridization to describe the development of the cellular expression of GDNF mRNA pre- and postnatally. Consistent with dopaminotrophic activity, GDNF mRNA is expressed in the developing basal ganglia and the olfactory tubercle. It is also found in a thalamic nucleus, in neurons of the substantia innominata, in the developing Purkinje neurons and the developing locus coeruleus area, and in trigeminal brainstem nuclei. In the spinal cord, neuronal expression is found in Clarke’s column. GDNF mRNA is also expressed in the dorsal horns during development. Additional GDNF mRNA expression in the head region includes the carotid body, the retina, the vibrissae, the inner ear, the ear canal, and epithelium in the nasal cavity. Prominent expression is also found in the developing teeth. The widespread expression of GDNF in developing skeletal muscle is consistent with trophic activity on α-motoneurons. The smooth muscle layers of the gastrointestinal tract are also strongly positive. A very strong signal is found in the outer mesenchyme of the developing metanephric kidney. We conclude that GDNF mRNA is expressed in many different cellular systems inside and outside the central nervous system during development, suggesting multiple functions of GDNF in the developing organism.

243 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023247
2022510
2021371
2020409
2019375
2018357