Deans' stroke musings: New tools for investigating astrocyte-to-neuron communication

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

New tools for investigating astrocyte-to-neuron communication

This is probably useful for determining how a neuron recruits a neighbor to help with a task, neuroplasticity in action.
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fncel.2013.00193/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Neuroscience-w46-2013
Dongdong Li¹,

Cendra Agulhon²,

Elke Schmidt¹,

Martin Oheim¹ and

Nicole Ropert¹^*

¹Biophysics of Gliotransmitter Release Team, Laboratory of Neurophysiology and New Microscopies, INSERM U603, CNRS UMR 8154, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France
²Glia-Glia and Glia-Neuron Interactions in Neurophysiopathology Team, Laboratory of Neurophysiology and New Microscopies, INSERM U603, CNRS UMR 8154, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

Gray matter protoplasmic astrocytes extend very thin processes and establish close contacts with synapses. It has been suggested that the release of neuroactive gliotransmitters at the tripartite synapse contributes to information processing. However, the concept of calcium (Ca²⁺)-dependent gliotransmitter release from astrocytes, and the release mechanisms are being debated. Studying astrocytes in their natural environment is challenging because: (i) astrocytes are electrically silent; (ii) astrocytes and neurons express an overlapping repertoire of transmembrane receptors; (iii) the size of astrocyte processes in contact with synapses are below the resolution of confocal and two-photon microscopes (iv) bulk-loading techniques using fluorescent Ca²⁺ indicators lack cellular specificity. In this review, we will discuss some limitations of conventional methodologies and highlight the interest of novel tools and approaches for studying gliotransmission. Genetically encoded Ca²⁺ indicators (GECIs), light-gated channels, and exogenous receptors are being developed to selectively read out and stimulate astrocyte activity. Our review discusses emerging perspectives on: (i) the complexity of astrocyte Ca²⁺ signaling revealed by GECIs; (ii) new pharmacogenetic and optogenetic approaches to activate specific Ca²⁺ signaling pathways in astrocytes; (iii) classical and new techniques to monitor vesicle fusion in cultured astrocytes; (iv) possible strategies to express specifically reporter genes in astrocytes.