More than 90% of the cases of Parkinson's disease have unknown etiology. Gradual loss of dopaminergic neurons of substantia nigra is the main cause of morbidity in this disease. External factors such as environmental toxins are believed to play a role in the cell loss, although the cause of the selective vulnerability of dopaminergic neurons remains unknown. We have previously shown that aquagl...

Motivated reward-seeking behaviours are governed by dopaminergic ventral tegmental area projections to the nucleus accumbens. In addition to dopamine, these mesoaccumbal terminals co-release other neurotransmitters including glutamate and GABA, whose roles in regulating motivated behaviours are currently being investigated. Here we demonstrate that loss of the E3-ubiquitin ligase, UBE3A, from t...

Recent pharmacological discovery on trace amineassociated receptor, type 1(TAAR1) has emphasized importance of trace amines in pathogenesis of psychoses, such as schizophrenia. TAAR1 has many ligands, including tyramine, β-phenylethylamine (PEA), amphetamines, and 3’-iodothyronamine. Socalled D-neurons are putative producer of trace amines, endogenous ligands of TAAR1. The D-neuron is defined “...

Some neurochemical responses of dopaminergic neurons in the rabbit retina have been measured during prolonged light or dark adaptation. Light adaptation produced small increases (20%) in dopamine levels but larger increases (50-100%) in the two metabolites, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and homovanillic acid. Light also significantly increased tyrosine hydroxylase activity; the increase was mo...

Mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) lines were derived by crossing heterozygous transgenic (tg) mice expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the control of the rat tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) promoter, with homozygous alpha-synuclein (aSYN) mice expressing human mutant SNCAA53T under the control of the mouse Prion promoter (MoPrP), or wildtype (WT) mice. The expression of GFP and human aSYN...

Rat embryonic mesencephalic cultures were employed to evaluate the consequences of adding GM1 ganglioside to cultures lesioned with the selective neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+). MPP+ reduced dopamine and DOPAC content, dopamine uptake, aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase activity, and the number of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunopositive neurons. The immunopositive neurons that remai...

We have investigated the effects of substrate-bound laminin on levels of enzymes of the catecholamine biosynthetic pathway in primary cultures of calf adrenal chromaffin cells. Laminin increases the levels of the enzymes tyrosine hydroxylase, dopaminebeta-hydroxylase, and phenylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase. This effect is selective, in that levels of other enzymes (lactate dehydrogenase, ar...

Diabetic neuropathy is the loss of sensory function beginning distally in lower extremities, which also characterized by pain and substantial morbidity. Furthermore, locus coeruleus (LC) nucleus has been proposed to play an important role descending control through activation α2-noradrenergic (NA) receptors spinal dorsal horn. We studied, on diabetic mice, effect electrical stimulation LC tacti...

Mounting lines of evidence have suggested that brain inflammation participates in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. Triptolide is one of the major active components of Chinese herb Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F, which possesses potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties. We found that triptolide concentration-dependently attenuated the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced decr...

The trans-synaptic induction of tyrosine hydroxylase [tyrosine 3-monooxygenase; EC 1.14.16.2, L-tyrosine, tetrahydropteridine: oxygen oxidoreductase (3-hydroxylating)] in adrenal medulla and sympathetic ganglia by short-term (1-2 hr) cold stress (4 degrees) exhibits a circadian rhythm which seems to be causally related to the diurnal changes in adrenal glucocorticoid synthesis. In induction is ...