The response of cortical neurons to a sensory stimulus is shaped by the network in which they are embedded. Here we establish a role of parvalbumin (PV)-expressing cells, a large class of inhibitory neurons that target the soma and perisomatic compartments of pyramidal cells, in controlling cortical responses. By bidirectionally manipulating PV cell activity in visual cortex we show that these ...

erbb4 is a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia and ErbB4 signals have been hypothesized to function in a number of cortical developmental processes (Silberberg et al., 2006; Mei and Xiong, 2008). Several recent studies show that the expression of ErbB4 is mainly restricted to GABAergic interneurons (Yau et al., 2003; Woo et al., 2007), specifically, to parvalbumin-positive (PV) fast-spiking (...

BACKGROUND It is generally assumed that visual cortical cells homogeneously shift their ocular dominance (OD) in response to monocular deprivation (MD), however little experimental evidence directly supports this notion. By using immunohistochemistry for the activity-dependent markers c-Fos and Arc, coupled with staining for markers of inhibitory cortical sub-populations, we studied whether lon...

Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites infect host cells by an active invasion process leading to the formation of a specialized compartment, the parasitophorous vacuole (PV). PVs resist fusion with host cell endosomes and lysosomes and are thus distinct from phagosomes. Because the parasite remains sequestered within the PV, it is unclear how T. gondii-derived antigens (Ag's) access the major histocomp...

AIMS Prion diseases are generally characterized by pronounced neuronal loss. In particular, a subpopulation of inhibitory neurones, characterized by the expression of the calcium-binding protein parvalbumin (PV), is selectively destroyed early in the course of human and experimental prion diseases. By contrast, nerve cells expressing calbindin D28 k (CB), another calcium-binding protein, as wel...

With the increasing fossil fuel exhaustion, environmental pollution and global energy demand, the use of renewable energy based clean and non-pollutant energy sources are gaining more importance. Since these sources are highly intermittent in nature, power electronic interfaces are necessary for their efficient utilization. For stand-alone applications, energy storage devices are required for b...

Poliovirus (PV) can establish persistent infections in human neuroblastoma IMR-32 cells. We previously showed that during persistent infection, specific mutations were selected in the first extracellular domain of the PV receptor (CD155) of these cells (N. Pavio, T. Couderc, S. Girard, J. Y. Sgro, B. Blondel, and F. Colbère-Garapin, Virology 274:331-342, 2000). These mutations included the Ala ...

Most of the circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) implicated in poliomyelitis outbreaks in Madagascar have been shown to be recombinants between the type 2 poliovirus (PV) strain of the oral polio vaccine (Sabin 2) and another species C human enterovirus (HEV-C), such as type 17 coxsackie A virus (CA17) in particular. We studied intertypic genetic exchanges between PV and non-PV HEV...

Polycythemia vera (PV) is a chronic myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) which characterized by proliferation of red blood cells, white cells and platelets. PV associated with the JAK2 V617F mutation. The presenting symptom variable. Headache, weakness, fatigue, pruritus, dyspepsia, dizziness, visual disturbances may be seen in patients. Severe complications such as stroke, acute myocardial infarc...