Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
2.3
2.4
Journals
Veterinary Sciences
Special Issues
Neurodegenerative Diseases: What Can We Find Out in the Animal...
share announcement

Neurodegenerative Diseases: What Can We Find Out in the Animal Brain?

A special issue of Veterinary Sciences (ISSN 2306-7381). This special issue belongs to the section "Veterinary Biomedical Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 8821

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Simona Sacchini

E-Mail Website1 Website2 Website3
Guest Editor
Institute for Animal Health, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35001 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Interests: neuroanatomy; neuropathology; neurodegenerative diseases; cetaceans; dolphins
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs), chiefly Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, can benefit from the species of animals that more faithfully recapitulate human disease. Recent studies have drawn some novel attention to NDDs from transgenic (rodents) and spontaneous (non-human primates) animal models, to species such as dogs, cats, cattle, horses and even cetaceans (whales and dolphins). It has also been suggested that cetaceans might be one of the very few potential natural models of Alzheimer’s. NDDs may be associated to aging or to other predisposing factors such as hypoxia or vascular disorders and generally lead to cognitive impairment, also known as dementia in humans or cognitive dysfunction syndrome in animals. The aim of this Special Issue is to gather neurodegenerative lesions and features among animal species, exploring findings such as Aβ plaques, tau aggregation, (neurofibrillary tangles or granulovacuolar degeneration), Lewy and pale body formation, cerebrovascular amyloid angiopathy, pigment accumulation, and neuronal intracytoplasmic inclusions, among others. Comparative neuropathology studies could clarify and reveal important aspects of NDDs.

Dr. Simona Sacchini
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Veterinary Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • neurodegeneration
  • neurodegenerative diseases
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Aβ plaques
  • tau aggregation
  • neurofibrillary tangles
  • granulovacuolar degeneration
  • neuromelanin
  • cerebrovascular amyloid angiopathy
  • Lewy bodies
  • microglia
  • animals
  • human
  • cetaceans

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

12 pages, 4341 KiB  
Article
Postnatal Changes of Somatostatin Expression in Hippocampi of C57BL/6 Mice; Modulation of Neuroblast Differentiation in the Hippocampus
by Dae Young Yoo, Woosuk Kim, Hyo Young Jung and In Koo Hwang
Vet. Sci. 2023, 10(2), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci10020081 - 21 Jan 2023
Viewed by 2131
Abstract
(1) Background: Somatostatin (SST) exhibits expressional changes in the brain during development, but its role is not still clear in brain development. (2) Methods: We investigated postnatal SST expression and its effects on hippocampal neurogenesis via administering SST subcutaneously to P7 mice for [...] Read more.
(1) Background: Somatostatin (SST) exhibits expressional changes in the brain during development, but its role is not still clear in brain development. (2) Methods: We investigated postnatal SST expression and its effects on hippocampal neurogenesis via administering SST subcutaneously to P7 mice for 7 days. (3) Results: In the hippocampal CA1 region, SST immunoreactivity reaches peak at P14. However, SST immunoreactivity significantly decreased at P21. In the CA2/3 region, the SST expression pattern was similar to the CA1, and SST-immunoreactive cells were most abundant at P14. In the dentate gyrus, SST-immunoreactive cells were most abundant at P7 and P14 in the polymorphic layer; as in CA1-3 regions, the immunoreactivity decreased at P21. To elucidate the role of SST in postnatal development, we administered SST subcutaneously to P7 mice for 7 days. In the subgranular zone of the hippocampal dentate gyrus, a significant increase was observed in immunoreactivity of doublecortin (DCX)-positive neuroblast after administration of SST.; (4) Conclusions: SST expression in the hippocampal sub-regions is transiently increased during the postnatal formation of the hippocampus and decreases after P21. In addition, SST is involved in neuroblast differentiation in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neurodegenerative Diseases: What Can We Find Out in the Animal Brain?)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

