About
153
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Introduction
Murilo S. de Abreu does research in Pharmacology, Physiology and Neuroscience. E-mail: abreu_murilo@hotmail.com
Skills and Expertise
Education
August 2014 - July 2017
March 2013 - August 2014
March 2008 - January 2013
Publications
Publications (153)
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a global medical concern and has a lasting impact on brain activity with high risks of mortality. Current treatments are inadequate for repairing damaged brain cells or correcting cognitive and behavioral disabilities in TBI patients. Mounting evidence links TBI to the activation of the Integrated Stress Response (IS...
Chronic stress is a common trigger of multiple neuropsychiatric illnesses. Animal models are widely used to study stress‐induced brain disorders and their interplay with neuroinflammation and other neuroimmune processes. Here, we apply the prolonged 12‐week chronic unpredictable stress (PCUS) model to examine rat behavioral and hippocampal transcri...
L-theanine has neuromodulatory properties, such as attenuate anxiety disorders and stress. Stress is a situation characterized by the stimulus to cortisol secretion and without specific pharmacological therapies. Thus, this study investigates the effect of L-theanine on the response to acute stress, evaluated by tissue cortisol level, oxidative sta...
Epitranscriptomic regulation of cell functions involves multiple post‐transcriptional chemical modifications of coding and non‐coding RNA that are increasingly recognized in studying human brain disorders. Although rodent models are presently widely used in neuroepitranscriptomic research, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) has emerged as a useful and pro...
Stress plays a key role in mental, neurological, endocrine, and immune disorders. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly gaining popularity as s model organism in stress physiology and neuroscience research. Although the leopard (leo) fish are a common outbred zebrafish strain, their behavioral phenotypes and stress responses remain poorly characte...
Inducing multiple neurobehavioural and neurochemical deficits, olfactory bulbectomy (OBX) has been developed as a rodent model of depression with potential for antidepressant drug screening. However, the generality of this model in other vertebrate taxa remains poorly understood. A small freshwater teleost fish, the zebrafish ( Danio rerio ), is ra...
Affective and psychotic disorders are highly prevalent and severely debilitating mental illnesses that often remain untreated or treatment-resistant. Sulpiride is a common antipsychotic (neuroleptic) drug whose well-established additional (e.g., antidepressant) therapeutic effects call for further studies of a wider spectrum of its CNS effects. Her...
Antihistaminic drugs are widely used clinically and have long been primarily known for their use to treat severe allergic conditions caused by histamine release. Antihistaminic drugs also exert central nervous system (CNS) effects, acting as anxiolytics, hypnotics, and neuroleptics. However, these drugs also have multiple serious neuropharmacologic...
The reproducibility crisis in bioscience, characterized by inconsistent study results, impedes our understanding of biological processes and global collaborative studies offer a unique solution. This study is the first global collaboration using the zebrafish (Danio rerio) novel tank test, a behavioral assay for anxiety-like responses. We analyzed...
Rodent self-grooming is an important complex behavior, and its deficit is translationally relevant to a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders. Here, we analyzed a comprehensive dataset of 227 genes whose mutations evoke aberrant self-grooming in mice. Using these genes, we next constructed the network of their protein-protein interactions (PPI),...
Delirium is an acute neuropsychiatric syndrome characterized by impaired behavior and cognition. Although the syndrome has been known for millennia, its CNS mechanisms and risk factors remain poorly understood. Experimental animal models, especially rodent-based, are commonly used to probe various pathogenetic aspects of delirium. Complementing rod...
Depression and schizophrenia are two highly prevalent and severely debilitating neuropsychiatric disorders. Both conventional antidepressant and antipsychotic pharmacotherapies are often inefficient clinically, causing multiple side effects and serious patient compliance problems. Collectively, this calls for the development of novel drug targets f...
Music therapy has long been used as a non-pharmacological intervention to improve cognitive function and mood in humans. Mounting rodent evidence also supports beneficial impact of music exposure on animal cognitive performance. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is an important emerging aquatic animal model in translational biomedical and neuroscience re...
Mounting evidence links psychiatric disorders to central and systemic inflammation. Experimental (animal) models of psychiatric disorders are important tools for translational biopsychiatry research and CNS drug discovery. Current experimental models, most typically involving rodents, continue to reveal shared fundamental pathological pathways and...
Epilepsy is a highly prevalent, severely debilitating neurological disorder characterized by seizures and neuronal hyperactivity due to an imbalanced neurotransmission. As genetic factors play a key role in epilepsy and its treatment, various genetic and genomic technologies continue to dissect the genetic causes of this disorder. However, the exac...
Psychiatric disorders are highly prevalent brain pathologies that represent an urgent, unmet biomedical problem. Since reliable clinical diagnoses are essential for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, their animal models with robust, relevant behavioral and physiological endpoints become necessary. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) display well-defined,...
