• A new hybrid cell type, located between neurons and astrocytes, has been identified that can release neurotransmitters. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • The virus infects neurons and astrocytes, and the resulting disease appears to be mediated by an immunopathologic response of the host to the virus. (cdc.gov)
  • Neurons and astrocytes talk with each other in a way that has not been known about before," he says. (sflorg.com)
  • The researchers recorded the activity of neurons and astrocytes in the behaving mice brain during social dominance behavior using two different methods known as fiber photometry and two-photon microscopy. (medicalxpress.com)
  • Moreover, brain energy metabolism was demonstrated to be compartmentalized in neurons and astrocytes, and astrocytic glycolysis was proposed to serve the energetic demands of glutamatergic activity. (frontiersin.org)
  • In particular, direct 13 C MRS offers more detailed dataset acquisitions and provides information on metabolic interactions between neurons and astrocytes, and their role in supporting neurotransmission. (frontiersin.org)
  • 1- Successful generation of white matter like tissues in organoids, this tissue is enriched with myelinating oligodendrocytes, neurons and astrocytes (Shaker MR et al, Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience 2021). (edu.au)
  • This protocol is robust and rapid that involves a 42-day exposure of neuroectoderm-derived organoids to a cocktail of growth factors and small molecules that collectively foster oligodendrocyte specification and survival along with neurons and astrocytes. (edu.au)
  • About 15 years ago, scientists found that the mutant HTT protein builds up in neurons and astrocytes in a part of the brain particularly affected in Huntington's patients, the striatum. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Some of these glial cells, known as astrocytes, intimately surround synapses, the points of contact where neurotransmitters are released to transmit information between neurons. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • We have identified a subgroup of astrocytes responding to selective stimulations with rapid glutamate release, which occurred in spatially delimited areas of these cells reminiscent of synapses," says Andrea Volterra, honorary professor at UNIL and visiting faculty at the Wyss Center, co-director of the study. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • We have identified a subgroup of astrocytes that respond to selective stimulation by rapidly releasing glutamate from spatially delimited areas of these cells reminiscent of synapses", says Andrea Volterra, Honorary Professor at the University of Lausanne, Visiting Faculty at the Wyss Center and co-director of the study. (myscience.ch)
  • Basic structural details of astrocytes, such as the numbers of synapses in direct contact in a certain volume or the presence/absence of intracellular organelles in a specific domain of these cells are still poorly investigated, and a very limited number of publications is available on this topic. (frontiersin.org)
  • From 2000 to 2012, researchers published more than 100 papers reporting evidence in favor of astrocytes' ability to communicate via synapses. (quantamagazine.org)
  • Hatashita Y, Wu Z , Fujita H, Kumamoto T, Livet J, Li Y , Tanifuji M, Inoue T. Spontaneous and multifaceted ATP release from astrocytes at the scale of hundreds of synapses. (neurotree.org)
  • Understanding the glia-neuron interaction, and in what way astrocytes affect synapses, might help to optimize current approaches or to develop alternative therapies for the treatment of socio-emotional disorders. (uni-regensburg.de)
  • They also discovered that those synapses are facilitated by cells called astrocytes. (comparisonsmaster.com)
  • We demonstrate that astrocytes respond to cocaine experience by promoting the formation of new synapses," stated Professor Yan Dong, a neuroscience professor at the University of Pittsburgh. (comparisonsmaster.com)
  • [4] Astrocytes in humans are more than twenty times larger than in rodent brains, and make contact with more than ten times the number of synapses. (atozwiki.com)
  • In humans, a single astrocyte cell can interact with up to 2 million synapses at a time. (atozwiki.com)
  • To explore the role of cortical astrocytes in male dominance behavior, Lee and his colleagues carried out experiments on live and adult male mice. (medicalxpress.com)
  • Kyungchul Noh et al, Cortical astrocytes modulate dominance behavior in male mice by regulating synaptic excitatory and inhibitory balance, Nature Neuroscience (2023). (medicalxpress.com)
  • Primary cultures of wild-type mouse astrocytes expressed S1P 1,2,3 transcripts, and selective deletion of S1P 1 and/or S1P 3 in cerebral cortical astrocytes, did not alter S1P-mediated, dose-dependent inhibition of glutamate uptake. (eneuro.org)
  • Because TRPV4 appearance is restricted to a subset (30%) of cortical astrocytes (Shibasaki et al. (californiaehealth.org)
  • Among the different types of glial cells, astrocytes are the most abundant in the central nervous system, but, unlike neurons in different brain regions, researchers still have yet to develop a detailed understanding of groupings of astrocytes with distinct properties. (newswise.com)
