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      Sex Differences in the Effects of Sertraline and Stressors in Rats Previously Exposed to Restraint Stress

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          Central effects of stress hormones in health and disease: Understanding the protective and damaging effects of stress and stress mediators.

          Stress begins in the brain and affects the brain, as well as the rest of the body. Acute stress responses promote adaptation and survival via responses of neural, cardiovascular, autonomic, immune and metabolic systems. Chronic stress can promote and exacerbate pathophysiology through the same systems that are dysregulated. The burden of chronic stress and accompanying changes in personal behaviors (smoking, eating too much, drinking, poor quality sleep; otherwise referred to as "lifestyle") is called allostatic overload. Brain regions such as hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and amygdala respond to acute and chronic stress and show changes in morphology and chemistry that are largely reversible if the chronic stress lasts for weeks. However, it is not clear whether prolonged stress for many months or years may have irreversible effects on the brain. The adaptive plasticity of chronic stress involves many mediators, including glucocorticoids, excitatory amino acids, endogenous factors such as brain neurotrophic factor (BDNF), polysialated neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA-NCAM) and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). The role of this stress-induced remodeling of neural circuitry is discussed in relation to psychiatric illnesses, as well as chronic stress and the concept of top-down regulation of cognitive, autonomic and neuroendocrine function. This concept leads to a different way of regarding more holistic manipulations, such as physical activity and social support as an important complement to pharmaceutical therapy in treatment of the common phenomenon of being "stressed out". Policies of government and the private sector play an important role in this top-down view of minimizing the burden of chronic stress and related lifestyle (i.e. allostatic overload).
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            Human studies of prepulse inhibition of startle: normal subjects, patient groups, and pharmacological studies.

            Since the mid-1970s, cross-species translational studies of prepulse inhibition (PPI) have increased at an astounding pace as the value of this neurobiologically informative measure has been optimized. PPI occurs when a relatively weak sensory event (the prepulse) is presented 30-500 ms before a strong startle-inducing stimulus, and reduces the magnitude of the startle response. In humans, PPI occurs in a robust, predictable manner when the prepulse and startling stimuli occur in either the same or different modalities (acoustic, visual, or cutaneous). This review covers three areas of interest in human PPI studies. First, we review the normal influences on PPI related to the underlying construct of sensori- (prepulse) motor (startle reflex) gating. Second, we review PPI studies in psychopathological disorders that form a family of gating disorders. Third, we review the relatively limited but interesting and rapidly expanding literature on pharmacological influences on PPI in humans. All studies identified by a computerized literature search that addressed the three topics of this review were compiled and evaluated. The principal studies were summarized in appropriate tables. The major influences on PPI as a measure of sensorimotor gating can be grouped into 11 domains. Most of these domains are similar across species, supporting the value of PPI studies in translational comparisons across species. The most prominent literature describing deficits in PPI in psychiatrically defined groups features schizophrenia-spectrum patients and their clinically unaffected relatives. These findings support the use of PPI as an endophenotype in genetic studies. Additional groups of psychopathologically disordered patients with neuropathology involving cortico-striato-pallido-pontine circuits exhibit poor gating of motor, sensory, or cognitive information and corresponding PPI deficits. These groups include patients with obsessive compulsive disorder, Tourette's syndrome, blepharospasm, temporal lobe epilepsy with psychosis, enuresis, and perhaps posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Several pharmacological manipulations have been examined for their effects on PPI in healthy human subjects. In some cases, the alterations in PPI produced by these drugs in animals correspond to similar effects in humans. Specifically, dopamine agonists disrupt and nicotine increases PPI in at least some human studies. With some other compounds, however, the effects seen in humans appear to differ from those reported in animals. For example, the PPI-increasing effects of the glutamate antagonist ketamine and the serotonin releaser MDMA in humans are opposite to the PPI-disruptive effects of these compounds in rodents. Considerable evidence supports a high degree of homology between measures of PPI in rodents and humans, consistent with the use of PPI as a cross-species measure of sensorimotor gating. Multiple investigations of PPI using a variety of methods and parameters confirm that deficits in PPI are evident in schizophrenia-spectrum patients and in certain other disorders in which gating mechanisms are disturbed. In contrast to the extensive literature on clinical populations, much more work is required to clarify the degree of correspondence between pharmacological effects on PPI in healthy humans and those reported in animals.
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              Determination of the estrous cycle phases of rats: some helpful considerations

              The short length of the estrous cycle of rats makes them ideal for investigation of changes occurring during the reproductive cycle. The estrous cycle lasts four days and is characterized as: proestrus, estrus, metestrus and diestrus, which may be determined according to the cell types observed in the vaginal smear. Since the collection of vaginal secretion and the use of stained material generally takes some time, the aim of the present work was to provide researchers with some helpful considerations about the determination of the rat estrous cycle phases in a fast and practical way. Vaginal secretion of thirty female rats was collected every morning during a month and unstained native material was observed using the microscope without the aid of the condenser lens. Using the 10 x objective lens, it was easier to analyze the proportion among the three cellular types, which are present in the vaginal smear. Using the 40 x objective lens, it is easier to recognize each one of these cellular types. The collection of vaginal lavage from the animals, the observation of the material, in the microscope, and the determination of the estrous cycle phase of all the thirty female rats took 15-20 minutes.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering
                JBiSE
                Scientific Research Publishing, Inc,
                1937-6871
                1937-688X
                2015
                2015
                : 08
                : 07
                : 399-419
                Article
                10.4236/jbise.2015.87038
                5960d868-8645-4563-829c-ab09e9e86ab6
                © 2015

                http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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