The present study investigated a subpopulation of neurons in the mouse parabrachial nucleus (PbN), a gustatory and visceral relay area in the brainstem, that project to the lateral hypothalamus (LH). We made injections of the retrograde tracer Fluorogold (FG) into LH, resulting in fluorescent labeling of neurons located in different regions of the PbN. Mice were stimulated through an intraoral ...

Clinically, emergence from general anesthesia is viewed as a passive process where anesthetics are discontinued at the end of surgery and anesthesiologists wait for the drugs to wear off. The mechanisms involved in emergence are not well understood and there are currently no drugs that can actively reverse the state of general anesthesia. An emerging hypothesis states that brain regions that co...

Taste responses in the parabrachial nucleus (PBN) are significantly affected by stimulation or lesion of the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA). To examine if the glutamate receptors in the CeA are involved in this modulation, the effects of microinjection of 6-cyano-7-nitro-quinoxaline-2, 3-dione (CNQX), an AMPA receptor antagonist, into the CeA on the activities of PBN taste neurons were o...

Computation of steady-state probabilities is an important aspect of analysing biological systems modelled as probabilistic Boolean networks (PBNs). For small PBNs, efficient numerical methods can be successfully applied to perform the computation with the use of Markov chain state transition matrix underlying the studied networks. However, for large PBNs, numerical methods suffer from the state...

Rats anticipate daily restricted meals with increased approaches to a feeder and an increase in core body temperature. Food anticipatory activity (FAA) is thought to be under the control of a feeding-entrained circadian oscillator. Although numerous forebrain lesions have failed to permanently abolish FAA, the hindbrain has not been investigated. The parabrachial nuclei (PBN) integrate informat...

The melting behavior and crystallization kinetics of PBN–PDEN and PBN–PTDEN copolymers were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry. Multiple endotherms were observed in all of the copolymers under investigation, originating from melting and recrystallization processes. By applying the Hoffman–Weeks method, the Tm1 of the a and b¢-PBN phases were derived. The Tm1 value of the b¢-fo...

Davidson, Alec J., Susan L. T. Cappendijk, and Friedrich K. Stephan. Feeding-entrained circadian rhythms are attenuated by lesions of the parabrachial region in rats. Am J Physiol Regulatory Integrative Comp Physiol 278: R1296– R1304, 2000.—Rats anticipate daily restricted meals with increased approaches to a feeder and an increase in core body temperature. Food anticipatory activity (FAA) is t...

Alpha-phenyl-N-t-butyl nitrone (PBN), a spin trap, scavenges hydroxyl radicals, protects tissues from oxidative injury, and delays senescence of both normal human lung fibroblasts (IMR90) and senescence-accelerated mice. N-t-butyl hydroxylamine and benzaldehyde are the breakdown products of PBN. N-t-Butyl hydroxylamine delays senescence of IMR90 cells at concentrations as low as 10 microM compa...

Inflammation and oxidative stress, elicited by Trypanosoma cruzi infection, are important pathologic events during progressive Chagasic cardiomyopathy. In this study, we infected Sprague-Dawley rats with T. cruzi, and treated with phenyl-α-tert-butylnitrone (PBN-antioxidant) and/or benznidazole (BZ-anti-parasite). We employed two-dimensional gel electrophoresis/mass spectrometry to investigate ...

α2-adrenergic receptors (AR) within the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) reduce stress-reward interactions in rodent models. In addition to their roles as autoreceptors, BNST α(2A)-ARs suppress glutamatergic transmission. One prominent glutamatergic input to the BNST originates from the parabrachial nucleus (PBN) and consists of asymmetric axosomatic synapses containing calcitonin gen...