Antipsychotics represent the mainstay of schizophrenia pharmacological therapy, and their role has been expanded in the last years to mood disorders treatment. Although introduced in 1952, many years of research were required before an accurate picture of how antipsychotics work began to emerge. Despite the well-recognized characterization of antipsychotics in typical and atypical based on their liability to induce motor adverse events, their main action at dopamine D2R to elicit the \"anti-psychotic\" effect, as well as the multimodal action at other classes of receptors, their effects on intracellular mechanisms starting with receptor occupancy is still not completely understood. Significant lines of evidence converge on the impact of these compounds on multiple molecular signaling pathways implicated in the regulation of early genes and growth factors, dendritic spine shape, brain inflammation, and immune response, tuning overall the function and architecture of the synapse. Here we present, based on PRISMA approach, a comprehensive and systematic review of the above mechanisms under a translational perspective to disentangle those intracellular actions and signaling that may underline clinically relevant effects and represent potential targets for further innovative strategies in antipsychotic therapy.

Early-life adversity (ELA) causes long-lasting structural and functional changes to the brain, rendering affected individuals vulnerable to the development of psychopathologies later in life. Immediate-early genes (IEGs) provide a potential marker for the observed alterations, bridging the gap between activity-regulated transcription and long-lasting effects on brain structure and function. Several heterogeneous studies have used IEGs to identify differences in cellular activity after ELA; systematically investigating the literature is therefore crucial for comprehensive conclusions. Here, we performed a systematic review on 39 pre-clinical studies in rodents to study the effects of ELA (alteration of maternal care) on IEG expression. Females and IEGs other than cFos were investigated in only a handful of publications. We meta-analyzed publications investigating specifically cFos expression. ELA increased cFos expression after an acute stressor only if the animals (control and ELA) had experienced additional hits. At rest, ELA increased cFos expression irrespective of other life events, suggesting that ELA creates a phenotype similar to naïve, acutely stressed animals. We present a conceptual theoretical framework to interpret the unexpected results. Overall, ELA likely alters IEG expression across the brain, especially in interaction with other negative life events. The present review highlights current knowledge gaps and provides guidance to aid the design of future studies.

BACKGROUND: Ethanol addiction has been conceptualized as a progression from occasional, impulsive use to compulsive behavior. Ethanol-dependence is a chronic pathology with repeated cycles of withdrawal, craving, and relapse. Specific molecular and cellular mechanisms underlie these transition stages.
METHODS: This review aimed at elucidating whether there are also adaptations in the pattern of brain regions responding to ethanol. This paper reviews the evidence in rodents for activation of specific brain regions, assessed by induction of IEG expression, following acute and chronic ethanol exposure.
RESULTS: The review sheds light on the specific patterns of response in regions of the brain to different types of ethanol exposure and shows that activation of specific brain regions may occur in particular phases of the development of ethanol addiction. Some brain regions respond consistently following acute or chronic treatments or withdrawal: the prefrontal cortex; nucleus accumbens; lateral septum; hippocampus; perioculomotor urocortin-containing cells population (pIIIu), also known as Edinger-Westphal nucleus; central nucleus of the amygdala; and the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus. The two last brain areas are particularly activated by relapse-inducing stressors. It is of interest that the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, which belong to the reward system, are activated by cue-induced relapse to ethanol self-administration in rodents and humans, while activation of these regions is reversed with anti-craving compounds. Following chronic exposure, IEG induction desensitizes while withdrawal reactivates these regions.
CONCLUSIONS: Some responding regions are implicated in reward related processes (VTA, extended amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, prelimbic cortex, ventral part of lateral septum) and some others in aversive-related processes (area postrema, nucleus of solitary tract).
CONCLUSIONS: A better understanding of the neural circuits affected by ethanol and their adaptations during the development of ethanol addiction will provide new opportunities for developing appropriate therapies.

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The characterization of the molecular correlates of sleep and wakefulness is essential to understand the restorative processes occurring during sleep and the cellular mechanisms underlying sleep regulation. In order to determine what molecular changes occur during the sleep-waking cycle, we have recently performed a systematic screening of gene expression in the brain of sleeping, sleep deprived, and spontaneously awake rats. Out of the approximately 10,000 genes screened so far, a small minority ( approximately 0.5%) was differentially expressed in the cerebral cortex across behavioral states. Most genes were upregulated in wakefulness and sleep deprivation relative to sleep, while only a few were upregulated in sleep relative to wakefulness and sleep deprivation. Almost all the genes upregulated in sleep, and several genes upregulated in wakefulness and sleep deprivation, did not match any known sequence. Known genes expressed at higher levels in wakefulness and sleep deprivation could be grouped into functional categories: immediate early genes/transcription factors, genes related to energy metabolism, growth factors/adhesion molecules, chaperones/heat shock proteins, vesicle and synapse-related genes, neurotransmitter/hormone receptors, neurotransmitter transporters, enzymes, and others. Although the characterization of the molecular correlates of sleep, wakefulness, and sleep deprivation is still in progress, it is already apparent that the transition from sleep to waking can affect basic cellular functions such as RNA and protein synthesis, neural plasticity, neurotransmission, and metabolism.

Two-hundred and four cases of peripheral T cell lymphoma (PTCL) occurring in Europeans without any sign of HIV-infection were investigated for their association with an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was applied for EBV-DNA detection, in situ hybridisation (ISH) for the cellular localization of EBV-encoded small nuclear RNA (EBER) and immediate early gene expression (BHLF) and immunohistology (IH) for the detection of EBV-encoded latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) and EBV nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA2) expression. PCR and EBER-ISH produced congruent results in almost all cases with amplifiable DNA, leading to the finding of an overall frequency of EBV presence in 87/204 (42.6%) of the PTCL cases. Through EBER-ISH, the virus was identified to be exclusively present in small and blastic bystander lymphocytes in 29 cases, whilst an additional infection of neoplastic T cells was observed in the remaining 58 EBV-positive cases. The entity presenting with the most frequent EBV infection of tumour cells was that of angioimmunoblastic type PTCL, whilst the primary cutaneous PTCLs only seldom harbored the virus. Forty-eight of the EBV-positive TCLs showed an infection of a small proportion (1-20%) of the tumour cell population, whilst another ten cases, belonging to the pleomorphic TCL (PMTCL) group, displayed an infection of several to almost all neoplastic T cells (20-100%). Additional lytic EBV-infected cells could be detected in four cases by BHLF-ISH. LMP1 expression was present in a small proportion of the neoplastic T cells in 24 of the 58 cases with tumour cell infection, whilst an EBNA2 expression was detectable only in one case. Some non-malignant EBV-infected B-immunoblasts and Hodgkin/Reed Sternberg-like cells also expressed LMP1 in several cases. Our data imply a role of EBV in the pathogenesis of only a few PMTCL cases with predominant tumour cell infection, whilst the pathogenic significance of an EBV infection in the other PTCLs remains unclear due to the usually partial infection of the neoplastic cell component.