Gap junction permeability modulated by dopamine exerts effects on spatial and temporal correlation of retinal ganglion cells' firing activities

Advances in the study of the influence of photoreceptors on the development of myopia

This review examines the pivotal role of photoreceptor cells in ocular refraction development, focusing on dopamine (DA) as a key neurotransmitter. Contrary to the earlier view favoring cone cells, recent studies have highlighted the substantial contributions of both rod and cone cells to the visual signaling pathways that influence ocular refractive development. Notably, rod cells appeared to play a central role. Photoreceptor cells interact intricately with circadian rhythms, color vision pathways, and other neurotransmitters, all of which are crucial for the complex mechanisms driving the development of myopia. This review emphasizes that ocular refractive development results from a coordinated interplay between diverse cell types, signaling pathways, and neurotransmitters. This perspective has significant implications for unraveling the complex mechanisms underlying myopia and aiding in the development of more effective prevention and treatment strategies.

Light and myopia: from epidemiological studies to neurobiological mechanisms

Myopia is far beyond its inconvenience and represents a true, highly prevalent, sight-threatening ocular condition, especially in Asia. Without adequate interventions, the current epidemic of myopia is projected to affect 50% of the world population by 2050, becoming the leading cause of irreversible blindness. Although blurred vision, the predominant symptom of myopia, can be improved by contact lenses, glasses or refractive surgery, corrected myopia, particularly high myopia, still carries the risk of secondary blinding complications such as glaucoma, myopic maculopathy and retinal detachment, prompting the need for prevention. Epidemiological studies have reported an association between outdoor time and myopia prevention in children. The protective effect of time spent outdoors could be due to the unique characteristics (intensity, spectral distribution, temporal pattern, etc.) of sunlight that are lacking in artificial lighting. Concomitantly, studies in animal models have highlighted the efficacy of light and its components in delaying or even stopping the development of myopia and endeavoured to elucidate possible mechanisms involved in this process. In this narrative review, we (1) summarize the current knowledge concerning light modulation of ocular growth and refractive error development based on studies in human and animal models, (2) summarize potential neurobiological mechanisms involved in the effects of light on ocular growth and emmetropization and (3) highlight a potential pathway for the translational development of noninvasive light-therapy strategies for myopia prevention in children.

Inhibitory components of retinal bipolar cell receptive fields are differentially modulated by dopamine D1 receptors

During adaptation to an increase in environmental luminance, retinal signaling adjustments are mediated by the neuromodulator dopamine. Retinal dopamine is released with light and can affect center-surround receptive fields, the coupling state between neurons, and inhibitory pathways through inhibitory receptors and neurotransmitter release. While the inhibitory receptive field surround of bipolar cells becomes narrower and weaker during light adaptation, it is unknown how dopamine affects bipolar cell surrounds. If dopamine and light have similar effects, it would suggest that dopamine could be a mechanism for light-adapted changes. We tested the hypothesis that dopamine D1 receptor activation is sufficient to elicit the magnitude of light-adapted reductions in inhibitory bipolar cell surrounds. Surrounds were measured from OFF bipolar cells in dark-adapted mouse retinas while stimulating D1 receptors, which are located on bipolar, horizontal, and inhibitory amacrine cells. The D1 agonist SKF-38393 narrowed and weakened OFF bipolar cell inhibitory receptive fields but not to the same extent as with light adaptation. However, the receptive field surround reductions differed between the glycinergic and GABAergic components of the receptive field. GABAergic inhibitory strength was reduced only at the edges of the surround, while glycinergic inhibitory strength was reduced across the whole receptive field. These results expand the role of retinal dopamine to include modulation of bipolar cell receptive field surrounds. Additionally, our results suggest that D1 receptor pathways may be a mechanism for the light-adapted weakening of glycinergic surround inputs and the furthest wide-field GABAergic inputs to bipolar cells. However, remaining differences between light-adapted and D1 receptor-activated inhibition demonstrate that non-D1 receptor mechanisms are necessary to elicit the full effect of light adaptation on inhibitory surrounds.

Dopaminergic modulation of retinal processing from starlight to sunlight

Neuromodulators such as dopamine, enable context-dependent plasticity of neural circuit function throughout the central nervous system. For example, in the retina, dopamine tunes visual processing for daylight and nightlight conditions. Specifically, high levels of dopamine release in the retina tune vision for daylight (photopic) conditions, while low levels tune it for nightlight (scotopic) conditions. This review covers the cellular and circuit-level mechanisms within the retina that are altered by dopamine. These mechanisms include changes in gap junction coupling and ionic conductances, both of which are altered by the activation of diverse types of dopamine receptors across diverse types of retinal neurons. We contextualize the modulatory actions of dopamine in terms of alterations and optimizations to visual processing under photopic and scotopic conditions, with particular attention to how they differentially impact distinct cell types. Finally, we discuss how transgenic mice and disease models have shaped our understanding of dopaminergic signaling and its role in visual processing. Cumulatively, this review illustrates some of the diverse and potent mechanisms through which neuromodulation can shape brain function.

Dopamine signaling and myopia development: What are the key challenges

In the face of an "epidemic" increase in myopia over the last decades and myopia prevalence predicted to reach 2.5 billion people by the end of this decade, there is an urgent need to develop effective and safe therapeutic interventions to slow down this "myopia booming" and prevent myopia-related complications and vision loss. Dopamine (DA) is an important neurotransmitter in the retina and mediates diverse functions including retina development, visual signaling, and refractive development. Inspired by the convergence of epidemiological and animal studies in support of the inverse relationship between outdoor activity and risk of developing myopia and by the close biological relationship between light exposure and dopamine release/signaling, we felt it is timely and important to critically review the role of DA in myopia development. This review will revisit several key points of evidence for and against DA mediating light control of myopia: 1) the causal role of extracellular retinal DA levels, 2) the mechanism and action of dopamine D1 and D2 receptors and 3) the roles of cellular/circuit retinal pathways. We examine the experiments that show causation by altering DA, DA receptors and visual pathways using pharmacological, transgenic, or visual environment approaches. Furthermore, we critically evaluate the safety issues of a DA-based treatment strategy and some approaches to address these issues. The review identifies the key questions and challenges in translating basic knowledge on DA signaling and myopia from animal studies into effective pharmacological treatments for myopia in children.

