[ via : CHEESYCAM.com ]
AVAILABLE HERE: P&C.com: U$ 65.00
… and HERE ON eBAY
Latest Headlines
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New MONOCHROM LEICA – yes a monochrome ONLY!
– on May 19, '12 @ 2:55:36 pm – said in: cameras, Leica, photography
[ via : DPREVIEW.com ]
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Feature backed on Kickstarter with PAUL SCHRADER (Taxi Driver) directing!
– on May 18, '12 @ 1:26:45 pm – said in: production
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VeriCorder app that KEN CAVANAUGH mentioned!
– on May 18, '12 @ 12:34:43 pm – said in: APPLE, iPhone + apps
[ via: VERICORDER.COM site ] – BUT DO LOOK AT BOTTOM VIDEO!!!
and microphone listening review. Oddly with VeriCorder mic ~$20 and a remarkably cheap $10 one from Brando. BUT IMHO the VeriCorder one is good.
and this is excellent for maybe STREETFOOD.TV ?????
AND IT HAS EXTENSION CORDS! Scroll down eBay page.
- LINK: AVAILABLE on eBay for U$111.99 !!!
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Rycote Tac!T XLR Cable has 18dB Per Octave Roll Off Beginning at 60Hz:
The Tac!T (pronounced ‘Tass-it’) is a 45cm ultra-flexible Mogami cable with high-quality gold-pin XX-series Neutrik XLR connectors at either end. What makes it stand out is its integral third-order filter. With a steep 18dB-per-octave roll-off beginning at 60Hz, the Tac!T passes most wanted audio in a location recording environment completely unaffected, but filters out virtually all wind and handling noise, as well as floor-transmitted vibrations.
The filter, which is not switchable and is carefully designed to fit inside the cable’s Neutrik connectors, is fed from standard microphone phantom power without compromising the supply to the microphone, and is electronically symmetrical, so as not to disturb balanced mic circuitry. Its buffered circuitry ensures that its performance is consistent for almost all phantom-powered microphones and preamplifiers in general use.
Tac!T FILTER TYPICAL PERFORMANCE
Signal loss
0dB @ 1kHz,
-3dB @ 63Hz,
-40dB @ 14Hz
Introduced noise (22Hz -22kHz) – 1.5dB
Max signal level +3dBu (
SPECIFICATIONS
Cable Length: 45cm (18″)
Cable diameter: OD 4.8 mm
Connectors: Neutrik® XX series, XLRm3* to female XLRf3, Black casing, gold pins
Cable Type: Ultra flexible Mogami® W2893 star-quad cable
Please see Rycote for more on the Tac!T.
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“Induro is Bringing Out the Most Versatile Hi-Hat You’ve Ever Used” … yeah right! Great idea but waaay too much promo!
[ via : NO FILM SCHOOL.com ]
Posted by “Joe Marine” :
You don’t always need a hi-hat, but when you do, you really need it. Hi-hats are great for low angle shots or when you need a traditional tripod head but don’t have the room to maneuver long legs. At NAB this year, Induro introduced an innovative hi-hat that can not only withstand over 200 lbs., but has feet with holes that allow it to be mounted almost anywhere. I talked with Louie Lu about the hi-hat.
Says Louie Lu from MAC Group:
This is one of those products that has actual production people in mind when it is being designed. Not only can this guy take literally any camera that’s currently being produced, but it has an accessory arm for all sorts of different purposes. The mounting options for this hi-hat are endless, and if the proper suction cup adapters could be developed for the feet, I could see this being a great car mount. What’s interesting about this product is that the design actually came out of having to support long lenses for stills shooting – so if you wanted to use it for that purpose it would certainly do the job.
The Induro DR Hi-Hat LFB100s will be released sometime this year and will retail for $280.
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645 PRO app for iPhone offers access to lossless camera output (but not Raw)
– on May 9, '12 @ 9:51:42 am – said in: APPLE, iPhone + apps, photography
[ via : DPREVIEW.com ]
and http://jag.gr/2012/04/24/645-pro-image-quality-how-good/
Apr 20, 2012 at 19:51:57 GMT
App developer Jag.gr has launched 645 PRO, a flexible photography and processing app that provides access to the lossless output of the iPhone’s camera. The company grabs the processed camera output before the phone compresses it, and saves it as a TIFF file. These files, which it slightly optimistically calls ‘Developed Raw,’ can then be accessed via iTunes. The app also offers a series of features such as spot metering and exposure, focus and white balance lock, as well as a series of film simulation options and aspect ratio options, but it’s the uncompressed output that is, as far as we are aware, unique.
