Objective: In addition to attention deficits and hyperactivity it is common for children with ADHD to display impaired fine and gross motor skills. The spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rat model of ADHD displays impaired motor learning [1]. We used this characteristic to study if the recently described acoustic noise benefit in learning in children with ADHD [2, 3] is also observed in the SH ra...

Objective: In addition to attention deficits and hyperactivity it is common for children with ADHD to display impaired fine and gross motor skills. The spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rat model of ADHD displays impaired motor learning [1]. We used this characteristic to study if the recently described acoustic noise benefit in learning in children with ADHD [2, 3] is also observed in the SH ra...

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative movement disorder resulting from a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons. The pathogenesis of PD remains incompletely understood, but increasing evidence from human and animal studies has suggested that oxidative damage contributes to the neuronal loss in PD. In this study, we used rotenone (a mitochondrial complex I inhibitor) based ...

Amyloid-beta peptide (Aβ) is implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a neurodegenerative disorder. This study was designed to determine the effect of four medicinal plants used to treat neurodegenerative diseases on Aβ-induced cell death. Cytotoxicity of the ethanol extracts of the plants was determined against SH-SY5Y (human neuroblastoma) cells which were untreated, as wel...

The progression of Alzheimer's disease is causatively linked to the accumulation of amyloid-β aggregates in the brain, however, it is not clear how the amyloid aggregates initiate the death of neuronal cells. The in vitro toxic effects of amyloid peptides are most commonly examined using the human neuroblastoma derived SH-SY5Y cell line and here we show that differentiated neuron-like SH-SY5Y c...

The proton motive force (PMF) is bio-energetically important for various cellular reactions to occur. We developed PMF-photogenerating mitochondria in cultured mammalian cells. An archaebacterial rhodopsin, delta-rhodopsin, which is a light-driven proton pump derived from Haloterrigena turkmenica, was expressed in the mitochondria of CHO-K1 cells. The constructed stable CHO-K1 cell lines showed...

8-Hydroxyquinoline and derivatives exhibit multifunctional properties, including antioxidant, antineurodegenerative, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic activities. In biological systems, elevation of intracellular calcium can cause calpain activation, leading to cell death. Here, the effect of 8-hydroxyquinoline and derivatives (5-chloro-7-iodo-8-hydroxyquinoline or clioquinol and 8...

All-trans-retinoic acid (RA) plays a crucial role in survival and differentiation of neurons. For elucidating signaling mechanisms involved in RA-induced neuronal differentiation, we have selected SH-SY5Y cells, which are an established in vitro cell model for studying RA signaling. Here we report that RA-induced neuronal differentiation of SH-SY5Y cells is coupled with increased expression/act...

Although a loss-of-function mutation has been identified in familial Parkinson's disease PARK7, the wild-type of DJ-1 is known to act as an oxidative stress sensor in neuronal cells. Recently, we identified UCP0045037 as a compound that bound to the reduced form of DJ-1 by in silico virtual screening. In this study, we determined the neuroprotective effects of UCP0045037 against focal cerebral ...

Two human neuroblastoma (NB) cell lines, SH-SY5Y and Kelly, were found to express the gene for erythropoietin (EPO) in an oxygen (O(2))-dependent manner. However, NB cells had maximal production of EPO with lower partial pressure of O(2) values than the well-characterized hepatoma cell line HepG2. This maximal EPO expression was preceded by accumulation of the O(2)-sensitive alpha subunit of th...