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Screening process associated with Bioactive Properties within Dark brown Algae in the Northwest Iberian Peninsula.
Proper circadian photoentrainment is crucial for the survival of many organisms. In mammals, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) can use the photopigment melanopsin to sense light independently from rod and cone photoreceptors and send this information to many brain nuclei such as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the site of the central circadian pacemaker. Here, we measure ionic currents and develop mathematical models of the electrical activity of two types of ipRGCs M1, which projects to the SCN, and M4, which does not. We illustrate how their ionic properties differ, mainly how ionic currents generate lower spike rates and depolarization block in M1 ipRGCs. Both M1 and M4 cells have large geometries and project to higher visual centers of the brain via the optic nerve. Using a partial differential equation model, we show how axons of M1 and M4 cells faithfully convey information from the soma to the synapse even when the signal at the soma is attenuated due to depolarization block. Finally, we consider an ionic model of circadian photoentrainment from ipRGCs synapsing on SCN neurons and show how the properties of M1 ipRGCs are tuned to create accurate transmission of visual signals from the retina to the central pacemaker, whereas M4 ipRGCs would not evoke nearly as efficient a postsynaptic response. This work shows how ipRGCs and SCN neurons' electrical activities are tuned to allow for accurate circadian photoentrainment.Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) ubiquitously disturb all patients with dementia at some point in the disease course. Although a plethora of non-pharmacological and pharmacological methods targeting the relief BPSD have been developed, the therapeutic effect is still far from ideal. Here, a rat BPSD model combining the physiological changes with mental insults was successfully established. Meanwhile, our results indicated that TMP attenuated anxious behavior using an elevated plus maze (EPM) test, ameliorated recognitive ability and sociability through a novel object recognition test (NORT) and social interaction test (SIT), and improved learning and memory impairments via a Barnes maze in rats with bilateral common carotid arteries occlusion (BCCAO) plus chronic restraint stress (CRS). Given that hippocampus chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH) always causes damage to the hippocampus, and the majority of cognitive impairments, behaviors, and stress responses are associated with pathology in the hippocampus including anxiety and depression, we paid attention to investigate the role of the hippocampus in BPSD. Our results indicated that Tetramethylpyrazine (TMP) attenuated anxiety and ameliorated recognitive ability, sociability, learning, and memory impairments due to alleviating dendritic and spine deficits, and upregulating the expression of synapse-related proteins (including PSD95, SYN, GAP43, SYP) in the hippocampus. We also found that the underlying mechanism was that TMP could activate the TrkB/ERK/CREB signaling pathway to promote synaptic remodeling in vivo and in vitro. Mechanically, the present study enlarges the therapeutic scope of TMP in neurodegenerative disorders and provides basic knowledge and feasible candidates for treating BPSD, particularly for vascular dementia.Visual attention is the cognitive process that mediates the selection of important information from the environment. This selection is usually controlled by bottom-up and top-down attentional biasing. Since for most humans vision is the dominant sense, visual attention is critically important for higher-order cognitive functions and related deficits are a core symptom of many neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. Here, we summarize the importance and relative contributions of different neuromodulators and neurotransmitters to the neural mechanisms of top-down and bottom-up attentional control. We will not only review the roles of widely accepted neuromodulators, such as acetylcholine, dopamine and noradrenaline, but also the contributions of other modulatory substances. In doing so, we hope to shed some light on the current understanding of the role of neurochemistry in shaping neuron properties contributing to the allocation of attention in the visual field.Tissue pathology in multiple sclerosis (MS) is highly complex, requiring multi-dimensional analysis. In this study, our goal was to test the feasibility of obtaining high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) metrics through single-shell modeling of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data, and investigate how advanced measures from single-shell HARDI and DTI tractography perform relative to classical DTI metrics in assessing MS pathology. We examined 52 relapsing-remitting MS patients who had 3T anatomical brain MRI and DTI. Single-shell HARDI modeling yielded 5 sub-voxel-based metrics, totalling 11 diffusion measures including 4 DTI and 2 tractography metrics. Based on machine learning of 3-dimensional regions of interest, we evaluated the importance of the measures through several tissue classification tasks. These included two within-subject comparisons lesion versus normal appearing white matter (NAWM); and lesion core versus shell. Further, by stratifying patients as having high (above 75% ile ) and lritical for improved understanding of MS pathology.Connectivity within the human connectome occurs between multiple neuronal systems-at small to very large spatial scales. Independent component analysis (ICA) is potentially a powerful tool to facilitate multi-scale analyses. However, ICA has yet to be fully evaluated at very low (10 or fewer) and ultra-high dimensionalities (200 or greater). The current investigation used data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) to determine the following (1) if larger networks, or meta-networks, are present at low dimensionality, (2) if nuisance sources increase with dimensionality, and (3) if ICA is prone to overfitting. Using bootstrap ICA, results suggested that, at very low dimensionality, ICA spatial maps consisted of Visual/Attention and Default/Control meta-networks. At fewer than 10 components, well-known networks such as the Somatomotor Network were absent from results. At high dimensionality, nuisance sources were present even in denoised high-quality data but were identifiable by correlation with tissue probability maps. Artifactual overfitting occurred to a minor degree at high dimensionalities. Basic summary statistics on spatial maps (maximum cluster size, maximum component weight, and average weight outside of maximum cluster) quickly and easily separated artifacts from gray matter sources. Lastly, by using weighted averages of bootstrap stability, even ultra-high dimensional ICA resulted in highly reproducible spatial maps. These results demonstrate how ICA can be applied in multi-scale analyses, reliably and accurately reproducing the hierarchy of meta-networks, large-scale networks, and subnetworks, thereby characterizing cortical connectivity across multiple spatial scales.Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal progressive neurodegenerative disease involving the upper and lower motor neurons of the spinal cord, brainstem, and cerebral cortex. At least 30 genes have been implicated in familial ALS (fALS) and sporadic ALS (sALS). Kaneb et al. (2015) first carried out a large-scale sequencing study in ALS patients and identified two loss-of-function (LOF) variants in the GLE1 gene. The LOF mutation-induced disruption of RNA metabolism through the haploinsufficiency mechanism is implicated in ALS pathogenesis. A total of 628 ALS patients and 522 individuals without neurodegenerative disorders were enrolled in this study to explore the GLE1 gene contribution to ALS in the Chinese population. All 16 exons and the flanking intron of GLE1 were screened by Sanger sequencing. In total, we identified seven rare GLE1 coding variants, including one novel nonsense mutation and six rare missense mutations in 628 ALS patients. The frequency of GLE1 LOF mutations was 0.16% (1/628) among Chinese sALS patients, implying that it is an uncommon genetic determinant of ALS in Chinese patients. Additionally, the rare missense variants in the hCG1-binding domain of GLE1 impairing the distribution of the hGle1B isoform at the nuclear pore complex (NPC) region may be involved in the pathogenesis of ALS.Introduction The objective of our study was to evaluate musical perception and its relation to the quality of life in patients with bimodal binaural auditory stimulation. Materials and Methods Nineteen adult patients with a cochlear implant (CI) for minimum 6 months, and moderate to severe contralateral hearing loss with a hearing aid (HA), and 21 normal hearing adults were included in this prospective, cross-sectional study. Pure-tone and speech audiometry, musical test evaluating sound perception characteristics and musical listening abilities, Munich questionnaire for musical habits, and the APHAB questionnaire were recoded. Performance in musical perception test with HA, CI, and HA + CI, and potential correlations between music test, audiometry and questionnaires were investigated. Results Bimodal stimulation improved musical perception in several features (sound brightness, roughness, and clarity) in comparison to unimodal hearing, but CI did not add to HA performances in texture, polyphony or musical emotion and even appeared to interfere negatively in pitch perception with HA. Musical perception performances (sound clarity, instrument recognition) appeared to be correlated to hearing-related quality of life (APHAB RV and EC subdomains) but not with speech performances suggesting that the exploration of musical perception complements speech understanding evaluation to better describe every-day life hearing handicap. Conclusion Testing musical sound perception provides important information on hearing performances as a complement to speech audiometry and appears to be related to hearing-related quality of life.This study aims to identify explanatory factors to increase the agricultural performance of Brazilian and Australian sugarcane mills. The relevance of Brazil and Australia for the sugar industry motivated the development this study based on the most important factors in both countries responsible for increasing the efficiency in sugarcane production. Thus, this study is designed to assess the hypothesis that there are a few explanatory variables that are deeply responsible for the agricultural efficiency in the sugar-energy sector. KU-55933 chemical structure As a specific objective, it proposes a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) model that seeks to optimize the production of Total Recoverable Sugar (TRS) by planted area, and simultaneously, minimizes mineral and vegetable impurities. The sample consists of 82 observations from 32 sugarcane mills. An agricultural efficiency study was performed using the two-stage DEA, in which the evaluated mills according to the level of efficiency in the proposed model. Then, a Multiple Linear Regressi managers to make decisions and prioritize the aspects that contribute more significantly to the increase in agricultural productivity of the planted area.Pollution by microplastics is of increasing concern due to their ubiquitous presence in most biological and environmental media, their potential toxicity and their ability to carry other contaminants. Knowledge on microplastics in freshwaters is still in its infancy. Here we reviewed 150 investigations to identify the common methods and tools for sampling microplastics, waters and sediments in freshwater ecosystems. Manta trawls are the main sampling tool for microplastic separation from surface water, whereas shovel, trowel, spade, scoop and spatula are the most frequently used devices in microplastic studies of sediments. Van Veen grab is common for deep sediment sampling. There is a need to develop optimal methods for reducing identification time and effort and to detect smaller-sized plastic particles.
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