2,121 research outputs found
Dissociating task difficulty from incongruence in face-voice emotion integration
In the everyday environment, affective information is conveyed by both the face and the voice. Studies have demonstrated that a concurrently presented voice can alter the way that an emotional face expression is perceived, and vice versa, leading to emotional conflict if the information in the two modalities is mismatched. Additionally, evidence suggests that incongruence of emotional valence activates cerebral networks involved in conflict monitoring and resolution. However, it is currently unclear whether this is due to task difficulty—that incongruent stimuli are harder to categorize—or simply to the detection of mismatching information in the two modalities. The aim of the present fMRI study was to examine the neurophysiological correlates of processing incongruent emotional information, independent of task difficulty. Subjects were scanned while judging the emotion of face-voice affective stimuli. Both the face and voice were parametrically morphed between anger and happiness and then paired in all audiovisual combinations, resulting in stimuli each defined by two separate values: the degree of incongruence between the face and voice, and the degree of clarity of the combined face-voice information. Due to the specific morphing procedure utilized, we hypothesized that the clarity value, rather than incongruence value, would better reflect task difficulty. Behavioral data revealed that participants integrated face and voice affective information, and that the clarity, as opposed to incongruence value correlated with categorization difficulty. Cerebrally, incongruence was more associated with activity in the superior temporal region, which emerged after task difficulty had been accounted for. Overall, our results suggest that activation in the superior temporal region in response to incongruent information cannot be explained simply by task difficulty, and may rather be due to detection of mismatching information between the two modalities
Ascorbic acid is a regulator of the intracellular cAMP concentration: Old molecule, new functions?
AbstractRecently, using an animal model of Charcot-Marie-Tooth human disorder, we showed that ascorbic acid (AA) represses PMP22 gene expression by acting on intracellular cAMP concentrations. In this work, we present kinetics data on the inhibitory effect of AA upon adenylate cyclase activity. The data show that this molecule acts as a competitive inhibitor of the enzyme, a finding that opens new pharmacological avenues
Genetic engineering of the β-oxidation pathway in the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica to increase the production of aroma compounds
peer reviewedThe yeast Yarrowia lipolytica possesses five acyl-CoA oxidases (Aox1p to 5), the enzyme catalysing the first reaction of β-oxidation. The understanding of the specific role of each acyl-CoA oxidase is important to construct a yeast strain growing at a good rate and able to produce without degrading the aroma compound γ-decalactone. In this study we observed that Aox4p exhibits a slight activity on a broad spectrum of substrates and that it is involved in lactone degradation. We constructed a strain lacking this activity. Its growth was only slightly altered and it produced 10 times more lactone than the wild type in 48h. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
High locomotor reactivity to novelty is associated with an increased propensity to choose saccharin over cocaine: new insights into the vulnerability to addiction.
Drug addiction is associated with a relative devaluation of natural or socially-valued reinforcers that are unable to divert addicts from seeking and consuming the drug. Before protracted drug exposure, most rats prefer natural rewards, such as saccharin, over cocaine. However, a subpopulation of animals prefer cocaine over natural rewards and are thought to be vulnerable to addiction. Specific behavioral traits have been associated with different dimensions of drug addiction. For example, anxiety predicts loss of control over drug intake whereas sensation seeking and sign-tracking are markers of a greater sensitivity to the rewarding properties of the drug. However, how these behavioral traits predict the disinterest for natural reinforcers remains unknown. In a population of rats, we identified sensation seekers (HR) on the basis of elevated novelty-induced locomotor reactivity, high anxious rats (HA) based on the propensity to avoid open arms in an elevated-plus maze and sign-trackers (ST) that are prone to approach, and interaction with, reward-associated stimuli. Rats were then tested on their preference for saccharin over cocaine in a discrete-trial choice procedure. We show that HR rats display a greater preference for saccharin over cocaine compared with ST and HA whereas the motivation for the drug was comparable between the three groups. The present data suggest that high locomotor reactivity to novelty, or sensation seeking, by predisposing to an increased choice toward non-drug rewards at early stages of drug use history, may prevent the establishment of chronic cocaine use.This work was funded by an INSERM AVENIR and Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) ANR12 SAMA00201 grant to DB, the région Poitou-Charentes, an AXA research fund fellowship to ABR, and a Ministère de la Recherche et de la Technologie grant to NV. AM was supported by the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute of Cambridge.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in Neuropsychopharmacology (2015) 40, 577–589; doi:10.1038/npp.2014.204; published online 17 September 2014
