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MODERADOR
Prof. Doutor La Fuente Carvalho
Hospital de Santo António
Presidente da Sociedade Portuguesa de Andrologia
COMENTADOR
Dr. Joaquim Lindoro
Hospital Padre Américo
Prof. ARGIOLAS’s brief CV
ANTONIO ARGIOLAS is full professor
of Physiologic Psychology, and Dean of the School of Psychology of
the University of Cagliari. He works in the Department of
Neuroscience of the University of Cagliari since 1975, when the
Department of Neuroscience was called Institute of Pharmacology of
the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. He worked for three years as
a visiting associate in the National Lung, Blood and Heart
Institute, National Institutes of Health a Bethesda (USA). His
scientific activity is documented by more than 160 articles, the
majority of them published in international scientific journals.
These articles can be divided in 4 groups organized in 4 principal
research themes:
1) function of dopaminergic systems
in different physiological and pharmacological conditions;
2) identification of bioactive
peptides from natural sources;
3) role of neurotransmitters and
neuropeptides in the control of erectile function and sexual
behavior, and
4) neurohypophyseal peptides in the
thymus gland.
The last 20 years articles belong
almost all to the 3rd line of research and revealed a key role of
oxytocinergic transmission and of nitric oxide at the level of the
paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) in the control
of penile erection and sexual behavior in physiological conditions.
During previous Nationally Relevant Research Projects as national
coordinator (1997, 2000 and 2005) and a national FIRB 2001
research project all granted by the Italian Ministry of the
University and Research, studies made in the Research Unity
directed by prof. Argiolas, two new classes of peptides (one
endogenously present in the central nervous system) were
characterized for their ability to induce penile erection when
injected into the PVN. Also these peptides (growth hormone
secretagogues and peptides derived from VGF protein) induce
erectile response by activating oxytocinergic neurotransmission at
the PVN level.
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