The hypothalamo-limbic system has been implicated in recognizing the affective significance of pain and elicitation of related emotional responses. Several evidences from different studies support a role of these areas in endogenous analgesic mechanisms for pain modulation as elucidated by different pain tests in more than one animal model. In the above context, the aim of this study was to inv...

The objective of this study was to determine the potential role of astrocyte-derived ketone bodies in regulating the early changes in caloric intake of diet induced-obese (DIO) versus diet-resistant (DR) rats fed a 31.5% fat high-energy (HE) diet. After 3 days on chow or HE diet, DR and DIO rats were assessed for their ventromedial hypothalamic (VMH) ketone bodies levels and neuronal ventromedi...

Dopamine (DA) cell replacement therapy in Parkinson disease (PD) can be achieved using human fetal mesencephalic tissue; however, limited tissue availability has hindered further developments. Embryonic stem cells provide a promising alternative, but poor survival and risk of teratoma formation have prevented their clinical application. We present here a method for generating large numbers of D...

The link between extrinsic signaling, progenitor cell specification and neuronal subtype identity is central to the developmental organization of the vertebrate central nervous system. In the hindbrain and spinal cord, distinctions in the rostrocaudal identity of progenitor cells are associated with the generation of different motor neuron subtypes. Two fundamental classes of motor neurons, tho...

The prohormone convertases (PCs), PC1/3 and PC2, are involved in the tissue-specific endoproteolytic posttranslational processing of many hormonal precursors within the secretory pathway. One important prohormone, pro-thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), is expressed in both hypophysiotropic (where it regulates the secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormone) and nonhypophysiotropic regions of the...

Maternal obesity accentuates offspring obesity in dams bred to develop diet-induced obesity (DIO) on a 31% fat, high-sucrose, high-energy (HE) diet but has no effect on offspring of diet-resistant (DR) dams. Also, only DIO dams become obese when they and DR dams are fed HE diet throughout gestation and lactation. We assessed glucose and oleic acid (OA) sensitivity of dissociated ventromedial hy...

25 26 The objective of this study was to determine the potential role of astrocyte-derived ketone bodies 27 in regulating the early changes in caloric intake of diet induced-obese (DIO) vs. diet resistant 28 (DR) rats fed a 31.5% fat high-energy (HE) diet. After 3 d on chow or HE diet, DR and DIO rats, 29 were assessed for their ventromedial hypothalamic (VMH) ketone bodies levels and neuronal ...

AIM To specify the functional activity of cannabinoid CB1 receptor in alcohol-preferring Fawn Hooded and alcohol nonpreferring Wistar rats under naïve conditions. METHOD Cannabinoid CB1 (WIN-55,212)-stimulated [35S]-GTPgammas binding autoradiography, and cannabinoid CB1 receptor gene expression were measured in rats of both strains that received only water. RESULTS Cannabinoid CB1 receptor ...

Female sexual behavior in rodents, termed lordosis, is controlled by facilitatory and inhibitory systems in the brain. It has been well demonstrated that a neural pathway from the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMN) to the midbrain central gray (MCG) is essential for facilitatory regulation of lordosis. The neural pathway from the arcuate nucleus to the VMN, via the medial preoptic nucleus,...

To evaluate potential mechanisms for neuronal glucosensing, fura-2 Ca(2+) imaging and single-cell RT-PCR were carried out in dissociated ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMN) neurons. Glucose-excited (GE) neurons increased and glucose-inhibited (GI) neurons decreased intracellular Ca(2+) ([Ca(2+)](i)) oscillations as glucose increased from 0.5 to 2.5 mmol/l. The Kir6.2 subunit mRNA of the ATP...