Prolactin Action for Parental Behavior

Mammals’ reproductive success depends on parental care.Similar to its well-known function in females, recent research suggests that the hormone prolactin regulates male parental behavior.Two weeks after mating, male laboratory mice exhibit paternal behavior and a suppression of infanticide normally seen in virgins.We wanted to see how prolactin regulates paternal behavior in the forebrain using this model.We first demonstrate, by utilizing c-fos immunoreactivity in prolactin receptor (Prlr) Prlr-IRES-Cre-tdtomato reporter mouse sires, that the medial preoptic nucleus, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and medial amygdala are all locations where prolactin-responsive neurons are present in the circuitry that is activated during paternal interactions.After that, we deleted Prlr from three distinct cell types that were prevalent in these areas:GABAergic, CaMKII, and glutamatergicSince none of these KO males completed the pup-retrieval task, Prlr deletion from CaMKII cells had a significant impact on paternal behavior, but not on glutamatergic or GABAergic cells.It appears that the mating-induced secretion of prolactin is necessary for establishing the transition from infanticidal to paternal behavior because prolactin was elevated during mating but not in response to pups.Paternal behavior, on the other hand, was unaffected by pharmacological inhibition of prolactin secretion at the time of mating.Exogenous prolactin administration, on the other hand, prevented this behavior by suppressing prolactin secretion at the time of pup exposure.Together, our findings indicate that Prlr on CaMKII-expressing neurons mediated basal levels of circulating prolactin at the time of interaction with pups determine paternal behavior in sires. 

Butterfly effects and Neurons ByDr. Farzad Massoudi

Both animals and humans have shown that damaged innervations in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) can be rebuilt.The damaged neurite swells and goes through retrograde degeneration after an injury.After the debris is removed, it begins to sprout and repair the connections that are broken.As long as the perikarya remain intact and have made contact with the Schwann cells in the endoneurial channel, damaged axons can regenerate.Regenerating axons have the potential to reinnervate the initial target and reestablish connections and function under the right conditions.However, only a small portion of what transpires after the PNS injury is depicted in this scenario.The data presented in this issue of NRR demonstrate the effects of PNS damage on the central nervous system (CNS) in addition to the injured neuron.They also talk about the possibility that after injury, factors that control neural proliferation and differentiation in the developing nervous system may be brought back to life and contribute to both adult neurogenesis and neural proliferation.

The majority of researchers maintain that neurogenesis in mature mammals is restricted to the CNS’s subventricular zone and the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus.With the exception of the olfactory neuroepithelium, neurogenesis in the PNS is thought to be active only during prenatal development.Accordingly, understanding circumstances under which grown-up neurogenesis can be actuated in physiologically non-neurogenic locales is one of the significant moves for creating remedial techniques to fix neurological harm.With the exception of the sensory ganglia, little is known about the PNS’s induced neurogenesis.The review by Czaja examines the more than one hundred years of research on adult neurogenesis in the PNS and reveals evidence regarding the underestimated potential for the generation of new neurons in the adult PNS.

Hodges and Forster also go over the data that show that carotid body denervation triggers both central and peripheral plasticity.The carotid body is a small group of cells that come from the neural crest and are found at the beginning of the internal carotid artery.Carotid bodies are the primary site of peripheral oxygene chemoreception and provide a tonic facilitory input to the respiratory network.The altered excitatory and/or inhibitory neuromodulator mechanisms that contribute to the initial respiratory depression and subsequent respiratory plasticity following carotid body denervation are the subject of a discussion by Hodges and Forster.The respiratory network’s capacity for plasticity following neurologic injury in humans may be better understood if the central effects of carotid body denervation are studied.

It has been reported that stimulating the vagus nerve in the brain increases neurogenesis and neural plasticity.However, the underlying mechanism of this action remains a mystery.Ronchi et al. looked into whether cells in the hippocampus’s dentate gyrus respond to vagus nerve damage.Adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus was altered by both the vagotomy and capsaicin-induced damage to unmyelinated vagal afferents, according to their findings.In addition, they demonstrated that in adult rats, damage to the subdiaphragmatic vagus is followed by activation of microglia and lasting changes in the neural environment in the dentate gyrus.

The investigation of transcriptional changes resulting from experimental manipulations of the nervous system is frequently carried out using quantitative RT-PCR (qPCR). Due to the dynamic nature of endogenous transcription, the lack of a suitable reference gene makes it difficult to interpret qPCR results, despite its widespread use. Johnston et al. looked into using luciferase, an exogenous spike-in mRNA, as an internal reference gene for the 2-Ct normalization method to address this deficiency. The dynamic expression of the endogenous reference was demonstrated by the exogenous luciferase mRNA reference. They demonstrated that misinterpreting other genes of interest would result from the variability of the endogenous reference. An alternative for the analysis of qPCR data in the injury model that is both consistent and simple to implement is the utilization of the exogenous spike-in reference.