  • Among glial cells, the astrocytes, "star cells", were immediately recognized as a potential metabolic bridge between the circulatory system and neurons upon their identification. (frontiersin.org)
  • The striatum is comprised primarily of medium spiny neurons, interneurons and glial cells such as astrocytes. (elifesciences.org)
  • BOSTON, June 28, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Cerevance, a private, clinical-stage drug discovery and development company focused on developing novel therapeutics for central nervous system (CNS) diseases using the company's proprietary Nuclear Enriched Transcript Sort sequencing (NETSseq) platform, today announced plans to present a poster presentation at the upcoming XVI European Meeting on Glial Cells in Health and Disease, taking place in Berlin, Germany, July 8 - July 11, 2023. (itbusinessnet.com)
  • Then, in 1990, a curious phenomenon emerged: Researchers observed an astrocyte, a subtype of glial cell, responding to glutamate, the main neurotransmitter that generates electrical activity. (quantamagazine.org)
  • Much more recently, researchers found that certain disease-associated genes are preferentially switched on in astrocytes and other glial cells. (alleninstitute.org)
  • As much as we don't understand about how our brains work and where things go wrong in disease, we know even less about astrocytes and other glial cells. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Astrocytes (from Ancient Greek ἄστρον , ástron , "star" + κύτος , kútos , "cavity", "cell"), also known collectively as astroglia , are characteristic star-shaped glial cells in the brain and spinal cord . (atozwiki.com)
  • [4] Apolipoprotein E transports cholesterol from astrocytes to neurons and other glial cells, regulating cell signaling in the brain. (atozwiki.com)
  • Astrocytes are a sub-type of glial cells in the central nervous system . (atozwiki.com)
  • When in proximity to the pia mater, all three forms of astrocytes send out processes to form the pia-glial membrane . (atozwiki.com)
  • Rat astrocytes-adult (RA-a) are a useful in vitro model for studying adult glial function and the molecular mechanisms of CNS diseases such as ischemic stroke and multiple sclerosis. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • Post-mortem studies show astrocyte reactivity - changes in glial cells in the brain and spinal cord because of an insult in the brain - is an early AD abnormality. (medscape.com)
  • In addition, evidence suggests plasma measures of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) could be a strong proxy of astrocyte reactivity in the brain. (medscape.com)
  • Low threshold microglia undergo progressive stages of innate immune activation involving astrocytes and neurons with repeated drug abuse, stress, and/or cell damage signals. (nih.gov)
  • We find that microglia phagocytose more AβpH than astrocytes in culture, in brain slices and in vivo. (ucl.ac.uk)
  • Cerebral function requires the cooperative interaction between different cell types, namely neurons, astrocytes, microglia and oligodendrocytes, and depends on high metabolic activity supported by continuous supply of oxygen and glucose from the blood ( Siesjö, 1978 ). (frontiersin.org)
  • To address this gap, we performed whole-genome sequencing of astrocytes exposed to elevated extracellular dopamine and combined it with evaluation of effects on astrocyte morphology and function. (jneurosci.org)
  • This is an example of how astrocytes first came to light, and the further discovery of extracellular potassium buffering and calcium signalling has led to decades of study to understand the behavior and relevance of astrocytes in the normal and pathological functioning of the brain. (utwente.nl)
  • Following neurotransmission, astrocytes remove excess extracellular glutamate to prevent neurotoxicity. (eneuro.org)
  • Extracellular glutamate is excitotoxic and its levels are controlled by astrocyte uptake. (eneuro.org)
  • Analysis of the changes in gene expression in the APOE4 -expressing astrocytes revealed an increase in the expression of EDIL3 (which stands for EGF-like repeats and discoidin domains 3), a gene that encodes an extracellular matrix protein. (go.jp)
  • These results demonstrate that APOE4 -expressing astrocytes secrete the neurotoxic extracellular matrix protein EDIL3 and thereby induce synapse dysfunction between neurons. (go.jp)
  • 1997) "Extracellular matrix proteins expressed by human adult astrocytes in vivo and in vitro: an astrocyte surface protein containing the CS1 domain contributes to binding of lymphoblasts. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • Our work took a different direction from the mainstream of AD research that focused on extracellular β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides with our discovery of the accumulation of Aβ within AD vulnerable neurons of human brains (Gouras et al. (lu.se)
  • Modern molecular biology techniques confirmed that astrocytes possess machinery necessary for the rapid secretion of glutamate. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • Thanks to the precision of single-cell transcriptomics techniques, we were able to identify transcripts of VGLUT proteins, responsible for filling neuronal vesicles to release glutamate, in cells with an astrocyte profile. (myscience.ch)
