Individual Differences in Aging: Behavioral and Neural Analyses

Aged populations have remarkable variability in recent memory and cognitive mapping. Although some individuals may have substantial age-related impairments, others perform almost as well as young individuals. This paper reviews the relevant data on aged rats and indicates two challenges for biomarkers of aging. The first is to provide an appropriate quantitative description of these individual differences. The second is to use them effectively as markers for age-related changes in psychological functions and their neural substrates.

Verbascoside promotes the regeneration of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive neurons in the substantia nigra

Tyrosine hydroxylase is a key enzyme in dopamine biosynthesis. Change in tyrosine hydroxylase expression in the nigrostriatal system is closely related to the occurrence and development of Parkinson＇s disease. Verbascoside, an extract from Radix Rehmanniae Praeparata has been shown to be clinically effective in treating Parkinson＇s disease. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. It is hypothesized that the effects of verbascoside on Parkinson＇s disease are related to tyrosine hydroxylase expression change in the nigrostriatal system. Rat models of Parkinson＇s disease were established and verbascoside（60 mg/kg） was administered intraperitoneally once a day. After 6 weeks of verbascoside treatment, rat rotational behavior was alleviated; tyrosine hydroxylase m RNA and protein expression and the number of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive neurons in the rat right substantia nigra were significantly higher than the Parkinson＇s model group. These findings suggest that the mechanism by which verbascoside treats Parkinson＇s disease is related to the regeneration of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive neurons in the substantia nigra.

Myricetin protects hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons and improves learning and memory impairments in rats with Alzheimer's disease

There is currently no treatment for effectively slowing the progression of Alzheimer＇s disease, so early prevention is very important. Numerous studies have shown that flavonoids can improve memory impairment. The present study investigated the effects of myricetin, a member of the flavonoids, on intracerebroventricular streptozotocin induced neuronal loss and memory impairment in rat models of Alzheimer＇s disease. Myricetin at 5 or 10 mg/kg was intraperitoneally injected into rats over 21 days. Control rats were treated with 10 m L/kg saline. Behavioral test（the shuttle box test） was performed on day 22 to examine learning and memory in rats. Immediately after that, hematoxylin-eosin staining was performed to observe the morphological change in hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons. Myricetin greatly increased the number of hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons and improved learning and memory impairments in rats with Alzheimer＇s disease. These findings suggest that myricetin is beneficial for treatment of Alzheimer＇s disease.

A Shared Neural Node for Multiple Innate Behaviors in Drosophila

The nervous system orchestrates diverse behaviors such as reproduction, sleep, feeding, and aggression, and selects a single behavior for execution at any given time. This requires neural mechanisms for behavioral selection sensitive to both internal physiological states and external environmental conditions. For example, hungry animals

Recombinant human erythropoietin for repair of white matter damage

Erythropoietin has been shown to exhibit neuroprotective effects in animal models. A neonatal rat model of hypoxic-ischemic white matter damage was established via bilateral carotid artery ligation in 4-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats. The rats were subsequently treated with recombinant human erythropoietin to observe pathological changes in the brain and long-term neurobehavioral functions before and after intervention. Results showed that the number of myelin basic protein-positive cells, which reflected myelin/oligodendrocyte damage, significantly increased, although the number of amyloid precursor protein-positive cells, which reflected axonaf injury, significantly decreased in periventricular white matter at 72 hours and 7 days following erythropoietin intervention. The number of glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive cells, indicating astrocytic damage, significantly decreased in periventricular white matter of erythropoietin-treated rats at 48 hours, 72 hours, 7 days and 26 days. Following erythropoietin intervention in the 30-day-old rats, head-turning time in the slope test was shortened and open-field test scores increased. These results suggested that erythropoietJn promoted repair of white matter damage, as well as improved neurobehavioral functions in a rat model of hypoxic-ischemic injury.

