A Systematic Review of The Potential Use of Neurofeedback in Patients with Schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by positive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions), negative symptoms (anhedonia, social withdrawal) and marked cognitive deficits (memory, executive function, and attention). Current mainstays of treatment, including medications and psychotherapy, do not adequately address cognitive symptoms, which are essential for everyday functioning. However, recent advances in computational neurobiology have rekindled interest in neurofeedback (NF), a form of self-regulation or neuromodulation, in potentially alleviating cognitive symptoms in patients with SCZ. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the literature for NF studies in SCZ to identify lessons learned and to identify steps to move the field forward. Our findings reveal that NF studies to date consist mostly of case studies and small sample, single-group studies. Despite few randomized clinical trials, the results suggest that NF is feasible and that it leads to measurable changes in brain function. These findings indicate early proof-of-concept data that needs to be followed up by larger, randomized clinical trials, testing the efficacy of NF compared to well thought out placebos. We hope that such an undertaking by the field will lead to innovative solutions that address refractory symptoms and improve everyday functioning in patients with SCZ

Bottle aging and storage of wines: a review

Wine is perhaps the most ancient and popular alcoholic beverage worldwide. Winemaking practices involve careful vineyard management alongside controlled alcoholic fermentation and potential aging of the wine in barrels. Afterwards, the wine is placed in bottles and stored or distributed in retail. Yet, it is considered that wine achieves its optimum properties after a certain storage time in the bottle. The main outcome of bottle storage is a decrease of astringency and bitterness, improvement of aroma and a lighter and more stable color. This is due to a series of complex chemical changes of its components revolving around the minimized and controlled passage of oxygen into the bottle. For this matter, antioxidants like sulfur oxide are added to avoid excessive oxidation and consequent degradation of the wine. In the same sense, bottles must be closed with appropriate stoppers and stored in adequate, stable conditions, as the wine may develop unappealing color, aromas and flavors otherwise. In this review, features of bottle aging, relevance of stoppers, involved chemical reactions and storage conditions affecting wine quality will be addressed.The research leading to these results was funded by FEDER under the program Interreg V-A Spain-Portugal (POPTEC) 2014-2020 ref. 0377_IBERPHENOL_6_E and ref. 0181_NANOEATERS_ 01_E; to Xunta de Galicia supporting with the Axudas Conecta Peme the IN852A 2018/58 NeuroFood Project and the program EXCELENCIA-ED431F 2020/12; to Ibero-American Program on Science and Technology (CYTED—AQUA-CIBUS, P317RT0003) and by the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 888003 UP4HEALTH Project (H2020-BBIJTI-2019), the JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Bio Based Industries Consortium. The research leading to these results was supported by MICINN supporting the Ramón & Cajal grant for M.A. Prieto (RYC-2017-22891); by Xunta de Galicia and University of Vigo supporting the post-doctoral grant of M. Fraga-Corral (ED481B-2019/096).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Health promoting properties of bee royal jelly: Food of the queens

Royal jelly (RJ) demand is growing every year and so is the market for functional foods in general. RJ is formed by different substances, mainly carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, but also vitamins, minerals, and phenolic or volatile compounds in lower proportion. Major royal jelly proteins (MRJP) are, together with 10†hydroxy†2†decenoic acid (10†HDA), key substances of RJ due to their different biological properties. In particular, 10†HDA is a unique substance in this product. RJ has been historically employed as health enhancer and is still very relevant in China due to the traditional medicine and the apitherapy. Nowadays, it is mainly consumed as a functional food or is found in supplements and other formulations for its health†beneficial properties. Within these properites, anti†lipidemic, antioxidant, antiproliferative, antimicrobial, neuroprotective, anti†inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antiaging, and estrogenic activities have been reported for RJ or its specific components. This manuscript is aimed at reviewing the current knowledge on RJ components, their assessment in terms of authenticity, their biological activities, and related health applications.The research leading to these results was supported by FEDER under the program Interreg V-A Spain-Portugal (POPTEC) 2014–2020 ref. 0377_IBERPHENOL_6_E and ref. 0181_NANOEATERS_01_E; by Xunta de Galicia supporting with the Axudas Conecta Peme the IN852A 2018/58 NeuroFood Project and the program EXCELENCIA-ED431F 2020/12; by EcoChestnut Project (Erasmus+ KA202); by Ibero-American Program on Science and Technology (CYTED—AQUA-CIBUS, P317RT0003) and by the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 888003 UP4HEALTH Project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019) that supports the work of P. Otero, the JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Bio Based Industries Consortium. The research leading to these results was supported by MICINN supporting the Ramón & Cajal grant for M.A. Prieto (RYC-2017-22891) and by University of Vigo for the predoctoral grant for M. Carpena (Uvigo-00VI 131H 6410211).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Stability assessment of extracts obtained from Arbutus unedo L. fruits in powder and solution systems using machine-learning methodologies