  • The study includes two key pieces of evidence: images of glutamate flowing from astrocytes, and genetic data suggesting that these cells, dubbed glutamatergic astrocytes, have the cellular machinery to use glutamate the way neurons do. (quantamagazine.org)
  • Here, S1P receptor knock-out mice, primary astrocyte cultures, and receptor-selective chemical tools were used to examine the effects of S1P on glutamate uptake. (eneuro.org)
  • Pharmacological antagonists, S1P 2 -null astrocytes, and Gα 12 hemizygous-null astrocytes indicated that S1P 2 -Gα 12 -Rho/ROCK signaling was primarily responsible for the S1P-dependent inhibition of glutamate uptake. (eneuro.org)
  • In addition, S1P exposure increased mitochondrial oxygen consumption rates (OCRs) in wild-type astrocytes and reduced OCRs in S1P 2 -null astrocytes, implicating receptor selective metabolic consequences of S1P-mediated glutamate uptake inhibition. (eneuro.org)
  • [6] Data suggest that astrocytes also signal to neurons through Ca 2+ -dependent release of glutamate . (atozwiki.com)
  • Scientists say the discovery of a new function by cells known as astrocytes opens a whole new direction for neuroscience research. (sflorg.com)
  • The scientists say this discovery in mice of a new function by cells known as astrocytes opens a whole new direction for neuroscience research that might one day lead to treatments for many disorders ranging from epilepsy to Alzheimer's to traumatic brain injury. (sflorg.com)
  • The electrical activity of astrocytes changes how neurons function," says Chris Dulla, associate professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and corresponding author on a paper published today by Nature Neuroscience . (sflorg.com)
  • The most exciting recent outcome of our work was the discovery that an unusual central nervous system (CNS) metabolite called lanthionine ketimine (LK) possesses potent neuroprotective and neurotrophic effects mediated, in part, through a novel binding interaction with the brain protein CRMP2 (collapsing response mediator protein-2) ( J. Neuroscience 2010). (utoledo.edu)
  • Following that experience, he started a Ph.D. course in Neuroscience and developed a strong interest in astrocytes and high-resolution microscopy. (frontiersin.org)
  • The recent paper, published in Nature Neuroscience , highlights the role of astrocytes in the outer layer of the brain (i.e., the cortex), in modulating the dominance behavior of male mice. (medicalxpress.com)
  • We have just also published a paper in Nature Neuroscience with the leaders in the field on Reactive Astrocyte Nomenclature, Definitions, and Future Directions that is very relevant to this topic. (uth.edu)
  • [7] Such discoveries have made astrocytes an important area of research within the field of neuroscience . (atozwiki.com)
  • Meanwhile, the view of astrocytes was evolving, and scientists were beginning to consider them active participants in the brain's processing of information. (quantamagazine.org)
  • Astrocytes guide the growth of axons, the long, slender projection of a neuron that conducts electrical impulses. (sflorg.com)
  • So, the neuron is controlling what the astrocyte is doing, and they are communicating back and forth. (sflorg.com)
  • The discovery of astrocyte-neuron crosstalk raises numerous questions as to how the interactions work in brain pathology and in the development of learning and memory. (sflorg.com)
  • Overall, our work provides a comprehensive understanding of the neuron-astrocyte communication that regulate mouse social behavior ," Lee added. (medicalxpress.com)
  • In this framework, we are interested in deciphering how dysfunctional changes in astrocytes might influence the glia-neuron interactions and vice versa. (uni-regensburg.de)
  • We showed for the first time that it does indeed infect and replicate in astrocytes, and that this can reduce neuron viability," Daniel Martins-de-Souza , one of the leaders of the study, told Agência FAPESP . (fapesp.br)
  • Khakh recently led a study , published Tuesday in the journal Neuron, that explores links between astrocytes and another neurodegenerative disorder, Huntington's disease. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Impairment of normal astrocyte functions during stroke and other insults can critically influence neuron survival. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • Long-term recovery after brain injury, through neurite outgrowth, synaptic plasticity, or neuron regeneration, is also influenced by astrocyte surface molecule expression and trophic factor release [3]. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • A preliminary version (not yet peer-reviewed) posted in 2020 was one of the first to show that the virus that causes COVID-19 can infect brain cells, especially astrocytes. (fapesp.br)
  • By specifically disrupting glutamatergic astrocytes, the research team was able to demonstrate effects not only on memory consolidation, but also on pathologies such as epilepsy, whose seizures were exacerbated. (myscience.ch)
  • In vitro and in vivo comparisons of astrocytomas with normal human astrocytes and normal brain revealed that certain characteristic aspects of the transformed cells' metabolism may be related to the normal metabolic features of their lineage. (ucl.ac.uk)
