Conferrence attendance "46th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Neurochemistry" in Atlanta, GA, USA from March 14-18, 2015. Abstract: Astrocytes are an abundant type of glial cells in the brain. They form tight connections with synapses (tripartite synapse), contain glycogen and provide for homeostasis in the CNS. It was shown recently that extracellular space is changing diurnally, which likely involves noradrenergic signaling. Extracellular space regulation may in part be due to adrenergic control of astrocyte shrinkage, as observed during adrenergic activation of cycling AMP, a second messenger, monitored by FRET nanosensor measurements. Astrocyte shape changes may also be modulated by vesicles, which play a role in cell-to-cell communication as in astrocytic antigen presentation in neuroinflammatory states. During this process astrocytes become reactive. They overexpress intermediate filaments, which augment the cytoplasmic traffic of vesicles to the plasma membrane, enhancing the probability of fusion of these vesicles with the plasma membrane. In this lecture the results of how adrenergic activation of astrocytes modulates cytoplasmic calcium excitability, and how this relates to release of gliotransmitters, astrocyte volume changes, and energy provision in the CNS will be presented. Hence optical measurements of gliotransmitter release, astrocyte morphology changes, and changes in second messengers (cAMP, calcium) and metabolites (glucose, lactate) in response to adrenergic activation were conducted in single astrocytes. Adrenergic receptor regulation of astrocytes may have profound effects on neural network activity in health and neurologic disorders, including trauma, neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, and neurodevelopment disorders.
B.04 Guest lecture
Renewal of accreditation certificate LK-024 by Slovenian Accreditation December 2, 2014.
D.05 Laboratory accreditation
Contribution to the discussion at nanosymposium "Physiology of Glia-Neuronal Interactions". Lectures in the context of this nanosymposium also dealt with metabolic aspect of astrocytes within the central nervous system.
F.35 Other