Morphological and molecular basis of the central nervous system and its pathologies

Lectures
CNS organization; Neurons, Ganglia and Nerves (2 hours)
Internal capsule and ventricles; Willis circulatory system (1 hour)
CNS: Brain and cortical areas, pons, midbrain, diencephalon, basal ganglia, cerebellum (3 hours)
Neurotransmitters and neuromodulators of the SNC. Spinal cord (1 hour)
Ascending pathways, somatosensory systems. Descending pathways, motor systems (1 ora)
Development of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. (1 hour)
Neurogenic areas in the brain (1 hour)
Gene regulation of neurogenesis, differentiation of neural progenitors. (1 hour)
The neurogenic niche. Engrafting and homing of neural progenitorsi. Neuro-phenotype-related experiments using knock -out mice (2 hours)
Sympathetic System (1 hour),
Paraympathetic System (1 hour),
Enteric (1 hour);
Neuroendocrine: Hypotalamus, Pituitary and Pineal glands (2 hours);
Action Potentials and nervous transmission. Myelinization and salutatory transmission (2 hours)
Synapsis. Neuro-muscular junctions; Eccitatoty and inhibitory Neurotransmitters, Reuptake (3 hours)

Practical training
Microscopy session on Neurons, Ganglia and Nerves (2 hours)
Microscopy session on Neural tissue sections (2 hours)
Microscopy session on Spinal cord (C3;T2,L4) (2 hours)
Confocal images of Pituitary and Pineal glands (2 hours)
Microscopy session on Sciatic Nerve (2 hours)
Gap junctions and Synapsis (2 hours)
Data acquisition and analysis from confocal images (2 hours)
Data acquisition and analysis from MRI images (2 hours)

LECTURES
Lecture 1: ageing
Lecture 2: Brain inflammation
Lecture 3: Muscular Dystrophy
Lecture 4: Prion diseases
Lecture 5: Alzheimer disease
Lecture 6: Parkinson disease
Lecture 7: Multiple Sclerosis

PRACTICES
Histopathology of the main brain and Peripheral nervous tissue
Purification and activation of blood monocytes as model for working with brain mononuclear cells