  • Based on the similarities between the astrocytomas and their normal cell lineage, and the theory that the progression of transformation in malignant cells involves a de-differentiation to an earlier developmental state, the ability of astrocytomas to metabolise fatty acid in a similar manner known to occur in normal astrocytes from the developing brain was investigated. (ucl.ac.uk)
  • Astrocytes throughout the brain express dopamine receptors, but consequences of astrocytic dopamine receptor signaling are not well established. (jneurosci.org)
  • Astrocytes are cells in the brain and spinal cord. (wikipedia.org)
  • This groundbreaking discovery challenges traditional beliefs about brain cell functionality and paves the way for novel therapeutic strategies. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • The implications of this discovery extend to brain disorders. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • Found in the outer two layers of gray matter near the back of the spinal cord--a location referred to as the superficial laminae of the spinal dorsal horn--the astrocytes are in a region known to carry general sensory information such as pressure, pain, and heat from around the body to the brain. (newswise.com)
  • Using mice, the researchers showed that stimulating noradrenergic (NAergic) neurons--so called for their use of noradrenaline as a neurotransmitter--that carry signals from the locus coeruleus (LC) in the brain down to the spinal dorsal horn activates the astrocytes and that the astrocyte activation results in pain hypersensitivity. (newswise.com)
  • The identification of the molecular machinery required for the rapid release of neurotransmitters has led to the discovery of a new type of functional cell in the brain. (myscience.ch)
  • It comes down to how astrocytes interact with neurons, which are fundamental cells of the brain and nervous system that receive input from the outside world. (sflorg.com)
  • In addition, astrocytes build the blood-brain barrier and react to injury. (sflorg.com)
  • To make the discovery, the team used brand new technology to devise a technique that enables them to see and study the electrical properties of brain cell interactions, which could not be observed previously. (sflorg.com)
  • Dulla describes astrocytes as "making sure everything is copacetic in the brain, and if something goes wrong, if there's an injury or viral infection, they detect it, try to respond, and then try to protect the brain from insult. (sflorg.com)
  • However, increasing evidence suggests that astrocytes are crucial to the complex functions of the human brain. (frontiersin.org)
  • For instance, humans not only have the biggest but also the most numerous astrocytic cells among all animal species and therefore, astrocytes might have played an essential role in the evolution of the human brain. (frontiersin.org)
  • When they silenced PTB in a type of non-neuronal brain cell known as an astrocyte, they were also able to generate neurons. (studyfinds.org)
  • As Assistant Director, Drug Discovery at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Evgeny supports in vitro pharmacology and target validation studies. (libd.org)
  • In these experiments, they used optogenetic and chemo-genetic techniques to activate or inhibit astrocytes in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), a brain region known to play a role in social behavior and decision-making. (medicalxpress.com)
  • It implies that astrocytes also play critical role in computing and processing high-order brain functions. (medicalxpress.com)
  • In their next works, Lee and his colleagues plan to investigate the function of specific astrocytes in different subregions of the brain. (medicalxpress.com)
  • Their goal is to clearly map the involvement of astrocytes in these different brain regions in various high-order brain functions. (medicalxpress.com)
  • For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons. (quantamagazine.org)
  • The catch-all name "glia" - from the Greek word for "glue" - for all brain cells that aren't neurons, like astrocytes, conveys scientists' initial view that their main purpose was to hold neurons together. (quantamagazine.org)
  • While neurons and their branching dendrites are often pictured as trees, astrocytes are more like a fungus, forming a tightly woven mat that blankets the brain and shares information among its constituent parts. (quantamagazine.org)
  • Shedding light on the role of astrocytes in brain metabolism, the earlier picture of astrocytes being restricted to a scaffold-associated function in the brain is now out of date. (frontiersin.org)
  • This discovery formed the basis of a powerful technique used nowadays to study brain activity: blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). (frontiersin.org)
  • My research aims to a) reveal how a traumatic social event affects astrocytes of various brain regions associated with socio-emotional behaviour on a molecular and cellular level and b) manipulate astrocytes cell type-specifically (using viral-vector based knockdown of targets involved in astrocytic oxytocin receptor signaling and astrocyte-specific DREADD) to examine their contribution to the acquisition, as well as extinction of social fear. (uni-regensburg.de)
  • Infection of astrocytes was confirmed by experiments using brain tissue from 26 patients who died of COVID-19. (fapesp.br)
