Macaque cardiac physiology is sensitive to the valence of passively viewed sensory stimuli.

Autonomic nervous system activity is an important component of affective experience. We demonstrate in the rhesus monkey that both the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system respond differentially to the affective valence of passively viewed video stimuli. We recorded cardiac impedance and an electrocardiogram while adult macaques watched a series of 300 30-second videos that varied in their affective content. We found that sympathetic activity (as measured by cardiac pre-ejection period) increased and parasympathetic activity (as measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia) decreased as video content changes from positive to negative. These findings parallel the relationship between autonomic nervous system responsivity and valence of stimuli in humans. Given the relationship between human cardiac physiology and affective processing, these findings suggest that macaque cardiac physiology may be an index of affect in nonverbal animals

Combining asphalt-rubber (AR) and fast-pyrolysis bio-oil to create a binder for flexible pavements

Best paper award of the conferenceThe bio-oil from fast pyrolysis is mainly a product of the recycling of waste materials. This is a viscoelastic material, and after a heat treatment it has a viscosity similar to many types of asphalt used in the paving industry. Although bio-oil showed very good high temperature performance, the same was not verified at low temperatures. Therefore, GTR from cryogenic milling was used to modify the bio-oil. Then, a blend was produced by adding 20% (w/w) of this bio-binder to a PG 64-22 asphalt. The resulting binder was aged, and the storage stability test (separation sensibility) was performed. The initial GTR, bio-oil, bio-binder, asphalt and resulting binder were tested by means of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) before and after aging. The Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR) was used to build the master curves of all the materials and the binders high temperature continuous performance grade was determined. Two mixes compacted for 4% and 7% air voids were studied in regard to water susceptibility, fatigue cracking, dynamic modulus, flow number and low temperature fracture resistance. The results showed that this binder can perform as well or better than conventional asphalts over a large range of temperatures

Not All Children with Cystic Fibrosis Have Abnormal Esophageal Neutralization during Chemical Clearance of Acid Reflux.

PurposeAcid neutralization during chemical clearance is significantly prolonged in children with cystic fibrosis, compared to symptomatic children without cystic fibrosis. The absence of available reference values impeded identification of abnormal findings within individual patients with and without cystic fibrosis. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that significantly more children with cystic fibrosis have acid neutralization durations during chemical clearance that fall outside the physiological range.MethodsPublished reference value for acid neutralization duration during chemical clearance (determined using combined impedance/pH monitoring) was used to assess esophageal acid neutralization efficiency during chemical clearance in 16 children with cystic fibrosis (3 to <18 years) and 16 age-matched children without cystic fibrosis.ResultsDuration of acid neutralization during chemical clearance exceeded the upper end of the physiological range in 9 of 16 (56.3%) children with and in 3 of 16 (18.8%) children without cystic fibrosis (p=0.0412). The likelihood ratio for duration indicated that children with cystic fibrosis are 2.1-times more likely to have abnormal acid neutralization during chemical clearance, and children with abnormal acid neutralization during chemical clearance are 1.5-times more likely to have cystic fibrosis.ConclusionSignificantly more (but not all) children with cystic fibrosis have abnormally prolonged esophageal clearance of acid. Children with cystic fibrosis are more likely to have abnormal acid neutralization during chemical clearance. Additional studies involving larger sample sizes are needed to address the importance of genotype, esophageal motility, composition and volume of saliva, and gastric acidity on acid neutralization efficiency in cystic fibrosis children

Effects of neonatal amygdala or hippocampus lesions on resting brain metabolism in the macaque monkey: A microPET imaging study

