scholarly journals Preliminary findings suggest the number and volume of supragranular and infragranular pyramidal neurons are similar in the anterior superior temporal area of control subjects and subjects with autism

2015 ◽  
Vol 589 ◽  
pp. 98-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Kim ◽  
Jasmin Camacho ◽  
Zachary Combs ◽  
Jeanelle Ariza ◽  
Mirna Lechpammer ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahan Mamoor

Antipsychotic medications are used in patients with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders to control positive symptoms (1, 2). Positive symptoms include hallucinations - seeing or hearing things that are not present, and delusions - fixed false beliefs (3). The use of antipsychotics was fortuitously arrived at in this patient population (4) and though it is understood which receptor subtypes are pharmacologically modulated by these drugs (5, 6, 7) there is still a lack of understanding regarding the specific therapeutic mechanism, at the level of gene expression, by which they exert their function (7, 8, 9). By mining a published microarray dataset (10), we found that the 5’ ecto-nucleotidase NT5E, also known as CD73, was among the genes whose expression was most different in the dorsolateral frontal cortex (DLPFC) of patients with schizophrenia as compared to the DLPFC of control subjects. Analysis of a separate public dataset (11) revealed that schizophrenic patients treated with antipsychotics possessed significantly increased mRNA expression of NT5E in the deep pyramidal neurons when compared to the deep pyramidal neurons of control subjects. This phenomena appeared to be a specific effect of antipsychotic treatment as we could not detect differential expression of NT5E in untreated psychotic patients. These data reveal significantly increased expression of NT5E in the brains of patients with psychotic disorders and suggest that NT5E is a direct target of antipsychotic medications.


Author(s):  
Xiaojun Wu ◽  
Rammohan Shukla ◽  
Khaled Alganem ◽  
Erica Depasquale ◽  
James Reigle ◽  
...  

AbstractWhile the pathophysiology of schizophrenia has been extensively investigated using homogenized postmortem brain samples, few studies have examined changes in brain samples with techniques that may attribute perturbations to specific cell types. To fill this gap, we performed microarray assays on mRNA isolated from anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) superficial and deep pyramidal neurons from 12 schizophrenia and 12 control subjects using laser capture microdissection. Among all the annotated genes, we identified 134 significantly increased and 130 decreased genes in superficial pyramidal neurons, while 93 significantly increased and 101 decreased genes were found in deep pyramidal neurons, in schizophrenia compared to control subjects. In these differentially expressed genes, we detected lamina-specific changes of 55 and 31 genes in superficial and deep neurons in schizophrenia, respectively. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was applied to the entire pre-ranked differential expression gene lists to gain a complete pathway analysis throughout all annotated genes. Our analysis revealed over-represented groups of gene sets in schizophrenia, particularly in immunity and synapse related pathways in pyramidal neurons, suggesting the disruption of these pathways plays an important role in schizophrenia. We also detected pathways previously demonstrated in schizophrenia pathophysiology, including cytokine and chemotaxis, post-synaptic signaling, and glutamatergic synapses. In addition, we observed several novel pathways, including ubiquitin-independent protein catabolic process. By comparing our differential expression gene profiles with 51 antipsychotic treatment datasets, we demonstrated that our results were not influenced by antipsychotic treatment of our subjects. Taken together, we found pyramidal neuron-specific changes in neuronal immunity, synaptic dysfunction, and olfactory dysregulation in schizophrenia, providing new insights for the cell-subtype specific pathophysiology of chronic schizophrenia.


Author(s):  
JS Deitch ◽  
KL Smith ◽  
JW Swann ◽  
JN Turner

Neurons labeled with horseradish peroxidase and reacted with diaminobenzidine (DAB) can be imaged using a confocal scanning laser microscope (CSLM) in the reflection mode. In contrast to fluorescent markers, the DAB reaction product is thought to be stable and can be observed by both light and electron microscopy. We have investigated the sensitivity of the DAB reaction product to laser irradiation, and present the spectrophotometric properties of DAB before and after exposure in the CSLM.Pyramidal neurons in slices of rat hippocampus were injected with biocytin (a biotin-lysine complex), fixed overnight in 4% paraformaldehyde, and vibratome sectioned at 75 μm. Biocytin was detected with avidin-HRP (1:200) in 0.5% Triton X-100, incubated in DAB (0.5 mg/ml) with or without 0.04% nickel ammonium sulfate (Ni), dehydrated, and imaged in a Bio Rad MRC-500 CSLM with an argon ion laser (488 and 514 nm). Spectrophotometric measurements of the soma were made on a Zeiss microspectrophotometer, as a function of laser exposure (100-1000 scans) and staining protocol.


1969 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard R. Martin ◽  
Gerald M. Siegel

Seventy-two college students were divided into three groups: Button Push-Speech (BP-S), Speech-Button Push (S-BP), and Control. BP-S subjects pushed one of two buttons on signal for 8 min. During the last 4 min, depression of the criterion button caused a buzzer to sound. After the button-push task, subjects spoke spontaneously for 30 min. During the last 20 min, the buzzer was presented contingent upon each disfluency. S-BP subjects were run under the same procedures, but the order of button-push and speech tasks was reversed. Control subjects followed the same procedures as S-BP subjects, but no buzzer signal was presented at any time. Both S-BP and BP-S subjects emitted significantly fewer disfluencies during the last 20 min (Conditioning) than during the first 10 min (Baserate) of the speaking task. The frequency of disfluencies for Control subjects did not change significantly from Baserate to Conditioning. In none of the three groups did the frequency of pushes on the criterion button change significantly from minute to minute throughout the 8-min button-push session.


