The Role of Neurons in Human Health and Disease.

Neurons are the functional units of the nervous system [...].

Investigating the Modulation of the VTA Neurons in Nicotine-Exposed Pups during Early Maturation Using Optogenetics.

Advancing the understanding of the relationship between perinatal nicotine addiction and the reward mechanism of the brain is crucial for uncovering and implementing new treatments for addiction control and prevention. The mesolimbic pathway of the brain, also known as the reward pathway, consists of two main areas that regulate dopamine (DA) and addiction-related behaviors. The ventral tegmental area (VTA) releases DA when stimulated, causing the propagation of neuronal firing along the pathway. This ends in the release of DA into the extracellular space of the nucleus accumbens (NAc), which is directly modulated by the uptake of DA. Much research has been conducted on the effects of nicotine addiction, but little research has been conducted concerning nicotine addiction and the mesolimbic pathway regarding maturation due to the small brain size. In this study, we apply our novel microstimulation experimental system to rat pups that have been perinatally exposed to nicotine. By using our self-fabricated photo-stimulation (PS) device, we can stimulate the VTA and collect dialysate, which is then used to estimate DA released into the NAc. The proposed platform has demonstrated the potential to monitor neural pathways as the pups mature.

Investigating the Influence of Morphine and Cocaine on the Mesolimbic Pathway Using a Novel Microimaging Platform.

Dopamine (DA)'s relationship with addiction is complex, and the related pathways in the mesocorticolimbic system are used to deliver DA, regulating both behavioral and perceptual actions. Specifically, the mesolimbic pathway connecting the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is crucial in regulating memory, emotion, motivation, and behavior due to its responsibility to modulate dopamine. To better investigate the relationship between DA and addiction, more advanced mapping methods are necessary to monitor its production and propagation accurately and efficiently. In this study, we incorporate dLight1.2 adeno-associated virus (AAV) into our latest CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) imaging platform to investigate the effects of two pharmacological substances, morphine and cocaine, in the NAc using adult mice. By implanting our self-fabricated CMOS imaging device into the deep brain, fluorescence imaging of the NAc using the dLight1.2 AAV allows for the visualization of DA molecules delivered from the VTA in real time. Our results suggest that changes in extracellular DA can be observed with this adapted system, showing potential for new applications and methods for approaching addiction studies. Additionally, we can identify the unique characteristic trend of DA release for both morphine and cocaine, further validating the underlying biochemical mechanisms used to modulate dopaminergic activation.

Multi-Region Microdialysis Imaging Platform Revealed Dorsal Raphe Nucleus Calcium Signaling and Serotonin Dynamics during Nociceptive Pain.

In this research, we combined our ultralight micro-imaging device for calcium imaging with microdialysis to simultaneously visualize neural activity in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) and measure serotonin release in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Using this platform, we observed brain activity following nociception induced by formalin injection in the mouse's hind paw. Our device showed that DRN fluorescence intensity increased after formalin injection, and the increase was highly correlated with the elevation in serotonin release in both the CeA and ACC. The increase in calcium fluorescence intensity occurred during the acute and inflammatory phases, which suggests the biphasic response of nociceptive pain. Furthermore, we found that the increase in fluorescence intensity was positively correlated with mouse licking behavior. Lastly, we compared the laterality of pain stimulation and found that DRN fluorescence activity was higher for contralateral stimulation. Microdialysis showed that CeA serotonin concentration increased only after contralateral stimulation, while ACC serotonin release responded bilaterally. In conclusion, our study not only revealed the inter-regional serotonergic connection among the DRN, the CeA, and the ACC, but also demonstrated that our device is feasible for multi-site implantation in conjunction with a microdialysis system, allowing the simultaneous multi-modal observation of different regions in the brain.

Investigating the Influence of GABA Neurons on Dopamine Neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area Using Optogenetic Techniques.

