Increased Resting-State Perfusion after Repeated Encoding Is Related to Later Retrieval of Declarative Associative Memories

Electrophysiological studies in animals have shown coordinated reactivation of neuronal ensembles during a restricted time period of behavioral inactivity that immediately followed active encoding. In the present study we directly investigated off-line processing of associative memory formation in the human brain. Subjects' regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) as a surrogate marker of neural activity during rest was measured by MR-based perfusion imaging in a sample of 14 healthy male subjects prior to (Pre2) and after (Post) extensive learning of 24 face-name associations within a selective reminding task (SR). Results demonstrated significant Post-Pre2 rCBF increases in hippocampal and temporal lobe regions, while in a control comparison of two perfusion scans with no learning task in-between (Pre2-Pre1) no differences in rCBF emerged. Post perfusion scanning was followed by a surprise cued associative recall task from which two types of correctly retrieved names were obtained: older names already correctly retrieved at least once during one of the SR blocks, and recent names acquired during the last SR block immediately prior to the Post scan. In the anterior hippocampus individual perfusion increases were correlated with both correct retrievals of older and recent names. By contrast, older but not recently learned names showed a significant correlation with perfusion increases in the left lateral temporal cortex known to be associated with long-term memory. Recent, but not older names were correlated with dopaminergic midbrain structures reported to contribute to the persistence of memory traces for novel information. Although the direct investigation of off-line memory processing did not permit concomitant experimental control, neither intentional rehearsal, nor substantial variations in subjects' states of alertness appear to contribute to present results. We suggest that the observed rCBF increases might reflect processes that possibly contribute to the long-term persistence of memory traces

Quantum transport on two-dimensional regular graphs

We study the quantum-mechanical transport on two-dimensional graphs by means of continuous-time quantum walks and analyse the effect of different boundary conditions (BCs). For periodic BCs in both directions, i.e., for tori, the problem can be treated in a large measure analytically. Some of these results carry over to graphs which obey open boundary conditions (OBCs), such as cylinders or rectangles. Under OBCs the long time transition probabilities (LPs) also display asymmetries for certain graphs, as a function of their particular sizes. Interestingly, these effects do not show up in the marginal distributions, obtained by summing the LPs along one direction.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure, acceted for publication in J.Phys.

The nature of the short wavelength excitations in vitreous silica: X-Rays Brillouin scattering study

The dynamical structure factor (S(Q,E)) of vitreous silica has been measured by Inelastic X-ray Scattering varying the exchanged wavevector (Q) at fixed exchanged energy (E) - an experimental procedure that, contrary to the usual one at constant Q, provides spectra with much better identified inelastic features. This allows the first direct evidence of Brillouin peaks in the S(Q,E) of SiO_2 at energies above the Boson Peak (BP) energy, a finding that excludes the possibility that the BP marks the transition from propagating to localised dynamics in glasses.Comment: 4 pages, 3 Postscript figures. To appear in Physical Review Letter

Molecular epidemiology, phylogeny, and phylodynamics of CRF63_02A1, a recently originated HIV-1 circulating recombinant form spreading in Siberia

The HIV-1 epidemic in Russia is dominated by the former Soviet Union subtype A (A(FSU)) variant, but other genetic forms are circulating in the country. One is the recently described CRF63_02A1, derived from recombination between a CRF02_AG variant circulating in Central Asia and A(FSU), which has spread in the Novosibirsk region, Siberia. Here we phylogenetically analyze pol and env segments from 24 HIV-1 samples from the Novosibirsk region collected in 2013, with characterization of three new near full-length genome CRF63_02A1 sequences, and estimate the time of the most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) and the demographic growth of CRF63_02A1 using a Bayesian method. The analyses revealed that CRF63_02A1 is highly predominant in the Novosibirsk region (81.2% in pol sequences) and is transmitted both among injecting drug users and by heterosexual contact. Similarity searches with database sequences combined with phylogenetic analyses show that CRF63_02A1 is circulating in East Kazakhstan and the Eastern area of Russia bordering China. The analyses of near full-length genome sequences show that its mosaic structure is more complex than reported, with 18 breakpoints. The tMRCA of CRF63_02A1 was estimated around 2006, with exponential growth in 2008-2009 and subsequent stabilization. These results provide new insights into the molecular epidemiology, phylogeny, and phylodynamics of CRF63_02A1.We thank the personnel at the Genomic Unit of Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Majadahonda, Madrid, Spain, for technical assistance in sequencing, and Bonnie Mathieson, from the Office of AIDS Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland for her support of this study. This work was funded by Office of AIDS Research, National Institutes of Health, through the training program “Molecular Epidemiology of HIV-1 in Eastern Europe and Its Significance for Vaccine Development.”S

