We addressed the hypothesis that intraplantar Botulinum toxin B (rimabotulinumtoxin B: BoNT-B) has an early local effect upon peripheral afferent terminal releasing function and over time will be transported to the central terminals of the primary afferent. Once in the terminals it will cleave synaptic protein, block spinal afferent transmitter release and thereby prevent spinal nociceptive excitation and behavior. In mice, C57Bl/6 males, intraplantar BoNT-B (1U), given unilaterally into the hind paw had no effect upon survival or motor function but ipsilaterally decreased: i) intraplantar formalin evoked flinching; ii) intraplantar capsaicin evoked plasma extravasation in the hindpaw measured by Evans blue in the paw; iii) intraplantar formalin evoked dorsal horn SP release (NK1 receptor internalization); iv) intraplantar formalin evoked dorsal horn neuronal activation (cFos); v) ipsilateral DRG VAMP; vi) ipsilateral SP release otherwise evoked bilaterally by intrathecal capsaicin; vii) ipsilateral activation of cFos otherwise evoked bilaterally by intrathecal substance P. These results indicate that BoNT-B after unilateral intraplantar delivery is taken up by the peripheral terminal, is locally active (blocking plasma extravasation), is transported to the ipsilateral DRG to cleave VAMP and is acting presynaptically to block release from the spinal peptidergic terminal. The observations following intrathecal SP offer evidence for a possible transsynaptic effect of intraplantar BoNT. These results provide robust evidence that peripheral BoNT-B can alter peripheral and central terminal release from a nociceptor and attenuate downstream nociceptive processing via a presynaptic effect, with further evidence suggesting a possible postsynaptic effect.

Beta-amyloid (Ab) depresses excitatory synapses by a poorly understood mechanism requiring NMDA receptor (NMDAR) function. Here, we show that increased PSD-95, a major synaptic scaffolding molecule, blocks the effects of Ab on synapses. The protective effect persists in tissue lacking the AMPA receptor subunit GluA1, which prevents the confounding synaptic potentiation by increased PSD-95. Ab modifies the conformation of the NMDAR C-terminal domain (CTD) and its interaction with protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), producing synaptic weakening. Higher endogenous levels or overexpression of PSD-95 block Ab-induced effects on the NMDAR CTD conformation, its interaction with PP1, and synaptic weakening. Our results indicate that increased PSD-95 protects synapses from Ab toxicity, suggesting that low levels of synaptic PSD-95 may be a molecular sign indicating synapse vulnerability to Ab. Importantly, pharmacological inhibition of its depalmitoylation increases PSD-95 at synapses and rescues deficits caused by Ab, possibly opening a therapeutic avenue against Alzheimer's disease.

Pruriceptive itch originates following activation of peripheral sensory nerve terminals when pruritogens come in contact with the skin. The ability of botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) to attenuate transmitter release from afferent terminals provides a rationale for studying its effect on pruritus. This study investigated the effects of BoNT/A1 and BoNT/B1 on mast cell dependent (Compound 48/80:48/80) and independent (Chloroquine:CQ) scratching. C57Bl/6 male mice received intradermal injection of 1.5 U of BoNT/A1, BoNT/B1 or saline 2, 7, 14 and 21 days prior to ipsilateral 48/80 or CQ at the nape of the neck. Ipsilateral hind paw scratching was determined using an automated recording device. The effect of BoNTs on 48/80 mediated mast cell degranulation was analyzed in human and murine mast cells and the presence of SNAREs was determined using qPCR, immunostaining and Western blot. Pre-treatment with BoNT/A1 and BoNT/B1 reduced 48/80 and CQ induced scratching behavior starting on day 2 with reversal by day 21. Both serotypes inhibited 48/80 induced mast cell degranulation. qPCR and immunostaining detected SNAP-25 mRNA and protein, respectively, in mast cells, however, Western blots did not. This study demonstrates the long-lasting anti-pruritic effects of two BoNT serotypes, in a murine pruritus model using two different mechanistically driven pruritogens. These data also indicate that BoNTs may have a direct effect upon mast cell degranulation.

Recently researchers have proposed using deep learning-based systems for malware detection. Unfortunately, all deep learning classification systems are vulnerable to adversarial attacks where miscreants can avoid detection by the classification algorithm with very few perturbations of the input data. Previous work has studied adversarial attacks against static analysisbased malware classifiers which only classify the content of the unknown file without execution. However, since the majority of malware is either packed or encrypted, malware classification based on static analysis often fails to detect these types of files. To overcome this limitation, anti-malware companies typically perform dynamic analysis by emulating each file in the antimalware engine or performing in-depth scanning in a virtual machine. These strategies allow the analysis of the malware after unpacking or decryption. In this work, we study different strategies of crafting adversarial samples for dynamic analysis. These strategies operate on sparse, binary inputs in contrast to continuous inputs such as pixels in images. We then study the effects of two, previously proposed defensive mechanisms against crafted adversarial samples including the distillation and ensemble defenses. We also propose and evaluate the weight decay defense. Experiments show that with these three defensive strategies, the number of successfully crafted adversarial samples is reduced compared to a standard baseline system without any defenses. In particular, the ensemble defense is the most resilient to adversarial attacks. Importantly, none of the defenses significantly reduce the classification accuracy for detecting malware. Finally, we demonstrate that while adding additional hidden layers to neural models does not significantly improve the malware classification accuracy, it does significantly increase the classifier's robustness to adversarial attacks.

Pruritus, the sensation of itch, which evokes reflex scratching behavior, has a diverse etiology. Because of its clinical significance, mechanisms of pruriception are an important topic. In the present work we describe and validate a paw motion detector (PMD) system. The system employs a small removable metal band placed on one hind paw that provides a signal indicative of paw movement through perturbation of an electromagnetic (EM) field. C57Bl/6 mice were fitted with a unilateral hind paw band and adapted to testing cylinders equipped with EM signal emission and detection. The following observations were made: 1) in mice, unilateral SQ injection of 48/80 into the dorsolateral aspect of the neck evoked periodic high frequency bursts of scratching at the injected site with the ipsilateral (banded) but not the contralateral (not banded) hind paw. 2) Cross correlation between PMD and human observer counts after SQ 48/80 using the specified computational algorithm revealed a highly significant correlation. 3) SQ histamine and 48/80 over a 1 hour interval produced dose dependent scratching, which diphenhydramine dose dependently reversed. Chloroquine scratching displayed an inverse u-shaped dose response curve, which was insensitive to diphenhydramine. 4) SQ 48/80 at intervals over 28 days showed no change in the scratching response within the same cohort of mice. 5) Power analysis showed 40% changes in scratching activity could be detected at the p<0.05 level with groups of 4 mice. These observations indicate that the system described can efficiently define the actions and pharmacology of pruritogenic agents.