We studied adaptations to acute precipitated opioid withdrawal of spinal μ-opioid receptor (MOR)-coupled regulation of the release of endomorphin 2 (EM2). The release of this highly MOR-selective endogenous opioid from opioid-naive spinal tissue of male rats is subjected to MOR-coupled positive as well as negative modulation via cholera toxin-sensitive G(s) and pertussis toxin-sensitive G(i)/G(...

The left dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) is thought to play a dominant role in the selection of movements made by either hand. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation to study the functional connectivity of the left PMd and right primary motor cortex (M1) during an acoustic choice reaction time (RT) task involving contraction of the thumb and forefinger. The facilitatory and inhibitory pathways ...

This review describes mechanisms and circuitry underlying combination-sensitive response properties in the auditory brainstem and midbrain. Combination-sensitive neurons, performing a type of auditory spectro-temporal integration, respond to specific, properly timed combinations of spectral elements in vocal signals and other acoustic stimuli. While these neurons are known to occur in the audit...

Our aim was to study the inhibitory and facilitatory factors possibly accounting for the undetectable activity of the GnRH pulse generator in late fetal life in vitro and its awakening in early postnatal life. Gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA(A)) receptor antagonism using SR 95 531 did not cause any secretory pulse in fetal explants, whereas a significant stimulation of GnRH pulse frequency was ob...

AIMS Parkinson's disease (PD) affects the nigrostriatal projections leading to micturition disturbance in most cases. Overactive bladder (OAB) symptoms such as urinary urgency or urgent urinary incontinence are common amongst PD patients. Several urodynamic studies have revealed that detrusor overactivity causes OAB symptoms in PD patients. We assert that striatal dysfunction might contribute t...

Few preclinical or clinical studies have evaluated the effect of anesthetics on motor evoked potentials (MEPs), either alone or in the presence of conditioning stimuli such as deep brain stimulation (DBS). In this study we evaluated the effects of two commonly used anesthetic agents, propofol and ketamine (KET), on MEPs elicited by intra-cortical microstimulation of the motor cortex in a rodent...

In Aplysia, activity of efferent fibers in the optic nerve can influence the circadian clock in the eye. In addition, serotonin (5-HT) is present in the eye and influences the function of the clock. Accordingly, we hypothesized that 5-HT is the transmitter of the optic efferents, and tested the prediction that exogenous 5-HT would mimic the action of the optic efferents on the clock. We also te...

The generation and shaping of the respiratory motor pattern are performed in the lower brainstem and involve neuronal interactions within the medulla and between the medulla and pons. A computational model of the ponto-medullary respiratory network has been developed by incorporating existing experimental data on the medullary neural circuits and possible interactions between the medulla and po...

High frequency stimulation (HFS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) has been performed to reverse motor dysfunction in severe parkinsonian patients. Recent studies suggested that neural circuitry in the basal ganglia might regulate micturition function as well. In 15 adult male cats under ketamine anesthesia, in which spontaneous isovolumetric micturition reflex had been generated, we performed e...

When listening to speech under adverse conditions, expectancies resulting from semantic context can have a strong impact on comprehension. Here we ask how minimal variations in semantic context (cloze probability) affect the unfolding comprehension of acoustically degraded speech. Three main results are observed in the brain electric response. First, auditory evoked responses to a degraded sent...