153 posts · 67,211 views
This blog highlights current neuroscience news published in peer-reviewed journals, with a particular emphasis on sleep/circadian rhythms. Every Thursday, I feature the front-page photomicrograph and the respective article from the current week's Journal of Neuroscience in a segment titled Neury Thursday. I also incorporate a substantial amount of media, including the highlighted article and related video. I try to write for the lay person, but if I do inevitably use jargon, I will briefly explain and provide a wikipedia reference. I'd like to think I have a sense of humor reflected through my writing style and/or post topics
Allison
153 posts
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- April 7, 2011
- 09:37 PM
- 968 views
Neury Thursday: Prior Drinking History Modulates Cell Signaling
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Alcohol researchers have uncovered residual ethanol-induced changes in molecular signaling cascades, which possibly, could provide pharmacologists with an abundance of novel therapeutic targets for alcohol and other drug addictions.... Read more »
Brian E. Bernier, Leslie R. Whitaker, and Hitoshi Morikawa. (2011) Previous Ethanol Experience Enhances Synaptic Plasticity of NMDA Receptors in the Ventral Tegmental Area. Journal of Neuroscience. info:/
- April 26, 2011
- 07:00 PM
- 955 views
Epigenetics of Cocaine and Alcohol Addiction
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Addiction researchers have discovered that long-term cocaine or alcohol abuse results in structural changes to histones and mitochondria. The severity of these changes are worse for cocaine addicts. ... Read more »
Zhou Z, Yuan Q, Mash DC, & Goldman D. (2011) Substance-specific and shared transcription and epigenetic changes in the human hippocampus chronically exposed to cocaine and alcohol. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(16), 6626-31. PMID: 21464311
- March 18, 2011
- 07:00 PM
- 911 views
GABA Regulation of Alcohol Intake
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Researchers at USCF have employed RNA interference techniques to determine if the delta subunit of GABA receptors within the brain's reward circuit are partially responsible for increases in ethanol intake. Indeed, they are. ... Read more »
Nie H, Rewal M, Gill TM, Ron D, & Janak PH. (2011) From the Cover: Extrasynaptic {delta}-containing GABAA receptors in the nucleus accumbens dorsomedial shell contribute to alcohol intake. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(11), 4459-64. PMID: 21368141
- March 1, 2011
- 09:30 PM
- 863 views
Neury Thursday: Potassium Channel Gating of the Circadian Clock
by Allison in Dormivigilia
A group of chronobiologists have uncovered that knocking down potassium-rectifier channels has deleterious effects on circadian pacemaking and behavior. ... Read more »
Takashi Kudo,1* Dawn H. Loh,1* Dika Kuljis,1 Cara Constance,2 and Christopher S. Colwell1. (2011) Fast Delayed Rectifier Potassium Current: Critical for Input and Output of the Circadian System. Journal of Neuroscience. info:/
- June 23, 2011
- 04:22 PM
- 852 views
Neury Thursday: Depressive Like Behavior and Circadian Rhythms
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Austrian neuroscientists have characterized behavioral and physiological phenotypes associated with housing under constant darkness, lending credence to the role of the circadian timing system in the etiology of psychiatric illness... Read more »
Francisco J. Monje,1 Maureen Cabatic,1 Isabella Divisch,1 Eun-Jung Kim,1,3 Kurt R. Herkner,3 Bernd R. Binder,2†, & and Daniela D. Pollak1. (2011) Constant Darkness Induces IL-6-Dependent Depression-Like Behavior through the NF-B Signaling Pathway. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(25), 9075-9083. info:/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1537-11.2011
- March 9, 2011
- 11:25 AM
- 832 views
The Dark Side of Sleep's Benefits for the Consolidation of Episodic Memories
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Drug addiction researchers have observed that total sleep deprivation in rats can reduce the re-consolidation of remembering where to obtain a cocaine reward in mice
... Read more »
Shi HS, Luo YX, Xue YX, Wu P, Zhu WL, Ding ZB, & Lu L. (2011) Effects of sleep deprivation on retrieval and reconsolidation of morphine reward memory in rats. Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior, 98(2), 299-303. PMID: 21255602
- March 31, 2011
- 12:00 PM
- 829 views
Neury Thursday: Long-Term Cocaine Use Impairs Memory
by Allison in Dormivigilia
In quite possibly one of the longest, running drug abuse experiments conducted in animals, Pittsburghian researchers have observed that providing rhesus monkeys the opportunity to self-administer cocaine four times a week over nine months has degenerative, detrimental effects on associative learning. I wonder if the same fate applies to those who are taking ADHD meds, which act through identical biochemical and neurotransmitter pathways as cocaine. ... Read more »
Jessica N. Porter,, 1,2, Adam S. Olsen,, Kate Gurnsey,, Brian P. Dugan,, Hank P. Jedema,, and Charles W. Bradberry, & 1,2,3,4,5. (2011) Chronic Cocaine Self-Administration in Rhesus Monkeys: Impact on Associative Learning, Cognitive Control, and Working Memory. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(13). info:/http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/13/4926.full.pdf html
- June 2, 2011
- 09:11 PM
- 823 views
Neury Thursday: Slow Wave Sleep Modulation of Olfactory Activity
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Japanese neuroscientists have unmasked inconnections between sleep and olfactory systems in that slow wave sleep is concurrent with spike wave activity in the olfactory cortex and bulb. ... Read more »
Hiroyuki Manabe,1,2* Ikue Kusumoto-Yoshida,1,2* Mizuho Ota,1,2 and Kensaku Mori1,2. (2011) Olfactory Cortex Generates Synchronized Top-Down Inputs to the Olfactory Bulb during Slow-Wave Sleep. Journal of Neuroscience. info:/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6578-10.2011
- June 6, 2011
- 04:54 PM
- 820 views
Were Dinosaurs Nocturnal, Diurnal, or Both?