Arbutus unedo L. (strawberry tree) has showed considerable content in phenolic compounds, especially flavan-3-ols (catechin, gallocatechin, among others). The interest of flavan-3-ols has increased due their bioactive actions, namely antioxidant and antimicrobial activities, and by association of their consumption to diverse health benefits including the prevention of obesity, cardiovascular diseases or cancer. These compounds, mainly catechin, have been showed potential for use as natural preservative in foodstuffs; however, their degradation is increased by pH and temperature of processing and storage, which can limit their use by food industry. To model the degradation kinetics of these compounds under different conditions of storage, three kinds of machine learning models were developed: i) random forest, ii) support vector machine and iii) artificial neural network. The selected models can be used to track the kinetics of the different compounds and properties under study without the prior knowledge requirement of the reaction system.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO, Portugal (UIDB/00690/2020); L. Barros thanks the national funding by FCT, P.I., through the institutional scientific employment program-contract. The authors are also grateful to FEDER-Interreg VA España-Portugal (POCTEP) programme for financial support through the project 0377_Iberphenol_6_E and TRANSCoLAB 0612_TRANS_CO_LAB_2_P. G. Astray thanks to the University of Vigo for his contract “Programa de retención de talento investigador da Universidade de Vigo para o 2018” with budget application 0000 131H TAL 641. M.A. Prieto thanks to the MICINN for the financial support for the Ramón and Cajal grant. G. Astray thanks to RapidMiner GmbH. for the Free and Educational version of RapidMiner Studio software.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A new spin-anisotropic harmonic honeycomb iridate

The physics of Mott insulators underlies diverse phenomena ranging from high temperature superconductivity to exotic magnetism. Although both the electron spin and the structure of the local orbitals play a key role in this physics, in most systems these are connected only indirectly --- via the Pauli exclusion principle and the Coulomb interaction. Iridium-based oxides (iridates) open a further dimension to this problem by introducing strong spin-orbit interactions, such that the Mott physics has a strong orbital character. In the layered honeycomb iridates this is thought to generate highly spin-anisotropic interactions, coupling the spin orientation to a given spatial direction of exchange and leading to strongly frustrated magnetism. The potential for new physics emerging from such interactions has driven much scientific excitement, most recently in the search for a new quantum spin liquid, first discussed by Kitaev \cite{kitaev_anyons_2006}. Here we report a new iridate structure that has the same local connectivity as the layered honeycomb, but in a three-dimensional framework. The temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility exhibits a striking reordering of the magnetic anisotropy, giving evidence for highly spin-anisotropic exchange interactions. Furthermore, the basic structural units of this material suggest the possibility of a new family of structures, the `harmonic honeycomb' iridates. This compound thus provides a unique and exciting glimpse into the physics of a new class of strongly spin-orbit coupled Mott insulators.Comment: 12 pages including bibliography, 5 figure