As well as uncompressed output, PRO 645 offers a good degree of control over the iPhone’s camera.
Until now, the vast majority (if not all) of iPhone apps apply their image processing to images that have already been compressed as a JPEG, with the reduced processing latitude that brings. The processed images produced by most app are then subjected to a second compression step at the end of the process.
PRO 645 intercepts the camera data after it’s been initially processed (demosaiced and with processing parameters such as white balance and sharpening applied), but before the phone compresses it. This file can be be saved as a TIFF (presumably 8-bit), alongside a JPEG version with whichever of the app’s image manipulations you’ve chosen to apply. These JPEGs are also much less compressed than the iPhone’s default compression, which is usually the starting point for most apps (equivalent to the maximum quality option in Photoshop, the developer claims).
Even without this access to the best-possible quality output from your iPhone, the app also offers a range of useful photographic features such as a live histogram, spot metering and the ability to independently lock exposure, focus and white balance, to give a high level of control over the images you’re capturing. The only downside is that the TIFF output has to be accessed via iTunes, but it’s still an interesting step forward for occasions when the camera you have with you is your iPhone.
645 PRO is available from the Apple App Store for $2.99, and we’re hoping to review it in the coming weeks.
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“Why Steve Jobs always wore a black turtleneck”
– on May 2, '12 @ 3:39:40 pm – said in: APPLE
Ever wonder why Steve Jobs always wore a black mock turtleneck and jeans? Thanks to his upcoming biography, Steve Jobs
On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Jobs asked Sony’s chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company’s factories wore uniforms. He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. “I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple,” Jobs recalled.
Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, “I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.”
In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. “So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them.” Jobs noticed my surprise when he told this story, so he showed them stacked up in the closet. “That’s what I wear,” he said. “I have enough to last for the rest of my life.”
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The Hobbit footage sucks!?
– on Apr 30, '12 @ 11:41:19 pm – said in: stuff
[ via : THE MOVIE HOLE.com ]
CinemaCon audience react negatively to sneak peek!
By : PHOEBE GALLAGHER (Wednesday, April 25th, 2012 at 1:57 am)
Warner Bros showed off some footage from “The Hobbit”, director Peter Jackson’s highly-anticipated “Lord of the Rings” prequel, at CinemaCon in Vegas today.
The response? Mixed at best, apparently.
Jackson screened 10 minutes from the film, showing off what he believes to be the next big thing in filmmaking – the format of 48 frames per second.
It’s that new technology, which many said watered down the cinematic look of the film, the drew the lukewarm response.
Collider says : ” I’ll admit the footage is such a radical change from what I expected, it’s going to polarize audiences. The first thing to know is that the actual Hobbit footage looks brilliant. The ten minutes that Jackson showed us featured Bilbo and Gollum getting ready to play a riddle game, plenty of Gandalf, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, the Dwarves and the group walking across mountaintops, plenty of action, and many other returning faces. Also, the 3D looked great and the new 48fps drastically reduces eye strain. That’s the good news.
The bad news is the 48fps is so jarring that I’m not sure casual moviegoers will enjoy it. While I figured the image quality would improve at 48fps, it’s like looking at real life on a movie screen and not in a good way. You no longer have motion blur. You no longer can hide stuff in the darkness. While watching Bilbo fight the trolls (which looked great), it looked like nothing I’ve ever seen projected on a movie screen. Granted the visual effects weren’t done and the lighting wasn’t finalized, but it was such a change that by the end of the presentation, I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch the entire movie in this new 48fps format. This is definitely not what I expected to say. Ultimately, it just didn’t look cinematic and it sort of looked like HD TV. Perhaps shooting at 48fps and then projecting at 24fps will solve my issues. Who knows.”
First Showing says : ” The entirety of CinemaCon has been buzzing since seeing The Hobbit about how bad, or how awkward, it looked. 48FPS is a big change, a drastic change from the 80 years of 24FPS footage, that we’re used to, and it will take a while to get into it. But I noticed problems where it seemed like movement was running at double the speed as the rest of the footage, even though it was all in sync. It was odd, even awkward, and a bit weird to see, and a bit weird to get into. But was it just unfinished, raw footage? Will it look better finished by December?”