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are rapidly becoming a powerful new model organism for neurobehavioral and neuropharmacological research, including translational studies of aggression. Here, we review zebrafish aggression behavioral phenotypes, as well as pharmacological and genetic models of aggression in this aquatic species, and also discuss how zebrafi...
Antimicrobial drugs represent a diverse group of widely utilized antibiotic, antifungal, antiparasitic and antiviral agents. Their growing use and clinical importance necessitate our improved understanding of physiological effects of antimicrobial drugs, including their potential effects on the central nervous system (CNS), at molecular, cellular,...
The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is an important molecular regulator of cell growth and proliferation. Brain mTOR activity plays a crucial role in synaptic plasticity, cell development, migration and proliferation, as well as memory storage, protein synthesis, autophagy, ion channel expression and axonal regeneration. Aberrant mTOR signalin...
Widespread, debilitating and often treatment-resistant, depression and other stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders represent an urgent unmet biomedical and societal problem. Although animal models of these disorders are commonly used to study stress pathogenesis, they are often difficult to translate across species into valuable and meaningful...
Channelopathies are a large group of systemic disorders whose pathogenesis is associated with dysfunctional ion channels. Aberrant transmembrane transport of K+, Na+, Ca2+ and Cl− by these channels in the brain induces central nervous system (CNS) channelopathies, most commonly including epilepsy, but also migraine, as well as various movement and...
Sex is an important biological variable that is widely recognized in studies of alcohol-related effects. Complementing clinical and preclinical rodent research, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) is the second most used laboratory species, and a powerful model organism in biomedicine. Like clinical and rodent models, zebrafish demonstrate overt sex differ...
Background
Cognitive deficits represent an urgent biomedical problem, and are commonly reduced by nootropic drugs. Animal models, including both rodents and zebrafish, offer a valuable tool for studying cognitive phenotypes and screening novel nootropics. Beta-alanine and its derivatives have recently been proposed to exert nootropic activity.
Aim...
Neurodegeneration is a major cause of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, multiple and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, pontocerebellar hypoplasia, dementia and other brain disorders. Their complex pathogenesis commonly includes genetic and neurochemical deficits, misfolded protein toxicity, demyelination, apoptosis and mitochondrial dysfunctions...
Depression is a widespread and severely debilitating neuropsychiatric disorder whose key clinical symptoms include low mood, anhedonia and despair (the inability or unwillingness to overcome stressors). Experimental animal models are widely used to improve our mechanistic understanding of depression pathogenesis, and to develop novel antidepressant...
Mood disorders, especially depression, are a major cause of human disability. The loss of pleasure (anhedonia) is a common, severely debilitating symptom of clinical depression. Experimental animal models are widely used to better understand depression pathogenesis and to develop novel antidepressant therapies. In rodents, various experimental mode...
Sex is an important variable in translational biomedical research. While overt sex differences have been reported for pain and fear-like behaviors in humans and rodents, these differences in other popular model organisms, such as zebrafish, remain poorly understood. Here, we evaluate potential sex differences in zebrafish behavioral responses to pa...
Critical for organismal survival, pain evokes strong physiological and behavioral responses in various sentient species. Clinical and preclinical (animal) studies markedly increase our understanding of biological consequences of developmental (early-life) adversity, as well as acute and chronic pain. However, the long-term effects of early-life pai...
Strongly affecting human and animal physiology, sounds and vibration are critical environmental factors whose complex role in behavioral and brain functions necessitates further clinical and experimental studies. Zebrafish are a promising model organism for neuroscience research, including probing the contribution of auditory and vibration stimuli...
Stress response is essential for the organism to quickly restore physiological homeostasis disturbed by various environmental insults. In addition to well-established physiological cascades, stress also evokes various brain and behavioral responses. Aquatic animal models, including the zebrafish (Danio rerio), have been extensively used to probe pa...
Long-term recurrent stress is a common cause of neuropsychiatric disorders. Animal models are widely used to study the pathogenesis of stress-related psychiatric disorders. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is emerging as a powerful tool to study chronic stress and its mechanisms. Here, we developed a prolonged 11-week chronic unpredictable stress (PCUS)...
Although American traditional medicine (ATM) has been practiced for millennia, its complex multi-target mechanisms of therapeutic action remain poorly understood. Animal models are widely used to elucidate the therapeutic effects of various ATMs, including their modulation of brain and behavior. Complementing rodent models, the zebrafish (Danio rer...
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are rapidly emerging in biomedicine as promising tools for disease modelling and drug discovery. The use of zebrafish for neuroscience research is also growing rapidly, necessitating novel reliable and unbiased methods of neurophenotypic data collection and analyses. Here, we applied the artificial intelligence (AI) neural n...
