Glam Neuron

Say “Hello!” to Glam Neuron! 👋 😄💋
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Our newest family member - inspired by recent research done at McGill University and SciGlam magazine!

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Glam Neuron is wearing a perineuronal net made from chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans. Perineuronal nets surround neurons located in the brain and spinal cord, and are thought to preferentially wrap parvalbumin (PV) expressing GABA-releasing interneurons. The perineuronal net has several important roles including stabilization of connections (synapses) from other neurons, and stabilizing memories. The net matures during early brain development and its degradation in adults can allow for greater synaptic plasticity - the changing of synapse strength depending on the activity of the neurons.
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Recently, Tansley and colleagues – found that nerve injury in the peripheral nerves (such as in nerves in the leg) causes degradation of perineuronal nets on neurons located in the spinal cord. Specifically, the neurons in dorsal horn lamina 1 which send pain information to the brain have degraded perineuronal nets. Furthermore, they found that microglia are responsible for the degradation, and this results in increased transmission of pain information to the brain.
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Adding to Glam Neuron’s style are myelin sheaths bracelets. Myelin is made from lipids and fatty acids, and they increase the speed of action potential transmission from the cell body down the axon!
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References:

Gogolla N, Caroni P, Lüthi A, Herry C. Perineuronal Nets Protect Fear Memories from Erasure. Science 2009;325:1258–1261.

Tansley S, Gu N, Guzmán AU, Cai W, Wong C, Lister KC, Muñoz-Pino E, Yousefpour N, Roome RB, Heal J, Wu N, Castonguay A, Lean G, Muir EM, Kania A, Prager-Khoutorsky M, Zhang J, Gkogkas CG, Fawcett JW, Diatchenko L, Ribeiro-da-Silva A, De Koninck Y, Mogil JS, Khoutorsky A. Microglia-mediated degradation of perineuronal nets promotes pain. Science 2022;377:80–86.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl6773

Poitelon Y, Kopec AM, Belin S. Myelin Fat Facts: An Overview of Lipids and Fatty Acid Metabolism. Cells 2020;9:812.

#neuron #perineuronalnet #neuroscience #fashion