Synaptic integration in vivo often involves activation of many afferent inputs whose firing patterns modulate over time. In spinal motoneurons, sustained excitatory inputs undergo enormous enhancement due to persistent inward currents (PICs) that are generated primarily in the dendrites and are dependent on monoaminergic neuromodulatory input from the brain stem to the spinal cord. We measured ...

The majority of mental disorders (schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, mood and anxiety disorders) have become treatable for the last several decades mostly due to development of the agents which modulate function of the brain dopaminergic, noradrenergic, and serotonergic system. The art of pharmacological healing in psychiatry consists actually in a great part in choice of the monoamin...

Monoaminergic neurons [serotonergic (5-HT) and dopaminergic (mdDA)] in the brainstem project axons along the anterior-posterior axis. Despite their important physiological functions and implication in disease, the molecular mechanisms that dictate the formation of these projections along the anterior-posterior axis remain unknown. Here we reveal a novel requirement for Wnt/planar cell polarity ...

There is extensive comorbidity between depression and anxiety disorders. Dimensional psychiatric and psychometric approaches have suggested that dysregulation of a limited number of behavioural dimensions that cut across diagnostic categories can account for both the shared and unique symptoms of depression and anxiety disorders. Such an approach recognizes that anxiety, the emotional response ...

BACKGROUND The studies on the mechanisms of ketamine antinociception have led to conflicting results. In this study, the authors investigated the contribution of supraspinal monoaminergic descending inhibitory system to ketamine analgesia for acute nociception and inflammation-induced hyperalgesia. METHODS Male Sprague-Dawley rats were used. The paw withdrawal latencies to radiant heat stimul...

Local inhibitory GABAergic and excitatory glutamatergic neurons are important for midbrain dopaminergic and hindbrain serotonergic pathways controlling motivation, mood, and voluntary movements. Such neurons reside both within the dopaminergic nuclei, and in adjacent brain structures, including the rostromedial and laterodorsal tegmental nuclei. Compared with the monoaminergic neurons, the deve...

Over 75% of depressed patients suffer from painful symptoms predicting a greater severity and a less favorable outcome of depression. Imaging, anatomical and functional studies have demonstrated the existence of common brain structures, neuronal pathways and neurotransmitters in depression and pain. In particular, the ascending serotonergic and noradrenergic pathways originating from the raphe ...

The development of monoaminergic axons is affected by pharmacological and environmental manipulations during early periods of brain development. In addition, it has been proposed that changes in the density of monoaminergic axons are involved in the pathophysiology of depression. The present experiments examined the effects of neonatal treatment with antidepressants on the density of monoaminer...