Naiara Ortuzar

Naiara Ortuzar
  • PhD in Neuroscience
  • Professor (Assistant) at University of the Basque Country

About

44
Publications
7,261
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
362
Citations
Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Current institution
University of the Basque Country
Current position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Additional affiliations
January 2014 - present
University of the Basque Country
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
January 2007 - December 2012
University of the Basque Country
Position
  • PhD Student

Publications

Publications (44)
Article
Full-text available
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting 1–5% of individuals over 60, with a higher incidence in men. It is clinically characterized by progressive motor impairments, including rigidity, bradykinesia, tremors, and gait disturbances. The neuropathological hallmark of PD is the aggregation of α-synuclein (α-syn) into...
Preprint
Full-text available
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder affecting 1-5% of individuals over 60, with a higher incidence in men. It is characterized by progressive motor impairments, such as rigidity, bradykinesia, tremors, and gait disturbances. The neuropathological hallmark of PD is the aggregation of α-synuclein (α-syn) into Lewy bodie...
Article
Full-text available
Parkinson gaixotasuna (PG) prebalentzia altua duen gaixotasun neurodegeneratiboa bada ere, sintomak hasi eta 20 urte beranduago diagnostikatzen da eta oraindik ere, ez da neuroendekapena gelditzeko tratamendu eraginkorrik aurkitu. Urte askotan zehar sintoma motorrekin lotu den gaixotasuna izan bada ere, azken hamarkadetan sistema ez-motorretan duen...
Article
Full-text available
Parkinson gaixotasuna (PG) nahasmendu neurodegeneratibo motor ohikoena da, gai beltzaren zati trinkoko neurona dopaminergikoen galeragatik eta horrek eragindako mugitzeko desgaitasunagatik bereizten dena. Klinikan gehien erabiltzen diren egungo tratamenduek, hala nola lebodopak, garuneko neurotransmisio dopaminergikoa lehengoratzen dute. Hala ere,...
Article
The structure and functions of the central nervous system are influenced by environmental stimuli, which also play an important role in brain diseases. Enriched environment (EE) consists of producing modifications in the environment of standard laboratory animals to induce an improvement in their biological conditions. This paradigm promotes transc...
Article
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a complex illness that is arising as a growing public health concern. Although several brain areas are related to this type of disorders, at the cellular level, the parvalbumin-positive cells of the hippocampus interplay a very relevant role. They control pyramidal cell bursts, neuronal networks, basic microcircui...
Article
Full-text available
The development of new effective and safer therapies for osteoporosis, in addition to improved diagnostic and prevention strategies, represents a serious need in the scientific community. Micro-CT image-based analyses in association with biomechanical testing have become pivotal tools in identifying osteoporosis in animal models by assessment of bo...
Article
Full-text available
Dysregulation of the inhibitory drive has been proposed to be a central mechanism to explain symptoms and pathophysiological hallmarks in schizophrenia. A number of recent neuroanatomical studies suggest that certain types of inhibitory cells are deficient in schizophrenia, including somatostatin-immunoreactive interneurons (SST+). The present stud...
Poster
Increasing evidences point to prefrontal cortex dysfunction in schizophrenia underlying cognitive disorders. Remarkable efforts are being done to understand and overcome those cognitive impairments. N-methyl D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction hypothesis has been notably successful to explain the pathophysiological findings and symptomatology...
Article
Full-text available
Azpimarratzekoa da garunak egunerokotasunean bizitako esperientziak gorde eta portaera gidatzeko informazio hori gogorarazteko duen gaitasuna. Garuneko neurona-zirkuitu espezifikoek funtzio jakinetan parte hartzen dute, bekoki aurreko kortexa eta hipokanpoa ikasketa eta oroimen prozesuetan bereziki garrantzitsuak direlarik. Are gehiago, N-metil-D-a...
Article
Full-text available
Perinatal injections of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist in rodents emulate some cognitive impairments and neurochemical alterations, such as decreased GABAergic (gamma aminobutyric acid) interneuron immunoreactivity, also found in schizophrenia. These features are pervasive, and developing neuroprotective or neurorestorative strateg...
Article
Full-text available
Exposure to an enriched environment (EE) has neuroprotective benefits and improves recovery from brain injury due to, among other, increased neurotrophic factor expression. Through these neurotrophins, important cortical and hippocampal changes occur. Vandetanib acts as a tyrosine kinase inhibitor of cell receptors, among others, the vascular endot...
Article
Full-text available
The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of author was changed from "Pascual Gargiulo" to "Pascual Ángel Gargiulo.
Article
Full-text available
Elimination of sensory inputs (deprivation) modifies the properties of the sensory cortex and serves as a model for studying plasticity during postnatal development. Many studies on the effects of deprivation have been performed in the visual cortex using dark-rearing as a visual deprivation model. It induces changes in all cellular and molecular c...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background / Purpose: Microvascular environment plays a fundamental role in the adaptive response to increases in activity, involving an increase in energy demand. To punctual increases in demand, the response is effected by changes in local flow, but if demand remains high, angiogenic process is triggered through the formation of new capillaries...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background / Purpose: Postnatal development of the visual cortex is modulated by experience, especially during the critical period. Effects of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) have been described in the neuronal, glial and vascular components of the neurogliovascular unit (1-3). In addition, VEGF is also involved in hippocampal-dependent...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background / Purpose: Microvascular environment plays a fundamental role in the adaptive response to increases in activity, involving an increase in energy demand. The response to acute increases in demand is effected by changes in local flow, but if demand remains high, angiogenic process is triggered through the formation of new capillaries fro...