  • Astrocytes, shown here in red and light blue, in a brain region known as the striatum. (alleninstitute.org)
  • The surrounding brain cells were astrocytes, named for their star-like shape. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Astrocytes are part of a larger class of brain cells known as glia, which are basically the "everything else" in the brain besides neurons. (alleninstitute.org)
  • The connection between astrocytes and brain disease is an age-old problem that's now taking on increased importance because of this emerging genetic evidence," said Baljit Khakh , Ph.D., a neuroscientist at UCLA who is also an Allen Distinguished Investigator . (alleninstitute.org)
  • The study also found that some - but not all - of the disease-linked behaviors in mice can be reversed by boosting the activity of a certain protein in astrocytes in one part of the brain. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Astrocytes make up as much as 20 to 40% of the cells in the human brain but their function remains mysterious. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Khakh and his colleagues had also seen that striatum astrocytes look very different from astrocytes in other parts of the brain, lending further credence to the idea that the cells are not just glue. (alleninstitute.org)
  • After discovering the role of astrocytes in addiction, researchers shifted their focus on a deep area of the brain known as nucleus accumbens, associated with learning, addiction, and reward. (comparisonsmaster.com)
  • 2009). Furthermore, Ca2+ signals had been connected with CB30865 reactive gliosis, a graded development of molecular, mobile, and functional adjustments in astrocytes that symbolizes a hallmark of just about any human brain pathology (Huang et al. (californiaehealth.org)
  • An astrocyte from a rat brain grown in tissue culture and stained with antibodies to GFAP (red) and vimentin (green). (atozwiki.com)
  • [3] Another study reports that astrocytes are the most numerous cell type in the brain. (atozwiki.com)
  • Astrocytes are the most abundant cell type in the central nervous system (CNS) and they provide a variety of vital functions for the CNS including: establishment and regulation of the blood brain barrier, functional support for neuronal transmission, survival of neurons, anti-inflammatory responses and wound repair [1]. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • 2003) "Astrocytes and brain injury. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • In this interview, we learn more about her efforts to facilitate future research that explores the role of astrocytes in disease and could lead to the development of new efficient treatments for many diseases affecting the brain. (lu.se)
  • My Ph.D. studies have focused on developing ways to generate human astrocytes from pluripotent stem cells and fibroblasts for modeling diseases affecting the human brain. (lu.se)
  • In my thesis, we more specifically focused on a group of disorders called leukodystrophies - a group of rare, genetic disorders that affect the white matter of the brain - in which some have clear indications that malfunctioning astrocytes are the primary cause. (lu.se)
  • Astrocytes are one of the major cell types in the central nervous system and are indispensable for brain development and function. (lu.se)
  • Although, there is still an incomplete understanding of how the teamwork between astrocytes, neurons, and other cells in the brain is carried out and what consequences occur when astrocytes stop working properly. (lu.se)
  • Research on the various cell types in the brain, such as astrocytes, has been hindered by difficulties in obtaining the actual cells to study. (lu.se)
  • Our study argues that testing for the presence of brain amyloid along with blood biomarkers of astrocyte reactivity is the optimal screening to identify patients who are most at risk for progressing to Alzheimer's disease," senior investigator Tharick A. Pascoal, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and neurology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said in a release. (medscape.com)
  • Pascoal explained that when astrocytes are changed or become bigger, more GFAP is released. (medscape.com)
  • Participants' mean age was 69.6 years and all were deemed negative or positive for astrocyte reactivity based on plasma GFAP levels. (medscape.com)
  • In the second application of this endothelial cell biosensor paradigm, WT and MMP-9-/- mice were again exposed to MWCNT-7 via pharyngeal aspiration, leading to enhanced hippocampal and cerebellar GFAP staining, indicative of astrocyte activation. (cdc.gov)
  • We monitored astrocyte calcium activities with fiber photometry and two-photon imaging experiments, and optogenetic and chemogenetic techniques were used to manipulate astrocytic calcium signaling," Lee explained. (medicalxpress.com)
  • Now, researchers led by Makoto Tsuda, professor at Kyushu University's Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, have discovered a unique population of spinal cord astrocytes with a role in producing pain hypersensitivity. (newswise.com)
  • The discovery of this new population of astrocytes reveals a new role of descending LC-NAergic neurons in facilitating spinal pain transmission," explains Tsuda. (newswise.com)