Methamphetamine compromises gap junctional communication in astrocytes and neurons

Methamphetamine (meth) is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that results in psychological and physical dependency. The long-term effects of meth within the CNS include neuronal plasticity changes, blood-brain barrier compromise, inflammation, electrical dysfunction, neuronal/glial toxicity, and an increased risk to infectious diseases including HIV. Most of the reported meth effects in the CNS are related to dysregulation of chemical synapses by altering the release and uptake of neurotransmitters, especially dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. However, little is known about the effects of meth on connexin (Cx) containing channels, such as gap junctions (GJ) and hemichannels (HC). We examined the effects of meth on Cx expression, function, and its role in NeuroAIDS. We found that meth altered Cx expression and localization, decreased GJ communication between neurons and astrocytes, and induced the opening of Cx43/Cx36 HC. Furthermore, we found that these changes in GJ and HC induced by meth treatment were mediated by activation of dopamine receptors, suggesting that dysregulation of dopamine signaling induced by meth is essential for GJ and HC compromise. Meth-induced changes in GJ and HC contributed to amplified CNS toxicity by dysregulating glutamate metabolism and increasing the susceptibility of neurons and astrocytes to bystander apoptosis induced by HIV. Together, our results indicate that connexin containing channels, GJ and HC, are essential in the pathogenesis of meth and increase the sensitivity of the CNS to HIV CNS disease. Methamphetamine (meth) is an extremely addictive central nervous system stimulant. Meth reduced gap junctional (GJ) communication by inducing internalization of connexin-43 (Cx43) in astrocytes and reducing expression of Cx36 in neurons by a mechanism involving activation of dopamine receptors (see cartoon). Meth-induced changes in Cx containing channels increased extracellular levels of glutamate and resulted in higher sensitivity of neurons and astrocytes to apoptosis in response to HIV infection.

[Influence of Berberine on Cisplatin Antineoplastic Effect in A549 Cells]

背景与目的

以顺铂为基础的化疗方案是晚期非小细胞肺癌的一线化疗方案，但是由于顺铂的不良反应严重及耐药性的产生均限制了它的临床应用，本研究采用联合用药的方式观察黄连素对顺铂抗肿瘤作用的影响，并探讨其可能机制。

方法

分别观察黄连素对肺腺癌细胞A549细胞中总Cx43蛋白、细胞膜Cx43蛋白的表达以及细胞缝隙连接功能的改变，通过标准细胞集落克隆实验观察黄连素对顺铂细胞毒性的影响；并观察PKC激酶的表达。

结果

黄连素在0 μM-10 μM浓度范围内对细胞无毒性，通过增加细胞内总Cx43蛋白和胞膜Cx43蛋白的表达而增强细胞缝隙连接功能；这种作用与PKC的活性被抑制相关，抑制PKC活性可以进一步增加顺铂对A549细胞的毒性作用。

结论

黄连素可通过增加A549细胞的缝隙连接功能而明显增强顺铂的细胞毒性。

ADAPTATION-DEPENDENT SYNCHRONIZATION TRANSITIONS AND BURST GENERATIONS IN ELECTRICALLY COUPLED NEURAL NETWORKS

A typical feature of neurons is their ability to encode neural information dynamically through spike frequency adaptation (SFA). Previous studies of SFA on neuronal synchronization were mainly concentrated on the correlated firing between neuron pairs, while the synchronization of neuron populations in the presence of SFA is still unclear. In this study, the influence of SFA on the population synchronization of neurons was numerically explored in electrically coupled networks, with regular, small-world, and random connectivity, respectively. The simulation results indicate that cross-correlation indices decrease significantly when the neurons have adaptation compared with those of nonadapting neurons, similar to previous experimental observations. However, the synchronous activity of population neurons exhibits a rather complex adaptation-dependent manner. Specifically, synchronization strength of neuron populations changes nonmonotonically, depending on the degree of adaptation. In addition, single neurons in the networks can switch from regular spiking to bursting with the increase of adaptation degree. Furthermore, the connection probability among neurons exhibits significant influence on the population synchronous activity, but has little effect on the burst generation of single neurons. Accordingly, the results may suggest that synchronous activity and burst firing of population neurons are both adaptation-dependent.

Effects of dopamine on response properties of ON-OFF RGCs in encoding stimulus durations

Single retinal ganglion cell's (RGCs) response properties, such as spike count and response latency, are known to encode some features of visual stimuli. On the other hand, neuronal response can be modulated by dopamine (DA), an important endogenous neuromodulator in the retina. In the present study, we investigated the effects of DA on the spike count and the response latency of bullfrog ON-OFF RGCs during exposure to different stimulus durations. We found that neuronal spike count and response latency were both changed with stimulus durations, and exogenous DA (10 μM) obviously attenuated the stimulus-duration-dependent response latency change. Information analysis showed that the information about light ON duration was mainly carried by the OFF response and vice versa, and the stimulation information was carried by both spike count and response latency. However, during DA application, the information carried by the response latency was greatly decreased, which suggests that dopaminergic pathway is involved in modulating the role of response latency in encoding the information about stimulus durations.