Article
VEGF is the major angiogenic and vascular permeability factor in health and disease. Vascular development depends on function, and in sensory areas is experience-dependent. Our aim was to investigate, qualitatively and quantitatively, the effects of intracortical infusion and neutralisation of VEGF during the first days of the critical visual perio...
Article
Full-text available
The angiogenesis process is a key event for glioma survival, malignancy and growth. The start of angiogenesis is mediated by a cascade of intratumoural events: alteration of the microvasculature network; a hypoxic microenvironment; adaptation of neoplastic cells and synthesis of pro-angiogenic factors. Due to a chaotic blood flow, a consequence of...
Article
Full-text available
During postnatal development, sensory experience modulates cortical development, inducing numerous changes in all of the components of the cortex. Most of the cortical changes thus induced occur during the critical period, when the functional and structural properties of cortical neurons are particularly susceptible to alterations. Although the tim...
Article
Angioneurines are a family of molecules that include vascular growth factors such as VEGF, neurotrophins such as BDNF, IGF-I, and Erythropoietin, among others. They affect both neural and vascular processes. Due to the fact that all of them act over glia, we propose the term angioglioneurins to name them. They play a key role in the neurogliovascul...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background / Purpose: Trophic factors are crucial in CNS development and cell survival in adults. We have proposed the term “angioglioneurins” to define molecules acting on the three components of the neurogliovascular unit (1). Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is the major angiogenic and vascular permeability factor in health and diseas...
Article
Full-text available
Brain postnatal development is modulated by adaptation and experience. Experience-mediated changes increase neuronal activity leading to increased metabolic demands that involve adaptive changes including ones at the microvascular network. Therefore, vascular environment plays a key role in central nervous system (CNS) development and function in h...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background / Purpose: Microvascular environment plays a fundamental role in the adaptive response to increases in activity, involving an increase in energy demand. To compensate for increases in demand, the response is effected by changes in local flow, but if demand remains high, an angiogenic process is triggered through the formation of new ca...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background / Purpose: The adaptive response of the microvascular environment is crucial in meeting the requirements of the increased activity. Focal increases in blood demand are followed by modifications of local flow, but if demands persist, the supply is ensured by the angiogenesis function inducing the formation of new capillaries from pre-ex...
Article
Full-text available
A subpopulation of neoplastic cells with characteristics of stem cells has been described on human multiform glioblastomas. These cells play a pivotal role in tumour angiogenesis and malignancy being involved in infiltration of adjacent normal parenchyma. The named glial stem cells could be responsible for recurrences after surgery. This is due to...
Conference Paper
Background / Purpose: Our aim is to investigate the vascular and neuronal effects of combining VEGF infusion and environmental enrichment on the visual cortex during the initial days of the critical period. Main conclusion: Results showed that the lesion produced by a cannula implantation resulted in decreased vascular, neuronal and Caspase-3...
Article
Full-text available
Postnatal development of the visual cortex is modulated by experience, especially during the critical period. In rats, a stable neuronal population is only acquired after this relatively prolonged period. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is the most important angiogenic factor and also has strong neuroprotective, neurotrophic and neurogeni...
Conference Paper
Background / Purpose: Visual inputs deeply modulate cortical development, inducing changes in all the visual cortex components, including astrocytes which play an important role in the development, maintenance and plasticity of the cortex. Visual deprivation causes a decrease in the astroglial population, while an enriched environment increases i...
Conference Paper
Background / Purpose: VEGF is a key angiogenic factor playing a central role in neuroprotection, neurogenesis, neurorescue and neuroregeneration. Many CNS diseases might benefit from its therapeutic use although the passage of the BBB represents a major problem when searching an accurate administration way.In our present work we have tested a nov...
Conference Paper
Background / Purpose: Postnatal development of the visual cortex is modulated by experience especially during the critical period. In rats, this period is relatively prolonged before acquiring stable neuronal population. VEGF is the major angiogenic factor having also strong neuroprotective, neurotrophic and neurogenic properties. Similar effects...
Article
Full-text available
VEGF is a major angiogenic factor and also has strong neuroprotective and neurotrophic properties in pathological conditions. The same effects have been described for rats reared in an enriched environment. The present study aims to investigate the effects on final cell population of combining enriched environment (EE) and infusion of VEGF in the v...
Article
Full-text available
Brain edema in gliomas is an epiphenomenon related to blood–brain-barrier (BBB) breakdown in which endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) plays a key role. When induced by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), eNOS synthesizes nitric oxide that increases vascular permeability. We investigated the relationship between eNOS, VEGF and BBB dysfu...
Article
We investigated the effects of exogenous Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor VEGF combined with an enriched environment on BBB integrity after a minimal trauma induced during the first days of the critical visual period in rats, when peak levels of endogenous VEGF secretion are reached. VEGF was administered using osmotic mini-pumps placed in middle...
Article
Full-text available
Brain edema in gliomas is an epiphenomenon related to blood–brain-barrier (BBB) breakdown in which endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) plays a key role. When induced by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), eNOS synthesizes nitric oxide that increases vascular permeability. We investigated the relationship between eNOS, VEGF and BBB dysfu...

Network

Cited By