miRNAs may change rapidly with thoughts: The Relaxation Response after myocardial infarction

On the road to resilience: Epigenetic effects of meditation

Many environmental and lifestyle related factors may influence the physiology of the brain and body by acting on fundamental molecular pathways, such as the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and the immune system. For example, stressful conditions created by adverse early-life events, unhealthy habits and low socio-economic status may favor the onset of diseases linked to neuroendocrine dysregulation, inflammation and neuroinflammation. Beside pharmacological treatments used in clinical settings, much attention has been given to complementary treatments such as mind-body techniques involving meditation that rely on the activation of inner resources to regain health. At the molecular level, the effects of both stress and meditation are elicited epigenetically through a set of mechanisms that regulate gene expression as well as the circulating neuroendocrine and immune effectors. Epigenetic mechanisms constantly reshape genome activities in response to external stimuli, representing a molecular interface between organism and environment. In the present work, we aimed to review the current knowledge on the correlation between epigenetics, gene expression, stress and its possible antidote, meditation. After introducing the relationship between brain, physiology, and epigenetics, we will proceed to describe three basic epigenetic mechanisms: chromatin covalent modifications, DNA methylation and non-coding RNAs. Subsequently, we will give an overview of the physiological and molecular aspects related to stress. Finally, we will address the epigenetic effects of meditation on gene expression. The results of the studies reported in this review demonstrate that mindful practices modulate the epigenetic landscape, leading to increased resilience. Therefore, these practices can be considered valuable tools that complement pharmacological treatments when coping with pathologies related to stress.

Rapid changes of miRNAs-20, -30, -410, -515, -134, and -183 and telomerase with psychological activity: A one year study on the relaxation response and epistemological considerations

Background and aim

Mental stress represents a pivotal factor in cardiovascular diseases. The mechanism by which stress produces its deleterious effects is still under study, but one of the most explored pathways is inflammation-aging and cell senescence. In this scenario, circulating microRNAs appear to be regulatory elements of the telomerase activity and alternative splicing within the nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer (NF-κB) network. Anti-stress techniques appeared to be able to slow down the inflammatory and aging processes. As we recently verified, the practice of the relaxation response (RR) counteracted psychological stress and determined favorable changes of the NF-κB, p53, and toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) gene expression and in neurotransmitters, hormones, cytokines, and inflammatory circulating microRNAs. We aimed to verify a possible change in the serum levels of six other micro-RNAs of cardiovascular interest, involved in cell senescence and in the NF-κB network (miRNAs -20, -30, -410, -515, -134, and -183), and tested the activity of telomerase in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).

Experimental procedure

We measured the aforementioned molecules in the serum of patients with ischemic heart disease (and healthy controls) immediately before and after a relaxation response session, three times (after the baseline), in one year of follow-up.

Results

According to our data, the miRNA-20 and -30 levels and PBMCs-telomerase activity increased during the RR while the -410 and -515 levels decreased. During the RR sessions, both miRNA-134 and -183 decreased.

Conclusion

The mediators considered in this exploratory work appeared to vary rapidly with the psychological activity (in particular when focused on relaxation techniques) showing that psychological activity should be part of the future research on epigenetics. Epistemological perspectives are also discussed.

Subanesthetic ketamine rapidly alters medial prefrontal miRNAs involved in ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic and a non-competitive NMDAR antagonist. At subanesthetic dose, ketamine can relieve pain and work as a fast-acting antidepressant, but the underlying molecular mechanism remains elusive. This study aimed to investigate the mode of action underlying the effects of acute subanesthetic ketamine treatment by bioinformatics analyses of miRNAs in the medial prefrontal cortex of male C57BL/6J mice. Gene Ontology and KEGG pathway analyses of the genes putatively targeted by ketamine-responsive prefrontal miRNAs revealed that acute subanesthetic ketamine modifies ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis. Validation analysis suggested that miR-148a-3p and miR-128-3p are the main players responsible for the subanesthetic ketamine-mediated alteration of ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis through varied regulation of ubiquitin ligases E2 and E3. Collectively, our data imply that the prefrontal miRNA-dependent modulation of ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis is at least partially involved in the mode of action by acute subanesthetic ketamine treatment.

