The response of transgenic strawberry plants overexpressing a drought induced gene to water stress

Transgenic strawberry plants expressing a chitinase gene were evaluated for their performance during water stress. Transgenic and non-transgenic plants were assigned to three different soil water contents (SWC). They were kept under well-watered, moderately watered or stressed water conditions. At fi nal stage of experiment, dry matter components, leaf area, photosynthesis rate, water-use effi ciency (WUE) and water use per leaf area (WULA) were measured. Transgenic lines showed vigorous growth as compared with non-transgenic plants. Leaf area (LA), leaf dry matter (LDM), root dry matter (RDM) and total dry matter (TDM) of well-watered and water-stressed plants of transgenic lines were signifi cantly higher than those of non-transgenic plants. The WUE increased signifi cantly in transgenic lines, while water use (WU) per leaf area reduced in transgenic plants relative to control plants. Photosynthetic rates were not different between transgenic and non-transgenic plants. Soil water contents signifi cantly affected dry matter production, and photosynthetic rates. Transgenic plants also showed vigorous growth in comparison to non-transgenic plants when grown in vitro. Shoot, root and total fresh and dry weight of in vitro transgenic lines were significantly higher than those of nontransgenic plants

Micelle-Mediated Extraction and Cloud Point Pre-concentration for the Spectrophotometric Determination of Phenol in Water Samples

In this paper, a cloud point extraction method for the determination of trace amounts of phenol by spectrophotometry is described. The method is based on the colour reaction of phenol with diazotized p-nitroanilinean alkaline media and the cloud point extraction of azo dye product using of nonionic surfactant Triton X-114. The effects of reaction and extraction parameters were studied and optimum parameters were established. The calibration graph was linear in the range of 2.0–400 ng mL–1 of phenol. Detection limit based on three times the standard deviation of the blank (3Sb) was 1.0 ng mL–1 and the relative standard deviation (RSD) for 50 ng mL–1 of phenol was 1.73 % (n=10). The proposed method was applied for the determination of phenolin water samples.Keywords: Pre-concentration, cloud point extraction, phenol, spectrophotometry, water sample

No Self Without Salience:Affective and Self-relevance Ratings of 552 Emotionally Valenced and Neutral Dutch Words

It is unknown how self-relevance is dependent on emotional salience. Emotional salience encompasses an individual's degree of attraction or aversion to emotionally-valenced information. The current study investigated the interconnection between self and salience through the evaluation of emotional valence and self-relevance. 56 native Dutch participants completed a questionnaire assessing valence, intensity, and self-relevance of 552 Dutch nouns and verbs. One-way repeated-measures ANCOVA investigated the relationship between valence and self, age and gender. Repeated-measures ANCOVA also tested the relationship between valence and self with intensity ratings and effects of gender and age. Results showed a significant main effect of valence for self-relevant words. Intensity analyses showed a main effect of valence but not of self-relevance. There were no significant effects of gender and age. The most important finding presents that self-relevance is dependent on valence. These findings concerning the relationship between self and salience opens avenues to study an individual's self-definition

A neurostructural biomarker of dissociative amnesia: a hippocampal study in dissociative identity disorder

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the neural correlates of dissociative amnesia, a transdiagnostic symptom mostly present in the dissociative disorders and core characteristic of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Given the vital role of the hippocampus in memory, a prime candidate for investigation is whether total and/or subfield hippocampal volume can serve as biological markers of dissociative amnesia. METHODS: A total of 75 women, 32 with DID and 43 matched healthy controls (HC), underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Using Freesurfer (version 6.0), volumes were extracted for bilateral global hippocampus, cornu ammonis (CA) 1-4, the granule cell molecular layer of the dentate gyrus (GC-ML-DG), fimbria, hippocampal-amygdaloid transition area (HATA), parasubiculum, presubiculum and subiculum. Analyses of covariance showed volumetric differences between DID and HC. Partial correlations exhibited relationships between the three factors of the dissociative experience scale scores (dissociative amnesia, absorption, depersonalisation/derealisation) and traumatisation measures with hippocampal global and subfield volumes. RESULTS: Hippocampal volumes were found to be smaller in DID as compared with HC in bilateral global hippocampus and bilateral CA1, right CA4, right GC-ML-DG, and left presubiculum. Dissociative amnesia was the only dissociative symptom that correlated uniquely and significantly with reduced bilateral hippocampal CA1 subfield volumes. Regarding traumatisation, only emotional neglect correlated negatively with bilateral global hippocampus, bilateral CA1, CA4 and GC-ML-DG, and right CA3. CONCLUSION: We propose decreased CA1 volume as a biomarker for dissociative amnesia. We also propose that traumatisation, specifically emotional neglect, is interlinked with dissociative amnesia in having a detrimental effect on hippocampal volume

The traumatized brain:gray and white matter morphology in dissociative identity disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Ondanks de inclusie van dissociatieve identiteitsstoornis (DIS) in de DSM-III tot en met DSM-5, is er een voortdurende discussie over de diagnostische validiteit, etiologie en de theoretische conceptualisering van de stoornis. Dit kan gerelateerd zijn aan het feit dat empirisch onderzoek naar de neurobiologische correlaten van dissociatieve identiteitsstoornis schaars is. Dit proefschrift is dan ook gericht op het leveren van objectieve neurowetenschappelijke gegevens aan de hand van structurele beeldvorming van de hersenen. Hiertoe werd grijze en witte stof van de hersenen onderzocht bij patiënten met dissociatieve identiteitsstoornis ten opzichte van patiënten met posttraumatische stressstoornis en gezonde controles. Gevonden werd dat zowel dissociatieve identiteitsstoornis als posttraumatische stress-stoornis geassocieerd zijn met grijze stof afwijkingen van de frontale, temporale en insulaire cortex en de hippocampus. Bovendien werd een lagere witte stof integriteit gevonden bij een aantal belangrijke bundels van vezels die betrokken zijn bij de regulatie van emoties. Interessant is dat de hippocampus afwijkingen gecorreleerd blijken te zijn met jeugdtrauma. We vonden eveneens een kleiner volume in de inferieure pariëtale cortex en een groter dorsaal striatum bij patiënten met dissociatieve identiteitsstoornis in vergelijking met patiënten met posttraumatische stressstoornis. Deze afwijkingen bleken te correleren met symptomen van dissociatie en depersonalisatie, een bevinding die op betrokkenheid van deze regio's bij de symptomatologie van DID kan wijzen. De bevindingen in dit proefschrift leveren hoofdzakelijk objectieve empirische steun ten gunste van een trauma-gerelateerde etiologie voor DIS.