The Wrap says : ” Based on the buzz that accompanied the exit from the Caesar’s Palace theater, at least some theater owners and film bloggers were unimpressed. It should be said that much of the footage Jackson screened still needed effects work – some of it had green screens in the background – but the impact was more Spanish telenovela than “Avatar.”
There will be plenty for fans to savor. However, the richness of Jackson’s imagery, while beautiful, was marred because the 48 frames made each scene too crisp, if that’s possible. It looked more real, in fact — too real. Instead of an immersive cinematic experience, Middle Earth looked like it was captured as part of a filmed stage play.”
Bad Ass Digest says : ” As the presentation started I gasped. The footage began with sweeping helicopter shots of mountains, and it was like I was floating over them myself. It looked stunning (this was also in 3D, by the way) and I truly felt like I was seeing something new, something that would redefine the theatrical experience. And then the rest of the footage played. I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain to you why this footage looked bad. First it’s worth noting that the CinemaCon honchos bragged that their projection system in that theater was the most advcanced and best ever assembled by man. That’s almost a direct quote. So the presentation would almost certainly never be better than what I saw today.
Second, I must say that it’s possible there will be lots of post-production work done to offset some of the lighting issues. I also assume that the few ‘complete’ scenes we saw will continue to be edited before release. With those caveats out of the way, here’s what The Hobbit looked like to me: a hi-def version of the 1970s I, Claudius. It is drenched in a TV-like – specifically 70s era BBC – video look. People on Twitter have asked if it has that soap opera look you get from badly calibrated TVs at Best Buy, and the answer is an emphatic YES.
The 48fps footage I saw looked terrible. It looked completely non-cinematic. The sets looked like sets. I’ve been on sets of movies on the scale of The Hobbit, and sets don’t even look like sets when you’re on them live… but these looked like sets.
The other comparison I kept coming to, as I was watching the footage, was that it all looked like behind the scenes video. The magical illusion of cinema is stripped away completely.”
The L.A Times says : ” An opening aerial shot of dramatic rocky mountains appeared clearer than the images in most nature documentaries. But the effect was different when applied to scenes with actors dressed in period costume, whose every move — and pore — was crystal clear.”
“It looked like a made-for-TV movie,” said one projectionist, who requested anonymity because of his affiliation with a competing studio. “It was too accurate — too clear. The contrast ratio isn’t there yet — everything looked either too bright or black.”
So… looks too real, like a badly calibrated TV set? Doesn’t look like the big, sweeping epic that it should? Not one favorable response from anyone leaving the theater!? Yes, I think there’s going to be some big meetings happening at WB this week!
Warner Bros also screened snippets from “The Dark Knight Rises” and “The Great Gatsby”, both got a much more rousing response from the attendees. Still, this doesn’t fare well for the first of the two-part “Hobbit” movie series, especially considering it’s one of the most anticipated – or was – movies of the year! Ouch!
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Ligh Illusion GAMMA CURVES / LUT’s – I bought it for Canon 7D 5D) etc.
UPDATE: I’ve been in touch with Light Illusions requesting the download link which has yet to arrive despite being paid for 8-)
GAMMA CURVES (Canon EOS)
The selection of curves provided by Light Illusion attempt to maximise the capture capabilities of the Canon EOS cameras, enabling the most to be made of the images in later post-production, and are based on the very successful Sony Gamma Curves, also from Light Illusion.
Compatible Canon cameras are any that are EOS Picture Style compatible, including:
While there are limits as to the amount of improvement that can be made with these cameras, using in-camera Gamma Curves helps a lot as they are applied to the image as it is read from the image sensor, pre-compression, and so the advantages are obvious.
Canon Default Settings (no Gamma Curve or LUT applied)
THERE IS MUCH, MUCH …
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Supposedly … “The Simplest, Fastest Interview Lighting Setup—Ever.” … kinda
– on Apr 15, '12 @ 6:15:21 pm – said in: lighting
[ via : PROVIDEO COALITION.com ]
do READ ON THERE IS MUCH MORE INVOLVED… a VERY useful read.
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Time for … LEICA
– on Apr 10, '12 @ 11:38:13 pm – said in: Leica
And now for definitive (IMHO) ideas for our future… 8-)
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BEHIND THE SCENES: Smoke in the Woods with the Canon 5D – MUST READ!