Dopamine (DA) is the key regulator of reward behavior. The DA neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and their projection areas, which include the prefrontal cortex (PFC), nucleus accumbens (NAc), and amygdala, play a primary role in the process of reward-driven behavior induced by the drugs of addiction, including nicotine and alcohol. In our previous study, we developed a novel platform consisting of micro-LED array devices to stimulate a large area of the brain of rats and monkeys with photo-stimulation and a microdialysis probe to estimate the DA release in the PFC. Our results suggested that the platform was able to detect the increased level of dopamine in the PFC in response to the photo-stimulation of both the PFC and VTA. In this study, we used this platform to photo-stimulate the VTA neurons in both ChrimsonR-expressing (non-specific) wild and dopamine transporter (DAT)-Cre (dopamine specific) mice, and measured the dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens shell (NAcShell). We measured the DA release in the NAcShell in response to optogenetic stimulation of the VTA neurons and investigated the effect of GABAergic neurons on dopaminergic neurons by histochemical studies. Comparing the photo-stimulation frequency of 2 Hz with that of 20 Hz, the change in DA concentration at the NAcShell was greater at 20 Hz in both cases. When ChrimsonR was expressed specifically for DA, the release of DA at the NAcShell increased in response to photo-stimulation of the VTA. In contrast, when ChrimsonR was expressed non-specifically, the amount of DA released was almost unchanged upon photo-stimulation. However, for nonspecifically expressed ChrimsonR, intraperitoneal injection of bicuculline, a competitive antagonist at the GABA-binding site of the GABAA receptor, also significantly increased the release of DA at the NAcShell in response to photo-stimulation of the VTA. The results of immunochemical staining confirm that GABAergic neurons in the VTA suppress DA activation, and also indicate that alterations in GABAergic neurons may have serious downstream effects on DA activity, NAcShell release, and neural adaptation of the VTA. This study also confirms that optogenetics technology is crucial to study the relationship between the mesolimbic dopaminergic and GABAergic neurons in a neural-specific manner.

Astrocytes Decreased the Sensitivity of Glioblastoma Cells to Temozolomide and Bay 11-7082.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant type of astrocytic tumors. GBM patients have a poor prognosis with a median survival of approximately 15 months despite the "Stupp" Regimen and high tumor recurrence due to the tumor resistance to chemotherapy. In this study, we co-cultured GBM cells with human astrocytes in three-dimensional (3D) poly(ethylene glycol) dimethyl acrylate (PEGDA) microwells to mimic the tumor microenvironment. We treated 3D co- and mono-cultured cells with Temozolomide (TMZ) and the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) inhibitor Bay 11-7082 and investigated the combined effect of the drugs. We assessed the expressions of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and vimentin that play a role in the tumor malignancy and activation of the astrocytes as well as Notch-1 and survivin that play a role in GBM malignancy after the drug treatment to understand how astrocytes induced GBM drug response. Our results showed that in the co-culture, astrocytes increased GBM survival and resistance after combined drug treatment compared to mono-cultures. These data restated the importance of 3D cell culture to mimic the tumor microenvironment for drug screening.

Nicotine exposure increases the complexity of dopamine neurons in the parainterfascicular nucleus (PIF) sub-region of VTA.

BACKGROUND: Recent publications highlight differences within the sub-regions of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) including the parabrachial pigmented nucleus (PBP), parainterfascicular nucleus (PIF) and paranigral nucleus (PN) in the projections to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the glutamatergic pathway. METHODS: In order to characterize the effects of prenatal nicotine exposure on the mesocorticolimbic system of the rat offspring, local field potentials were recorded from 27 sites across the VTA of 9 rats aged 40-55 days. The extracellular VTA neural activities were analyzed using Approximate Entropy (ApEn) method. Approximate entropy values were then grouped according to each anatomic location including the PBP, PIF and PN. RESULTS: Our results have shown that the local field potentials corresponding to the neurons located in the PIF region of the VTA have ApEn values significantly higher (p = 2x10-4) in the maternal nicotine cases when compared to the saline. CONCLUSION: Therefore, we speculate that the dopamine neurons located in the PIF sub-region of the VTA are very likely involved with the nicotine addiction.

Lightweight Neural Network for Sleep Posture Classification Using Pressure Sensing Mat at Various Sensor Densities.

Recently, pressure-sensing mats have been widely used to capture static and dynamic pressure over sleep for posture recognition. Both a full-size mat with a low-density sensing array for figuring out the structure of the whole body and a miniature scale mat with a high-density sensing array for identifying the local characteristics around the chest have been investigated. However, both of the mat systems may face the challenge in the trade-off between the computational complexity (involving the size, density, etc. of the mat) and the performance of sleep posture recognition, where high performance may requires overcomplex computation and result in time latency in real-time sleep posture monitoring. In this paper, a lightweight neural network named ConcatNet, is proposed to realize sleep postures (supine, left, right, and prone) recognition in real time while maintaining a favorable performance. In ConcatNet, the inception module is proposed to extract the image features under multiple receptive fields, while the multi-layer feature fusion module is utilized to fuse deep and shallow features to enhance the model performance. To further improve the efficiency of the model, the depthwise convolution is adopoted. ConcatNet models in 3 different scales (ConcatNet-S, ConcatNet-M, and ConcatNet-L) are built to explore the impact of the sensor density on sleep posture recognition performance. Experimental results exhibit that ConcatNet-M corresponding to medium sensor density (16×16) achieved the best comprehensive performance, with short-term data cross-validation accuracy at 95.56% and overnight data testing accuracy at 94.68%. The model size is 7.91KB, FLOPs is 56.47K, and the inference time is only 0.38ms, which shows an outstanding performance of real-time sleep posture recognition with minimum consumption, indicating the potential to be deployed in mobile devices.