  • To initially test this, the researchers genetically engineered mice in which response of astrocytes to noradrenaline was selectively inhibited and gave them duloxetine, an analgesic drug thought to increase levels of noradrenaline in the spinal cord by preventing uptake by descending LC-NAergic neurons. (newswise.com)
  • New research from the lab of Jiaqian Wu, PhD , associate professor in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery and the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, on reactive astrocytes in spinal cord injury may lead to future therapeutic targets to ease the process of neural regeneration. (uth.edu)
  • After a spinal cord injury, astrocytes and other cell types begin to form a scar barrier to prevent the spread of damage to the spinal cord tissue. (uth.edu)
  • Astrocytes in adult spinal cord are difficult to purify," Wu said. (uth.edu)
  • The discovery could potentially serve as a therapeutic target for spinal cord injury, because manipulating this gene at later stage of spinal cord injury could have a beneficial effect on reducing inhibitory factors of scar tissue and thus improve behavior recovery. (uth.edu)
  • Moreover, astrocytes throughout the striatum show a ciliation defect in all LRRK2 and PPM1H mutant models examined. (elifesciences.org)
  • To test that theory, the UCLA team "poked" mouse striatum astrocytes with 14 different types of experiments, including a model of Huntington's disease, and looked at how gene activity changed in the cells. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Until now, scientists believed astrocytes were important, but lesser cast members in this activity. (sflorg.com)
  • Scientists knew that astrocytes control neurotransmitters, helping to make sure that neurons stay healthy and active. (sflorg.com)
  • In many years of research activity, I have witnessed a progressive shift of many scientists to conservative positions on astrocytes' involvement in synaptic modulation. (frontiersin.org)
  • Join the New York Academy of Sciences and Johnson & Johnson for a series of engaging and insightful webinars with extraordinary scientists whose discoveries have made a profound impact on human health. (nyas.org)
  • If astrocytes are inert, the scientists expected that any perturbation would have the same or a similar effect. (alleninstitute.org)
  • Out of that set of 14 experiments, the researchers noticed that one experiment yielded nearly the opposite result of the Huntington's experiment: When the scientists artificially dialed up the activity of a protein known as a GPCR, the astrocytes switched on genes that were switched off in the Huntington's model, and vice versa. (alleninstitute.org)
  • An illustration portraying a dominant mouse gazing at the activation of star-like cells (astrocytes) in the sky, symbolizing the influence of mPFC astrocytes in conferring dominant status. (medicalxpress.com)
  • Using machine learning techniques, the regional and state dependent heterogeneity in human astrocytes is better understood and leveraged to help to define the role of these cells in disease and identify cell type specific targets for drug discovery. (itbusinessnet.com)
  • Astrocytes are the most abundant central nervous system cells. (fapesp.br)
  • Digging into the brains of people who'd died after dramatic memory loss and strange behaviors, German pathologists in the early 1900s made a curious discovery: tiny clumps of a mysterious substance circled by delicate, star-shaped cells. (alleninstitute.org)
  • The blue material shows DNA visualized with DAPI stain, and reveals the nucleus of the astrocyte and of other cells. (atozwiki.com)
  • Numerous studies have demonstrated that astrocytes are among the most functionally diverse group of cells in the CNS [4]. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • With advancements in stem cell technology, the possibility to generate astrocytes from human stem cells emerged. (lu.se)
  • By using a new approach, we developed a rapid and efficient method to generate functional and mature astrocytes from human pluripotent stem cells through overexpression of certain transcription factors that control the development of astrocytes. (lu.se)
  • Indeed, the modified mice exhibited an enhanced easing of chronic pain by duloxetine, further supporting the researchers' proposed role of the astrocytes. (newswise.com)
  • This discovery has led to the development of a treatment that eliminates symptoms of Parkinson's disease in mice. (studyfinds.org)
  • They also observed the social behavior of the mice, to determine whether activating or inhibiting astrocytes in the dmPFC increased or reduced dominance behaviors among males. (medicalxpress.com)
  • The results gathered by Lee and his colleagues hint at the involvement of communication between dmPFC astrocytes and neurons in the dominant behavior of male mice. (medicalxpress.com)
  • For example, in Alzheimer's disease, astrocytes don't control neurotransmitters, even though that is their fundamental job, Dulla explains. (sflorg.com)
  • A blood biomarker that measures astrocyte reactivity may help determine who, among cognitively unimpaired older adults with amyloid-beta, will go on to develop Alzheimer's disease (AD), new research suggests. (medscape.com)
