Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) has been known for many years to protect and restore dopamine neurons of the substantia nigra (SN) in lesion models of parkinsonism, but much less has been known of its normal physiologic role. We have found that GDNF injected into the striatum postnatally suppresses naturally-occurring cell death in SN dopamine neurons, and neutralizing antibo...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Niacin is the most effective medication in current clinical use for increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. We tested the hypothesis that niacin treatment of stroke promotes synaptic plasticity and axon growth in the ischemic brain. METHODS Male Wistar rats were subjected to 2 hours of middle cerebral artery occlusion and treated with or without Niaspan (a prol...

Background and Purpose—Niacin is the most effective medication in current clinical use for increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. We tested the hypothesis that niacin treatment of stroke promotes synaptic plasticity and axon growth in the ischemic brain. Methods—Male Wistar rats were subjected to 2 hours of middle cerebral artery occlusion and treated with or without Niaspan (a prolon...

Background & Aims: The purpose of this research was to study the protective effect of pretreatment with a voluntary exercise on hippocampal level of cerebral dopamine neurotrophic factor (CDNF) after damage induced by intraventricular injection of 6–hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) in rats. Methods: In this experimental study, 24 Wistar rats were randomly divided into 4 groups of healthy control, healt...

Objective(s): Exposing to stress may be associated with increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Therefore, high level of oxidative stress may eventually give rise to accumulation of oxidative damage and development of numerous neurodegenerative diseases. It has been presented that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) supports neurons against various neurodegenerative conditio...

in this review the role of cerebrospinal fluid (csf) in mammalian cerebral cortex development has been highlighted. many studies have focused on the potential role of the csf in the developmental process. in particular, the cerebral cortex develops from the germinal epithelium adjacent to the csf. csf contains proteins, growth factors and other neurotrophic factors which are important for neura...

Neurotrophins play a protective role during cerebral ischemia, and mice lacking both alleles for neurotrophin 4 (Nt4-/- ) or deficient in a single allele for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (Bdnf+/-) have increased susceptibility to cerebral ischemia. This study directly compared the biologic activities of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and NT4 by replacing the coding sequence with ...

Several neurotrophic factors (NTF) are shown to be neuroprotective and neurorestorative in pre-clinical animal models for Parkinson's disease (PD), particularly in models where striatal dopamine neuron innervation partially exists. The results of clinical trials on late-stage patients have been modest. Subthalamic deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) is a proven treatment for a selected group of ad...

To study the selectivity of neurotrophic actions in the brain, we analyzed the actions of several known growth factors on septal cholinergic, pontine cholinergic, and mesencephalic dopaminergic neurons in culture. Similar to nerve growth factor (NGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) stimulated choline acetyltransferase activity in septal cultures. In contrast to NGF, bFGF also enhanced do...