Targeted Sensitization of Glioblastoma Multiforme Using AAAPT Technology.

Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is the most malignant type of all brain tumors. Current GBM treatment options include surgery, followed by radiation and chemotherapy. However, GBM can become resistant to therapy, resulting in tumor recurrence. GBM cells develop resistance to treatments by either downregulating cell death pathways (CD95) or upregulating cell survival pathways (NF-κB (p65)). Healthy tissues can be affected by the increased therapeutic dose. Therefore, it is important to develop a method that can only target GBM tumor cells, thereby reducing the non-specific uptake which will reduce the side effects. Here we demonstrate an application of novel priori activation of apoptosis pathways of tumor technology (AAAPT), which has been used to demonstrate the effect of targeted tumor sensitizers to make chemotherapy work at lower doses in breast, lung and prostate cancers. Treatment of GBM spheroids with AAAPT in 3D PEGDA microwells, showed an increase in cell death, an upregulation of cell death pathways, and a downregulation of cell survival pathways, in comparison to Temozolomide (TMZ), an oral alkylating agent, which is a commonly used chemotherapy in the treatment of GBM. The dose of AAAPT sensitizers may provide a promising method to increase treatment efficacy and reduce off-target toxicity, as an alternative to existing methods which cause significant off-target damage.

Prenatal nicotine exposure alters gene expression profiles of neurons in the sub-regions of the VTA during early postnatal development.

Brain growth occurs during the first 2 weeks of postnatal development in rats. This developmental period is equivalent to the third trimester of human gestation. Dendritic arborization, axonal growth, and gliogenesis are observed along with a strong maturation of neurotransmission during this critical development period. Furthermore, nicotine exposure during early development causes deficiencies in sensory and cognitive processing in adults. In this study, we further investigated the gene expression of neuron groups and the influence of perinatal nicotine exposure on gene expressions of neurons within the sub-regions of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in 1 week, 2 week and 3-week-old rat pups. We exposed pregnant rats to nicotine perinatally on gestational day 7 through postnatal day 14. Pups are exposed to nicotine during pregnancy and through breastfeeding to investigate its effect in rat pups during early neuronal development. Real time PCR was used to find the relative expressions of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), dopamine, and glutamate neuron markers within the three sub-regions of the VTA including the parabrachial pigmented nucleus (PBP), parainterfascicular (PIF), and paranigral nucleus (PN). Our results indicated that during early maturation, the dopamine marker tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) showed a consistently increased significance in PN sub-region compared to PIF and PBP. These results suggest that following perinatal nicotine exposure, VTA dopamine neurons, especially within the PN sub-region, are significantly excited starting from birth.

Processes for Designing Innovative Biomedical Hardware to Use in Space and on Earth.

The new era of space exploration is increasing the astronaut's number and diversity in low orbit and beyond. The influx of such a diverse crew population will also increase the need for medical technologies to ensure safe and productive missions. Such a need represents a unique opportunity to innovate and develop diagnostics and treatment tools to meet future needs. Historically, terrestrial regulatory oversight of biomedical design processes was considered separate from spaceflight regulatory processes because it did not address spaceflight constraints. These constraints challenge the creative development of unique solutions for use in space. Translation between healthcare innovation in spaceflight to healthcare on Earth and vice versa requires understanding the commonalities, unique needs and constraints. This manuscript provides a framework for comparing Earth-space design processes and a perspective on the best practices to improve healthcare equity and health outcomes.

Investigating miRNA-mRNA Interactions and Gene Regulatory Networks From VTA Dopaminergic Neurons Following Perinatal Nicotine and Alcohol Exposure Using Bayesian Network Analysis.

