Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a potent survival factor for dopaminergic neurons of the nigrostriatal pathway that degenerate in Parkinson’s disease (PD). In animal models of PD, GDNF delivery has been shown to both protect dopaminergic neurons against toxin-induced injury and to rescue damaged neurons, promoting recovery of the motor deficit. GDNF may act both as a targe...

The cerebral cortex is organized into six cell layers, each of which contains neurons with similar morphology, functions, gene-expression profiles, and projection patterns. These layer-specific neuronal phenotypes are sequentially generated from common cortical progenitor cells in the ventricular zone of dorsal telencephalon. Although recent investigations have clarified important roles of intr...

objective(s): occlusal trauma is one of the most common forms of oral biting dysfunction. long-term occlusal trauma could weaken the stomatognathic system; especially damage one’s masticatory muscle. through using the rat model, this study investigated the trophic effect of ciliary neurotrophic factor (cntf) on injured masseter muscle. materials and methods: male wistar rats (n=36) were randoml...

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) mRNA is highly expressed by dental pulp cells (DPCs) prior to the initiation of dental pulp innervation. We show that radioactively labelled exogenous GDNF is retrogradely transported from neonatal teeth and vibrissae to the trigeminal neurons, indicating that GDNF acts as a classical neurotrophic factor in the trigeminal system. We also show t...

Ilex pubescens is commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, such as coronary artery disease and stroke. However, the underlying mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of Ilex pubescens total flavonoids (IPTF) on neuroprotection and the potential mechanisms in a rat model of f...

background: the induction of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (bdnf) expression in the hippocampus has shown to play a role in the beneficial effects of resveratrol (rsv) on the learning and memory. the bdnf gene has a complicated structure with eight 5’ noncoding exons (i-ixa), each of which can splice to a common coding exon (ix) to form a functional transcript. estrogens increase levels of ...

To explore the role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor for survival and generation of striatal neurons after stroke, recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors carrying brain-derived neurotrophic factor or green fluorescent protein genes were injected into right rat substantia nigra 4-5 weeks prior to 30 min ipsilateral of middle cerebral artery occlusion. The brain-derived neurotrophic facto...