Longitudinal analysis of animals with neonatal brain lesions enables the evaluation of behavioral changes during multiple stages of development. Interpretation of such changes, however, carries the caveat that permanent neural injury also yields morphological and neurochemical reorganization elsewhere in the brain that may lead either to functional compensation or to exacerbation of behavioral alterations. We have measured the long-term effects of selective neonatal brain damage on resting cerebral glucose metabolism in nonhuman primates. Sixteen rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) received neurotoxic lesions of either the amygdala (n = 8) or hippocampus (n = 8) when they were two weeks old. Four years later, these animals, along with age- and experience-matched sham-operated control animals (n = 8), were studied with high-resolution positron emission tomography (microPET) and 2-deoxy-2[¹⁸F]fluoro-d-glucose ([¹⁸F]FDG) to detect areas of altered metabolism. The groups were compared using an anatomically-based region of interest analysis. Relative to controls, amygdala-lesioned animals displayed hypometabolism in three frontal lobe regions, as well as in the neostriatum and hippocampus. Hypermetabolism was also evident in the cerebellum of amygdala-lesioned animals. Hippocampal-lesioned animals only showed hypometabolism in the retrosplenial cortex. These results indicate that neonatal amygdala and hippocampus lesions induce very different patterns of long-lasting metabolic changes in distant brain regions. These observations raise the possibility that behavioral alterations in animals with neonatal lesions may be due to the intended damage, to consequent brain reorganization or to a combination of both factors

Blood Vessels Under the Microscope

This paper looks at blood vessels. All humans and animals have blood vessels, including your pet rabbit or dog, a whale or a giraffe! We need blood vessels to stay alive. This paper answers many questions, including what blood vessels are used for and why we need them. It looks at how and why blood vessels grow and what they look like. It also explores what happens when things go wrong with blood vessels and if blood vessels are ever bad for us. So, if you want to know how many miles of blood vessels there are in your body, learn about problems astronauts have in space, see real blood vessels through a microscope, or learn how to keep your blood vessels healthy, you are reading the right article

Social and Nonsocial Content Differentially Modulates Visual Attention and Autonomic Arousal in Rhesus Macaques

The sophisticated analysis of gestures and vocalizations, including assessment of their emotional valence, helps group-living primates efficiently navigate their social environment. Deficits in social information processing and emotion regulation are important components of many human psychiatric illnesses, such as autism, schizophrenia and social anxiety disorder. Analyzing the neurobiology of social information processing and emotion regulation requires a multidisciplinary approach that benefits from comparative studies of humans and animal models. However, many questions remain regarding the relationship between visual attention and arousal while processing social stimuli. Using noninvasive infrared eye-tracking methods, we measured the visual social attention and physiological arousal (pupil diameter) of adult male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) as they watched social and nonsocial videos. We found that social videos, as compared to nonsocial videos, captured more visual attention, especially if the social signals depicted in the videos were directed towards the subject. Subject-directed social cues and nonsocial nature documentary footage, compared to videos showing conspecifics engaging in naturalistic social interactions, generated larger pupil diameters (indicating heightened sympathetic arousal). These findings indicate that rhesus monkeys will actively engage in watching videos of various kinds. Moreover, infrared eye tracking technology provides a mechanism for sensitively gauging the social interest of presented stimuli. Adult male rhesus monkeys' visual attention and physiological arousal do not always trend in the same direction, and are likely influenced by the content and novelty of a particular visual stimulus. This experiment creates a strong foundation for future experiments that will examine the neural network responsible for social information processing in nonhuman primates. Such studies may provide valuable information relevant to interpreting the neural deficits underlying human psychiatric illnesses such as autism, schizophrenia and social anxiety disorder

Maternal Immune Activation in Nonhuman Primates Alters Social Attention in Juvenile Offspring

BACKGROUND: Sickness during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of offspring neurodevelopmental disorders. Rodent models have played a critical role in establishing causal relationships and identifying mechanisms of altered brain and behavior development in pups prenatally exposed to maternal immune activation (MIA). We recently developed a novel nonhuman primate model to bridge the gap between human epidemiological studies and rodent models of prenatal immune challenge. Our initial results demonstrated that rhesus monkeys given the viral mimic synthetic double-stranded RNA (polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid stabilized with poly-l-lysine) during pregnancy produce offspring with abnormal repetitive behaviors, altered communication, and atypical social interactions. METHODS: We utilized noninvasive infrared eye tracking to further evaluate social processing capabilities in a subset of the first trimester MIA-exposed offspring (n = 4) and control animals (n = 4) from our previous study. RESULTS: As juveniles, the MIA offspring differed from control animals on several measures of social attention, particularly when viewing macaque faces depicting the fear grimace facial expression. Compared with control animals, MIA offspring had a longer latency before fixating on the eyes, had fewer fixations directed at the eyes, and spent less total time fixating on the eyes of the fear grimace images. CONCLUSIONS: In the rhesus monkey model, exposure to MIA at the end of the first trimester results in abnormal gaze patterns to salient social information. The use of noninvasive eye tracking extends the findings from rodent MIA models to more human-like behaviors resembling those in both autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia

The Seyfert Population in the Local Universe

The magnitude-limited catalog of the Southern Sky Redshift Survey (SSRS2), is used to characterize the properties of galaxies hosting Active Galactic Nuclei. Using emission-line ratios, we identify a total of 162 (3%) Seyfert galaxies out of the parent sample with 5399 galaxies. The sample contains 121 Seyfert 2 galaxies and 41 Seyfert 1. The SSRS2 Seyfert galaxies are predominantly in spirals of types Sb and earlier, or in galaxies with perturbed appearance as the result of strong interactions or mergers. Seyfert galaxies in this sample are twice as common in barred hosts than the non-Seyferts. By assigning galaxies to groups using a percolation algorithm we find that the Seyfert galaxies in the SSRS2 are more likely to be found in binary systems, when compared to galaxies in the SSRS2 parent sample. However, there is no statistically significant difference between the Seyfert and SSRS2 parent sample when systems with more than 2 galaxies are considered. The analysis of the present sample suggests that there is a stronger correlation between the presence of the AGN phenomenon with internal properties of galaxies (morphology, presence of bar, luminosity) than with environmental effects (local galaxy density, group velocity dispersion, nearest neighbor distance).Comment: 35 pages, 13 figures, Accepted to be publised in Astronomical Journa

Gastroesophageal reflux in cystic fibrosis across the age spectrum.

Background:Scientific advances have improved longevity in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients and many of these patients can expect to experience age-related gastrointestinal co-morbidities. We aimed to assess the extent to which age might impact gastroesophageal reflux (GER) in patients with CF. Methods:Our esophageal pH-multichannel intraluminal impedance monitoring database was searched for tracings belonging to CF patients ≥2 years old without prior fundoplication and not taking anti-reflux medications immediately prior (within 7 days) and during the study. Tracings were retrospectively analyzed; Impedance and pH variables were evaluated with respect to age and pulmonary function. Results:Twenty-eight patients were enrolled; 16 children (3.1-17.7 years) and 12 adults (18.2-48.9 years). Among pH probe parameters, correlation analysis showed DeMeester score (P=0.011) and number of acid reflux events lasting >5 minutes (P=0.047) to be significantly correlated with age. Age was not significantly correlated with any of the impedance parameters. Age was negatively correlated with baseline impedance (BI) in the distal esophagus (r=-0.424, P=0.023) and BI was negatively correlated with several pH parameters, including reflux index (r=-0.553, P=0.002), number of total acid reflux events (r=-0.576, P=0.001), number of acid reflux events lasting >5 minutes (r=-0.534, P=0.003), and DeMeester score (r=-0.510, P=0.006). Pulmonary function (percent predicted forced expiratory volume in one minute; ppFEV1) was negatively correlated with age (r=-0.494, P=0.0007). The interaction of age and ppFEV1 and any of the reflux parameters, however, was not significant (P>0.05); the strongest evidence for an interaction was found for the number of acid reflux events reaching the proximal esophagus, but this interaction still did not reach statistical significance (P=0.070). Conclusions:In a small cohort, we found evidence that age may be associated with increased acid exposure and that both age and increased acid exposure are associated with reduced BI in the distal esophagus. The negative relationship between pulmonary function and age in our cohort is not related to GER. This pilot study supports the need for esophageal assessment and treatment of GER as standard components of clinical care for an aging CF population