Share this post on:

S-ERKSEM in PDF neurons does not change the number of PDF-terminals and does not alter sleep time. 20142041 This is in contrast to the effects of expressing UASERKSEM pan-neuronally which increases both the number of PDF-terminals and increases sleep. These data suggest that ERK activation can either influence PDF neurons in a non-cell autonomous fashion or that ERK activation is required in multiple circuits to modulate plasticity. Indeed, we have recently shown that increasing sleep by activating the dorsal Fan Shaped Body significantly reduces the number of 118414-82-7 PDFterminals. Thus, PDF terminal number provides an accessible read-out of brain plasticity that can be used to elucidate molecular mechanisms linking sleep and plasticity at the circuit 9030745 level. It is important to note that in flies there is a critical window of adult development that can influence sleep and learning. For example, 0-3 day old rut2080 mutants are able to respond to social enrichment with an increase in sleep but their older siblings cannot. In other words, rut2080 mutants can exhibit higher or lower amounts of sleep as adults depending upon environmental context, not levels of rutabaga per se. Indeed, rutabaga mutants have been reported to have significant variations in sleep compared to controls. Given that the environment can stably modify sleep during adult development, even in the absence of memory related genes, care must be taken when classifying a mutant as either long or short sleepers. We should emphasize that we have designed our experiments to avoid making manipulations during this critical time window to avoid such confounds. However, it remains possible that ERK may modify sleep by activating additional downstream targets and/or by regulating translation initiation at the synapse. Recent studies have shown that waking experience, including both prolonged wakefulness and exposure to enriched environments, independently produce dramatic increases in both synaptic markers and structural morphology throughout the fly brain and that these changes are reversed during sleep. To date, most studies have evaluated mutations that disrupt synaptic plasticity to identify the molecular mechanisms linking sleep with plasticity. Given that ERK is a key molecule for the regulation of synaptic plasticity and long-term potentiation, we evaluated its ability to alter both sleep and structural plasticity. Our data indicate that both sleep deprivation and social enrichment independently increase ERK phosphorylation in wild-type flies. We also report that expressing an active version of ERK in the adult fly results in an increase in sleep and an increase in structural plasticity in the LNvs. These data suggest that ERK phosphorylation is an important mediator in transducing waking experience into sleep. Inflammatory chronic pain, such as arthritis pain, joint pain and inflammatory bowel disease, is a significant health problem, and is initiated by tissue damage or inflammation. At present, such pain is generally treated with antidepressants, anticonvulsants and cyclooxygenase inhibitors, but negative side effects remain. As the molecular and cellular basis for the development and persistence of pain after inflammation remain unknown, it is difficult to understand the mechanisms underlying inflammatory pain and to develop new therapeutics. Recently, endogenous n-3 series polyunsaturated fatty acids or their derived lipid mediators have been found to have crucial roles in the local con

Share this post on:

Author: Interleukin Related