In the first experiment, we compared levels of immunoreactivity of two immediate early genes: c-Fos and egr-1, among three groups of animals: Cycling, Late Pregnant, and rats perfused 1.5 h postpartum. The average number of Fos and egr-1-ir cells/section were calculated for the Parietal Cortex (ParCx), nucleus accumbens (NAc), medial amygdala (MEA), medial preoptic area (MPOA), supraoptic area (SON) and Cg2. In a second experiment, Fos-ir
induction was compared between cycling rats and rats at hour 3 postpartum. Contrary to our hypothesis no changes in expression of either immediate early gene were observed in Cg2. In Experiment 1 however, an upregulation in both early genes was seen in the ParCx, and, of Fos-ir only in the MPOA of
postpartum animals. Selleck IWR-1 A decrease in Fos-ir was seen in the NAc of late pregnant animals and no significant differences were seen in either immediate early gene expression within the MEA. Interestingly, areas that showed a significant increase in neuronal activation project to Cg2. The possibility of an interaction between these changes and glial cells in Cg2 is discussed. (C) 2010 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Reactivity to environmental stressors influences vulnerability to neurological and psychiatric illnesses, but little is known about molecular mechanisms that control this reactivity. Since mice with forebrain-specific glucocorticoid receptor overexpression (GRov mice) display anxiety-like behaviors
in novel environments and have difficulty adjusting to change in memory tasks, see more we hypothesized that these may be facets of a broader phenotype of altered reactivity to environmental demands. Male GRov and wild-type mice were tested in a multiple-trial object interaction test comprising environmental and object habituation and spatial and object novelty trials. Half the mice PI3K inhibitor received restraint stress before testing. GRov mice exhibited more locomotor activity and, without stress, more object interaction than wild-type mice. Following acute stress, GRov mice no longer showed increased object exploration. While stress dampened responses to object novelty in both groups, GRov mice were particularly impaired in discrimination of spatial novelty post-stress. These data demonstrate that GRov leads to increased environmental reactivity, responsiveness to salience, and vulnerability to stress-induced cognitive deficits. They implicate forebrain glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in fine-tuning interactions with the environment and the interplay of emotional salience, coping abilities, and cognitive function. (C) 2010 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“How prosodic information is processed at the neural level during silent sentence reading is an unsolved issue.