Secondary aroma: influence of wine microorganisms in their aroma profile

Aroma profile is one of the main features for the acceptance of wine. Yeasts and bacteria are the responsible organisms to carry out both, alcoholic and malolactic fermentation. Alcoholic fermentation is in turn, responsible for transforming grape juice into wine and providing secondary aromas. Secondary aroma can be influenced by different factors; however, the influence of the microorganisms is one of the main agents affecting final wine aroma profile. Saccharomyces cerevisiae has historically been the most used yeast for winemaking process for its specific characteristics: high fermentative metabolism and kinetics, low acetic acid production, resistance to high levels of sugar, ethanol, sulfur dioxide and also, the production of pleasant aromatic compounds. Nevertheless, in the last years, the use of non-saccharomyces yeasts has been progressively growing according to their capacity to enhance aroma complexity and interact with S. cerevisiae, especially in mixed cultures. Hence, this review article is aimed at associating the main secondary aroma compounds present in wine with the microorganisms involved in the spontaneous and guided fermentations, as well as an approach to the strain variability of species, the genetic modifications that can occur and their relevance to wine aroma construction.The research leading to these results was supported by FEDER under the program Interreg V-A Spain-Portugal (POPTEC) 2014–2020 ref. 0377_IBERPHENOL_6_E and ref. 0181_NANOEATERS_ 01_E; by Xunta de Galicia supporting with the Axudas Conecta Peme the IN852A 2018/58 NeuroFood Project and the program EXCELENCIA-ED431F 2020/12; by EcoChestnut Project (Erasmus+ KA202) that supports the work of M. Carpena; by Ibero-American Program on Science and Technology (CYTED—AQUA-CIBUS, P317RT0003) and by the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 888003 UP4HEALTH Project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019), the JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Bio Based Industries Consortium. The research leading to these results was supported by MICINN with the Ramón&Cajal grant for M. A. Prieto (RYC-2017-22891) and the Juan de la Cierva_incorporación grant for P. Otero (IJCI-2016-27774); by Xunta de Galicia and University of Vigo supporting the postdoctoral grant of M. Fraga-Corral (ED481B-2019/096) and the pre-doctoral grant for P. García-Oliveira (ED481A-2019/295).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ultrasonic monitoring of early larval development of fish in tanks. Case study: Gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata)

[EN] Swimbladder inflation is a significant matter in intensive fish farming, since it is related to larval survival rate and the morphological quality of individuals. In this work, we propose a non-invasive acoustic technique using ultrasound to monitor the swimbladder development of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) in tanks. The fundamental hypothesis is that, due to the high acoustic contrast of gas, the swimbladder¿s inflation process can be detected by measuring the larvae¿s target strength during their early development. Backscatter numerical models using the finite element method, developed from biological measurement data, were applied to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method. The acoustic measurements were obtained using an EK60 Simrad echosounder working at 200 kHz. The target strength values were evidenced with and without the presence of a developed swimbladder, showing a statistically significant relationship with the swimbladder¿s standard length, area and the percentage of larvae with a swimbladder. The experiments were carried out in the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO)¿s marine aquaculture plant at Mazarrón (Murcia, Spain).This work was supported by funding from Generalitat Valenciana (Regional Valencia Government) through the AICO/2020/064 project and the Spanish Government through ACUSTUNA project ref. CTM2015-70446-R (MINECO/ERDF, EU) , financing the experimental work carried out in the context of the competitive access ACUSTUNA in the ICTS-ICAR ( www.icar.ieo.es)Ladino-Velásquez, A.; Puig Pons, V.; Espinosa Roselló, V.; Pérez Arjona, I.; De La Gandara García, F.; Ortega, A. (2022). Ultrasonic monitoring of early larval development of fish in tanks. Case study: Gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata). Aquacultural Engineering. 98:1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaeng.2022.1022631119

Filogenia do gênero Spondias com base em marcadores RAPD resultados preliminares.

O trabalho teve como objetivo, estudar as relações de ancestralidade (filogenia) entre as diferentes Spondias visando agrupar as espécies/híbridos com base em marcadores de DNA do tipo RAPD

Algal nutraceuticals: a perspective on metabolic diversity, current food applications, and prospects in the field of metabolomics