by Allison in Dormivigilia
A recent report in Science compared eye morphologies to compare the vision type (scotopic vs. photopic vs. mesopic) and ecology (herbivore vs. predator vs. flyer) of Mesozoic archosaurs (the most notorious being the Velociraptor), suggesting intimate evolutionary links between physiological/anatomical make-ups and behavior as far back as the Mesozoic era. ... Read more »
Schmitz L, & Motani R. (2011) Nocturnality in dinosaurs inferred from scleral ring and orbit morphology. Science (New York, N.Y.), 332(6030), 705-8. PMID: 21493820
- March 29, 2011
- 09:45 PM
- 813 views
Neury Thursday (Tuesday): Sleep Deprivation Activation of Reward Areas
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Neuroscientists at Berkeley and Harvard have observed that acute episodes of sleep deprivation concurrent with the presentation of positive-evoking stimuli are associated with hyperactivation of mesolimbic reward areas. This observation in humans lends further credence to sleep/drug addiction interactions that have been documented on numerous occasions in animal models. It may also further convince physicians to recommend sleep/circadian rhythm therapies for the treatment of drug addiction and r........ Read more »
Gujar N, Yoo SS, Hu P, & Walker MP. (2011) Sleep deprivation amplifies reactivity of brain reward networks, biasing the appraisal of positive emotional experiences. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 31(12), 4466-74. PMID: 21430147
- March 8, 2011
- 08:00 PM
- 789 views
Increased Episodic Memory Performance with Sleep
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Fellow friends of mine have published about the importance of napping for improved episodic memory performance and have identified brain areas of activation during these processes and associated relationships with specific sleep architecture. Overall, their paradigm challenges previous hypotheses of the underlying sleep processes facilitating the consolidation of memories... Read more »
Mander BA, Santhanam S, Saletin JM, & Walker MP. (2011) Wake deterioration and sleep restoration of human learning. Current biology : CB, 21(5). PMID: 21377092
- March 22, 2011
- 05:00 PM
- 787 views
Sleep Deprivation and Neuromodulation
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Researchers have identified a more specified, reciprocal relationship between the occurrence of sleep deprivation and the activation of the neuroinflammatory response. ... Read more »
Wisor JP, Schmidt MA, & Clegern WC. (2011) Evidence for neuroinflammatory and microglial changes in the cerebral response to sleep loss. Sleep, 34(3), 261-72. PMID: 21358843
- July 6, 2011
- 10:00 PM
- 763 views
Sleep in Science
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Midwestern researchers used a Drosophila model of study to investigate the positive benefits of sleep and the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation on biological enrichment at the behavioral and neurobiological level, providing further evidence of its need (value). ... Read more »
Donlea JM, Thimgan MS, Suzuki Y, Gottschalk L, & Shaw PJ. (2011) Inducing sleep by remote control facilitates memory consolidation in Drosophila. Science (New York, N.Y.), 332(6037), 1571-6. PMID: 21700877
Bushey D, Tononi G, & Cirelli C. (2011) Sleep and synaptic homeostasis: structural evidence in Drosophila. Science (New York, N.Y.), 332(6037), 1576-81. PMID: 21700878
- September 18, 2011
- 10:22 PM
- 743 views
Neury Thursday: Adenosine Increases Drug Permeability
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Researchers reported in this week's Journal of Neuroscience that co-activation of adenosine receptor subtypes, A1 and A2, additively increases the permeability of macromolecules across the blood-brain barrier. This could result in huge, rapid advancements in drug development and for finding efficacious treatment strategies for at present incurable neurologic diseases such as Alzheimer's... Read more »