Von Willebrand Factor Multimers and the Relaxation Response: A One-Year Study

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Mental stress represents a pivotal factor in cardiovascular diseases. The mechanism by which stress produces its deleterious ischemic effects is still under study but some of the most explored pathways are inflammation, endothelial function and balancing of the thrombotic state. In this scenario, von Willebrand factor (vWF) is a plasma glycoprotein best known for its crucial hemostatic role, also acting as key regulatory element of inflammation, being released by the activated vascular endothelium. Antistress techniques seem to be able to slow down inflammation. As we have recently verified how the practice of the Relaxation Response (RR), which counteracts psychological stress, causes favorable changes in some inflammatory genes' expressions, neurotransmitters, hormones, cytokines and inflammatory circulating microRNAs with coronary endothelial function improvement, we aimed to verify a possible change even in serum levels of vWF. Experimental procedure: We measured vWF multimers and the total protein carbonyl contents in the sera of 90 patients with ischemic heart disease (and 30 healthy controls) immediately before and after an RR session, three times (baseline, 6 months, 12 months), during a one-year follow-up study.

RESULTS

According to our data, large vWF multimers decrease during the RR, as does the plasma total carbonyl content.

CONCLUSION

vWF levels seem to vary rapidly between anti-inflammatory and antithrombotic behaviors dependent on psychological activity, leading to relaxation and also possibly changes in its quaternary structure.

Sounds Stimulation on In Vitro HL1 Cells: A Pilot Study and a Theoretical Physical Model

Mechanical vibrations seem to affect the behaviour of different cell types and the functions of different organs. Pressure waves, including acoustic waves (sounds), could affect cytoskeletal molecules via coherent changes in their spatial organization and mechano-transduction signalling. We analyzed the sounds spectra and their fractal features. Cardiac muscle HL1 cells were exposed to different sounds, were stained for cytoskeletal markers (phalloidin, beta-actin, alpha-tubulin, alpha-actinin-1), and studied with multifractal analysis (using FracLac for ImageJ). A single cell was live-imaged and its dynamic contractility changes in response to each different sound were analysed (using Musclemotion for ImageJ). Different sound stimuli seem to influence the contractility and the spatial organization of HL1 cells, resulting in a different localization and fluorescence emission of cytoskeletal proteins. Since the cellular behaviour seems to correlate with the fractal structure of the sound used, we speculate that it can influence the cells by virtue of the different sound waves’ geometric properties that we have photographed and filmed. A theoretical physical model is proposed to explain our results, based on the coherent molecular dynamics. We stress the role of the systemic view in the understanding of the biological activity.

Toward a Unified View of Cognitive and Biochemical Activity: Meditation and Linguistic Self-Reconstructing May Lead to Inflammation and Oxidative Stress Improvement

Stress appears to be the basis of many diseases, especially myocardial infarction. Events are not objectively “stressful” but what is central is how the individual structures the experience he is facing: the thoughts he produces about an event put him under stress. This cognitive process could be revealed by language (words and structure). We followed 90 patients with ischemic heart disease and 30 healthy volunteers, after having taught them the Relaxation Response (RR) as part of a 4-day Rational–Emotional–Education intervention. We analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software the words that the subjects used across the study following the progression of blood galectin-3 (inflammation marker) and malondialdehyde (oxidative stress marker). During the follow-up, we confirmed an acute and chronic decrease in the markers of inflammation and oxidative stress already highlighted in our previous studies together with a significant change in the use of language by the subjects of the RR groups. Our results and the precise design of our study would seem to suggest the existence of an intimate relationship and regulatory action by cognitive processes (recognizable by the type of language used) on some molecular processes in the human body.