[ via : PROVIDEO COALITION.com ]
AT BOTTOM OF STORY ALSO SEE LUT’s FROM UK coy LIGHT ILLUSION’s CUSTOM GAMMA CURVES – ONLY UK £29.00 ; ~ AU$ 44.68 – BEAUTIFUL!
Where there’s smoke there’s fire… or a production company shooting a PSA for a non-profit. This is how you create a high-end look on a budget.
When production companies ask me to shoot spots on the Canon 5D MkII I don’t flinch anymore. Sure, it’s not the most user friendly camera in the world, but I can’t complain about the images I can make with it. And no one else does, either.
In this case, half the battle was putting the camera in the right place at the right time—and quickly. It was the perfect camera for a small, fast-moving project.
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INTUOS – 5 TOUCH … worth getting for you!
– on Apr 9, '12 @ 8:58:43 pm – said in: stuff
[ via : PROVIDEO COALITION.com ]
Product Review: Wacom Intuos5 Touch
Jeff Foster | 04/05
A great new tool and workflow for compositors/roto artists & video editors!
Wacom hits another home-run with this innovative and user-friendly pen tablet and touch-sensitive input device. You can greatly reduce the need of a mouse and keyboard for general editing and compositing/roto/paint workflow with custom Express Keys, stylus controls and finger-input gestures directly on the surface.
Comparing the Intuos5 Touch to the Intuos4 Wireless
When sitting the Intuos4 Wireless side-by-side with the new Intuos5 Touch, you can immediately see the differences in …
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Stop-Motion / Animation in AutoDesk SMOKE … maybe AE could do it?
– on Apr 9, '12 @ 8:41:47 pm – said in: animation, DV, VFX & plugins
[ via : PROVIDEO COALITION.com ]
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LENSES – Matthew Duclos … re RED / SCARLET — MUST READ!
– on Mar 30, '12 @ 1:27:49 pm – said in: Scarlet
UPDATED: Orig published 12.12.2012 – RE-DATED TODAY!
[ via: MATTHEW DUCLOS ]
Click pic to see more of this little beauty … <sigh> and know of the lens tests with RED EPIC!
… but there is more! THE COMPLETE LENS TEST follows
Portland Lens Test 2011 !!!!!!!!!!!
On December 10, 2011 Indent Studios organized a lens test that was very eye opening and educational for all that attended. I feel fortunate that I could partake in making it a successful event. :) With the release of “affordable” cameras like the Epic-X, Scarlet, C300, and F3 (among many others) everyone is wondering what “affordable” lens package they should invest in, or rent for their camera. Indent Studios organized this event to use 3 Epic-X’s to shoot with 7 sets of lenses and find out the answer. After handling the lenses, and reviewing the footage we all came across some surprising results.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Text version of the following story HERE.
Scroll down and see images in this story!
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SONY NEX-FS100 – big appraisal DO READ!
- I just happened to see this in the ADAM WILT ProVFideo Coalition blog. Doesn’ t come much better than Adam for serious technical appraisal. But you / GREY’s mileage may vary.
TOP PICTURE connects to a GOOD REVIEW.
MIDDLE PICTURE connects to ACCESSORIES STORY
BOTTOM PICTURE an excellent LENS ARTICLE incl ZEISS – MUST READ whole article.
See what you think & notably for GREY…
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iPHONE dock – raised highest Kickstarter amount – $1,464,706 of $75,000 goal
– on Mar 14, '12 @ 11:24:12 am – said in: APPLE, iPhone + apps
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GO PRO stuffs …
BLACK and other colours available.
About U$30 + shipping
And more… INTERESTING THINGS HERE
LCD BacPac U$80 + shipping from GoPro.
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Great artistic idea… many pics. Love it.
– on Mar 12, '12 @ 2:13:49 pm – said in: art
[ via : VISUALNEWS.com ]
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binkyinbombay.com …. 8-) … or is it bombaybinky.com / .in
[ via : CREATIVE PLANET.com & VISUALNEWS.com - ]
UPDATE : – found a GREAT INSTRUCTABLE HERE on how to make a dog harness … otherwise read on…
A guy in South Africa has created a music video which is basically our idea – GoPro on a dog. Soooo here it is
He’s keeping the rig a ‘secret’ (no replies on Vimeo to show it) and I found a brief comment explaining it. read on…
“A music video I made for Johnny Neon after my friend, Will asked me to look after his dog for the weekend. Shot on GoPro with a custom built rig from soccer shin guard and an H-harness.”
