Monoaminergic and neuropeptidergic neurons regulate a wide variety of behaviors, such as feeding, sleep/wakefulness behavior, stress response, addiction, and social behavior. These neurons form neural circuits to integrate different modalities of behavioral and environmental factors, such as stress, maternal care, and feeding conditions. One possible mechanism for integrating environmental fact...

Descending monoaminergic inputs markedly influence spinal locomotor circuits, but the functional relationships between specific receptors and the control of walking behavior remain poorly understood. To identify these interactions, we manipulated serotonergic, dopaminergic, and noradrenergic neural pathways pharmacologically during locomotion enabled by electrical spinal cord stimulation in adu...

Cataplexy in the narcoleptic canine may be modulated by systemic administration of monoaminergic compounds. In the present study, we have investigated the effects of monoaminergic drugs on cataplexy in narcoleptic canines when perfused locally via microdialysis probes in the amygdala, globus pallidus/putamen, basal forebrain, pontine reticular formation and ventral tegmental area of narcoleptic...

1423 Stage Transition Mechanism for Ultradian Rhythm—Kishi et al neurons themselves. Although further modifications of the original reciprocal interaction model, e.g., the incorporation of selfinhibitory cholinergic autoreceptors and excitatory interactions between cholinergic and non-cholinergic REM-on neurons, have been proposed over the past 30 years with new findings of synaptic details of ...

To build on previous findings on the effects of citalopram on β-amyloid plaques, Sheline and colleagues1 evaluated the role of the serotonergic system in an animal model of Alzheimer pathology as well in healthy human volunteers. Citalopram was found to halt the growth of existing β-amyloid plaques and reduce the formation of new ones by 78%; the drug also decreased β-amyloid in the cerebrospin...

Altered concentrations of monoamine neurotransmitters and metabolites have been repeatedly found in people with Down syndrome (DS, trisomy 21). Because of the limited availability of human post-mortem tissue, DS mouse models are of great interest to study these changes and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Although previous studies have shown the potential of Ts65Dn mice - the most wid...

Concentration of dopamine and serotonin metabolites (HVA and 5-HIAA) in the CSF was evaluated before and after pharmacological treatment in 19 patients with different neuropsychiatric diseases. In every case a reciprocal modification of the two metabolites occurred after treatment. The result supports the hypothesis of a functional balance between the monoaminergic systems in the central nervou...