Brain synapses are neuronal structures of the greatest interest. For a long time, however, the knowledge about them was variable, and interest was mostly focused on their pre-synaptic portions, especially neurotransmitter release from axon terminals....
Cell-based biosensing is a “smart” way to obtain efficacy-information on the effect of applied chemical on cellular biological cascade. We have proposed an engineered post-synapse model cell-based biosensors to investigate the effects of chemicals on...
Neurotransmission occurs within highly specialized compartments forming the active synapse where the complex organization and dynamics of the interactions are tightly orchestrated both in time and space. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) are ce...
The vertebrates’ scaffold proteins of the Dlg-MAGUK family are involved in the recruitment, clustering, and anchoring of glutamate receptors to the postsynaptic density, particularly the NMDA subtype glutamate-receptors (NRs), necessary for lon...
Glaucoma is identified by an irreversible retinal ganglion cell (RGC) loss and optic nerve damage. Over the past few years, the immune system gained importance in its genesis. In a glaucoma-like animal model with intraocular S100B injection, RGC deat...
As the third-generation neural network, the spiking neural network (SNN) has become one of the most promising neuromorphic computing paradigms to mimic brain neural networks over the past decade. The SNN shows many advantages in performing classifica...
The advent of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) antiretrovirals have reduced the severity of HIV related neurological comorbidities but they nevertheless remain prevalent. Synaptic degeneration due to the action of several viral factors released fro...
Na/K-ATPase maintains transmembrane ionic gradients and acts as a signal transducer when bound to endogenous cardiotonic steroids. At subnanomolar concentrations, ouabain induces neuroprotection against calcium overload and apoptosis of neurons durin...
Lead (Pb) exposure in early life affects brain development resulting in cognitive and behavioral deficits. Epidemiologic and experimental evidence of sex as an effect modifier of developmental Pb exposure is emerging. In the present study, we investi...
Oxidative stress (OS) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) are both key indicators implicated in neuro-inflammatory signalling pathways and their respective neurodegenerative diseases. Drugs targeting these factors can be considered as suitable candidat...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the main cause of dementia worldwide. Given that learning and memory are impaired in this pathology, NMDA receptors (NMDARs) appear as key players in the onset and progression of the disease. NMDARs are glutamate rec...
Selenium (Se) is an essential trace element required for normal development as well as to counteract the adverse effects of environmental stressors. Conditions of low Se intake are present in some European countries. Our aim was to investigate the sh...
The primary pathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the formation and accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles and plaques, which result from the aggregation of amyloid-β (Aβ) induced by oxidative stress. The effectiveness...
Among the nine mammalian protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs), PRMT8 is unusual because it has restricted expression in the nervous system and is the only membrane-bound PRMT. Emerging studies have demonstrated that this enzyme plays multiface...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), affecting over 2% of the pre-school children population, includes an important fraction of the conditions accounting for the heterogeneity of autism. The disease was discovered 75 years ago, and the present review, bas...
Neurofilaments are one of the main cytoskeletal components in neurons; they can be found in the form of oligomers at pre- and postsynapses. How their presence is regulated at the postsynapse remains largely unclear. Here we systematically quantified,...
Congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS) are a group of rare, neuromuscular disorders that usually present in childhood or infancy. While the phenotypic presentation of these disorders is diverse, the unifying feature is a pathomechanism that disrupts n...
Optoelectronic synapses based on transition metal dichalcogenides have received much attention as artificial synapses due to their good stability in the air and excellent photoelectric properties; however, they suffer from ultraviolet light-triggered...
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system that finally leads to demyelination. Demyelinating optic neuritis is a frequent symptom in MS. Recent studies also revealed synapse dysfunctions in MS patients and MS mo...
An imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission leading to over excitation plays a crucial role in generating seizures, while enhancing GABAergic mechanisms are critical in terminating seizures. In recent years, it has been reported in ma...
Neurons transmit and receive information at specialized junctions called synapses. Excitatory synapses form at the junction between a presynaptic axon terminal and a postsynaptic dendritic spine. Supporting the shape and function of these junctions i...
Synapses, abundant in the brain, are structures needed for life. Our Introduction, based on the forms of such structures published few decades ago, helped in developing recent concepts of health and diseases. Growing axons govern their growth by cell...
The brain is sensitive to aging-related morphological changes, where many neurodegenerative diseases manifest accompanied by a reduction in memory. The hippocampus is especially vulnerable to damage at an early stage of aging. The present transmissio...
Gephyrin has long been thought of as a master regulator for inhibitory synapses, acting as a scaffold to organize γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors (GABAARs) at the post-synaptic density. Accordingly, gephyrin immunostaining has been used as an in...
In this study, we present the resistive switching characteristics and the emulation of a biological synapse using the ITO/IGZO/TaN device. The device demonstrates efficient energy consumption, featuring low current resistive switching with minimal se...
