Chronic upper limb pain is rather common among people in general and is characterized by a complex diagnosis due to the wide variety of factors that are involved in its development. In terms of treatment, pharmacology and manual therapy have classically been the most used options. However, based on current evidence, recommendations are more inclined to apply multimodal treatments, mainly with exercise therapy and pain education, based on the patient-centered care model. This case report details the evaluation and treatment of a 23-year-old woman with chronic upper limb pain using a multimodal physical therapy with a biobehavioral approach. The intervention lasted 12 weeks with a total of 9 sessions, in which manual therapy, therapeutic exercise, pain neuroscience education, motion representation methods, and sensory retraining were applied. The treatment resulted in a substantial improvement in the patient’s health condition. This case report indicates that a multimodal physical therapy treatment based on a biobehavioral approach may offer benefits in reducing pain symptoms and enhancing somatosensory, motor-functional, and affective-cognitive abilities in patients with chronic upper limb pain, as observed in the described case. Accordingly, this treatment can be a therapeutic option for patients with chronic upper limb pain.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death and disability in industrialized countries. The estimated costs of stroke to the healthcare system are $85 billion in the United States and $40 billion in the European Union. Despite the extensive research over the past decades, only therapies aimed at restoring blood flow to the affected area have been successful. However, the high risk of causing intracranial hemorrhage limits the application of this type of therapy to a small number of patients. Several studies have shown that, in addition to its well-known regulatory function in erythropoiesis, erythropoietin (EPO) is a potent neuroprotective agent against ischemic stroke. However, the use of EPO to treat stroke requires long-term protocols, high doses, and multiple administrations, which may cause thromboembolic complications due to increased hematocrit and blood viscosity, making EPO treatment unsuitable. To mitigate these adverse effects, various EPO analogues with neuroprotective properties but lacking erythropoietic activity have been investigated. This review aims to provide an overview of the protective mechanisms of EPO and its derivatives in the treatment of stroke.

Similar to other psychiatric disorders, drug addiction is linked to changes in neuronal activity within the mesolimbic system, which consists of dopamine (DA) neurons of the ventral tegmental area projecting to the ventral part of the striatum, the nucleus accumbens (NAc). All drugs of abuse indeed artificially increase DA concentration in the NAc, which hijacks the reward system and triggers lasting behavioral alterations, including compulsive drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior despite negative consequences and a high rate of relapse after abstinence. DA chiefly signals through DA receptor (DAR) type 1 (D1R) and type 2 (D2R), which are G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that are positively and negatively coupled to adenyl cyclase, respectively. Multiple evidence indicates that the potent modulatory roles of DA on other neurotransmitters and neuromodulator systems implicate the direct physical interactions (i.e., heteromerization) of DAR with other receptors. DAR heteromerization, which is increased in several preclinical models of psychiatric disorders, leads to a reciprocal and fine-tuned modulation of DAR and partner receptors, therefore suggesting that targeting DAR heteromerization may contribute to the development of clinically relevant strategies. Herein, we provide an overview of current methodologies used for detecting receptor heteromers both in heterologous systems and in situ in the brain and discuss their respective advantages and limitations. We also argue that D1R and D2R have been shown to form heteromers with multiple partner receptors in heterologous systems but only few studies were able to a provide proof of their existence in the brain or establish their biological roles. This review will emphasize on studies describing the modulation and functions of DAR heteromerization in the brain in preclinical models of psychiatric disorders, with a particular focus on addiction, a field in which those heteromerization processes have been the most extensively studied.

Neurodegenerative diseases are a complex ensemble of ailments characterized by progressive neuronal deterioration and ultimate loss, resulting in drastic impairments of memory, cognition and other brain functions. These incapacitating conditions are challenging for the public health system worldwide, with unfortunately no real cure and lack of efficient drugs capable of delaying or reversing these diseases. In this context, the endocannabinoid system and exogenous cannabinoids represent an interesting field of research due to numerous studies highlighting the neuroprotective effect of cannabinoids from different sources, i.e., endogenous, phytocannabinoids, and synthetic cannabinoids. This review highlights the multilayered effects of cannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system to block the progression of neurodegeneration and minimize the deleterious effects of insults that affect the brain. We illustrate examples showing that the main effects of cannabinoids modulate different components of the brain response to these insults at the level of three major mechanisms involved in neurodegeneration: neuroinflammation, excitotoxicity, and oxidative stress.