"Neuropeptides in the brain defense against distant organ damage"

Autor(es)

Hamasaki, Mike Yoshio ; Barbeiro, Hermes Vieira ; Barbeiro, Denise Frediani ; Gomes Cunha, Debora Maria ; Koike, Marcia Kiyomi ; Cesar Machado, Marcel Cerqueira ; da Silva, Fabiano Pinheiro

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: Journal of Neuroimmunology; v. 290, p. 3-pg., 2016-01-15.

Resumo

Delirium, or acute confusional state, is a common manifestation in diseases that originate outside the central nervous system, affecting 30-40% of elderly hospitalized patients and up to 80% of the critically ill, even though it remains unclear if severe systemic inflammation is able or not to induce cellular disturbances and immune activation in the brain. Neuropeptides are pleotropic molecules heterogeneously distributed throughout the brain and possess a wide spectrum of functions, including regulation of the inflammatory response, so we hypothesized that they would be the major alarm system in the brain before overt microglia activation. In order to investigate this hypothesis, we induced acute pancreatitis in 8-10 week old rats and collected brain tissue, 12 and 24 h following pancreatic injury, to measure neuropeptide and cytokine tissue levels. We found significantly higher levels of beta-endorphin, orexin and oxytocin in the brain of rats submitted to pancreatic injury, when compared to healthy controls. Interestingly, these differences were not associated with increased local cytokine levels, putting in evidence that neuropeptide release occurred independently of microglia activation and may be a pivotal alarm system to initiate neurologic reactions to distant inflammatory non-infectious aggression. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 14/20282-3 - Análise transcriptômica de estruturas encefálicas de ratos jovens e idosos submetidos a modelo experimental de choque séptico
• Beneficiário: Marcel Cerqueira Cesar Machado
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Regular