Biomedical subjects

Shaoyun Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Shaoyun Chen.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Preferential neuron loss in the rat piriform cortex following pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus.

Structures within the piriform cortex (PC) including the endopiriform nucleus (DEN) and pre-endopiriform nucleus (pEn) have been implicated to be involved in seizure genesis in models of temporal lobe epilepsy. We used stereological methods to examine the specificity and extent of neuron loss in the PC of pilocarpine-treated rats. Both 7 days and 2 months post-status epilepticus rats showed significant neuron loss in the pEn and DEN, layer III of the intermediate PC, and layers II and III of the caudal PC. Total losses in the PC were 40 and 46% in 7 days and 2 months post-status epilepticus rats, respectively (p<0.01). The numbers of parvalbumin (PV)- and cholecystokinin (CCK)-immunopositive neuron profiles significantly decreased, and somatostatin (SS)-immunopositive neuron profiles tended to decrease. A large decrease in the number of PV-immunopositive neuron profiles occurred in the pEn, adjoining parts of the DEN and deep layer III of the PC, portions of the DEN bordering the claustrum and agranular insular cortex, and layer III of the caudal PC. The regions with decreased numbers of PV-, CCK-, and SS-immunopositive neuron profiles overlapped with those where many Nissl-stained neurons were lost and many degenerating cell bodies were detected. These results suggest that the decreases in the numbers of PV/SS/CCK-immunopositive neurons are related to neuron loss rather than to a low rate of synthesis of their peptides or proteins.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Stereological analysis of forebrain regions in kainate-treated epileptic rats.

Patients and models of temporal lobe epilepsy display neuron loss in the hippocampal formation, but neuropathological changes also occur in other forebrain regions. We sought to evaluate the specificity and extent of volume loss of the major forebrain regions in epileptic rats months after kainate-induced status epilepticus. In systematic series of Nissl-stained sections, the areas of major forebrain regions were measured, and volumes were estimated using the Cavalieri principle. In some regions, the optical fractionator method was used to estimate neuron numbers. Most kainate-treated rats showed significant volume loss in the amygdala, olfactory cortex, and septal region, but others displayed different patterns, with significant loss only in the hippocampus or thalamus, for example. Average volume loss was most severe in the amygdala and olfactory cortex (82-83% of controls), especially the caudal parts of both regions. In the piriform cortex (including the endopiriform nucleus) of epileptic rats, an average of approximately one-third of Nissl-stained neurons and one-third of the GABAergic interneurons labeled by in situ hybridization for GAD67 mRNA were lost, and the extent of neuron loss was correlated with the extent of volume loss. Volumetric analysis of major forebrain regions was insensitive to specific neuron loss in subregions such as layer III of the entorhinal cortex and the hilus of the dentate gyrus. These findings provide quantitative evidence that kainate-treated rats tend to display extensive neuron and volume loss in the amygdala and olfactory cortex, although the patterns and extent of loss in forebrain regions vary considerably among individuals. In this status epilepticus-based model, extrahippocampal damage appears to be more extensive and hippocampal damage appears to be less extensive than that reported for patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2004

Thalamocortical projection from the ventral posteromedial nucleus sends its collaterals to layer I of the primary somatosensory cortex in rat.

Here we examined quantitatively axonal projections originating from the ventral posteromedial thalamic nucleus (VPM) to layer I of the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) by extracellular and intracellular injections of biocytin as an anterograde tracer. Following the extracellular injections, two types of VPM afferents with different arborization patterns in SI were observed. The type I extended vertically, forming dense plexus in layers IV and VI, and projected collaterals to layer I. The type II rarely branched in SI, converged in the plexus formed by the type I, and projected no collaterals to the supragranular layers. The labeled fibers in layer I derived from the first type ran parallel to the brain surface, and their mean length was 339.7 +/- 87.5 microm. Intracellular injection into VPM neurons bearing both types of afferent demonstrated the full axonal arborization in both the reticular thalamic nucleus (Rt) and SI. The total length of the axon of a neuron bearing the type I was 86,968.8 microm, and the length of axonal collaterals in layer I of SI was 433.1 microm. The total axonal length of a neuron bearing the type II was very small. The present study is the first to demonstrate substantial projections from VPM to layer I of SI, and provide quantitative data on the entire extent of the axonal arborization of thalamocortical projections from single VPM neurons.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Quantitative analysis of axon collaterals of single cells in layer III of the piriform cortex of the guinea pig.

Recent physiological and morphological studies suggest that the piriform cortex (PC) functions like the association areas of the neocortex rather than the typical primary sensory area as was previously assumed. The axon connection patterns of single cells are important for understanding the functional organization of the PC. The axon collaterals of three single pyramidal cells and one spiny multipolar cell in layer III of the PC were labeled and quantitatively analyzed by intracellular injections of biocytin in guinea pigs. The individual pyramidal and spiny multipolar cells have highly distributed axon collaterals, which display little tendency for patchy concentrations, within the PC and multiple higher order behavior/reward/contextual-related areas, such as the prefrontal cortex, amygdaloid nuclei, and entorhinal cortex. For the pyramidal cells, the average length of axonal collaterals is 143 mm; the average number of boutons is 12,930. For the spiny multipolar cell, the length of the axonal collaterals is 88 mm; the number of boutons is 7,052. The pyramidal cells in the anterior subdivision of the PC (APC) have both rostrally and caudally directed intrinsic association fibers, whereas the pyramidal and spiny multipolar cells in the posterior subdivision (PPC) have predominantly caudally directed intrinsic association fibers in the PC. Our results reveal that the connection patterns of single cells in layer III resemble those of pyramidal cells in layer II, suggesting that the PC performs correlative functions analogous to those in the association area of other sensory systems. The rostrally-to-caudally directed connections in the APC provide a substrate for the recurrent process, whereas largely caudally directed connections in the PPC suggest the dominance of the feed-forward process.

Animals↗

PubMed1998

Vision-guided navigation using SHOSLIF.

This paper presents an unconventional approach to vision-guided autonomous navigation. The system recalls information about scenes and navigational experience using content-based retrieval from a visual database. To achieve a high applicability to various road types, we do not impose a priori scene features, such as road edges, that the system must use, but rather, the system automatically derives features from images during supervised learning. To accomplish this, the system uses principle component analysis and linear discriminant analysis to automatically derive the most expressive features (MEF) for scene reconstruction or the most discriminating features (MDF) for scene classification. These features best describe or classify the population of the scenes and approximate complex decision regions using piecewise linear boundaries up to a desired accuracy. A new self-organizing scheme called recursive partition tree (RPT) is used for automatic construction of a vision-and-control database, which quickly prunes the data set in the content-based search and results in a low time complexity of O(log(n)) for retrieval from a database of size n. The system combines principle component and linear discriminant analysis networks with a decision tree network. It has been tested on a mobile robot, Rome, in an unknown indoor environment to learn scenes and the associated navigation experience. In the performing phase, the mobile robot navigates autonomously in similar environments, while allowing the presence of scene perturbations such as the presence of passersby.

Journal Article↗