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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder, characterized by loss of memory and impairment of multiple cognitive functions. Amyloid beta peptide (AP) is the main component of amyloid plaques observed in the brain of individuals affected by AD. Oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, induced by Ap, are among the earliest events in AD, triggering neuronal degeneration and cell death. Use of natural molecules with antioxidant properties could be a suitable strategy for inhibiting the cell death cascade. Here, by employing the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus as a model system, and Ag oligomers, we tested the effectiveness of ferulic acid (FA), a natural antioxidant, as a putative AD neuroprotective compound. By microscopic inspection we observed that FA is able to reverse morphological defects induced by AP oligomers in P. tividus embryos. In addition, FA is able to neutralize reactive oxygen species (ROS), recover mitochondrial membrane potential, and block apoptotic pathways. Moreover, this model system has allowed us to obtain information about down- or up-regulation of some key molecules--Foxo3a, ERK, and p53--involved in the antioxidant mechanism., Introduction Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the deposition both of extracellular amyloid beta peptide (Aβ) and intracellular neurofibrillar tangles (NFT). These hallmarks have been associated with [...]

Consolidation of long-term memory requires the activation of several transduction pathways that lead to post-translational modifications of synaptic proteins and to regulation of gene expression, both of which promote stabilization of specific changes in the activated circuits. In search of the molecular mechanisms involved in such processes, we used the context-signal associative learning paradigm of the crab Chasmagnathus. In this model, we studied the role of some molecular mechanisms, namely cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA), extracellular-signal-regulated kinase (ERK), the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) transcription factor, and the role of synaptic proteins such as amyloid β precursor protein, with the object of describing key mechanisms involved in memory processing. In this article we review the most salient results obtained over a decade of research in this memory model., Context-signal memory in the crab Chasmagnathus, an invertebrate model for learning and memory studies The development of memory models in different species, and particularly in invertebrates such as molluscs and [...]