神经生物学

Brain dopamine pathways serve wide-ranging functions including the control of movement, reward, cognition, learning, and mood. Consequently, dysfunction of dopamine transmission has been implicated in clinical conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, addi ...

Actions of extracellular dopamine released in the central nervous system are primarily terminated by the dopamine transporter. This protein is also a target for therapeutic and abused psychostimulant drugs. Different methods used to study dopamine transporter function, its exp ...

Dopamine neurotransmission accounts for a number of important brain functions across species including memory formation, the anticipation of reward, cognitive facilities, and drug addiction. Despite this functional significance, relatively little is known of the cellular ...

In this chapter, we describe the identification and cloning of D2-like dopamine receptor (DR) genes in zebrafish, a vertebrate model genetic organism. To identify DR genes, we performed searches of the zebrafish genomic sequence database that yielded contig segments of several D2-like DR ...

Alterations in the activity of the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) have been implicated in several neurological and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Tourette syndrome, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (A ...

In mammals, dopamine G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) are segregated into two categories: D1-like (D1R and D5R) and D2-like (D2Rshort, D2Rlong, D3R, and D4R) subtypes. D1R and D5R are primarily coupled to stimulatory heterotrimeric GTP-binding proteins (Gs/olf) leading to activati ...

Optimal dopamine tone is required for the normal cortical function; however it is still unclear how cortical-dopamine-release affects information processing in individual cortical neurons. Thousands of glutamatergic inputs impinge onto elaborate dendritic trees of neoco ...

It is evident that G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) such as D2 dopamine receptor and functionally related Trace Amine Associated Receptor 1 (TAAR1) can engage both in G protein-dependent (e.g., cAMP-mediated) and -independent β-arrestin-mediated signaling modalities. Both of t ...

Until very recently, dopamine receptors, like other G-protein-coupled receptors, were believed to function as individual units on the cell surface. Now it has been described by several groups including ours that dopamine receptors not only function as homomers but also form heteromers w ...

The ability of certain neurotransmitter receptors to form oligomers provides an additional level of fine-tuning of intracellular signaling. Among the techniques allowing study of receptor oligomerization as well as influence of specific ligands on these processes, a biophysi ...

Dopamine binding to various dopamine receptors activates multiple intracellular signaling molecules, some of which interact with calcium activated signaling pathways. Many experiments measure agonist-stimulated elevations in signaling molecules using prolonged, ...

In recent years advancements in proteomic techniques have contributed to the understanding of protein interaction networks (Interactomes) in various cell types. Today, high throughput proteomics promises to define virtually all of the components of a signaling and a regulatory n ...

Dopamine is the main catecholamine found in the retina of most species, being synthesized from the l-amino acid tyrosine. Its effects are mediated by G protein coupled receptors subfamilies that are commonly coupled to adenylyl cyclase in opposite manners. There is evidence that this amine w ...

There is increasing evidence that G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling is regulated in lipid raft microdomains. GPCRs and GPCR-signaling molecules, including G proteins and protein kinases, have been reported to compartmentalize in these microdomains. Dopamine D1-like ...

Dopamine receptors are a class of metabotropic G protein-coupled receptors. Plasma membrane expression is a key determinant of receptor signaling, and one that is regulated both by extra and intracellular cues. Abnormal dopamine receptor signaling is implicated in several neurops ...

Refinement is one of the three foundations of the 3Rs concept, a concept that underpins good animal-based research. For ethical and legal reasons, the severity of a procedure or an experiment on the welfare and health of an experimental animal needs to be estimated before starting the experiment. ...

The metabolic demand of rapidly proliferating tumour cells is reliant on an adequate blood supply that allows the continual delivery of oxygen, nutrients and growth factors. The growth and progression of tumours is significantly reduced in the absence of neovascularization and often i ...

Glioblastomas are one of the deadliest and most invasive cancers in humans. This heterogenous population of tumours interact with the surrounding brain parenchyma, disrupting physical barriers such as basement membranes, extracellular matrices and cell–cell contact while ac ...

We have demonstrated that dendritic cells (DCs) loaded with total tumor RNA (ttRNA) represent a potent platform for the induction of antitumor immunity in preclinical murine glioma models. DCs are potent immunostimulatory cells that represent a promising contemporary biologic en ...

Medulloblastoma, the largest group of embryonal brain tumors, is highly aggressive, with a dismal prognosis for high-risk patients. This disease has historically been classified into five variants based on histopathology. Recent genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptional anal ...