2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril Tarquinio ◽  
Gustave Nicolas Fischer ◽  
Aurélie Gauchet ◽  
Jacques Perarnaud

This study deals with the sociocognitive organization of the self-schema in alcoholic patients. It was aimed at understanding how the self-schema takes shape within the framework of social judgments known to be determinants of personality. Alcoholic subjects were interviewed twice, once during their first consultation for treatment and then again four months later after completion of treatment. Our approach was derived directly from the methodology used by Markus (1977) and Clemmey & Nicassio (1997) in their studies on the self-schema. The subjects had to perform three tasks that required manipulating personality traits with positive and negative connotations (a self-description task in which decision time was measured, an autobiographical task, and a recall task). The results of the first interview showed that 1. in their self-descriptions, alcoholics took more time than control subjects both to accept positive traits and to reject negative ones; 2. unlike control subjects, alcoholics considered more negative traits to be self-descriptive than positive traits, and 3. unlike controls, alcoholics recalled more negative traits than positive ones. By the second interview, the results for the alcoholic subjects on the autobiographical and recall tasks had changed: 1. they now described themselves more positively and less negatively than on the first meeting; 2. they recalled a marginally greater number of positive traits and a significantly smaller number of negative traits, and 3. the differences between the alcoholics and controls indicated an improvement in the alcoholics' self-perceptions.


2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid von Bueren Jarchow ◽  
Bogdan P. Radanov ◽  
Lutz Jäncke

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to examine to what extent chronic pain has an impact on various attentional processes. To measure these attention processes a set of experimental standard tests of the “Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung” (TAP), a neuropsychological battery testing different levels of attention, were used: alertness, divided attention, covert attention, vigilance, visual search, and Go-NoGo tasks. 24 chronic outpatients and 24 well-matched healthy control subjects were tested. The control subjects were matched for age, gender, and education. The group of chronic pain patients exhibited marked deficiencies in all attentional functions except for the divided attention task. Thus, the data supports the notion that chronic pain negatively influences attention because pain patients` attention is strongly captivated by the internal pain stimuli. Only the more demanding divided attention task has the capability to distract the focus of attention to the pain stimuli. Therefore, the pain patients are capable of performing within normal limits. Based on these findings chronic pain patients' attentional deficits should be appropriately evaluated and considered for insurance and work related matters. The effect of a successful distraction away from the pain in the divided attention task can also open new therapeutic aspects.


1998 ◽  
Vol 79 (03) ◽  
pp. 495-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Maria Gori ◽  
Sandra Fedi ◽  
Ludia Chiarugi ◽  
Ignazio Simonetti ◽  
Roberto Piero Dabizzi ◽  
...  

SummarySeveral studies have shown that thrombosis and inflammation play an important role in the pathogenesis of Ischaemic Heart Disease (IHD). In particular, Tissue Factor (TF) is responsible for the thrombogenicity of the atherosclerotic plaque and plays a key role in triggering thrombin generation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the TF/Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor (TFPI) system in patients with IHD.We have studied 55 patients with IHD and not on heparin [18 with unstable angina (UA), 24 with effort angina (EA) and 13 with previous myocardial infarction (MI)] and 48 sex- and age-matched healthy volunteers, by measuring plasma levels of TF, TFPI, Prothrombin Fragment 1-2 (F1+2), and Thrombin Antithrombin Complexes (TAT).TF plasma levels in IHD patients (median 215.4 pg/ml; range 72.6 to 834.3 pg/ml) were significantly (p<0.001) higher than those found in control subjects (median 142.5 pg/ml; range 28.0-255.3 pg/ml).Similarly, TFPI plasma levels in IHD patients were significantly higher (median 129.0 ng/ml; range 30.3-316.8 ng/ml; p <0.001) than those found in control subjects (median 60.4 ng/ml; range 20.8-151.3 ng/ml). UA patients showed higher amounts of TF and TFPI plasma levels (TF median 255.6 pg/ml; range 148.8-834.3 pg/ml; TFPI median 137.7 ng/ml; range 38.3-316.8 ng/ml) than patients with EA (TF median 182.0 pg/ml; range 72.6-380.0 pg/ml; TFPI median 115.2 ng/ml; range 47.0-196.8 ng/ml) and MI (TF median 213.9 pg/ml; range 125.0 to 341.9 pg/ml; TFPI median 130.5 ng/ml; range 94.0-207.8 ng/ml). Similar levels of TF and TFPI were found in patients with mono- or bivasal coronary lesions. A positive correlation was observed between TF and TFPI plasma levels (r = 0.57, p <0.001). Excess thrombin formation in patients with IHD was documented by TAT (median 5.2 μg/l; range 1.7-21.0 μg/l) and F1+2 levels (median 1.4 nmol/l; range 0.6 to 6.2 nmol/l) both significantly higher (p <0.001) than those found in control subjects (TAT median 2.3 μg/l; range 1.4-4.2 μg/l; F1+2 median 0.7 nmol/l; range 0.3-1.3 nmol/l).As in other conditions associated with cell-mediated clotting activation (cancer and DIC), also in IHD high levels of circulating TF are present. Endothelial cells and monocytes are the possible common source of TF and TFPI. The blood clotting activation observed in these patients may be related to elevated TF circulating levels not sufficiently inhibited by the elevated TFPI plasma levels present.


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