scholarly journals Assessing the cognitive status of Drosophila by the value-based feeding decision

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chih-Chieh Yu ◽  
Ferng-Chang Chang ◽  
Yong-Huei Hong ◽  
Jian-Chiuan Li ◽  
Po-Lin Chen ◽  
...  

AbstractDecision-making is considered an important aspect of cognitive function. Impaired decision-making is a consequence of cognitive decline caused by various physiological conditions, such as aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Here we exploited the value-based feeding decision (VBFD) assay, which is a simple sensory–motor task, to determine the cognitive status of Drosophila. Our results indicated the deterioration of VBFD is notably correlated with aging and neurodegenerative disorders. Restriction of the mushroom body (MB) neuronal activity partly blunted the proper VBFD. Furthermore, using the Drosophila polyQ disease model, we demonstrated the impaired VBFD is ameliorated by the dinitrosyl iron complex (DNIC-1), a novel and steady nitric oxide (NO)-releasing compound. Therefore we propose that the VBFD assay provides a robust assessment of Drosophila cognition and can be used to characterize additional neuroprotective interventions.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chih-Chieh Yu ◽  
Ferng-Chang Chang ◽  
Yong-Huei Hong ◽  
Jian-Chiuan Li ◽  
Po-Lin Chen ◽  
...  

AbstractDecision making is considered an important aspect of cognitive function. Impaired decision making is a consequence of cognitive decline caused by various physiological conditions, such as aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Here we exploited the value-based feeding decision (VBFD) assay, which is a simple sensory-motor task, to determine the cognitive status of Drosophila. Our results indicated the deterioration of VBFD is notably correlated with aging and neurodegenerative disorders. Restriction of the mushroom body (MB) neuronal activity partly blunted the proper VBFD. Furthermore, using the Drosophila polyQ disease model, we demonstrated the impaired VBFD is ameliorated by the dinitrosyl iron complex (DNIC-1), a novel and steady nitric oxide (NO)-releasing compound. Therefore we propose that the VBFD assay provides a robust assessment of Drosophila cognition and can be used to characterize additional neuroprotective interventions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (13) ◽  
pp. 1142-1153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sreyashi Chandra ◽  
Md. Tanjim Alam ◽  
Jhilik Dey ◽  
Baby C. Pulikkaparambil Sasidharan ◽  
Upasana Ray ◽  
...  

Background: The central nervous system (CNS) known to regulate the physiological conditions of human body, also itself gets dynamically regulated by both the physiological as well as pathological conditions of the body. These conditions get changed quite often, and often involve changes introduced into the gut microbiota which, as studies are revealing, directly modulate the CNS via a crosstalk. This cross-talk between the gut microbiota and CNS, i.e., the gut-brain axis (GBA), plays a major role in the pathogenesis of many neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis (MS) and Huntington’s disease (HD). Objective: We aim to discuss how gut microbiota, through GBA, regulate neurodegenerative disorders such as PD, AD, ALS, MS and HD. Methods: In this review, we have discussed the present understanding of the role played by the gut microbiota in neurodegenerative disorders and emphasized the probable therapeutic approaches being explored to treat them. Results: In the first part, we introduce the GBA and its relevance, followed by the changes occurring in the GBA during neurodegenerative disorders and then further discuss its role in the pathogenesis of these diseases. Finally, we discuss its applications in possible therapeutics of these diseases and the current research improvements being made to better investigate this interaction. Conclusion: We concluded that alterations in the intestinal microbiota modulate various activities that could potentially lead to CNS disorders through interactions via the GBA.


Author(s):  
Omer Van den Bergh ◽  
Nadia Zacharioudakis ◽  
Sibylle Petersen

Medical practice and the disease model importantly rely on the accuracy assumption of symptom perception: patients’ symptom reports are a direct and accurate reflection of physiological dysfunction. This implies that symptoms can be used as a read-out of dysfunction and that remedying the dysfunction removes the symptoms. While this assumption is viable in many instances of disease, the relationship between symptoms and physiological dysfunction is highly variable and, in a substantial number of cases, completely absent. This chapter considers symptom perception as a form of unconscious inferential somatic decision-making that compellingly produces consciously experienced symptoms. At a mechanistic level, this perspective removes the categorical distinction between symptoms that are closely associated with physiological dysfunction and those that are not. In addition, it brings symptom perception in accordance with general theories of perception. Some clinical implications to understand and treat symptoms poorly related to physiological dysfunction are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (46) ◽  
pp. eabc1428
Author(s):  
A. Nakano-Kobayashi ◽  
A. Fukumoto ◽  
A. Morizane ◽  
D. T. Nguyen ◽  
T. M. Le ◽  
...  