Developed turbulence: From full simulations to full mode reductions
Developed Navier-Stokes turbulence is simulated with varying wavevector mode
reductions. The flatness and the skewness of the velocity derivative depend on
the degree of mode reduction. They show a crossover towards the value of the
full numerical simulation when the viscous subrange starts to be resolved. The
intermittency corrections of the scaling exponents of the pth order velocity
structure functions seem to depend mainly on the proper resolution of the
inertial subrange. Universal scaling properties (i.e., independent of the
degree of mode reduction) are found for the relative scaling exponents rho
which were recently defined by Benzi et al.Comment: 4 pages, 5 eps-figures, replaces version from August 5th, 199
Probability Density Function of Longitudinal Velocity Increment in Homogeneous Turbulence
Two conditional averages for the longitudinal velocity increment u_r of the
simulated turbulence are calculated: h(u_r) is the average of the increment of
the longitudinal Laplacian velocity field with u_r fixed, while g(u_r) is the
corresponding one of the square of the difference of the gradient of the
velocity field. Based on the physical argument, we suggest the formulae for h
and g, which are quite satisfactorily fitted to the 512^3 DNS data. The
predicted PDF is characterized as
(1) the Gaussian distribution for the small amplitudes,
(2) the exponential distribution for the large ones, and (3) a prefactor
before the exponential function for the intermediate ones.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, using RevTeX3.
Cerebral processing of voice gender studied using a continuous carryover fMRI design
Normal listeners effortlessly determine a person's gender by voice, but the cerebral mechanisms underlying this ability remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate 2 stages of cerebral processing during voice gender categorization. Using voice morphing along with an adaptation-optimized functional magnetic resonance imaging design, we found that secondary auditory cortex including the anterior part of the temporal voice areas in the right hemisphere responded primarily to acoustical distance with the previously heard stimulus. In contrast, a network of bilateral regions involving inferior prefrontal and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex reflected perceived stimulus ambiguity. These findings suggest that voice gender recognition involves neuronal populations along the auditory ventral stream responsible for auditory feature extraction, functioning in pair with the prefrontal cortex in voice gender perception
Possible Triplet Electron Pairing and an Anisotropic Spin Susceptibility in Organic Superconductors (TMTSF)_2 X
We argue that (TMTSF)_2 PF_6 compound under pressure is likely a triplet
superconductor with a vector order parameter d(k) \equiv (d_a(k) \neq 0, d_c(k)
= ?, d_{b'}(k) = 0); |d_a(k)| > |d_c(k)|. It corresponds to an anisotropic spin
susceptibility at T=0: \chi_{b'} = \chi_0, \chi_a \ll \chi_0, where \chi_0 is
its value in a metallic phase. [The spin quantization axis, z, is parallel to a
so-called b'-axis]. We show that the suggested order parameter explains why the
upper critical field along the b'-axis exceeds all paramagnetic limiting
fields, including that for a nonuniform superconducting state, whereas the
upper critical field along the a-axis (a \perp b') is limited by the Pauli
paramagnetic effects [I. J. Lee, M. J. Naughton, G. M. Danner and P. M.
Chaikin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 3555 (1997)]. The triplet order parameter is in
agreement with the recent Knight shift measurements by I. J. Lee et al. as well
as with the early results on a destruction of superconductivity by nonmagnetic
impurities and on the absence of the Hebel-Slichter peak in the NMR relaxation
rate.Comment: 4 pages, 1 eps figur
Thermal Conductivity of superconducting (TMTSF)_2ClO_4: evidence for a nodeless gap
We report on the first measurements of thermal conductivity in the
superconducting state of (TMTSF)_2ClO_4. The electronic contribution to heat
transport is found to decrease rapidly below T_c, indicating the absence of
low-energy electronic excitations. We argue that this result provides strong
evidence for a nodeless superconducting gap function but does not exclude a
possible unconventional order parameter.Comment: 4 pages including 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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