Altered multisensory temporal integration in obesity

Eating is a multisensory behavior. The act of placing food in the mouth provides us with a variety of sensory information, including gustatory, olfactory, somatosensory, visual, and auditory. Evidence suggests altered eating behavior in obesity. Nonetheless, multisensory integration in obesity has been scantily investigated so far. Starting from this gap in the literature, we seek to provide the first comprehensive investigation of multisensory integration in obesity. Twenty male obese participants and twenty male healthy-weight participants took part in the study aimed at describing the multisensory temporal binding window (TBW). The TBW is defined as the range of stimulus onset asynchrony in which multiple sensory inputs have a high probability of being integrated. To investigate possible multisensory temporal processing deficits in obesity, we investigated performance in two multisensory audiovisual temporal tasks, namely simultaneity judgment and temporal order judgment. Results showed a wider TBW in obese participants as compared to healthy-weight controls. This holds true for both the simultaneity judgment and the temporal order judgment tasks. An explanatory hypothesis would regard the effect of metabolic alterations and low-grade inflammatory state, clinically observed in obesity, on the temporal organization of brain ongoing activity, which one of the neural mechanisms enabling multisensory integration

A novel matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2) terminal hemopexin domain mutation in a family with multicentric osteolysis with nodulosis and arthritis with cardiac defects

Multicentric osteolysis with nodulosis and arthropathy (MONA, NAO (OMIM no. 605156)) is an autosomal recessive member of the ‘vanishing bone' syndromes and is notable for the extent of carpal and tarsal osteolysis and interphalangeal joint erosions, facial dysmorphia, and the presence of fibrocollagenous nodules. This rare disorder has been described previously in Saudi Arabian and Indian families. We now report on the first Turkish family with MONA, further confirming the panethnic nature of this disease. Strikingly, and in addition to the previously noted skeletal and joint features, affected members of this family also had congenital heart defects. Molecular analysis identified a novel MMP2 inactivating mutation that deletes the terminal hemopexin domains and thus confirmed the diagnosis of MONA. On the basis of these findings, we suggest that cardiac defects may also represent a component of this syndrome and thus a physiologically relevant target of MMP-2 activity