Sanjay N. Awathale

• Assistant Professor at SVKM Institute of Pharmacy Dhule

Although tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) plays an important role in the development of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), the pathogenesis remains unclear. Since transient receptor potential melastatin 3 (TRPM3) channels are activated during inflammatory conditions, crosstalk with TNF-α in the progression of OCD has not been investigated yet....

Purpose of Review Spexin (SPX), also known as neuropeptide Q, is a 14-amino acid-containing neuropeptide. This review aims to summarize current knowledge on the expression and functions of SPX and its receptors, highlighting its physiological and pathological roles, and therapeutic potential in neuropsychiatric and metabolic conditions. Additionall...

The role of nitrergic system in modulating the action of psychostimulants on reward processing is well established. However, the relevant anatomical underpinnings and scope of the involved interactions with mesolimbic dopaminergic system have not been clarified. Using immunohistochemistry, we track the changes in neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNO...

The inability to extinguish learned fear is a hallmark of trauma- and stress-related disorders. A form of inhibitory learning called fear extinction is an effective way to treat these disorders. However, the neurobiology of fear extinction has not been clarified. The involvement of a dopaminergic pathway from the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the...

Strategies drawn at understanding the functional attributes of specific neural circuits often necessitate electrical stimulation and pharmacological manipulation at the same anatomical site. We describe a simple, inexpensive and reliable method to fabricate a bipolar electrode-cannula assembly for delivery of electric pulses and administration of n...

Coincident excitation via different sensory modalities encoding objects of positive salience is known to facilitate learning and memory. With a view to dissect the contribution of visual cues in inducing adaptive neural changes, we monitored the lever press activity of a rat conditioned to self-administer sweet food pellets in the presence/absence...

Neuropeptide cocaine‐ and amphetamine‐regulated transcript (CART) is known to influence the activity of the canonical mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway and modulate reward seeking behaviour. CART neurons of the lateral hypothalamus (LH) send afferents to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and paraventricular thalamic nucleus (PVT) and these nuclei, in...

Reward induces activity-dependant gene expression and synaptic plasticity-related changes. Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 (LSD1), a key enzyme driving histone modifications, regulates transcription in neural circuits of memory and emotional behavior. Herein, we focus on the role of LSD1 in modulating the expression of brain derived neurotrop...

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Federation of Neurology have reported a tremendous increase in neurological disorders over the last four decades. Cognitive dysfunction is one of the major neurological disorders which compromises intellectual thinking, understanding, grasping, perceiving, responding, logical reasoning, and arithmet...

Background Anger is one of the primary emotions that profoundly impacts our daily life. Although the neural basis of anger needs to be explored on high priority, the field has not sufficiently advanced, perhaps due to the lack of a suitable animal model. New method We fabricated arenas in which the hungry rat can see and smell food but can not con...