Search results for "Autonomic system"
showing 10 items of 247 documents
Pancreatic polypeptide stimulates mouse gastric motor activity through peripheral neural mechanisms
2016
Background Pancreatic polypeptide (PP) is supposed to be one of the major endogenous agonists of the neuropeptide Y4 receptor. Pancreatic polypeptide can influence gastrointestinal motility, acting mainly through vagal mechanisms, but whether PP acts directly on the stomach has not been explored yet. The aims of this study were to investigate the effects of PP on mouse gastric emptying, on spontaneous tone of whole stomach in vitro and to examine the mechanism of action. Methods Gastric emptying was measured by red phenol method after i.p. PP administration (1–3 nmol per mouse). Responses induced by PP (1–300 mmol L−1) on gastric endoluminal pressure were analyzed in vitro in the presence o…
The importance of trait emotional intelligence and feelings in the prediction of perceived and biological stress in adolescents: hierarchical regress…
2017
The purpose of this study is to analyze the combined effects of trait emotional intelligence (EI) and feelings on healthy adolescents' stress. Identifying the extent to which adolescent stress varies with trait emotional differences and the feelings of adolescents is of considerable interest in the development of intervention programs for fostering youth well-being. To attain this goal, self-reported questionnaires (perceived stress, trait EI, and positive/negative feelings) and biological measures of stress (hair cortisol concentrations, HCC) were collected from 170 adolescents (12-14 years old). Two different methodologies were conducted, which included hierarchical regression models and …
Altered tachykinergic influence on gastric mechanical activity in mdx mice
2006
Abstract This study investigated whether alterationsin gastric activity in dystrophic mdx mouse can beattributed to dysfunctions of tachykinins. Endolumi-nal pressure was recorded and the expression ofneuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS), NK1 and NK2neurokinin receptors was investigated by immunoh-istochemistry. SR48968, NK2 receptor antagonist, butnot SR140333, NK1 receptor antagonist, decreased thetone only in mdx gastric preparations. In the presenceof N x -nitro- L -arginine methyl ester ( L -NAME), inhib-itor of NOS, SR48968 reduced the tone also in normalstomach. [Sar 9 , Met(O 2 ) 11 ]-SP, agonist of NK1 recep-tors, caused tetrodotoxin-sensitive relaxations, antag-onized by SR140333…
Contact with attractive women affects the release of cortisol in men
2010
Previous studies have shown that situations relevant for human mating can affect the levels of many hormones. This study focused on the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis by measuring salivary cortisol levels in 84 young men prior to and after a period of short social contact with a woman or man. Results showed that after contact with another man the cortisol levels of the participants declined according to the circadian release pattern of cortisol. However, cortisol levels in men declined less when they had contact with a woman. Furthermore, cortisol levels of men increased when they perceived the woman with whom they had contact as attractive. Our findings provide indirect evidence for t…
Oxytocin reverses ethanol consumption and neuroinflammation induced by social defeat in male mice
2020
Abstract Oxytocin (OXT) modulates social interactions, attenuates stressful responses and can decrease drug-seeking and taking behaviors. In previous studies, we observed that social defeat (SD) induced a long-lasting increase in ethanol intake and neuroinflammation in male mice. We also know that OXT blocks the increase in cocaine reward induced by SD. Therefore, in the present study we aimed to evaluate the effect of 1 mg/kg of OXT administered 30 min before each episode of SD on ethanol consumption and the neuroinflammatory response in adult male mice. Three weeks after the last SD, mice underwent oral ethanol self-administration (SA) procedure, and striatal levels of the two chemokines …
Investigating individual stress reactivity: High hair cortisol predicts lower acute stress responses
2020
Identifying individual differences in stress reactivity is of particular interest in the context of stress-related disorders and resilience. Previous studies already identified several factors mediating the individual stress response of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA). However, the impact of long-term HPA axis activity on acute stress reactivity remains inconclusive. To investigate associations between long-term HPA axis variation and individual acute stress reactivity, we tested 40 healthy volunteers for affective, endocrine, physiological, and neural reactions to a modified, compact version of the established in-MR stress paradigm ScanSTRESS (ScanSTRESS-C). Hair cortisol con…
Disentangling effects of auditory distraction and of stimulus-response sequence
2009
When we pay attention to one task, irrelevant changes may interfere. The effect of changes on behavioral and electrophysiological responses has been studied in two separate research fields: Research on Distraction states that a rare irrelevant change takes attention away from the primary task. Research on Sequences states that any change in stimulus or response incurs a cost or benefit depending on the kind of change. To disentangle distraction from sequence effects, we made task-irrelevant changes rare in one condition and frequent in another while also assessing stimulus and response changes from trial to trial. Participants used key presses to classify syllables presented in two differen…
Interferon-Alpha-2-Induced Stimulation of ACTH and Cortisol Secretion in Man
1991
Short-term effects of interferon-alpha 2 on plasma concentrations of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol were measured in man in relation to interferon absorption. Interferon-alpha 2 was given subcutaneously at a dose of 3 x 10(6) IU at 17.00 h to 2 female and 5 male patients who suffered from chronic hepatitis B infection and who had not previously been treated with interferon. Plasma levels of ACTH, cortisol and interferon-alpha were determined at 30-min intervals between 16.00 and 24.00 h. In each patient a similar cortisol, ACTH and interferon-alpha profile was determined on a day, when no interferon-alpha treatment was given. Interferon-alpha plasma levels peaked around 21…
Altered electrical activity in colonic smooth muscle cells from dystrophic (mdx) mice
2001
Because the colon from dystrophic (mdx) mice shows an altered motor pattern, probably due to neural disorders, our aim was to examine the electrophysiological properties of muscle cells and the functionality of nitrergic transmission in circular muscle from normal and mdx colon. Normal colonic cells (resting membrane potential [RMP] about -50 mV) showed spontaneous hyperpolarizations (inhibitory junction potentials; IJPs) and cyclic slow depolarizations were sometimes recorded. Mdx colon had a depolarized RMP (about -36 mV) and spontaneous IJPs, but the cyclic activity was never observed. In the normal colon, Nomega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) induced depolarization and abolished…
Deficits in facial emotional valence processing in older people with subjective memory complaints: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence
2021
Subjective memory complaints (SMCs), which occur in the absence of clinical memory deficits, may precede mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer''s disease (AD). Some studies have reported a deficit in facial emotion processing in people with MCI or AD. However, it is unclear whether this deficit is also present in older people with SMCs. The present study used behavioral measurements and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the facial emotion processing of 41 older people with SMCs and 38 without SMCs. The task contained 204 images displaying facial emotions (positive, negative, and neutral). In terms of behavior, our results showed that participants with SMCs were slower an…