Johnny Neon ‘Hearts’ from Dave Meinert on Vimeo.
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ZEISS — CP.2 vs ZF.2 from Matthew Duclos ABSOLUTELY MUST READ (pls…)
[ via : MATTHEW DUCLOS ] – Circle of Confusion Blog
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“It’s In The Blood” – doco on UK gypsies ‘Travellers’ — MUST READ
[via : HD Magazine.com ]
© ClearStory Ltd / Leo Maguire
Documentary maker and stills photographer Leo Maguire spent many months gaining the trust of a group of travellers in order to make a reality show for broadcast. His Canon 5D MkII wasn’t ever going to be used for such a task so he started looking for a replacement which he found in a new camera from Sony, the NEX FS100E.
True Stories: Gypsy Blood aired on British Television earlier this month to a Twitter storm mainly as a result of its depiction of Traveller’s kids. Scenes of under tens smashing several bells out of each other didn’t sit well with the Twitterati but then they had missed the point.
Director, documentary maker, stills photographer and now videographer Leo Maguire’s achievement was to be there in the first place shooting the kids. The documentary was the culmination of a more than gentle persuasion to let him film, in fact less than that, he had started one frame at a time with his Canon 5D Mark II stills camera. He went from stills to recording video with the same camera which was enough to win himself a commission for a full programme.
The problems really started once he had the green light, one of them was using the Canon stills camera in a documentary way. With it’s limitation of time or space recordings (after 12 minutes or 4GB it stops recording) using it was a non starter but Leo needed something that was as portable and as ‘invisible’ to his subjects along with the depth of field effects which everyone uses the 5D for…
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IN-frickin-SANE …
– on Mar 10, '12 @ 11:54:30 pm – said in: camera, DV, stuff, VIO-POV_HD
[ via: VIO-POV HD.com ]
– yeah this is the camera I like for GoPro-style shooting. And GoPro’s too – don’t get me wrong 8-)!
Same driver – MADS ØSTERBERG – different day … OH THAT SUBARU WRX – kinda!
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Western Union Webisodes – must read.
– on Mar 10, '12 @ 12:03:07 am – said in: projects, shorts, viral, web-series
[ via : CREATIVE PLANET NETWORK.com ]
Santa Monica-based editorial house Beast, a subsidiary of Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, took on an unusual project for Western Union. Beast directed and edited the six-week online campaign "World of Betters," which brought global music icons together to ask the question, "What would you do with $1,000 to make someone's day better?"
Alicia Keys' "World of Betters" Livestream Highlights
Trouble seeing the video above? Click here.
The campaign consisted of a series of celebrity-hosted events that took place throughout the world last October through December and were streamed live online. Each celebrity—including Alicia Keys, Snoop Dog, John Legend, Somali-born singer K'naan, Bollywood sensation Sunidhi Chauhan and rapper Pitbull—hosted a live video stream in a different city. The shows celebrated the "spirit of giving" and were sponsored by Western Union, whose money-wiring business is still quite healthy despite the demise of the telegram.
Beast chief creative officer Igor Kovalik played a pivotal role in the project, directing the events in New York, Mumbai, Paris, Johannesburg and Miami, as well as editing and co-directing the pre-built packages designed to be used as B-roll during each 60-minute live event.
Pitbull's "World of Betters" Livestream Highlights
Trouble seeing the video above? Click here.
The campaign generated many touching moments. One of the most poignant took place during the New York event. Singer Alicia Keys surprised students at her old high school, the Professional Performing Arts School, during their rendition of her hit "Empire State of Mind." Her appearance electrified the students as she encouraged them to "continue to learn as much as you can learn and give back."
Beast worked in conjunction with agency 180 Amsterdam and production company The Bridge.co on the undertaking. Kovalik had collaborated previously as editor with The Bridge.co's Bill Boyd (producer) and Michael Jurkovac (who acted as co-director on the packages) on a number of projects, including music videos and a live online presentation for the band Linkin Park. Venus Brown of Stone Buddah Music played a significant role in putting the artists together. Director of photography Brandon Cox oversaw the shooting of the roll-in packages and the live events.
