6 research outputs found
Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases
The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of
aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs)
can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves
excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological
concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can
lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl
radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic
inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the
involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a
large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and
inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation
of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many
similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e.
iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The
studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic
and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and
lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and
longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is
thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As
systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have
multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent
patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of
multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the
decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference
Academic integrity and the implementation of the honour code in the clinical training of undergraduate dental students
Phosphodiesterase 11A (PDE11A), Enriched in Ventral Hippocampus Neurons, is Required for Consolidation of Social but not Nonsocial Memories in Mice
Neural Signals Evoked by Stimuli of Increasing Social Scene Complexity Are Detectable at the Single-Trial Level and Right Lateralized
Classification of neural signals at the single-trial level and the study of their relevance in affective and cognitive neuroscience are still in their infancy. Here we investigated the neurophysiological correlates of conditions of increasing social scene complexity using 3D human models as targets of attention, which may also be important in autism research. Challenging single-trial statistical classification of EEG neural signals was attempted for detection of oddball stimuli with increasing social scene complexity. Stimuli had an oddball structure and were as follows: 1) flashed schematic eyes, 2) simple 3D faces flashed between averted and non-averted gaze (only eye position changing), 3) simple 3D faces flashed between averted and non-averted gaze (head and eye position changing), 4) animated avatar alternated its gaze direction to the left and to the right (head and eye position), 5) environment with 4 animated avatars all of which change gaze and one of which is the target of attention. We found a late (> 300 ms) neurophysiological oddball correlate for all conditions irrespective of their complexity as assessed by repeated measures ANOVA. We attempted single-trial detection of this signal with automatic classifiers and obtained a significant balanced accuracy classification of around 79%, which is noteworthy given the amount of scene complexity. Lateralization analysis showed a specific right lateralization only for more complex realistic social scenes. In sum, complex ecological animations with social content elicit neurophysiological events which can be characterized even at the single-trial level. These signals are right lateralized. These finding paves the way for neuroscientific studies in affective neuroscience based on complex social scenes, and given the detectability at the single trial level this suggests the feasibility of brain computer interfaces that can be applied to social cognition disorders such as autism