| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,770,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥870,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
It is well-known that the main symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD) is a motor impairment. Actually, however, nerve degeneration started several years before the expression of the motor impairment. Thus the early diagnosis and treatment are important. In this study, we focused hippocampus (HC), which is related to anxiety and depression that is one of the early symptoms in PD, and dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), which also degenerates at the early PD stage, contains serotonergic neurons, and innervates HC. HC and DRN tissue were taken from newborn Wistar rats and were co-cultured on microelectrode-array substrates. Typical synchronized bursts were observed in HC, whereas DRN showed only asynchronous activity. Frequency of the synchronized activity decreased in the co-culture system as compared with that in the HC single culture. Another finding was the relationship between pattern-separation capability of HC and enhanced neurogenesis, which might underlie early PD symptoms.
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