Université de Fribourg

Visual thalamocortical circuits in parvalbumin-deficient mice

Lintas, Alessandra ; Schwaller, Beat ; Villa, Alessandro E.P.

In: Brain Research, 2013, vol. 1536, p. 107–118

The dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) is considered as the visual gateway to the visual cortex (VC) and sends collaterals to the thalamic reticular nucleus (RTN) that in turn receives collaterals of the corticofugal feedback projections. At all levels of this thalamocortical circuit there are GABAergic neurons expressing the calcium-buffer parvalbumin (PV). The present study reports for...

Université de Fribourg

Dopamine deficiency increases synchronized activity in the rat subthalamic nucleus

Lintas, Alessandra ; Silkis, Isabella G. ; Albéri, Lavinia ; Villa, Alessandro E.P.

In: Brain Research, 2012, vol. 1434, p. 142–151

Abnormal neuronal activity in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) plays a crucial role in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease (PD). In this study we investigated changes in rat STN neuronal activity after 28 days following the injection of 6-OHDA in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). This drug provoked a lesion of SNc that induced a dopamine (DA) depletion assessed by changes in rotating...

Université de Fribourg

Differences in locomotor behavior revealed in mice deficient for the calcium-binding proteins parvalbumin, calbindin D-28k or both

Farré-Castany, Maria A. ; Schwaller, Beat ; Gregory, Patrick ; Barski, Jaroslaw ; Mariethoz, Céline ; Eriksson, Jan L. ; Tetko, Igor V. ; Wolfer, David ; Celio, Marco R. ; Schmutz, Isabelle ; Albrecht, Urs ; Villa, Alessandro E.P.

In: Behavioural Brain Research, 2007, vol. 178, no. 2, p. 250-261

We investigated the role of the two calcium-binding proteins parvalbumin (PV) and calbindin D-28k (CB) in the locomotor activity and motor coordination using null-mutant mice for PV (PV−/−), CB (CB−/−) or both proteins (PV−/−CB−/−). These proteins are expressed in distinct, mainly non-overlapping populations of neurons of the central and peripheral nervous system and PV...