  • By identifying a new cell type with the characteristics of an astrocyte and expressing the molecular machinery necessary for synaptic transmission, neuroscientists from the Department of Basic Neurosciences of the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva put an end to years of controversy. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • To confirm or refute the hypothesis that astrocytes, like neurons, are able to release neurotransmitters, researchers first scrutinized the molecular content of astrocytes using modern molecular biology approaches. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • Since its discovery, nearly one decade of research on astrocyte elevated gene 1 (AEG-1) has witnessed expanding knowledge of this molecule, ranging from its role in cancer biology to molecular mechanisms underlying the biological functions. (biomedcentral.com)
  • Dr Calì studies astrocytes and investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuroenergetics, with a focus on glycogen and lactate metabolism. (frontiersin.org)
  • A research group led by Professor Hideyuki Okano, Project Senior Assistant Professor Hirotaka Watanabe, and Graduate Student Rei Murakami of the School of Medicine at Keio University has clarified the molecular mechanism through which APOE4 -expressing astrocytes negatively affect neurons. (go.jp)
  • Many deny that astrocytes can directly impact and modulate synaptic functions. (frontiersin.org)
  • In addition, it sheds some light on the specific neural processes through which astrocytes modulate these behaviors. (medicalxpress.com)
  • While astrocytes modulate the neuronal excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) balance that could directly affect social behaviors, efforts to understand the biological basis of mouse dominance behavior have largely focused on the neuronal mechanism," Sung Joong Lee, a principal researcher who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. (medicalxpress.com)
  • For example, we can insert one antibody into the sample to turn the astrocytes red on binding to them, another to mark the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein by making it green, and a third to highlight the virus's double-stranded RNA, which only appears during replication, by turning it magenta," Martins-de-Souza explained. (fapesp.br)
  • This is why neuroscientists have long suggested that astrocytes may have an active role in synaptic transmission and participate in information processing. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • To this day, there is debate as to what exactly determines the stable functioning of the tripartite synapse and to what extent are the astrocytes repsonsible for normal/pathological synaptic transmission. (utwente.nl)
  • Astrocytes have also been implicated in various pathological processes such as reactive gliosis [2]. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • It's likely many types of insults or processes can lead to astrocyte reactivity, possibly including COVID, but more research in this area is needed, said Pascoal. (medscape.com)
  • New Research Topic in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy explores an ultastructural insight of astrocytes at a microscale level. (frontiersin.org)
  • The discovery could pave the way to treating schizophrenia and other disorders associated with C4 dysregulation in astrocytes. (neurosciencenews.com)
  • In the future, this work could pave the way for new discoveries about the neural underpinnings of male dominance and the formation of social hierarchies as a result of dominance behaviors. (medicalxpress.com)
  • Morphological analysis of the dendritic spines that make up a synapse revealed that their number was decreased, and their maturity was reduced in neurons co-cultured with APOE4 -expressing astrocytes. (go.jp)
  • The object of this research was to investigate profiles of human astrocyte and astrocytoma metabolism using NMR spectroscopy and other analytical techniques such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry and radiation scintillation counting. (ucl.ac.uk)
  • This platform prompted the discovery of NELL2 expression in human oligodendroglial cell types and NELL2 was further linked with human white mater development and diseases by using artificial intelligence prediction (Shaker MR et al, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 2022). (edu.au)
  • depending on the counting technique used, studies have found that the astrocyte proportion varies by region and ranges from 20% to around 40% of all glia. (atozwiki.com)
  • Drug discovery requires the development of accurate cellular models to validate, triage and understand the mechanism of action of future therapeutics. (libd.org)
  • Each model has its unique advantages and disadvantages, and therefore a comprehensive drug discovery program requires the use of as many cellular models as possible in order to identify the most promising candidates for further development. (libd.org)
  • Innovative preclinical drug discovery solutions with the focus on disease relevant cellular models. (ixcellsbiotech.com)
  • Our findings propose epigenetic regulation of chromatin landscape as a critical factor in the rapid astrocyte response to dopamine. (jneurosci.org)
  • Considering these findings, suppressing signaling of these astrocytes by noradrenaline may enhance the effect of drugs for chronic pain. (newswise.com)