Aaron J. Carman, Jeffrey H. Mills, Antje Krenz, Do-Geun Kim, and Margaret S. Bynoe. (2011) Adenosine Receptor Signaling Modulates Permeability of the Blood–Brain Barrier. Journal of Neuroscience. info:/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3337-11.2011
- August 3, 2011
- 11:29 PM
- 730 views
Newest Pub!! Acute Ethanol Impairment of Circadian Clock Output
by Allison in Dormivigilia
In my second, first-author publication, we report the deleterious effects of alcohol on adaptation (entrainment) to photic and nonphotic environmental stimuli at a behavioral, physiological, and anatomical level. Such disruption could underlie alcohol disruption to endocrine systems and physiological events, and possibly, lead to alcohol dependence. ... Read more »
Brager AJ, Ruby CL, Prosser RA, & Glass JD. (2011) Acute ethanol disrupts photic and serotonergic circadian clock phase-resetting in the mouse. Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 35(8), 1467-74. PMID: 21463340
- July 14, 2011
- 10:11 PM
- 729 views
Evidence for BMAL1 Regulation of Circadian Rhythms
by Allison in Dormivigilia
An eloquent study on tissue-specific regulation of circadian clock output through the utility of some bad ass molecular tools... Read more »
McDearmon EL, Patel KN, Ko CH, Walisser JA, Schook AC, Chong JL, Wilsbacher LD, Song EJ, Hong HK, Bradfield CA.... (2006) Dissecting the functions of the mammalian clock protein BMAL1 by tissue-specific rescue in mice. Science (New York, N.Y.), 314(5803), 1304-8. PMID: 17124323
- July 20, 2011
- 10:00 PM
- 702 views
Off-lining in the Awake Rodent
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Recent research has redefined electrophysiologic sleep/wake states. ... Read more »
Vyazovskiy VV, Olcese U, Hanlon EC, Nir Y, Cirelli C, & Tononi G. (2011) Local sleep in awake rats. Nature, 472(7344), 443-7. PMID: 21525926
- August 17, 2011
- 03:22 PM
- 700 views
Elucidation of the Malarial Mosquito Genome
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Chronobiologists at Notre Dame have taken advantage of DNA microarrays to illustrate a wide-array of rhythmically expressed genes in the African vector harbinger of malaria. ... Read more »
Rund SS, Hou TY, Ward SM, Collins FH, & Duffield GE. (2011) Genome-wide profiling of diel and circadian gene expression in the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(32). PMID: 21715657
- August 25, 2011
- 12:00 PM
- 697 views
Neury Thursday: Immediate Reward System Tolerance to Cocaine
by Allison in Dormivigilia
A worldwide group of neuroscientists characterized immediate electrophysiologic tolerance to single-time use (injection) of cocaine. This could implicated serious consequences for those with a family history of hedonism as it would not take much to send someone, particularly with a powerful drug like cocaine, into a downward spiral of drug abuse. ... Read more »
Devinder Arora,1* Matthew Hearing,1* Desirae M. Haluk,1* Kelsey Mirkovic,1 Ana Fajardo-Serrano,3, & Martin W. Wessendorf,2 Masahiko Watanabe,4 Rafael Luja´n,3 and Kevin Wickman1. (2011) Acute Cocaine Exposure Weakens GABAB Receptor- Dependent G-Protein-Gated Inwardly Rectifying K Signaling in Dopamine Neurons of the Ventral Tegmental Area. Journal of Neuroscience. info:/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0494-11.2011
- March 17, 2011
- 03:00 PM
- 694 views
Neury Thursday: Cocaine Withdrawal Impairs LTD
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Neuroscientists have further elucidated the molecular and cellular underlyings of cocaine addiction, which will help us develop more appropriate treatment strategies. ... Read more »
Chiung-Chun Huang,1 Che-Ming Yeh,2 Mei-Ying Wu,1 Alice Y. W. Chang,3 Julie Y. H. Chan,4 Samuel H. H. Chan,3, & and Kuei-Sen Hsu1,2. (2011) Cocaine Withdrawal Impairs Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor-Dependent Long-Term Depression in the Nucleus Accumbens. Journal of Neuroscience. info:/
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