Neurodegenerative disorders are caused by progressive neuronal loss, and there is no complete treatment available yet. Neuroinflammation is a common feature across neurodegenerative disorders and implicated in the progression of neurodegeneration. Dysregulated activation of microglia causes neuroinflammation and has been highlighted as a treatment target in therapeutic strategies. Here, we identified novel therapeutic candidate ALGERNON2 (altered generation of neurons 2) and demonstrate that ALGERNON2 suppressed the production of proinflammatory cytokines and rescued neurodegeneration in a 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)–induced Parkinson’s disease model. ALGERNON2 stabilized cyclinD1/p21 complex, leading to up-regulation of nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2), which contributes to antioxidative and anti-inflammatory responses. Notably, ALGERNON2 enhanced neuronal survival in other neuroinflammatory conditions such as the transplantation of induced pluripotent stem cell–derived dopaminergic neurons into murine brains. In conclusion, we present that the microglial potentiation of the p21-Nrf2 pathway can contribute to neuronal survival and provide novel therapeutic potential for neuroinflammation-triggered neurodegeneration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 881-882
Author(s):  
Alexandra Watral ◽  
Kevin Trewartha

Abstract Motor decision-making processes are required for many standard neuropsychological tasks, including the Trail Making Test (TMT), that aim to assess cognitive functioning in older adults. However, in their standard formats, it is difficult to isolate the relative contributions of sensorimotor and cognitive processes to performance on these neuropsychological tasks. Recently developed clinical tasks use a robotic manipulandum to assess both motor and cognitive aspects of rapid motor decision making in an object hit (OH) and object hit and avoid (OHA) task. We administered the OH and OHA tasks to 77 healthy younger adults and 59 healthy older adults to assess age differences in the motor and cognitive measures of performance. We administered the TMT parts A and B to assess the extent to which OHA performance is associated with executive functioning in particular. The results indicate that after controlling for hand speed, older adults performed worse on the OH and OHA tasks than younger adults, performance declines were far greater in the OHA task, and the global performance measures, which have been associated with cognitive status, were more sensitive to age differences than motor measures of performance. Those global measures of performance were also associated with measures of executive functioning on the TMT task. These findings provide evidence that rapid motor decision making tasks are sensitive to declines in executive control in aging. They also provide a way to isolate cognitive declines from declines in sensorimotor processes that are likely a contributing factor to age differences in neuropsychological test performance.


1995 ◽  
Vol 270 (49) ◽  
pp. 29244-29249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Boese ◽  
Peter I. Mordvintcev ◽  
Anatoly F. Vanin ◽  
Rudi Busse ◽  
Alexander Mülsch

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. e12726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Horwood ◽  
Ngcwalisa Amanda Jama ◽  
Lyn Haskins ◽  
Anna Coutsoudis ◽  
Lenore Spies

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.H.P. Tan ◽  
G. Liu ◽  
S.-Y.A. Lau ◽  
M.H. Jaafar ◽  
Y.-H. Park ◽  
...  

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive disease and one of the most common forms of neurodegenerative disorders. Emerging evidence is supporting the use of various strategies that modulate gut microbiota to exert neurological and psychological changes. This includes the utilisation of probiotics as a natural and dietary intervention for brain health. Here, we showed the potential AD-reversal effects of Lactobacillus probiotics through feeding to our Drosophila melanogaster AD model. The administration of Lactobacillus strains was able to rescue the rough eye phenotype (REP) seen in AD-induced Drosophila, with a more prominent effect observed upon the administration of Lactobacillus plantarum DR7 (DR7). Furthermore, we analysed the gut microbiota of the AD-induced Drosophila and found elevated levels of Wolbachia. The administration of DR7 restored the gut microbiota diversity of AD-induced Drosophila with a significant reduction in Wolbachia’s relative abundance, accompanied by an increase of Stenotrophomonas and Acetobacter. Through functional predictive analyses, Wolbachia was predicted to be positively correlated with neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, while Stenotrophomonas was negatively correlated with these neurodegenerative disorders. Altogether, our data exhibited DR7’s ability to ameliorate the AD effects in our AD-induced Drosophila. Thus, we propose that Wolbachia be used as a potential biomarker for AD.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (18) ◽  
pp. 9383-9392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shou-Cheng Wu ◽  
Chung-Yen Lu ◽  
Yi-Lin Chen ◽  
Feng-Chun Lo ◽  
Ting-Yin Wang ◽  
...  

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