Clinical studies show that physical exercise has anxiolytic and pro-cognitive properties for both healthy individuals and psychiatric patients. Most of these data refer to the effects of aerobic exercise. However, other modalities such as resistance exercise deserve more attention because they may also modulate brain function. This study aimed to compare the effects of an aerobic exercise protocol on a treadmill and a resistance exercise protocol on a ladder apparatus on anxiety-like behavior, cognitive flexibility, and neuroplasticity parameters in healthy animals. Adult male Wistar rats were divided into three groups: sedentary control, aerobic training, and resistance training. Subsequently, they were evaluated in the elevated plus-maze (EPM), light-dark box, and modified hole board (mHB) tests. The expressions of synaptophysin and postsynaptic plasticity protein 95 in the dorsal and ventral hippocampus were analyzed by immunofluorescence. The results demonstrated an anxiolytic effect promoted by exercise in the EPM, particularly in the animals submitted to aerobic training, and a mild pro-learning effect of both exercise modalities was observed in the mHB test. All groups showed similar outcomes in the other evaluations. Therefore, the exercise modalities investigated in the present study did not provide considerable modifications to such aspects of the emotional/cognitive functions and neuroplasticity under physiological contexts. Perhaps the two types of exercise acted in neurobiological pathways not analyzed in this study, or the effects may emerge under pathological contexts. These hypotheses should be tested in future studies.

The Zika Virus (ZIKV) is a Flavivirus that caused a recent outbreak worldwide resulting in different neurological outcomes that are still poorly characterized and understood. Concerning this issue, in vitro and in vivo models are being applied to improve the molecular understanding of ZIKV infection. In this work, applying shotgun proteomics we revealed the differential ZIKV infection proteome in Vero cells, a non-neural cell model. A dramatic change resulting from infection was found including the differential expression of several proteins previously associated with brain diseases. The molecular alterations caused by this pathogen were further characterized through bioinformatics such as Gene Ontology and protein-protein interaction network of resulting differential proteome. Our findings identified molecular markers that were differentially expressed during ZIKV infection and had been previously linked to neurological conditions and infections caused by ZIKV and/or SARS-CoV-2. The results presented in this article highlight molecular markers associated with neurological dysfunctions, demonstrating that ZIKV infection can dysregulate neural-specific genes, even in non-neural cells.

Cryptococcosis is a serious fungal infection mainly caused by two Cryptococcus species, Cryptococcus gattii and Cryptococcus neoformans species complexes. Even though it is considered a dangerous disease, this infection is also neglected worldwide and its research is not adequately funded. The molecular understanding of the infection, which could help in the development of specific treatments and appropriate management, is hampered, as molecular data are not of easy access. With that purpose, our group developed a Cryptococcus molecular database, grouping published molecular data on gene and protein differential expression that occurred due to the infection. CRYPTOMICSDB presents a user-friendly interface, and users can search for both pathogen or host information and visualize data on experimental approaches, animal models or cell culture, Cryptococcus species and strain, genes and proteins. The database features 19,462 and 986,507 total genes related to the pathogen and host views, respectively. CRYPTOMICSDB is a powerful tool that can help health workers and microbiology researchers to better understand the molecular impact caused by cryptococcosis infection process.

Recently, Rio Grande do Sul (RS), the southernmost state of Brazil, was struck by a historical flood, affecting almost 2.4 million people and 478 out of 497 cities ( Davies & O´Regan 2024 ). It is already considered the main natural disaster in the state’s history and one of the biggest ones in Brazil. This event was not an isolated case, and definitely climate change has played a role. Governments must promptly respond to these dramatic events by strengthening environmental policies and regulations, increasing biodiversity preservation, and recovering degraded areas.