Published in Cell and Tissue Research
The sense of smell essentially contributes to social communication, guides nutrition behaviour and elicits avoidance towards environmental hazards. Olfactory smell impairment may hence entail severe consequences for affected individuals. Compared with sensory loss in other modalities, reduced olfactory function is often unnoticed by those affected ...
Published in Cell and Tissue Research
The human sense of smell is still much underappreciated, despite its importance for vital functions such as warning and protection from environmental hazards, eating behavior and nutrition, and social communication. We here approach olfaction as a sense of well-being and review the available literature on how the sense of smell contributes to build...
Published in Cell and tissue research
Primary human myotubes represent an alternative system to intact skeletal muscle for the study of human diseases related to changes in muscle energy metabolism. This work aimed to study if fatty acid and glucose metabolism in human myotubes in vitro were related to muscle of origin, donor gender, age, or body mass index (BMI). Myotubes from a total...
Published in Cell and Tissue Research
The excretory system produces urine by ultrafiltration via a filtration epithelium. Podocytes are widely found as filtration epithelial cells in eucoelomates. In some animal taxa, including insects and crustaceans, nephrocytes serve to separate toxic substances from the body fluid, in addition to podocytes. Drosophila nephrocytes have been recently...
Published in Cell and tissue research
Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a 134 amino acid protein belonging in the GDNF family ligands (GFLs). GDNF was originally isolated from rat glial cell lines and identified as a neurotrophic factor with the ability to promote dopamine uptake within midbrain dopaminergic neurons. Since its discovery, the potential neuroprotectiv...
Published in Cell and Tissue Research
The neurotrophic factor BDNF is an important regulator for the development of brain circuits, for synaptic and neuronal network plasticity, as well as for neuroregeneration and neuroprotection. Up- and downregulations of BDNF levels in human blood and tissue are associated with, e.g., neurodegenerative, neurological, or even cardiovascular diseases...
Published in Cell and Tissue Research
Selective sympathetic and parasympathetic pathways that act on target organs represent the terminal actors in the neurobiology of homeostasis and often become compromised during a range of neurodegenerative and traumatic disorders. Here, we delineate several neurotransmitter and neuromodulator phenotypes found in diverse parasympathetic and sympath...
Published in Cell and Tissue Research
The amygdala is a central hub for fear learning assessed by Pavlovian fear conditioning. Indeed, the prevailing hypothesis that learning and memory are mediated by changes in synaptic strength was shown most convincingly at thalamic and cortical afferents to the lateral amygdala. The neurotrophin brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is known to...
Published in Cell and Tissue Research
Hormones regulate development, as well as many vital processes in the daily life of an animal. Many of these hormones are peptides that act at a higher hierarchical level in the animal with roles as organizers that globally orchestrate metabolism, physiology and behavior. Peptide hormones can act on multiple peripheral targets and simultaneously co...
Published in Cell and Tissue Research
On the one hand, the emotional state can influence food intake and on the other hand, hunger can have an impact on the emotional state. Leptin, which is encoded by the ob gene, is involved in the energy homeostasis and plays a role in development of obesity. Mice deficient for leptin (ob/ob) are obese and display several behavioral alterations. It ...