This issue’s research demonstrates that peripheral nerve damage is not limited to the PNS’s plasticity. In both the PNS and the CNS, the need to create new neurons and make new connections dramatically rises after injury. The chain of events induced by the peripheral nerves causes the CNS circuits to be reorganized. The injured nervous system’s developmental mechanisms are replicated by this demand for new connections. As a result, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that even a small change in the PNS can have a big impact on the CNS in the future, causing the neural butterfly effect and an unexpected brain storm.

Neuro Technology By Dr.Farzad Massoudi

One of those buzzwords that can be hard to pin down is nanotechnology. So, exactly what is it? For instance, how is it different from conventional physics and chemistry? And specifically, what advantages does it provide for neuroscience and brain research? In fact, a lot is the response. 

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist from the California Institute of Technology, Richard Feynman, gave the well-known 1959 lecture “There’s plenty of room at the bottom,” which is typically credited as the source of the original concepts and ideas of nanotechnology.The actual term “nanotechnology” was first used in 1974 by Tokyo University professor Norio Taniguchi. It has had a significant impact on how scientists study and interact with the brain over the past twenty or so years, including the development of novel treatments for neurological disorders. Technology and methods for manipulating and controlling devices and materials at the molecular scale through either physical or chemical methods, or both, are the primary focus of nanotechnology, an interdisciplinary field of science and engineering. This typically takes place between 1 and 100 nanometers (nm). 

A billionth of a meter is one nanometer. That is less than a meter by nine orders of magnitude. Or 1/1,000,000,000. That amounts to less than 0.00000004 inches. In contrast, one centimeter is the opposite of two times ten, or one-hundredth of a meter, or two orders of magnitude smaller. One-thousandth of a millimeter, or three orders of magnitude, smaller than a meter. It is hard to naturally get a handle on how little of a unit of estimation a nanometer is. 

An illustration that will help you understand the size difference, not at spatial but at temporal scales: A walk from New York City to San Diego usually is not attempted. It would simply take too much time. However, a change of one order of magnitude, or being able to walk ten times faster, would be the same as switching from walking to driving. Let’s say you can walk 3 miles per hour, for instance. You can reach speeds of 60 or 70 miles per hour driving. You could now travel across the nation in a few days. Going from walking to flying requires an increase in speed of two orders of magnitude. You can use it in a matter of hours to travel across the country. It is impossible to achieve three orders of magnitude technologically.It would get you quickly from New York to San Diego. And that is only a difference of three orders of magnitude, or a thousand-fold difference, equivalent to changing from meters to millimeters. If you were to increase your speed by a billionth of a second, just picture how long it would take! Now take that gut feeling and reverse it: Consider a meter, which is simply under a yard, and attempt to envision contracting somewhere near a billion times. 

NeuroScience and NanoTechnology By Dr. Farzad Massoudi

One of those buzzwords that can be hard to pin down is nanotechnology. So, exactly what is it? For instance, how is it different from conventional physics and chemistry? And specifically, what advantages does it provide for neuroscience and brain research? In fact, a lot is the response. 

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist from the California Institute of Technology, Richard Feynman, gave the well-known 1959 lecture “There’s plenty of room at the bottom,” which is typically credited as the source of the original concepts and ideas of nanotechnology.The actual term “nanotechnology” was first used in 1974 by Tokyo University professor Norio Taniguchi. It has had a significant impact on how scientists study and interact with the brain over the past twenty or so years, including the development of novel treatments for neurological disorders. Technology and methods for manipulating and controlling devices and materials at the molecular scale through either physical or chemical methods, or both, are the primary focus of nanotechnology, an interdisciplinary field of science and engineering. This typically takes place between 1 and 100 nanometers (nm). 

A billionth of a meter is one nanometer. That is less than a meter by nine orders of magnitude. Or 1/1,000,000,000. That amounts to less than 0.00000004 inches. In contrast, one centimeter is the opposite of two times ten, or one-hundredth of a meter, or two orders of magnitude smaller. One-thousandth of a millimeter, or three orders of magnitude, smaller than a meter. It is hard to naturally get a handle on how little of a unit of estimation a nanometer is. 

An illustration that will help you understand the size difference, not at spatial but at temporal scales: A walk from New York City to San Diego usually is not attempted. It would simply take too much time. However, a change of one order of magnitude, or being able to walk ten times faster, would be the same as switching from walking to driving. Let’s say you can walk 3 miles per hour, for instance. You can reach speeds of 60 or 70 miles per hour driving. You could now travel across the nation in a few days. Going from walking to flying requires an increase in speed of two orders of magnitude. You can use it in a matter of hours to travel across the country. It is impossible to achieve three orders of magnitude technologically.It would get you quickly from New York to San Diego. And that is only a difference of three orders of magnitude, or a thousand-fold difference, equivalent to changing from meters to millimeters. If you were to increase your speed by a billionth of a second, just picture how long it would take! Now take that gut feeling and reverse it: Consider a meter, which is simply under a yard, and attempt to envision contracting somewhere near a billion times. 

Do you have questions?
Call or visit us.
9494221105
Suite 405
23961 Calle de la Magdalena
Laguna Hills, CA 92653

COPYRIGHT © 2025 MASSOUDIFOUNDATION – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED