How do spinal circuits mediating tactile sensation and pain get entangled to evoke allodynia, i.e., pain sensation, in response to a normally innocuous stimulus? Recent breakthroughs are now closing this long-standing, critical gap. VGLUT3-expressing neurons and their polysynaptic connectivity to calretinin-expressing neurons are now identified as key determinants of the spinal circuitry underl...

BACKGROUND The aim was to evaluate the accuracy of immunohistochemistry in diagnosis of the source of malignancies in pleural and peritoneal fluids in comparison to histopathology as the gold standard. MATERIAL AND METHODS Retrospectively, the cell block specimen and past medical data files of patients who had undergone serosal fluid aspiration and had a histopathology report corresponding to...

BACKGROUND Excitatory interneurons account for the majority of neurons in laminae I-III, but their functions are poorly understood. Several neurochemical markers are largely restricted to excitatory interneuron populations, but we have limited knowledge about the size of these populations or their overlap. The present study was designed to investigate this issue by quantifying the neuronal popu...

Ca 2+ ions are key regulators of fundamental synaptic processes including transmitter release and the induction of plasticity. They act within complex topographical relationships between the sites of Ca 2+ influx and those sites where the Ca 2+ controlled effector proteins are located. These topographies are dynamically shaped by protein-complexes and the spatio-temporal extent of Ca 2+ elevati...

PURPOSE The retina of the blind mole rat Spalax ehrenbergi was compared with other vertebrate photosensitive organs in an attempt to correlate its histologic organization with a presumptive nonvisual photoreceptor role. METHODS The eyes of eight adult animals were analyzed by light and electron microscopy, using conventional staining and immunolabeling with antibodies against phototransductio...

The blind mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi, can, despite severely degenerated eyes covered by fur, entrain to the daily light/dark cycle and adapt to seasonal changes due to an intact circadian timing system. The present study demonstrates that the Spalax retina contains a photoreceptor layer, an outer nuclear layer (ONL), an outer plexiform layer (OPL), an inner nuclear layer (INL), an inner plexif...

In mouse, the first neurons are generated at embryonic day (E) 12 and form the preplate (PP), which contains a mix of future marginal zone cells, including Cajal-Retzius cells, and subplate cells. To detect developmental changes in channel populations in these earliest-generated neurons of the cerebral cortex, we studied the electrophysiological properties of proliferative cells of the ventricu...

Calretinin-like immunoreactivity was examined in the electrosensory and electromotor systems of the two families of mormyriform electric fish. Mormyrid fish showed the strongest immunoreactivity in the knollenorgan electroreceptor pathway; in the nucleus of the electrosensory lateral line lobe (ELL) and the big cells of the nucleus exterolateralis pars anterior. Mormyromast and ampullary zones ...

Retroperitoneal synovial sarcomas are very rare. The authors describe a 39-year-old male with a primary retroperitoneal synovial sarcoma showing a monophasic pattern. Immunohistochemically, the tumor cells were positive for cytokeratin AE1/AE3, epithelial membrane antigen, vimentin, S-100 protein, CD99 and calretinin. The differential diagnosis, clinical evolution and principles of treatment ar...

The secreted signaling factor Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) acts in the floor plate of the developing vertebrate CNS to promote motoneuron development. In addition, shh has dorsal expression domains in the amniote alar plate (i.e., in isocortex, superior colliculus, and cerebellum). For example, shh expressing Purkinje cells act in transit amplification of external granular layer (EGL) cells of the deve...