Behavioral performance was correlated with all functional coupling coefficients.

Results: In controls there was a significant relationship between the primary motor cortex and the supplementary motor area (SMA), as well as the SMA and the dorsal striatum during

ongoing movement. Cocaine users exhibited weaker fronto-striatal coupling than controls, while the cortical-cortical coupling was intact. Coupling strength between the SMA and selleck inhibitor the caudate was negatively correlated with reaction time in the users.

Conclusions: The observation that cocaine users have impaired cortical-striatal connectivity during simple motor performance, suggests that these individuals may have a fundamental deficit in information processing that influences more complex

click here cognitive processes. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.”
“Type 1 diabetes is a chronic progressive autoimmune disease characterized by mononuclear cell infiltration, with subsequent destruction of insulin-producing beta-cells. Studies have identified strong associations between type 1 diabetes and several chromosome regions, including 12q24. Association between type 1 diabetes and 12q24 arises from SNP rs3184504; rs3184504 is a nonsynonymous SNP in exon 3 of SH2B3 (also known as LNK). Nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice recapitulate many aspects of the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes in humans and are therefore frequently used in studies addressing the cellular and molecular mechanisms of this disease. It is of interest to know whether there is a similar mutation of SH2B3 in NOD mice. We found that the SH2B3 mutation is absent in NOD mice. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the sequence and the protein levels of SH2B3 in NOD mice.”
“Mutations in the SPAST (SPG4) gene, which encodes Fer-1 in vitro the microtubule-severing protein spastin, are the most common cause of autosomal dominant hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP). Following on from previous work in our

laboratory showing that spastin is required for axon outgrowth, we report here that the related microtubule-severing protein katanin is also required for axon outgrowth in vivo. Using confocal time-lapse imaging, we have identified requirements for spastin and katanin in maintaining normal axonal microtubule dynamics and growth cone motility in vivo, supporting a model in which microtubule severing is required for concerted growth of neuronal microtubules. Simultaneous knockdown of spastin and katanin caused a more severe phenotype than did individual knockdown of either gene, suggesting that they have different but related functions in supporting axon outgrowth. In addition, the microtubule-destabilising drug nocodazole abolished microtubule dynamics and growth cone motility, and enhanced phenotypic severity in spast-knockdown zebrafish embryos.