MicroRNAs play an important role in gene regulation for many biological systems, including nicotine and alcohol addiction. However, the underlying mechanism behind miRNAs and mRNA interaction is not well characterized. Microarrays are commonly used to quantify the expression levels of mRNAs and/or miRNAs simultaneously. In this study, we performed a Bayesian network analysis to identify mRNA and miRNA interactions following perinatal exposure to nicotine and/or alcohol. We utilized three sets of microarray data to predict the regulation relationship between mRNA and miRNAs. Following perinatal alcohol exposure, we identified two miRNAs: miR-542-5p and miR-874-3p, that exhibited a strong mutual influence on several mRNA in gene regulatory pathways, mainly Axon guidance and Dopaminergic synapses. Finally, we confirmed our predicted addiction pathways based on the Bayesian network analysis with the widely used Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG)-based database and identified comparable relevant miRNA-mRNA pairs. We believe the Bayesian network can provide insight into the complexity biological process related to addiction and can potentially be applied to other diseases.

Automatic Upper-Limb Brunnstrom Recovery Stage Evaluation via Daily Activity Monitoring.

Motor function assessment is crucial for post-stroke rehabilitation. Conventional evaluation methods are subjective, heavily depending on the experience of therapists. In light of the strong correlation between the stroke severity level and the performance of activities of daily living (ADLs), we explored the possibility of automatically evaluating the upper-limb Brunnstrom Recovery Stage (BRS) via three typical ADLs (tooth brushing, face washing and drinking). Multimodal data (acceleration, angular velocity, surface electromyography) were synchronously collected from 5 upper-limb-worn sensor modules. The performance of BRS evaluation system is known to be variable with different system parameters (e.g., number of sensor modules, feature types and classifiers). We systematically searched for the optimal parameters from different data segmentation strategies (five window lengths and four overlaps), 42 types of features, 12 feature optimization techniques and 9 classifiers with the leave-one-subject-out cross-validation. To achieve reliable and low-cost monitoring, we further explored whether it was possible to obtain a satisfactory result using a relatively small number of sensor modules. As a result, the proposed approach can correctly recognize the stages of all 27 participants using only three sensor modules with the optimized data segmentation parameters (window length: 7s, overlap: 50%), extracted features (simple square integral, slope sign change, modified mean absolute value 1 and modified mean absolute value 2), the feature optimization method (principal component analysis) and the logistic regression classifier. According to the literature, this is the first study to comprehensively optimize sensor configuration and parameters in each stage of the BRS classification framework. The proposed approach can serve as a factor-screening tool towards the automatic BRS classification and is promising to be further used at home.

Complexity of VTA DA neural activities in response to PFC transection in nicotine treated rats.

BACKGROUND: The dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are widely implicated in the addiction and natural reward circuitry of the brain. These neurons project to several areas of the brain, including prefrontal cortex (PFC), nucleus accubens (NAc) and amygdala. The functional coupling between PFC and VTA has been demonstrated, but little is known about how PFC mediates nicotinic modulation in VTA DA neurons. The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of acute nicotine exposure on the VTA DA neuronal firing and to understand how the disruption of communication from PFC affects the firing patterns of VTA DA neurons. METHODS: Extracellular single-unit recordings were performed on Sprague-Dawley rats and nicotine was administered after stable recording was established as baseline. In order to test how input from PFC affects the VTA DA neuronal firing, bilateral transections were made immediate caudal to PFC to mechanically delete the interaction between VTA and PFC. RESULTS: The complexity of the recorded neural firing was subsequently assessed using a method based on the Lempel-Ziv estimator. The results were compared with those obtained when computing the entropy of neural firing. Exposure to nicotine triggered a significant increase in VTA DA neurons firing complexity when communication between PFC and VTA was present, while transection obliterated the effect of nicotine. Similar results were obtained when entropy values were estimated. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that PFC plays a vital role in mediating VTA activity. We speculate that increased firing complexity with acute nicotine administration in PFC intact subjects is due to the close functional coupling between PFC and VTA. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that deletion of PFC results in minor alterations of VTA DA neural firing when nicotine is acutely administered.

Investigating the effects of chronic perinatal alcohol and combined nicotine and alcohol exposure on dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic neurons in the VTA.

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is the origin of dopaminergic neurons and the dopamine (DA) reward pathway. This pathway has been widely studied in addiction and drug reinforcement studies and is believed to be the central processing component of the reward circuit. In this study, we used a well-established rat model to expose mother dams to alcohol, nicotine-alcohol, and saline perinatally. DA and non-DA neurons collected from the VTA of the rat pups were used to study expression profiles of miRNAs and mRNAs. miRNA pathway interactions, putative miRNA-mRNA target pairs, and downstream modulated biological pathways were analyzed. In the DA neurons, 4607 genes were differentially upregulated and 4682 were differentially downregulated following nicotine-alcohol exposure. However, in the non-DA neurons, only 543 genes were differentially upregulated and 506 were differentially downregulated. Cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival pathways were enriched after the treatments. Specifically, in the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, there were 41 miRNAs and 136 mRNAs differentially expressed in the DA neurons while only 16 miRNAs and 20 mRNAs were differentially expressed in the non-DA neurons after the nicotine-alcohol exposure. These results depicted that chronic nicotine and alcohol exposures during pregnancy differentially affect both miRNA and gene expression profiles more in DA than the non-DA neurons in the VTA. Understanding how the expression signatures representing specific neuronal subpopulations become enriched in the VTA after addictive substance administration helps us to identify how neuronal functions may be altered in the brain.

Deep Learning Classification of Systemic Sclerosis Skin Using the MobileNetV2 Model.

Goal: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare autoimmune, systemic disease with prominent fibrosis of skin and internal organs. Early diagnosis of the disease is crucial for designing effective therapy and management plans. Machine learning algorithms, especially deep learning, have been found to be greatly useful in biology, medicine, healthcare, and biomedical applications, in the areas of medical image processing and speech recognition. However, the need for a large training data set and the requirement for a graphics processing unit (GPU) have hindered the wide application of machine learning algorithms as a diagnostic tool in resource-constrained environments (e.g., clinics). Methods: In this paper, we propose a novel mobile deep learning network for the characterization of SSc skin. The proposed network architecture consists of the UNet, a dense connectivity convolutional neural network (CNN) with added classifier layers that when combined with limited training data, yields better image segmentation and more accurate classification, and a mobile training module. In addition, to improve the computational efficiency and diagnostic accuracy, the highly efficient training model called "MobileNetV2," which is designed for mobile and embedded applications, was used to train the network. Results: The proposed network was implemented using a standard laptop (2.5 GHz Intel Core i7). After fine tuning, our results showed the proposed network reached 100% accuracy on the training image set, 96.8% accuracy on the validation image set, and 95.2% on the testing image set. The training time was less than 5 hours. We also analyzed the same normal vs SSc skin image sets using the CNN using the same laptop. The CNN reached 100% accuracy on the training image set, 87.7% accuracy on the validation image set, and 82.9% on the testing image set. Additionally, it took more than 14 hours to train the CNN architecture. We also utilized the MobileNetV2 model to analyze an additional dataset of images and classified them as normal, early (mid and moderate) SSc or late (severe) SSc skin images. The network reached 100% accuracy on the training image set, 97.2% on the validation set, and 94.8% on the testing image set. Using the same normal, early and late phase SSc skin images, the CNN reached 100% accuracy on the training image set, 87.7% accuracy on the validation image set, and 82.9% on the testing image set. These results indicated that the MobileNetV2 architecture is more accurate and efficient compared to the CNN to classify normal, early and late phase SSc skin images. Conclusions: Our preliminary study, intended to show the efficacy of the proposed network architecture, holds promise in the characterization of SSc. We believe that the proposed network architecture could easily be implemented in a clinical setting, providing a simple, inexpensive, and accurate screening tool for SSc.

Investigating the synchronization of hippocampal neural network in response to acute nicotine exposure.

Previous studies suggested that gamma oscillations in the brain are associated with higher order cognitive function including selective visual attention, motor task planning, sensory perception, working memory and dreaming REM sleep. These oscillations are mainly observed in cortical regions and also occur in neocortical and subcortical areas and the hippocampus. In this paper, we investigate the influence of acute exposure to nicotine on the complexity of hippocampal gamma oscillations.Using the approximate entropy method, the influence of acute nicotine exposure on the hippocampal gamma oscillations was investigated. The hippocampal gamma oscillations have been generated in response to the 100 Hz stimulus and isolated using the visual inspection and spectral analysis method. Our central hypothesis is that acute exposure to nicotine significantly reduces the complexity of hippocampal gamma oscillations. We used brain-slice recordings and the approximate entropy method to test this hypothesis. The approximate entropy (complexity) values of the hippocampal gamma oscillations are estimated from the 14 hippocampal slices. Our results show that it takes at least 100 msec to see any hippocampal activities in response to the 100 Hz stimulus. These patterns noticeably changed after 100 msec until 300 msec after the stimulus Finally, they were less prominent after 300 msec. We have analyzed the isolated hippocampal gamma oscillations (between 150 and 250 msec after the stimulus) using the approximate entropy (ApEn) method. Our results showed that the ApEn (complexity) values of hippocampal gamma oscillations during nicotine exposure were reduced compared to those of hippocampal gamma oscillations during control, and washout. This reduction was much more significant in response to acute nicotine exposure (p < 0.05) compared to those during control and washout conditions. These results suggest that the neural firing becomes regular and the hippocampal networks become synchronized in response to nicotine exposure.