Anxiety is the most prevalent brain disorder and a common cause of human disability. Animal models are critical for understanding anxiety pathogenesis and its pharmacotherapy. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is increasingly utilized as a powerful model organism in anxiety research and anxiolytic drug screening. High similarity between human, rodent and...
Sex differences influence human and animal behavioral and pharmacological responses. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a powerful, popular model system in neuroscience and drug screening. However, the impact of zebrafish sex differences on their behavior and drug responses remains poorly understood. Here, we evaluate baseline anxiety-like behavior in...
Typically triggered by stress, anxiety disorders are most common and widespread mental illnesses. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly becoming an important aquatic model species in stress research and central nervous system (CNS) drug screening. Paracetamol is currently the most prescribed medication for pain and fever, and is among the most com...
The ability of the nervous system to detect a wide range of noxious stimuli is crucial to avoid life-threatening injury and to trigger protective behavioral and physiological responses. Pain represents a complex phenomenon, including nociception associated with cognitive and emotional processing. Animal experimental models have been developed to un...
Social behavior represents a beneficial interaction between conspecifics that is critical for maintaining health and wellbeing. Dysfunctional or poor social interaction are associated with increased risk of physical (e.g., vascular) and psychiatric disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression and substance abuse). Although the impact of negative and positi...
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are rapidly emerging as a promising new model species in stress research, characterized by complex behaviors in all major neurobehavioral domains and high genetic and physiological similarity with humans. Here, we summarize common neurobehavioral models of zebrafish stress and discuss their relevance to studying the pathobio...
Color is an important environmental factor that in multiple ways affects human and animal behavior and physiology. Widely used in neuroscience research, various experimental (animal) models may also improve our understanding of how different colors impact brain and behavioral processes. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly emerging as an importan...
Estradiol (17β-estradiol, E2) is an important estrogen hormone that regulates cognitive, social and affective behaviors in various species. However, complex central nervous system (CNS) effects of E2, including its activity in males, remain poorly understood. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly becoming a powerful novel model system in translati...
Stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders are widespread, debilitating and often treatment-resistant illnesses that represent an urgent unmet biomedical problem. Animal models of these disorders are widely used to study stress pathogenesis. A more recent and historically less utilized model organism, the zebrafish (Danio rerio), is a valuable tool...
3,4-dichloro-N-[2-(dimethylamino)cyclohexyl]-N-methylbenzamide (U-47700) is a selective μ–opioid receptor agonist originally synthesized as a prospective analgesic drug. Several times more potent than morphine, U-47700 has high abuse potential and may cause clinical neurotoxicity, euphoria, respiratory depression and occasional mortality. U-47700 a...
Neuroglia, including microglia and astrocytes, is a critical component of the central nervous system (CNS) that interacts with neurons to modulate their activity, development, metabolism and signaling. Thus, a better understanding of the role of neuroglia in the brain is critical. Complementing clinical and rodent data, the zebrafish (Danio rerio)...
Ethnopharmacological relevance:
Although Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a millennia-long history of treating human brain disorders, its complex multi-target mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. Animal models are widely used to probe the effects of various TCMs on brain and behavior. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has recently emerge...
Despite high prevalence, medical impact and societal significance, anxiety, depression and other affective disorders remain poorly understood. Clinical complexity and polygenic nature complicate their analyses, often revealing genetic overlap and cross-disorder heritability. However, the interplay or overlaps between disordered phenotypes can also...
Background
A potent acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, donepezil is a cognitive enhancer clinically used to treat neurodegenerative diseases. However, its complete pharmacological profile beyond cognition remains unclear. The zebrafish ( Danio rerio) is rapidly becoming a powerful novel model organism in neuroscience and central nervous system drug sc...
Background: An acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor, donepezil is a cognitive enhancer
Impulse control disorders (ICD) are characterized by generalized difficulty controlling emotions and behaviors. ICD are a broad group of the central nervous system (CNS) disorders including conduct disorder, intermittent explosive, oppositional‐defiant disorder, antisocial personality disorder, kleptomania, pyromania and other illnesses. Although t...
Stress is known to modulate behavioral responses and rapid decision-making processes, especially under challenging contexts which often occur in social and cooperative interactions. Here, we evaluated the effects of acute stress on cooperative behavior of the Indo-Pacific cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) and the implications of pre-treatment w...
Melatonin is an important pineal hormone that regulates human and animal circadian rhythms and sleep. Mounting clinical and rodent evidence indicates that melatonin also modulates affective behaviors and cognition. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly becoming a powerful novel model organism in translational neuroscience research. Here, we evalua...
Arecoline is a naturally occurring psychoactive alkaloid with partial agonism at nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. Arecoline consumption is widespread, making it the fourth (after alcohol, nicotine and caffeine) most used substance by humans. However, the mechanisms of acute and chronic action of arecoline in-vivo remain poorly unde...