Subanaesthetic doses of ketamine increase
Neurotoxins generally inhibit or promote the release of neurotransmitters or bind to receptors that are located in the pre- or post-synaptic membranes, thereby affecting physiological functions of synapses and affecting biological processes. With mor...
Three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction from electron microscopy (EM) datasets is a widely used tool that has improved our knowledge of synapse ultrastructure and organization in the brain. Rearrangements of synapse structure following maturation and i...
Recently, neuromorphic sensors, which convert analogue signals to spiking frequencies, have been reported for neurorobotics. In bio-inspired systems these sensors are connected to the main neural unit to perform post-processing of the sensor data. Th...
Synapses are specialized neuronal cell-cell contacts that underlie network communication in the mammalian brain. Across neuronal populations and circuits, a diverse set of synapses is utilized, and they differ in their molecular composition to enable...
The synapse is a piece of information transfer machinery replacing the electrical conduction of nerve impulses at the end of the neuron. Like many biological mechanisms, its functioning is heavily affected by time constraints. The solution selected b...
Background: Multiple sclerosis is a frequent neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system that includes alterations in the white and gray matter of the brain. The visual system is frequently affected in multiple scler...
The inherited metabolic disease phenylketonuria (PKU) is characterized by increased concentrations of phenylalanine in the blood and brain, and as a consequence neurotransmitter metabolism, white matter, and synapse functioning are affected. A specif...
We fabricate a biometric laser fiber synaptic sensor to transmit information from one neuron cell to the other by an optical way. The optical synapse is constructed on the base of an erbium-doped fiber laser, whose pumped diode current is driven by a...
The Hebbian type of spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) with long-term potentiation and depression (LTP and LTD) plays a crucial role at layer 4 (L4) to L2/3 synapses in deprivation-induced map plasticity. In addition, plasticity at the L2/3 hor...
Retinal ribbon synapses are continuously active chemical synapses. The eponymous synaptic ribbon is anchored to the active zone neurotransmitter release sites of ribbon synapses, recruits synaptic vesicles and guides ribbon-associated synaptic vesicl...
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is of particular concern for the aging community since there is both increased incidence of TBI and decreased functional recovery in this population. In addition, TBI is the strongest environmental risk factor for develop...
Learning and memory formation rely on synaptic plasticity, the process that changes synaptic strength in response to neuronal activity. In the tripartite synapse concept, molecular signals that affect synapse strength and morphology originate not onl...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia in the elderly. It is characterized by the accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) and progressive cognitive impairment. To alleviate the symptoms of AD, functional foods and nutrients...
The post-synaptic density protein 95 (PSD95) is a crucial scaffolding protein participating in the organization and regulation of synapses. PSD95 interacts with numerous molecules, including neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels. The functional...
Excitatory synapses in the brain are often surrounded by nanoscopic astroglial processes that express high-affinity glutamate transporters at a high surface density. This ensures that the bulk of glutamate leaving the synaptic cleft is taken up for i...
Neurons, regarded as post-mitotic cells, are characterized by their extensive dendritic and axonal arborization. This unique architecture imposes challenges to how to supply materials required at distal neuronal components. Kinesins are molecular mot...
Despite its significance, hysteresis remains underrepresented in mainstream models of plasticity. In this work, we propose a novel framework that explicitly models hysteresis in simple one- and two-neuron models. Our models capture key feedback-depen...
Background: Epilepsy affects millions of people worldwide, yet we still lack a successful treatment for all epileptic patients. Most of the available drugs modulate neuronal activity. Astrocytes, the most abundant cells in the brain, may constitute a...
The synaptic cleft has been vastly investigated in the last decades, leading to a novel and fascinating model of the functional and structural modifications linked to synaptic transmission and brain processing. The classic neurocentric model encompas...
Despite extensive investigations of a wide variety of artificial synapse devices aimed at realizing a neuromorphic hardware system, the identification of a physical parameter that modulates synaptic plasticity is still required. In this context, a no...
A prominent feature of neurodegenerative diseases is synaptic dysfunction and spine loss as early signs of neurodegeneration. In this context, accumulation of misfolded proteins has been identified as one of the most common causes driving synaptic to...
After many decades, during which most molecular studies on the regulation of gene expression focused on transcriptional events, it was realized that post-transcriptional control was equally important in order to determine where and when specific prot...
Synaptic plasticity is an extensively studied cellular correlate of learning and memory in which NMDARs play a starring role. One of the most interesting features of NMDARs is their ability to act as a co-incident detector. It is unique amongst neuro...
Although acetylcholine is the major neurotransmitter operating at the skeletal neuromuscular junction of many invertebrates and of vertebrates, glutamate participates in modulating cholinergic transmission and plastic changes in the last. Presynaptic...
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