These characteristics of Cal-520 are a great advantage over those of Oregon Green BAPTA-1, the most commonly used calcium indicator dye, for monitoring the activity of individual neurons both in vitro and in vivo. “
“Monoamines have an important role in neural plasticity, a key factor in cortical pain processing that promotes changes in neuronal network connectivity. Monoamine oxidase type A (MAOA) is an enzyme that, due to its modulating role in monoaminergic activity, could play

a role in cortical pain processing. The X-linked MAOA gene is characterized by an allelic variant of length, the MAOA upstream Variable Number Tandem Repeat (MAOA-uVNTR) region polymorphism. Two allelic variants of this gene are known, the high-activity MAOA HTS assay (HAM) and low-activity MAOA (LAM). We investigated the role of MAOA-uVNTR in cortical pain processing in a group of healthy individuals measured by the trigeminal electric pain-related evoked potential (tPREP) elicited by repeated painful stimulation. A group of healthy volunteers was genotyped to detect MAOA-uVNTR polymorphism. Electrical tPREPs were recorded by stimulating the right supraorbital nerve with a concentric electrode. The N2 and P2 component amplitude and latency as well as the N2–P2 inter-peak

amplitude were measured. The recording was divided into three blocks, each containing 10 consecutive stimuli and the N2–P2 amplitude was compared between blocks. Of the 67 volunteers, 37 were HAM and 30 were LAM. HAM subjects differed from LAM subjects in terms of amplitude of the grand-averaged Ureohydrolase and first-block N2–P2 responses (HAM>LAM). The N2–P2 amplitude Palbociclib decreased between the first and third block in HAM subjects but not LAM subjects. The MAOA-uVNTR polymorphism seemed to influence the brain response in a repeated tPREP paradigm and suggested a role of the MAOA as

a modulator of neural plasticity related to cortical pain processing. “
“Autism is a developmental disorder characterised by a high heterogeneity of clinical diagnoses and genetic associations. This heterogeneity is a challenge for the identification of the pathophysiology of the disease and for the development of new therapeutic strategies. New conceptual approaches are being used to try to challenge this complexity and gene cluster analysis studies suggest that the pathophysiology of autism is associated with a dysregulation of specific cellular mechanisms. This review will present the experimental evidence for a convergence of synaptic pathophysiology between syndromic and non-syndromic forms of autism, grouped under the generic term of autism spectrum disorders. In particular I will highlight the results from genetic mouse models identifying a convergence of dysregulation of the synaptic type I metabotropic glutamate receptor pathway in mouse models for autism spectrum disorders.