Browsing by Author "Zhu, Weiguo"

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    Activin acutely sensitizes dorsal root ganglion neurons and induces hyperalgesia via PKC-mediated potentiation of transient receptor potential vanilloid I
    (Society for Neuroscience, 2007-12-12) Zhu, Weiguo; Xu, Pin; Cuascut, Fernando X.; Hall, Alison K.; Oxford, Gerry S.; Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Medicine
    Pain hypersensitivity is a cardinal sign of tissue damage, but how molecules from peripheral tissues affect sensory neuron physiology is incompletely understood. Previous studies have shown that activin A increases after peripheral injury and is sufficient to induce acute nociceptive behavior and increase pain peptides in sensory ganglia. This study was designed to test the possibility that the enhanced nociceptive responsiveness associated with activin involved sensitization of transient receptor potential vanilloid I (TRPV1) in primary sensory neurons. Activin receptors were found widely distributed among adult sensory neurons, including those that also express the capsaicin receptor. Whole-cell patch-clamp recording from sensory neurons showed that activin acutely sensitized capsaicin responses and depended on activin receptor kinase activity. Pharmacological studies revealed that the activin sensitization of capsaicin responses required PKCepsilon signaling, but not PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase), ERK (extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase), PKA, PKCalpha/beta, or Src. Furthermore, activin administration caused acute thermal hyperalgesia in wild-type mice, but not in TRPV1-null mice. These data suggest that activin signals through its own receptor, involves PKCepsilon signaling to sensitize the TRPV1 channel, and contributes to acute thermal hyperalgesia.
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    Social learning and amygdala disruptions in Nf1 mice are rescued by blocking p21-activated kinase
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2014-11) Molosh, Andrei I.; Johnson, Philip L.; Spence, John P.; Arendt, David; Federici, Lauren M.; Bernabe, Cristian; Janasik, Steven P.; Segu, Zaneer M.; Khanna, Rajesh; Goswami, Chirayu; Zhu, Weiguo; Park, Su-Jung; Li, Lang; Mechref, Yehia S.; Clapp, D. Wade; Shekhar, Anantha; Department of Psychiatry, IU School of Medicine
    Children with Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) are increasingly recognized to have high prevalence of social difficulties and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We demonstrated selective social learning deficit in mice with deletion of a single Nf1 gene (Nf1+/−), along with greater activation of mitogen activated protein kinase pathway in neurons from amygdala and frontal cortex, structures relevant to social behaviors. The Nf1+/− mice showed aberrant amygdala glutamate/GABA neurotransmission