Acute and chronic stressors are common triggers of human mental illnesses. Experimental animal models and their cross-species translation to humans are critical for understanding of the pathogenesis of stress-related psychiatric disorders. Mounting evidence suggests that both pharmacotherapy and non-pharmacological approaches can be efficient in tr...
Stress is a common trigger of stress-related disorders, such as anxiety, phobias, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Various animal models successfully reproduce core behaviors of these clinical conditions. Here, we develop a novel zebrafish model of stress (potentially relevant to human stress-related disorders), based on delaye...
Color of the environment is an important factor modulating human and animal behavior and physiology. Animal models are a valuable tool to understand how colors affect social, cognitive and affective responses. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly emerging as an important organism in neuroscience and physiology. Here, we examine whether the color...
Kava kava (Piper methysticum) is a medicinal plant containing kavalactones that exert potent sedative, analgesic and anti-stress effects. However, their pharmacological effects and molecular targets remain poorly understood. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has recently emerged as a powerful new model organism for neuroscience research and drug discover...
Stress is a common cause of neuropsychiatric disorders, evoking multiple behavioral, endocrine and neuro-immune deficits. Animal models have been extensively used to understand mechanisms of stress-related disorders and to develop novel strategies for their treatment. Complementing rodent and clinical studies, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) is one of...
Background:
Affective disorders, especially depression and anxiety, are highly prevalent, debilitating mental illnesses. Animal experimental models are a valuable tool in translational affective neuroscience research. A hallmark phenotype of clinical depression, the learned helplessness, has become a key target for 'behavioral despair'-based anima...
Multiple species display robust behavioral variance among individuals due to genetic, genomic, epigenetic, neuroplasticity and environmental factors. Behavioral individuality has been extensively studied in various animal models, including rodents and other mammals. Recently, fish, such zebrafish (Danio rerio), have emerged as powerful aquatic mode...
Kava (kava kava, Piper methysticum) is a common drug-containing plant in the Pacific islands. Kavalactones, its psychoactive compounds, exert potent central nervous system (CNS) action clinically. However, the exact pharmacological profiles and mechanisms of action of kava on the brain and behavior remain poorly understood. Here, we discuss clinica...
Due to its fully sequenced genome, high genetic homology to humans, external fertilization, fast development, transparency of embryos, low cost and active reproduction, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become a novel promising model organism in biomedicine. Zebrafish are a useful tool in genetic and neuroscience research, including linking various g...
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are rapidly becoming a premier experimental tool in neuroscience and biobehavioral research. Here, we summarize major neurobehavioral domains in zebrafish models, and discuss their relevance to studying the pathobiology of human brain deficits, including anxiety/stress-related, aggressive, cognitive and social behavioral dis...
Background:
The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly emerging as an important model species in neuroscience research. Neurobehavioral studies in zebrafish are typically based on automated video-tracking of individual or group fish responses to various stressors, drug treatments and genetic manipulations. However, moving zebrafish also emit vibration...
Experimental animal models are a valuable tool to study the neurobiology of emotional behavior and mechanisms underlying human affective disorders. Mounting evidence suggests that various aquatic organisms, including both vertebrate (e.g., zebrafish) and invertebrate (e.g., crayfish) species, may be relevant to study animal emotional response and i...
Sex differences are an important variable in biomedical research. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are rapidly becoming a critical novel model organism in translational neuroscience and neuropharmacology. Here, we examine the effects of sex on locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior in adult zebrafish tested in the novel tank test following their expos...
Stressful experiences are related to the triggering of anxiety and mood disorders. Tryptophan (amino acid pre- cursor of serotonin synthesis) emerges as important treatment of these disorders. Here, we evaluate the effects of pre-treatment with tryptophan (300mg/L) and fluoxetine (50μg/L) in response to acute stress in zebrafish. Overall, acute str...
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) caused by aberrant brain growth and development are life-long, debilitating illnesses that markedly impair the quality of life. Animal models are a valuable tool for studying NDD pathobiology and therapies. Mounting evidence suggests the zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a useful model organism to study NDDs with high p...
Schizophrenia is a severely debilitating, lifelong psychiatric disorder affecting approximately 1% of global population. The pathobiology of schizophrenia remains poorly understood, necessitating further translational research in this field. Experimental (animal) models are becoming indispensable for studying schizophrenia-related phenotypes and pr...
Sex is an important variable in biomedical research. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is increasingly utilized as a powerful new model organism in translational neuroscience and pharmacology. Mounting evidence indicates important sex differences in zebrafish behavioral and neuropharmacological responses. Here, we discuss the role of sex in zebrafish cen...
Melatonin is an important hormone regulating circadian rhythm, neuroprotection and neuroimmune processes. However, its exact physiological roles in brain mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we summarize the mounting evidence implicating melatonin in brain disorders and behavior, based on clinical and experimental studies in-vivo. In addition...