Our findings show that male (but not female) rats, made smaller by being suckled in a large XL184 in vivo litter, show reduced anxiety-related behaviour compared with those from normal litters when tested in the elevated plus maze. These smaller males also have attenuated activation of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus in response to the psychological stress, restraint, and corticosterone

responses to restraint that return more quickly to baseline than controls. These findings are exciting from the perspective of understanding and potentially exploiting the body’s inherent stress-inhibitory mechanisms to treat overactive responses to stress. They also provide an indication that being lean may be able to ameliorate overactive stress responses. Understanding the mechanisms by which these stress responses are attenuated VE-822 mouse in lean animals will be important for future strategies to treat diseases associated with overactive HPA axes in humans. (C)

2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Recently, we showed that the circulating levels of insulin-related peptides and the secretory granule protein chromogranin A were increased in small cohorts of first onset schizophrenia patients. Assuming that this effect was associated with impaired insulin signalling, we investigated the possibility that secretion of other hormones is also affected in schizophrenia. Multiplex immunoassay analysis of 21 hormones and hormone-related molecules was carried out using sera from 236 first and recent onset schizophrenia patients and 230 matched controls. Serum concentrations of insulin and chromogranin A were increased in schizophrenia Dipeptidase subjects, consistent with our previous study. In addition, we found elevated concentrations of pancreatic polypeptide, prolactin, progesterone and cortisol, and decreased levels of growth

hormone. We also found that growth hormone levels were decreased in post-mortem pituitaries obtained from chronic schizophrenia patients. It will be important to determine whether any of these molecules are involved in the pathosphysiology of schizophrenia or if they reflect the associated insulin resistance. We conclude that function of multiple components of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-gonadal axis may be affected in schizophrenia. This could have important implications for future biomarker discovery efforts and personalized medicine strategies based on patient stratification for the treatment of this debilitating disorder. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“The promotion of membrane fusion by most paramyxoviruses requires an interaction between the viral attachment and fusion (F) proteins to enable receptor binding by the former to trigger the activation of the latter for fusion.