Paris "World of Betters"
Trouble seeing the video above? Click here.
The extensive undertaking involved new challenges for Kovalik, who would show up at each location (along with three or four camera operators using Canon EOS 5D DSLRs) to create all the B-roll and interviews and other elements unique to each specific city. After shooting, he would edit clips together in Apple Final Cut Pro 7 on his laptop and have them ready for the live online event. The team had about two days lead-up in each location to accomplish everything in time for the live event. "The workflow was crazy," Kovalik says. "It was totally guerilla filmmaking. We would be transcoding to ProRes 422 and cutting all night and shooting again all the next day.
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Beast's Igor Kovalik at the live event in Miami
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"It helped that I was one of the directors of these B-roll packages, though," he explains. "As a director, I knew exactly what I needed for the edit; as an editor, I knew precisely what had been shot. It would have been almost impossible to do this with a more traditional work method, where a director hands footage off to an editor. I can definitely see editors being more engaged and taking on more of this kind of creative role in the future as these types of viral campaigns become more common."
The team made use of a NewTek TriCaster for the live online presentations. Up to six cameras, mostly Sony PMW-EX3s, were patched into the TriCaster, and all the packages Kovalik had put together were preloaded onto the unit's DVR. "We could cue everything up and switch live," says Kovalik, who subsequently built short cut-downs of each of the events. (Highlights from all of the live streams can be viewed at www.worldofbetters.com/events.) "It all went very well."
Kovalik believes that this kind of alternative approach to marketing is going to become significantly more common in the future. "Agencies are trying to find different ways of piquing interest in what they're doing," he says. And as the kinds of productions are changing, he observes, so too are traditional roles.
"We editors have already ventured out of our comfortable edit rooms as the technology has allowed us to become more mobile," Kovalik says. "I think these kinds of productions are the next evolution in the idea of the 'mobile editor.' We can be more involved than ever before in the creative process."
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Invisible Mercedes Drives Around Germany
[ via : CREATIVE PLANET NETWORK.com ]
Mercedes Benz is promoting its experiments with F-Cell hydrogen technology via a viral campaign involving an invisible car. The driver's side of the automobile was fitted with mats of LED lights displaying images captured from the passenger side of the vehicle by a Canon 5D Mark II, making the car appear see-through as it drove through Germany.
Every so often the LED lights would display a text reading "Invisible to the environment. F-CELL with 0.0 emissions." F-Cell technology burns hydrogen fuel and only emits water vapor. The campaign was developed at Jung von Matt/Elbe, Hamburg. Watch below. (via Inspiration Room)
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[ via : ZEE NEWS INDIA.com ]
Washington: In a study conducted on rats, scientists have uncovered a neural mechanism that directly links repeated stress with impaired memory.
The study also provides critical insight into why stress responses can act as a trigger for many mental illnesses.
Stress hormones are known to influence the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a brain region that controls high level “executive” functions such as working memory and decision making.
“Previous work has shown that chronic stress impairs PFC-mediated behaviours, like mental flexibility and attention. However, little is known about the physiological consequences and molecular targets of long-term stress in PFC, especially during the adolescent period when the brain is more sensitive to stressors,” explained Dr. Zhen Yan, from the State University of New York at Buffalo and the author of the study.
Dr. Yan and colleagues examined whether repeated stress had a negative influence on glutamate receptors in juvenile rats.
Glutamate signaling plays a critical role in PFC function.
They found that in response to repeated stress, there was a significant loss of glutamate receptors, which resulted in a deficit of PFC-mediated cognitive processes.
The researchers went on to identify the molecular mechanisms that linked stress with the decrease in glutamate receptors and demonstrated that if they blocked these mechanisms, the stress-induced decrease in both glutamate receptors and recognition memory could be prevented.
Taken together, the findings identify a loss of glutamate receptors as an important target of repeated stress and link chronic stress with abnormal PFC function.
“Since PFC dysfunction has been implicated in various stress-related mental disorders, delineating molecular mechanisms by which stress affects the PFC should be critical for understanding the role of stress in influencing the disease process,” concluded Dr. Yan.
The findings were published by Cell Press in the current issue of the journal Neuron.
ANI
First Published: Thursday, March 08, 2012, 13:55
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Some interesting links…
– on Mar 3, '12 @ 8:08:36 pm – said in: Project_Ideas
