The present review surveys a broad range of findings on the functions of the rodent prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the context of the known pathophysiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). An overview of clinical findings concludes that dysfunction of the right PFC plays a critical role in ADHD and that a number of early developmental factors conspire to increase the risk of the ...

Asymmetric posturing and circling behavior resulting from acute unilateral manipulation of central dopamine have been used to assess this neurotransmitter's contribution to motor control. Although providing extensive evidence for the involvement of mesolimbic and nigrostriatal dopamine in motor activity, this approach has not been used to study the mesocortical system. We now report circling be...

Goldberg (1985) has argued that disruption of the mesolimbic/ mesocortical dopamine system by long-term neuroleptic treatment may be responsible for producing the tardive dysmentia syndrome (Wilson et al. 1983), which can be seen as similar to the pseudopsychopathic presentation sometimes observed following damage to orbitomedial frontal cortex (Blumer and Benson 1975; Damasio 1979). Similarly,...

Studies on prefrontal cortex (PFC) dopamine (DA) function have revealed its essential role in mediating a variety of cognitive and executive functions. A general principle that has emerged (primarily from studies on working memory) is that PFC DA, acting on D1 receptors, regulates cognition in accordance to an "inverted-U" shaped function, so that too little or too much activity has detrimental...

The molecular basis of vulnerability to stress during the adolescent period is largely unknown. To identify potential molecular mediators that may play a role in stress-induced behavioral deficits, we imposed social isolation on a genetically vulnerable mouse model. We report that 3-week (5-8 weeks of age) adolescent stress in combination with disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (Disc1) genetic risk e...

Openness is a personality trait reflecting absorption in sensory experience, preference for novelty, and creativity, and is thus considered a driving force of human evolution. At the brain level, a relation between openness and dopaminergic circuits has been proposed, although evidence to support this hypothesis is lacking. Recent behavioral research has also found that people with mania, a psy...

autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (alps) is a prototypic disorder of abnormal lymphocyte homeostasis. in the september 2005 issue of the iranian journal of allergy, asthma and immunology, a patient with clinical features consistent with alps was described. although the clinical presentation was in favor of alps, a precise diagnosis needed more laboratory evaluations.

UNLABELLED It is still unclear why some early Parkinson disease (PD) patients with unilateral parkinsonism develop bilateral parkinsonism soon after the diagnosis is made as Hoehn and Yahr (HY) stage 1 and others remain stable for a long time. Here, we examined in vivo changes in the brain dopaminergic system using PET with a dopamine transporter radiotracer, (11)C-2-B-carbomethoxy-3B-(4-fluoro...