26 pages, 5414 KiB  
Article
Multimodal Assessment of Bottlenose Dolphin Auditory Nuclei Using 7-Tesla MRI, Immunohistochemistry and Stereology
by Ksenia Orekhova, Enna Selmanovic, Rita De Gasperi, Miguel A. Gama Sosa, Bridget Wicinski, Brigid Maloney, Alan Seifert, Akbar Alipour, Priti Balchandani, Tommaso Gerussi, Jean-Marie Graïc, Cinzia Centelleghe, Giovanni Di Guardo, Sandro Mazzariol and Patrick R. Hof
Vet. Sci. 2022, 9(12), 692; https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci9120692 - 13 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3107
Abstract
The importance of assessing neurochemical processes in the cetacean brain as a tool for monitoring their cognitive health and to indirectly model human neurodegenerative conditions is increasingly evident, although available data are largely semiquantitative. High-resolution MRI for post-mortem brains and stereology allow for [...] Read more.
The importance of assessing neurochemical processes in the cetacean brain as a tool for monitoring their cognitive health and to indirectly model human neurodegenerative conditions is increasingly evident, although available data are largely semiquantitative. High-resolution MRI for post-mortem brains and stereology allow for quantitative assessments of the cetacean brain. In this study, we scanned two brains of bottlenose dolphins in a 7-Tesla (7T) MR scanner and assessed the connectivity of the inferior colliculi and ventral cochlear nuclei using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Serial thick sections were investigated stereologically in one of the dolphins to generate rigorous quantitative estimates of identifiable cell types according to their morphology and expression of molecular markers, yielding reliable cell counts with most coefficients of error <10%. Fibronectin immunoreactivity in the dolphin resembled the pattern in a human chronic traumatic encephalopathy brain, suggesting that neurochemical compensation for insults such as hypoxia may constitute a noxious response in humans, while being physiological in dolphins. These data contribute to a growing body of knowledge on the morphological and neurochemical properties of the dolphin brain and highlight a stereological and neuroimaging workflow that may enable quantitative and translational assessment of pathological processes in the dolphin brain in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neurodegenerative Diseases: What Can We Find Out in the Animal Brain?)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 5505 KiB  
Article
Toothed Whales Have Black Neurons in the Blue Spot
by Simona Sacchini, Antonio Fernández, Blanca Mompeó, Raquel Ramírez, Manuel Arbelo, Unn Holgersen, Oscar Quesada-Canales, Ayoze Castro-Alonso and Marisa Andrada
Vet. Sci. 2022, 9(10), 525; https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci9100525 - 26 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2214
Abstract
Neuromelanin (NM) is a dark polymer pigment that is located mostly in the human substantia nigra, and in the locus ceruleus, referred to as “the blue spot”. NM increases linearly with age, and has been described mainly in the human brain; however, it [...] Read more.
Neuromelanin (NM) is a dark polymer pigment that is located mostly in the human substantia nigra, and in the locus ceruleus, referred to as “the blue spot”. NM increases linearly with age, and has been described mainly in the human brain; however, it also occurs in the neurons of monkeys, horses, giraffes, cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, rats, and even in frogs. While in most of these mammals NM shows the histochemical and ultrastructural features typical of lipofuscins, human NM is confined within cytoplasmic organelles that are surrounded by a double membrane, suggesting an autophagic origin. In a study on the morphology of the locus ceruleus of the family Delphinidae, the presence of a variable quantity of NM in the interior of locus ceruleus neurons was observed for the first time; meanwhile, nothing is known about its ultrastructure and composition. Transmission electron microscopy demonstrated in two toothed whales—an Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis; family Delphinidae) and a Blainville’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris; family Ziphiidae)—the presence of melanin granules associated with lipid droplets and membranes that were very similar to that of human NM. The relationship between NM and neuronal vulnerability must be studied in depth, and cetaceans may offer a new natural-spontaneous comparative model for the study of NM and its implication in neurodegenerative diseases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neurodegenerative Diseases: What Can We Find Out in the Animal Brain?)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-3
Back to TopTop