Jose Vicente Torres Pérez

University of Valencia | UV · Biologia Cel·lular, Biologia Funcional i Antropologia Física

BAZ1B is an ubiquitously expressed nuclear protein with roles in chromatin remodelling, DNA replication and repair, and transcription. Reduced baz1b expression disrupts neuronal and neural crest development. Variation in the activity of baz1b has been proposed to underly morphological and behavioural aspects of domestication through disruption of n...

Effective pharmacological management of pain associated with tissue pathology is an unmet medical need. Transcriptional modifications in nociceptive pathways are pivotal for the development and the maintenance of pain associated with tissue damage. Accumulating evidence has shown the importance of the epigenetic control of transcription in nocicept...

Controlling pain in burn-injured patients poses a major clinical challenge. Recent findings suggest that reducing the activity of the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.7 in primary sensory neurons could provide improved pain control in burn-injured patients. Here, we report that partial thickness scalding-type burn injury on the rat paw upregulates...

Telomere length reflects cellular ageing. Increased telomere shortening in leukocytes is associated with a range of neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, the onset and progression of which may be mediated by behavioural traits such as anxiety and stress reactivity. However, the effects of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis stress resp...

While about half of the population experience persistent pain associated with tissue damages during their lifetime, current symptom-based approaches often fail to reduce such pain to a satisfactory level. To provide better patient care, mechanism-based analgesic approaches must be developed, which necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the n...

Number sense, the ability to discriminate the quantity of objects, is crucial for survival. To understand how neurons work together and develop to mediate number sense, we used two-photon fluorescence light sheet microscopy to capture the activity of individual neurons throughout the brain of larval zebrafish ( Danio rerio ), while displaying a vis...

In mammalian species, motherhood is a critical period of neural plasticity, allowing the dam to adapt its behaviour to the demanding task of taking care of the pups. For example, in mice, pregnancy and lactation promote proliferation of neuroblasts in the subventricular zone and adult neurogenesis in the olfactory bulb. Thus, we hypothesised that t...

Mu-Opioid Receptors (MORs) are well-known for participating in analgesia, sedation, drug addiction, and other physiological functions. Although MORs have been related to neuroinflammation their biological mechanism remains unclear. It is suggested that MORs work alongside Toll-Like Receptors to enhance the release of pro-inflammatory mediators and...

The methyl-CpG binding protein 2 gene (MECP2) encodes an epigenetic transcriptional regulator implicated in neuronal plasticity. Loss-of-function mutations in this gene are the primary cause of Rett syndrome and, to a lesser degree, of other neurodevelopmental disorders. Recently, we demonstrated that both Mecp2 haploinsuficiency and mild early lif...

Domestication is associated with both morphological and behavioural phenotypic changes that differentiate domesticated species from their wild counterparts. Some of the traits are those purposely targeted by the selection process, whilst others co-occur as a result of selection. The combination of traits is referred to as the domestication syndrome...

A sense of non-symbolic numerical magnitudes is widespread in the animal kingdom and has been documented in adult zebrafish. Here, we investigated the ontogeny of this ability using a group size preference (GSP) task in juvenile zebrafish. Fish showed GSP from 21 days post-fertilization and reliably chose the larger group when presented with discri...

Ankyrin repeat and kinase domain containing 1 (ANKK1) is a member of the receptor-interacting protein serine/threonine kinase family, known to be involved in cell proliferation, differentiation and activation of transcription factors. Genetic variation within the ANKK1 locus is suggested to play a role in vulnerability to addictions. However, ANKK1...

Psychiatric disorders represent a significant burden in our societies. Despite the convincing evidence pointing at gene and gene-environment interaction contributions, the role of genetics in the aetiology of psychiatric disease is still poorly understood. Forward genetic screens in animal models have helped elucidate causal links. Here we discuss...

Background: Nicotine withdrawal syndrome is a major clinical problem. Animal models with sufficient predictive validity to support translation of pre-clinical findings to clinical research are lacking. Aims: We evaluated the behavioural and neurochemical alterations in zebrafish induced by short- and long-term nicotine withdrawal. Methods: Zeb...

An interactive effect between nicotine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has been reported but the mechanism underlying such interaction is not completely understood. This study used zebrafish to explore gene expression changes associated with altered sensitivity to the rewarding effects of MDMA following 2-week exposure to nicotine and...

Non-symbolic number cognition based on an approximate sense of magnitude has been documented in adult zebrafish. Here we investigated the ontogeny of this ability using a group size preference task in juvenile zebrafish. Fish showed group size preference from 26 days post fertilization (dpf) and from 27 dpf fish reliably chose the larger group when...

Individual differences in personality are associated with variation in healthy aging. Health behaviours are often cited as the likely explanation for this association; however, an underlying biological mechanism may also exist. Accelerated leukocyte telomere shortening is implicated in multiple age-related diseases and is associated with chronic ac...

Burn injury is a pathology underpinned by progressive and aberrant inflammation. It is a major clinical challenge to survival and quality of life. While burn injury's complex local and disseminating pathological processes ultimately stem from local tissue damage, to date relatively few studies have attempted to characterise the local inflammatory m...

Background/aims: The primary cilium is a nanoscale membrane protrusion believed to act as a mechano-chemical sensor in a range of different cell types. Disruptions in its structure and signalling have been linked to a number of medical conditions, referred to as ciliopathies, but remain poorly understood due to lack of techniques capable of invest...

Transcriptional changes in superficial spinal dorsal horn neurons (SSDHN) are essential in the development and maintenance of prolonged pain. Epigenetic mechanisms including post-translational modifications in histones are pivotal in regulating transcription. Here, we report that phosphorylation of serine 10 (S10) in histone 3 (H3) specifically occ...

Elevation of intracellular Ca(2+) concentration induces the synthesis of N-arachydonoylethanolamine (anandamide) in a sub-population of primary sensory neurons. N-acylphosphatidylethanolamine phospholipase D (NAPE-PLD) is the only known enzyme, which synthesises anandamide in a Ca(2+) -dependent manner. NAPE-PLD mRNA, as well as anandamide's main t...

The involvement of hypothalamic nuclei in the pathophysiology of migraine and trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias has been suggested for some time, with dopaminergic mechanisms proposed to play a prominent role. The hypothalamic A11 nucleus is, to date, the only nucleus found to provide a dopamine-mediated inhibitory effect on nociceptive transmissio...

The capsaicin receptor, transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 ion channel (TRPV1), has been identified as a polymodal transducer molecule on a sub-set of primary sensory neurons which responds to various stimuli including noxious heat (> -42 degrees C), protons and vanilloids such as capsaicin, the hot ingredient of chilli peppers. Subseque...