**Author details**

Jesús Pérez-Ortega and José Bargas\*

\*Address all correspondence to: jbargas@ifc.unam.mx

División de Neurociencias, Instituto de Fisiología Celular, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico

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42 Pathophysiology - Altered Physiological States

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Using network analysis at the microcircuit level, it is observed that the striatal microcircuit has a set of highly connected hub neurons, which communicate efficiently with different neural

gap, analysis and perspectives from the microcircuit level are necessary [43, 69].

**Figure 1.** New model of cell assemblies activation in the striatal microcircuit.


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**Section 2**

**Endocrine Pathophysiology**

**Endocrine Pathophysiology**

**Chapter 4**

**Provisional chapter**

**Transthyretin in the Evaluation of Health and Disease**

Transthyretin (also known as prealbumin) is an important transport protein, which plays an essential role in the binding of thyroid hormones and retinol with varying affinities in mammalian, as well as avian species. The determination of transthyretin concentrations may be used as a diagnostic tool for some disease conditions in humans, but is more often used as a nutritional marker to assess protein-calorie malnutrition and as prognostic indicator in critically ill patients. Transthyretin has shorter half-life (2–3 days) than that of albumin and belongs to negative acute phase proteins. This may complicate the use of transthyretin as a nutritional marker and the interpretation of results in the diagnosis of diseases. Although some studies have been carried out to determine the usefulness of transthyretin in selected disease conditions and disorders also in animals, it is a relatively rarely used parameter to evaluate health state and illness in veterinary medicine. The usefulness of transthyretin in the diagnosis of diseases and evaluation of nutritional status in humans and animals are reviewed in this article, including the laboratory assays available to measure its concentrations and the possible clinical application of the results, as well as its

**Keywords:** disease marker, nutritional state, prealbumin, serum proteins, transthyretin

Transthyretin is an important transport protein of the blood, which was originally named prealbumin because it migrates faster than albumin, and is visible as a band anodic to the main albumin fraction on electrophoretic gels [1]. According to Hamilton and Benson [2], this property is attributed to human prealbumin, not to bovine. Kaneko [3] reported that prealbumin is not always visualized on electrophoretograms and may not exist in all animal species. In the 1980s, the name was changed to transthyretin (TTR) describing its ability to bind both

usefulness as a prognostic indicator in some disease conditions.

**Transthyretin in the Evaluation of Health and Disease** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.68725

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**in Human and Veterinary Medicine**

**in Human and Veterinary Medicine**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Csilla Tóthová and Oskar Nagy

Csilla Tóthová and Oskar Nagy

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.68725

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

**Provisional chapter**
