background and objective: parkinson’s disease (pd) is a common neurological disorder due to degeneration of dopaminergic neurons within pars compacta of substantia nigra (snc). with regard to protective effect of malva sylvestris (ms), this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of aquaeous extract of this plant in an experimental model of pd induced by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-ohda). materials...

Dopaminergic (DA) neurons of substantia nigra in the midbrain control voluntary movement, and their degeneration is the cause of Parkinson's disease. The complete set of genes required to specifically determine the development of midbrain DA subgroups is not known yet. We report here that mice lacking the bicoid-related homeoprotein Pitx3 fail to develop DA neurons of the substantia nigra. Othe...

Motor symptoms that define Parkinson's disease (PD) are caused by the selective loss of nigral dopaminergic (DA) neurons. Cell replacement therapy for PD has been focused on midbrain DA neurons derived from human fetal mesencephalic tissue, human embryonic stem cells (hESC) or human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). Recent development in the direct conversion of human fibroblasts to induce...

The basis for selective death of specific neuronal populations in neurodegenerative diseases remains unclear. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a synucleinopathy characterized by a preferential loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN), whereas neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are spared. Using intracellular patch electrochemistry to directly measure cytosolic dopamine (DA(...

Parkinson disease (PD) is characterized by the specific degeneration of dopaminergic (DA) neurons in substantia nigra and has been linked to a variety of environmental and genetic factors. Rotenone, an environmental PD toxin, exhibited much greater toxicity to DA neurons in midbrain neuronal cultures than to non-DA neurons. The effect was significantly decreased by the microtubule-stabilizing d...

Parkinson's disease (PD) results from a progressive degeneration of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal system leading to a decline in movement control, with resting tremor, rigidity and postural instability. Several aspects of PD can be modeled in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, including α-synuclein-induced degeneration of dopaminergic neurons, or dopamine (DA) loss by genetic elimination ...

The effect of muscarine on Ca2+ dependent electrical activity was studied in dopamine (DA) neurons located in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) in brain slices from young rats, using sharp electrodes. In most DA neurons tested, muscarine (50 microM) reduced the amplitude of spontaneous oscillatory potentials and evoked Ca2+-dependent potentials recorded in the presence of TTX. Muscarine ...

Unexpected, biologically salient stimuli elicit a short-latency, phasic response in midbrain dopaminergic (DA) neurons. Although this signal is important for reinforcement learning, the information it conveys to forebrain target structures remains uncertain. One way to decode the phasic DA signal would be to determine the perceptual properties of sensory inputs to DA neurons. After local disinh...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by a loss of midbrain dopaminergic (DA) neurons. Transplantation of DA neurons represents a promising treatment for PD, and embryonic stem (ES) cells are a good candidate source for DA neurons. However, although recent reports have demonstrated that DA neurons can be efficiently induced from ES cells and function therapeutica...

Besides its hormonal effects, thyrotro pin releasing hormone (TRH) induces se veral behavioral changes in rats. Marked increases in locomotor activity occur after administration of TRH and its analogs. This effect was hypothesized to be due to a stimulation of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons (Miyamoto and Nagawa, 1977; Heal and Green, 1979). TRH has no effect on the reuptake of monoamines (Tuom...