Results of multidisciplinary survey in the Laptev Sea in August-September, 2015

Data on oceanographic conditions and species composition of plankton, benthic and demersal fish and invertebrates are presented, obtained in the complex survey over the external shelf of the Laptev Sea in August-September 2015. The zooplankton abundance was low, with only local increases up to 400 mg/m3. Species diversity of fish and nekton invertebrates in the bottom trawl catches was low, too: 26 fish species and 2 species of cephalopods. Mean biomass of fish was estimated as 4.3 t/km2 (in total 132. 103 t within the surveyed area of 30,500 km2). All fish species were distributed sparse. Arctic cod was the most abundant and occurred over the whole surveyed area, with large-sized fish dominating at the bottom and medium-sized (9-15 cm) fish - in the pelagic layer, other commercial species were greenland halibut and deepwater redfish caught on the continental slope. Bottom invertebrates in trawl catches were presented by 6 species of shrimp and 12 taxonomic groups of different rank, with predominance of starfish, brittle stars and sponges; gastropods were represented by 11 species, with Neptunea heros dominating by mass (42 %). Macrobenthos in samples of the bottom sampler was presented by 20 taxonomic groups, with predominance of polychaetes, bivalves and sipunculoids

The long-time dynamics of two hydrodynamically-coupled swimming cells

Swimming micro-organisms such as bacteria or spermatozoa are typically found in dense suspensions, and exhibit collective modes of locomotion qualitatively different from that displayed by isolated cells. In the dilute limit where fluid-mediated interactions can be treated rigorously, the long-time hydrodynamics of a collection of cells result from interactions with many other cells, and as such typically eludes an analytical approach. Here we consider the only case where such problem can be treated rigorously analytically, namely when the cells have spatially confined trajectories, such as the spermatozoa of some marine invertebrates. We consider two spherical cells swimming, when isolated, with arbitrary circular trajectories, and derive the long-time kinematics of their relative locomotion. We show that in the dilute limit where the cells are much further away than their size, and the size of their circular motion, a separation of time scale occurs between a fast (intrinsic) swimming time, and a slow time where hydrodynamic interactions lead to change in the relative position and orientation of the swimmers. We perform a multiple-scale analysis and derive the effective dynamical system - of dimension two - describing the long-time behavior of the pair of cells. We show that the system displays one type of equilibrium, and two types of rotational equilibrium, all of which are found to be unstable. A detailed mathematical analysis of the dynamical systems further allows us to show that only two cell-cell behaviors are possible in the limit of $t\to\infty$, either the cells are attracted to each other (possibly monotonically), or they are repelled (possibly monotonically as well), which we confirm with numerical computations

X-ray Emission from Optically Selected Radio-Intermediate and Radio-Loud Quasars

We present the results of an investigation into the X-ray properties of radio-intermediate and radio-loud quasars (RIQs and RLQs, respectively). We combine large, modern optical (e.g., SDSS) and radio (e.g., FIRST) surveys with archival X-ray data from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and ROSAT to generate an optically selected sample that includes 188 RIQs and 603 RLQs. This sample is constructed independently of X-ray properties but has a high X-ray detection rate (85%); it provides broad and dense coverage of the l-z plane, including at high redshifts (22% of objects have z=2-5), and it extends to high radio-loudness values (33% of objects have R*=3-5, using logarithmic units). We measure the "excess" X-ray luminosity of RIQs and RLQs relative to radio-quiet quasars (RQQs) as a function of radio loudness and luminosity, and parameterize the X-ray luminosity of RIQs and RLQs both as a function of optical/UV luminosity and also as a joint function of optical/UV and radio luminosity. RIQs are only modestly X-ray bright relative to RQQs; it is only at high values of radio-loudness (R*>3.5) and radio luminosity that RLQs become strongly X-ray bright. We find no evidence for evolution in the X-ray properties of RIQs and RLQs with redshift (implying jet-linked IC/CMB emission does not contribute substantially to the nuclear X-ray continuum). Finally, we consider a model in which the nuclear X-ray emission contains both disk/corona-linked and jet-linked components and demonstrate that the X-ray jet-linked emission is likely beamed but to a lesser degree than applies to the radio jet. This model is used to investigate the increasing dominance of jet-linked X-ray emission at low inclinations.Comment: Accepted to ApJ; 42 pages, 21 figures, 10 tables; version with full-res figures at http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~mbrendan/rlqx.htm