  • The findings suggest abnormalities in astrocyte reactivity is an early upstream event that likely occurs prior to tau pathology, which is closely related to the development of neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. (medscape.com)
  • Bantle C., Weihofen A., Hirst W., Shlevkov E . Mitochondrial dysfunction in astrocytes: role in Parkinson's disease? (libd.org)
  • This led us to investigate the role of prefrontal astrocytes in mouse dominance behavior. (medicalxpress.com)
  • As part of the GRK emotion program, my PhD research project is aiming at unravelling the astrocyte role in the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly in respect to major depressive disorder (MDD). (uni-regensburg.de)
  • The lab performed functional and pathway analysis on a number of different long non-coding RNA candidates before finding that the long non-coding RNA Zeb2os, played a significant role in the astrocyte activation in both acute and chronic stages. (uth.edu)
  • Namely, the rate of oxidative metabolism in astrocytes is about half of that in neurons, and it can increase as much as the rate of neuronal metabolism in response to sensory stimulation. (frontiersin.org)
  • We demonstrate a temporally dynamic pattern of genomic plasticity that triggers pronounced changes in astrocyte morphology and function. (jneurosci.org)
  • But the new study reveals that neurons also release potassium ions, which change the electrical activity of the astrocyte and how it controls the neurotransmitters. (sflorg.com)
  • In 2002 and 2004, several groups, under different experimental settings, reported identification of the gene, first named as astrocyte elevated gene 1 (AEG-1), now having the GenBank symbol as MTDH, which stands for metadherin, for its involvement in tumor metastasis and adhesion. (biomedcentral.com)
  • My PhD project within the GRK gives me the great opportunity to investigate the involvement of astrocytes in social fear conditioning. (uni-regensburg.de)
  • An analysis of the genes showing altered expression in APOE4 astrocytes in which EDIL3 was significantly upregulated. (go.jp)
  • Using genomic technology, the lab was able to record the gene expression of astrocytes at a genome-wide scale, investigating both coding and long non-coding RNA, to discover how genes changed from before injury to the acute stage after injury, and also more chronically several months after the injury. (uth.edu)
  • Accordingly, I would like to engage my interest in exploring the field of neurological disorders focusing on the discovery of new therapeutic targets. (uni-regensburg.de)
  • After beginning her research journey as a master's student within our Ph.D. Preparatory Program, she dedicated the last several years to developing more efficient methods that can be used to generate functional and mature astrocytes for disease modeling of neurological disorders. (lu.se)
  • Evgeny's group is focused on designing and developing robust cell-based models and assays to support drug discovery programs at the LIBD. (libd.org)
  • The research titled, " Systematic analysis of purified astrocytes after SCI unveils Zeb2os function during astrogliosis ," was published in the February edition of Cell Reports . (uth.edu)
  • We focused on one of the main cell types found in our brains, the astrocyte, which over the last decade has emerged as an important contributor to a wide range of neurological diseases. (lu.se)
  • Our results propose that a broad pattern of astrocyte responses to dopamine specifically relies on CTCF-dependent gene networks. (jneurosci.org)
  • In the decades since, research teams have come up with conflicting evidence, some reporting that astrocytes signal, and others retorting that they definitely do not. (quantamagazine.org)
  • Research since the mid-1990s has shown that astrocytes propagate intercellular Ca 2+ waves over long distances in response to stimulation, and, similar to neurons, release transmitters (called gliotransmitters ) in a Ca 2+ -dependent manner. (atozwiki.com)
  • Other research suggests a close link between amyloid-beta, astrocyte reactivity, and tau. (medscape.com)
  • Although we still need more studies with different drugs, this astrocyte population appears to be a very promising target for enhancing the therapeutic potential of drugs for chronic pain," says Tsuda. (newswise.com)
  • The goal of studying astrocytes is not only to find therapeutic targets to make the regeneration environment easier, but to also not have the astrocytes abandon their ability to help retrain damage. (uth.edu)
  • A recent discovery points towards the possibility of therapeutic approaches to dealing with addiction in the near future. (comparisonsmaster.com)
  • 2012). The system where AQP4 might activate TRPV4 is certainly unclear as well as the functional need for AQPCTRPV4 connections for astrocyte bloating, quantity legislation, and intracellular signaling continues to be to be motivated. (californiaehealth.org)
  • I strongly believe we should develop innovative strategies specifically designed to study astrocytes. (frontiersin.org)
  • The study did not determine whether participants with both amyloid and astrocyte reactivity will inevitably develop AD, and to do so would require a longer follow up. (medscape.com)
  • One study demonstrated that LRRK2 regulates lysosome size, number, and function in astrocytes, which endogenously express high levels of LRRK2 . (medscape.com)