Real-Time Neural Signals of Disorder and Order Perception

Order and disorder are prevalent in everyday life, yet little is known about the neural real-time processing that occurs during the perception of disorder relative to order. In the present study, from a cognitive perspective, by adopting the ERP method, we aimed to examine the elicited real-time neural signals of disorder and order perception when participants processed physical environmental and basic visual disorder and order pictures in an irrelevant red or green rectangle detection task, and we attempted to test the hypothesis of cognitive disfluency in disorder perception. Generally, we observed that at each measured time interval, the ERPs elicited by order stimuli were more positive (less negative) in amplitude than those elicited by disorder stimuli at the frontal electrodes (represented by F7/F8, FT7/FT8, Fz, and FCz), whereas at the posterior electrodes (represented by P7/P8, PO7/PO8, Pz, and POz), the opposite was true. These data reveal for the first time the neural underpinnings of disorder and order perception, extending our understanding of the nature of disorder and order. This study also contributes to the cognitive fluency literature and indirectly expands the research on disorder and order stimuli in cognitive fluency

Visuospatial Bias in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from Line Bisection Tasks

Previous studies have found reduced leftward bias of facial processing in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, it is not clear whether they manifest a leftward bias in general visual processing. To shed light on this issue, the current study used the manual line bisection task to assess children 5 to 15 years of age with ASD as well as typically developing (TD) children. Results showed that children with ASD, similar to TD children, demonstrate a leftward bias in general visual processing, especially for bisecting long lines (&gt;= 80 mm). In both groups, participant performance in line bisection was affected by the hand used, the length of the line, the cueing symbol, and the location of the symbol. The ASD group showed a rightward bias when bisecting short lines (30 mm) with their left hands, which slightly differed from the TD group. These results indicate that while ASD individuals and TD individuals share a similar leftward bias in general visual processing, when using their left hands to bisect short lines, ASD individuals may show an atypical bias pattern.</p

Phenotypic and genomic characteristics of clinical IMP-producing Klebsiella spp. Isolates in China

Abstract Background IMP-producing Klebsiella spp. (IMPKsp) strains have spread globally, including in China. Currently, the prevalence and genomic characterization of IMPKsp is largely unknown nationwide. Here we aimed to provide a general overview of the phenotypic and genomic characteristics of IMPKsp strains. Methods 61 IMPKsp strains were obtained from 13 provinces in China during 2016-2021. All strains were tested for their susceptibility to antimicrobial agents by the microdilution broth method and sequenced with Illumina next-generation sequencing. We performed conjugation experiments on thirteen representative strains which were also sequenced by Oxford nanopore sequencing technology to characterize bla IMP-encoding plasmids. Results We find that all IMPKsp strains display multidrug-resistant (MDR) phenotypes. All strains belong to 27 different STs. ST307 emerges as a principal IMP-producing sublineage. bla IMP-4 is found to be the major isoform, followed by bla IMP-38. Seven incompatibility types of bla IMP-encoding plasmids are identified, including IncHI5 (32/61, 52.5%), IncN-IncR (10/61, 16.4%), IncFIB(K)-HI1B (7/61, 11.5%), IncN (5/61, 8.2%), IncN-IncFII (2/61, 3.3%), IncFII (1/61, 1.6%) and IncP (1/61, 1.6%). The strains carrying IncHI5 and IncN plasmids belong to diverse ST types, indicating that these two plasmids may play an important role in the transmission of bla IMP genes among Klebsiella spp. strains. Conclusions Our results highlight that multi-clonal transmission, multiple genetic environments and plasmid types play a major role in the dissemination process of bla IMP genes among Klebsiella spp. IncHI5 type plasmids have the potential to be the main vectors mediating the spread of the bla IMP genes in Klebsiella spp

Fast and Deep Diagnosis Using Blood-Based ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy for Digestive Tract Cancers

Attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) of liquid biofluids enables the probing of biomolecular markers for disease diagnosis, characterized as a time and cost-effective approach. It remains poorly understood for fast and deep diagnosis of digestive tract cancers (DTC) to detect abundant changes and select specific markers in a broad spectrum of molecular species. Here, we present a diagnostic protocol of DTC in which the in-situ blood-based ATR-FTIR spectroscopic data mining pathway was designed for the identification of DTC triages in 252 blood serum samples, divided into the following groups: liver cancer (LC), gastric cancer (GC), colorectal cancer (CC), and their different three stages respectively. The infrared molecular fingerprints (IMFs) of DTC were measured and used to build a 2-dimensional second derivative spectrum (2D-SD-IR) feature dataset for classification, including absorbance and wavenumber shifts of FTIR vibration peaks. By comparison, the Partial Least-Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) and backpropagation (BP) neural networks are suitable to differentiate DTCs and pathological stages with a high sensitivity and specificity of 100% and averaged more than 95%. Furthermore, the measured IMF data was mutually validated via clinical blood biochemistry testing, which indicated that the proposed 2D-SD-IR-based machine learning protocol greatly improved DTC classification performance

A method for screening tigecycline-resistant gene tet(X) from human gut

Objectives: To develop an effective enrichment method for tet(X) detection, we performed PCR and Sanger sequencing to screen and confirm the presence of tet(X) gene. Methods: Species were identified by MALDI-TOF MS analysis. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of common antibiotics were determined by broth microdilution and interpreted according to the CLSI guidelines and EUCAST breakpoints. Results: We obtained 29 (2.26%, 29/1284) tet(X4)-positive Escherichia coli, and 96.6% of those (28 isolates) exhibited resistance to tigecycline. Conclusion: This specific screening strategy for functional tet(X) mediating tigecycline resistance will be useful to facilitate development and advancement of our knowledge of tet(X)

The Rapid Emergence of Ceftazidime-Avibactam Resistance Mediated by KPC Variants in Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in Zhejiang Province, China

Ceftazidime-avibactam (CAV) is a new treatment option against carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) infections. However, the rapid emergence of CAV resistance mediated by KPC variants has posed a severe threat to healthcare after its clinical application. The characteristics of CAV resistance in CRKP strains needs to be determined in China. A total of 477 CRKP isolates were collected from 46 hospitals in Zhejiang Province from 2018 to 2021. The results demonstrated that CAV had a potent activity against 94.5% of all CRKP (451/477, 95% CI: 93.0&ndash;96.1%) and 86.0% of CRKP strains carrying blaKPC genes (410/477, 95% CI: 83.5&ndash;88.4%). A total of 26 CAV-resistant strains were found. Among these strains, sixteen harbored metallo-&beta; lactamases, and two carried KPC-2 carbapenemase and mutated ompK35 and ompK36. Eight CRKP strains encoded KPC-33 or KPC-93, belonging to ST11, among which seven strains were detected in patients hospitalized in 2021 after exposure to CAV and one strain was associated with intra-hospital spread. CAV is a potent agent in vitro against CRKP strains. The rapid development of CAV resistance mediated by various KPC variants after a short period of CAV treatment has increased and brought difficulties in treating infections caused by CRKP strains, especially those belonging to ST11. The surveillance of bacterial resistance against CAV is highly recommended due to the steep development of CAV resistance and rapid evolution of KPC enzymes

Emergence of plasmid-mediated high-level tigecycline resistance genes in animals and humans

Tigecycline is a last-resort antibiotic that is used to treat severe infections caused by extensively drug-resistant bacteria. tet(X) has been shown to encode a flavin-dependent monooxygenase that modifies tigecycline1,2. Here, we report two unique mobile tigecycline-resistance genes, tet(X3) and tet(X4), in numerous Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter that were isolated from animals, meat for consumption and humans. Tet(X3) and Tet(X4) inactivate all tetracyclines, including tigecycline and the newly FDA-approved eravacycline and omadacycline. Both tet(X3) and tet(X4) increase (by 64–128-fold) the tigecycline minimal inhibitory concentration values for Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumannii. In addition, both Tet(X3) (A. baumannii) and Tet(X4) (E. coli) significantly compromise tigecycline in in vivo infection models. Both tet(X3) and tet(X4) are adjacent to insertion sequence ISVsa3 on their respective conjugative plasmids and confer a mild fitness cost (relative fitness of >0.704). Database mining and retrospective screening analyses confirm that tet(X3) and tet(X4) are globally present in clinical bacteria—even in the same bacteria as blaNDM-1, resulting in resistance to both tigecycline and carbapenems. Our findings suggest that both the surveillance of tet(X) variants in clinical and animal sectors and the use of tetracyclines in food production require urgent global attention