Moxibustion upregulates hippocampal progranulin expression

In China,moxibustion is reported to be useful and has few side effects for chronic fatigue syndrome,but its mechanisms are largely unknown.More recently,the focus has been on the wealth of information supporting stress as a factor in chronic fatigue syndrome,and largely concerns dysregulation in the stress-related hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.In the present study,we aimed to determine the effect of moxibustion on behavioral symptoms in chronic fatigue syndrome rats and examine possible mechanisms.Rats were subjected to a combination of chronic restraint stress and forced swimming to induce chronic fatigue syndrome.The acupoints Guanyuan（CV4） and Zusanli（ST36,bilateral） were simultaneously administered moxibustion.Untreated chronic fatigue syndrome rats and normal rats were used as controls.Results from the forced swimming test,open field test,tail suspension test,real-time PCR,enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay,and western blot assay showed that moxibustion treatment decreased m RNA expression of corticotropin-releasing hormone in the hypothalamus,and adrenocorticotropic hormone and corticosterone levels in plasma,and markedly increased progranulin m RNA and protein expression in the hippocampus.These findings suggest that moxibustion may relieve the behavioral symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome,at least in part,by modulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and upregulating hippocampal progranulin.

Constitutive modeling of compression behavior of TC4 tube based on modified Arrhenius and artificial neural network models

Warm rotary draw bending provides a feasible method to form the large-diameter thin-walled（LDTW）TC4 bent tubes, which are widely used in the pneumatic system of aircrafts. An accurate prediction of flow behavior of TC4 tubes considering the couple effects of temperature,strain rate and strain is critical for understanding the deformation behavior of metals and optimizing the processing parameters in warm rotary draw bending of TC4 tubes. In this study, isothermal compression tests of TC4 tube alloy were performed from 573 to 873 K with an interval of 100 K and strain rates of 0.001, 0.010 and0.100 s^（-1）. The prediction of flow behavior was done using two constitutive models, namely modified Arrhenius model and artificial neural network（ANN） model. The predictions of these constitutive models were compared using statistical measures like correlation coefficient（R）, average absolute relative error（AARE） and its variation with the deformation parameters（temperature, strain rate and strain）. Analysis of statistical measures reveals that the two models show high predicted accuracy in terms of R and AARE. Comparatively speaking, the ANN model presents higher predicted accuracy than the modified Arrhenius model. In addition, the predicted accuracy of ANN model presents high stability at the whole deformation parameter ranges, whereas the predictability of the modified Arrhenius model has some fluctuation at different deformation conditions. It presents higher predicted accuracy at temperatures of 573-773 K, strain rates of 0.010-0.100 s^（-1）and strain of 0.04-0.32, while low accuracy at temperature of 873 K, strain rates of 0.001 s^（-1）and strain of 0.36-0.48.Thus, the application of modified Arrhenius model is limited by its relatively low predicted accuracy at some deformation conditions, while the ANN model presents very high predicted accuracy at all deformation conditions,which can be used to study the compression behavior of TC4 tube at the temperature range of 573-873 K and the strain rate of 0.001-0.100 s^（-1）. It can provide guideline for the design of processing parameters in warm rotary draw bending of LDTW TC4 tubes.

MouseVenue3D:A Markerless Three-Dimension Behavioral Tracking System for Matching Two-Photon Brain Imaging in Free-Moving Mice

Understanding the connection between brain and behavior in animals requires precise monitoring of their behaviors in three-dimensional(3-D)space.However,there is no available three-dimensional behavior capture system that focuses on rodents.Here,we present MouseVenue3D,an automated and low-cost system for the efficient capture of 3-D skeleton trajectories in markerless rodents.We improved the most time-consuming step in 3-D behavior capturing by developing an automatic calibration module.Then,we validated this process in behavior recognition tasks,and showed that 3-D behavioral data achieved higher accuracy than 2-D data.Subsequently,MouseVenue3D was combined with fast high-resolution miniature two-photon microscopy for synchronous neural recording and behavioral tracking in the freely-moving mouse.Finally,we successfully decoded spontaneous neuronal activity from the 3-D behavior of mice.Our findings reveal that subtle,spontaneous behavior modules are strongly correlated with spontaneous neuronal activity patterns.