Noise Reduction Technique for Single-Color Video Plethysmography Using Singular Spectrum Analysis.

Recently, a contactless method for measuring a biological signal using a video camera has garnered attention. Especially, video plethysmography, a technique for obtaining a pulse wave from a video, is useful for managing the health of people on a daily basis. However, any body movement of a person subjected to the measurement leads to the generation of irregular noise in video plethysmography and reduces the accuracy of the recorded biological information, e.g., heart rate, during the measurement. Blind source separation is a popular technique for eliminating noise from the results of video plethysmography comprising different multiple-color channels. However, it is difficult to apply this technique to a single-color video such as a near-infrared video. Herein, a new method that combines singular spectrum analysis with the circular autocorrelation function is introduced to eliminate irregular noise in single-color video plethysmography. Applying the proposed method on videos collected from 39 individuals improved the estimation accuracy of instantaneous heart rate by approximately 44% over a conventional method using a linear filter. Furthermore, the proposed method also enabled more precise estimations of the heart rate than that achieved using multi-color video plethysmography.

Investigating the influence of perinatal nicotine exposure on genetic profiles of neurons in the sub-regions of the VTA.

Chronic nicotine exposure during pregnancy has been shown to induce physiological and anatomical alterations in offspring. Previously, we investigated the complexity of dopamine (DA) neuron firing in the sub-regions of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) following perinatal nicotine exposure. Using approximate entropy, we found that within the middle sub-region, the parainterfascicular nucleus (PIF), there was higher complexity indicating more random neural firing and a less homogeneous neuron population. Therefore, we sought to investigate the neuron populations within the sub-regions of the VTA following perinatal nicotine exposure. We used real time PCR in order to find the relative quantity of glutamate to γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), DA, and glutamate neurons within three sub-regions: the parabrachial pigmented nucleus (PBP), parainterfascicular nucleus (PIF), and paranigral nucleus (PN). Our results showed that the PIF region of the VTA contained a more diverse population of neurons resulting in a more complex system. In addition, we found that DA neurons are more activated in PN sub-region of the VTA, which mediates the rewarding effects of drugs including nicotine. Lastly, using immunohistochemistry, we observed an overall decrease in DA neurons following perinatal nicotine exposure.

Investigating the influence of perinatal nicotine and alcohol exposure on the genetic profiles of dopaminergic neurons in the VTA using miRNA-mRNA analysis.

Nicotine and alcohol are two of the most commonly used and abused recreational drugs, are often used simultaneously, and have been linked to significant health hazards. Furthermore, patients diagnosed with dependence on one drug are highly likely to be dependent on the other. Several studies have shown the effects of each drug independently on gene expression within many brain regions, including the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Dopaminergic (DA) neurons of the dopamine reward pathway originate from the VTA, which is believed to be central to the mechanism of addiction and drug reinforcement. Using a well-established rat model for both nicotine and alcohol perinatal exposure, we investigated miRNA and mRNA expression of dopaminergic (DA) neurons of the VTA in rat pups following perinatal alcohol and joint nicotine-alcohol exposure. Microarray analysis was then used to profile the differential expression of both miRNAs and mRNAs from DA neurons of each treatment group to further explore the altered genes and related biological pathways modulated. Predicted and validated miRNA-gene target pairs were analyzed to further understand the roles of miRNAs within these networks following each treatment, along with their post transcription regulation points affecting gene expression throughout development. This study suggested that glutamatergic synapse and axon guidance pathways were specifically enriched and many miRNAs and genes were significantly altered following alcohol or nicotine-alcohol perinatal exposure when compared to saline control. These results provide more detailed insight into the cell proliferation, neuronal migration, neuronal axon guidance during the infancy in rats in response to perinatal alcohol/ or nicotine-alcohol exposure.