The current consumers’ demand for food naturalness is urging the search for new functional foods of natural origin with enhanced health-promoting properties. In this sense, algae constitute an underexplored biological source of nutraceuticals that can be used to fortify food products. Both marine macroalgae (or seaweeds) and microalgae exhibit a myriad of chemical constituents with associated features as a result of their primary and secondary metabolism. Thus, primary metabolites, especially polysaccharides and phycobiliproteins, present interesting properties to improve the rheological and nutritional properties of food matrices, whereas secondary metabolites, such as polyphenols and xanthophylls, may provide interesting bioactivities, including antioxidant or cytotoxic effects. Due to the interest in algae as a source of nutraceuticals by the food and related industries, novel strategies should be undertaken to add value to their derived functional components. As a result, metabolomics is considered a high throughput technology to get insight into the full metabolic profile of biological samples, and it opens a wide perspective in the study of algae metabolism, whose knowledge is still little explored. This review focuses on algae metabolism and its applications in the food industry, paying attention to the promising metabolomic approaches to be developed aiming at the functional characterization of these organisms.The research leading to these results was supported by the European Union through the “NextGenerationEU” program supporting the “Margarita Salas” grant awarded to P. Garcia-Perez, by Xunta de Galicia for supporting the program EXCELENCIA-ED431F 2020/12, the postdoctoral grant of L. Cassani (ED481B-2021/152), and the pre-doctoral grant of P. Garcia-Oliveira (ED481A-2019/295) and by MICINN supporting the Ram´on y Cajal grant for M.A. Prieto (RYC-2017-22891) and J. Xiao (RYC-2020-030365-I). Authors are grateful to Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 888003 UP4HEALTH Project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019). The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Bio Based Industries Consortium. This work has also received funding from the Argentinean Agency for the Scientific and Technological Promotion (ANPCyT, Argentina) under the project PICT (2020)/1602.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A HPLC‐DAD method for identifying and estimating the content of fucoxanthin, β‐carotene and chlorophyll a in brown algal extracts

Seaweeds are photosynthetic organisms that have high contents of pigments. The coloration of each alga is defined by the content and combination of pigments synthesized, which varies among species and environmental conditions. The most abundant pigments in algae are chlorophylls and carotenoids, lipophilic molecules that can be used as natural colorants and have high acceptance by consumers. In this work, a simple and short hands-on time HPLC-DAD method for identifying and estimating the pigment content of algal extracts, specifically fucoxanthin, β-carotene and chlorophyll a was carried out. Using this optimized method, a pigment screening was performed on the ethanolic extracts obtained by ultrasound-assisted extraction from nine brown algal from the Atlantic coastline: Ascophyllum nodosum, Bifurcaria bifurcata, Fucus spiralis, Himanthalia elongata, Laminaria saccharina, Laminaria ochroleuca, Pelvetia canaliculata, Sargassum muticum and Undaria pinnatifida. HPLC results permitted to highlight L. saccharina and U. pinnatifida as promising sources of these three target pigments containing a total amount of 10.5 – 11.5 mg per gram of dry weight. Among them, the most abundant one was fucoxanthin, an added-value compound with a high potential to be commercially exploited by different industries, such as the food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical sectors.The research leading to these results was supported by MICINN sup- porting the Ramón y Cajal grant for M.A. Prieto (RYC-2017-22891), the FPU grant for A. Carreira-Casais (FPU2016/06135); and by Xunta de Galicia for supporting the post-doctoral grant of M. Fraga-Corral (ED481B-2019/096). The research leading to these results was sup- ported by the European Union through the “NextGenerationEU ”pro- gram supporting the “Margarita Salas ”grant awarded to P. Garcia- Perez. Authors are grateful to AlgaMar company ( www.algamar.com ) for the collaboration and algal material provision. This research was funded by the Ibero-American Program on Science and Technology (CYTED —AQUA-CIBUS, P317RT0003), the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 888003 UP4HEALTH Project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019) that supports the work of C. Lourenço- Lopes. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Bio Based Industries Consor- tium. The project SYSTEMIC Knowledge hub on Nutrition and Food Se- curity, has received funding from national research funding parties in Belgium (FWO), France (INRA), Germany (BLE), Italy (MIPAAF), Latvia (IZM), Norway (RCN), Portugal (FCT), and Spain (AEI) in a joint ac- tion of JPI HDHL, JPI-OCEANS and FACCE-JPI launched in 2019 un- der the ERA-NET ERA-HDHL (n°696295). The authors would like to thank the EU and FCT for funding through the project PTDC/OCE- ETA/30240/2017- SilverBrain - From sea to brain: Green neuropro- tective extracts for nanoencapsulation and functional food production (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030240).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio