Proceedings of the 13th annual conference of INEBRIA

CITATION: Watson, R., et al. 2016. Proceedings of the 13th annual conference of INEBRIA. Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, 11:13, doi:10.1186/s13722-016-0062-9.The original publication is available at https://ascpjournal.biomedcentral.comENGLISH SUMMARY : Meeting abstracts.https://ascpjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13722-016-0062-9Publisher's versio

Impact of a purported nootropic supplementation on measures of mood, stress, and marksmanship performance in U.S. active duty soldiers

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of a commercially available purported nootropic supplement on mood, stress, and rifle marksmanship accuracy and engagement time via an Engagement Skills Trainer. METHODS: In this double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 43 U.S. active duty Soldiers participating in a professional military course were assigned to treatment (n = 20; 16 males and 4 females) or placebo (n = 23; 15 males and 8 females) based on initial marksmanship score. The study period was 31 days (testing performed on days 1 and 31, supplementation days 2 through 30). Participants were instructed to consume 2 pills at breakfast and 1 pill at dinner for a total of 3 pills per day (1925 mg) of either the Alpha Brain® nootropic supplement or a placebo. Height, weight, cortisol (in a hair sample), body composition using multi-frequency tetrapolar bioelectrical impedance (InBody 720), and marksmanship (Engagement Skills Trainer 2000). Marksmanship was assessed in the prone position with zeroed M-4 rifles with a twenty target protocol with targets presenting and remaining for 3 s at set intervals. Participants’ performance were assessed with hits versus misses, distance of hit from target center mass (DCM), and target engagement speed. Statistical analysis via SPSS Statistics 21 (IBM) was conducted using a repeated measures ANOVA with significance set at P < 0.5. RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference between Treatment and Placebo for hits (TreatmentPre 18.5 ± 1.5, TreatmentPost 19.4 ± 0.8, PlaceboPre18.2 ± 2.9, PlaceboPost19.4 ± 1.3), initial reaction time in seconds (TreatmentPre 1.65 ± 0.28, TreatmentPost 1.43 ± 0.28, PlaceboPre1.59 ± 0.29, PlaceboPost1.41 ± 0.21), mean reaction time in seconds (TreatmentPre 1.60 ± 0.20, TreatmentPost 1.41 ± 0.16, PlaceboPre1.61 ± 0.51, PlaceboPost1.46 ± 0.56), or distance from center mass in centimeters (TreatmentPre 11.28 ± 4.28, TreatmentPost 11.92 ± 4.23, PlaceboPre10.52 ± 5.29, PlaceboPost10.94 ± 4.64). A significant time effect (P < 0.5) was found for both groups on all variables except distance from center mass. Reaction time values were adjusted to give percent decrease for initial reaction and mean reaction for the Treatment group (− 12.3% ± 16, − 15.2% ± 21.6) compared to the Placebo group (− 8.3% ± 21.8, − 12.5% ± 23.5), but no significant difference was found. CONCLUSION: The Alpha Brain® nootropic supplement did not have any statistically significant effects on marksmanship performance in this study. Given the rising popularity of nootropic supplements, future research on their potential impact on cognitively demanding soldier tasks, such as target discrimination scenarios, are recommended

Eukaryote-Conserved Methylarginine Is Absent in Diplomonads and Functionally Compensated in Giardia

Methylation is a common posttranslational modification of arginine and lysine in eukaryotic proteins. Methylproteomes are best characterized for higher eukaryotes, where they are functionally expanded and evolved complex regulation. However, this is not the case for protist species evolved from the earliest eukaryotic lineages. Here, we integrated bioinformatic, proteomic, and drug-screening data sets to comprehensively explore the methylproteome of Giardia duodenalis-a deeply branching parasitic protist. We demonstrate that Giardia and related diplomonads lack arginine-methyltransferases and have remodeled conserved RGG/RG motifs targeted by these enzymes. We also provide experimental evidence for methylarginine absence in proteomes of Giardia but readily detect methyllysine. We bioinformatically infer 11 lysine-methyltransferases in Giardia, including highly diverged Su(var)3-9, Enhancer-of-zeste and Trithorax proteins with reduced domain architectures, and novel annotations demonstrating conserved methyllysine regulation of eukaryotic elongation factor 1 alpha. Using mass spectrometry, we identifymore than 200methyllysine sites in Giardia, including in species-specific gene families involved in cytoskeletal regulation, enriched in coiled-coil features. Finally, we use known methylation inhibitors to show that methylation plays key roles in replication and cyst formation in this parasite. This study highlights reduced methylation enzymes, sites, and functions early in eukaryote evolution, including absent methylarginine networks in the Diplomonadida. These results challenge the view that arginine methylation is eukaryote conserved and demonstrate that functional compensation of methylarginine was possible preceding expansion and diversification of these key networks in higher eukaryotes