Corticospinal and intracortical responses from both motor cortices following unilateral concentric versus eccentric contractions

Cross-education is the phenomenon where training of one limb can cause neuromuscular adaptations in the opposite untrained limb. This effect has been reported to be greater after eccentric (ECC) than concentric (CON) strength training; however, the underpinning neurophysiological mechanisms remain unclear. Thus, we compared responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in both motor cortices following single sessions of unilateral ECC and CON exercise of the elbow flexors. Fourteen healthy adults performed three sets of 10 ECC and CON right elbow flexor contractions at 75 % of respective maximum on separate days. Elbow flexor maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) torques were measured before and after exercise, and responses to single- and paired-pulse TMS were recorded from the non-exercised left and exercised right biceps brachii. Pre-exercise and post-exercise responses for ECC and CON were compared by repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs). MVIC torque of the exercised arm decreased (p \u3c 0.01) after CON ( − 30 ± 14 %) and ECC ( − 39 ± 13 %) similarly. For the non-exercised left biceps brachii, resting motor threshold (RMT) decreased after CON only ( − 4.2 ± 3.9 % of maximum stimulator output [MSO], p \u3c 0.01), and intracortical facilitation (ICF) decreased (−15.2 ± 20.0 %, p = 0.038) after ECC only. For the exercised right biceps, RMT increased after ECC (8.6 ± 6.2 % MSO, p = 0.014) but not after CON (6.4 ± 8.1% MSO, p = 0.066). Thus, unilateral ECC and CON elbow flexor exercise modulated excitability differently for the non-exercised hemisphere. These findings suggest that responses after a single bout of exercise may not reflect longer term adaptations

Distinct contributions of functional and deep neural network features to representational similarity of scenes in human brain and behavior

Inherent correlations between visual and semantic features in real-world scenes make it difficult to determine how different scene properties contribute to neural representations. Here, we assessed the contributions of multiple properties to scene representation by partitioning the variance explained in human behavioral and brain measurements by three feature models whose inter-correlations were minimized a priori through stimulus preselection. Behavioral assessments of scene similarity reflected unique contributions from a functional feature model indicating potential actions in scenes as well as high-level visual features from a deep neural network (DNN). In contrast, similarity of cortical responses in scene-selective areas was uniquely explained by mid-and high-level DNN features only, while an object label model did not contribute uniquely to either domain. The striking dissociation between functional and DNN features in their contribution to behavioral and brain representations of scenes indicates that scene-selective cortex represents only a subset of behaviorally relevant scene information

The application of deep eutectic solvent ionic liquids for environmentally-friendly dissolution and recovery of precious metals

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: The application of deep eutectic solvent ionic liquids for environmentally-friendly dissolution and recovery of precious metals journaltitle: Minerals Engineering articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2015.09.026 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Mopeia Virus–related Arenavirus in Natal Multimammate Mice, Morogoro, Tanzania

A serosurvey involving 2,520 small mammals from Tanzania identified a hot spot of arenavirus circulation in Morogoro. Molecular screening detected a new arenavirus in Natal multimammate mice (Mastomys natalensis), Morogoro virus, related to Mopeia virus. Only a small percentage of mice carry Morogoro virus, although a large proportion shows specific antibodies

Mission-Oriented Innovation in Action: 2021 Casebook

The 2021 MOIN Casebook showcases a wide range of ongoing mission programmes in public agencies globally; from achieving 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030 (the European Union), to ensuring that all Dutch citizens live 5 years longer in good health by 2040 (Health~Holland), to ensuring that every street in Sweden is healthy, sustainable and full of life by 2030 (Vinnova). Further stories hail from CSIRO (Australia), Greater Manchester Combined Authority (UK), Valencia City (Spain), The Clyde (Scotland) and Camden (UK). The casebook delves into these missions’ programmes; describing their political context, the implementation approach, the challenges faced, and also shares the lessons learned to-date by the missions teams

Dynamic Partition of Collaborative Multiagent Based on Coordination Trees

In team Markov games research, it is difficult for an individual agent to calculate the reward of collaborative agents dynamically. We present a coordination tree structure whose nodes are agent subsets or an agent. Two kinds of weights of a tree are defined which describe the cost of an agent collaborating with an agent subset. We can calculate a collaborative agent subset and its minimal cost for collaboration using these coordination trees. Some experiments of a Markov game have been done by using this novel algorithm. The results of the experiments prove that this method outperforms related multi-agent reinforcement-learning methods based on alterable collaborative teams

Virus Infection of Plants Alters Pollinator Preference: A Payback for Susceptible Hosts?

Plant volatiles play important roles in attraction of certain pollinators and in host location by herbivorous insects. Virus infection induces changes in plant volatile emission profiles, and this can make plants more attractive to insect herbivores, such as aphids, that act as viral vectors. However, it is unknown if virus-induced alterations in volatile production affect plant-pollinator interactions. We found that volatiles emitted by cucumber mosaic virus (CMV)-infected tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and Arabidopsis thaliana plants altered the foraging behaviour of bumblebees (Bombus terrestris). Virus-induced quantitative and qualitative changes in blends of volatile organic compounds emitted by tomato plants were identified by gas chromatography-coupled mass spectrometry. Experiments with a CMV mutant unable to express the 2b RNA silencing suppressor protein and with Arabidopsis silencing mutants implicate microRNAs in regulating emission of pollinator-perceivable volatiles. In tomato, CMV infection made plants emit volatiles attractive to bumblebees. Bumblebees pollinate tomato by 'buzzing' (sonicating) the flowers, which releases pollen and enhances self-fertilization and seed production as well as pollen export. Without buzz-pollination, CMV infection decreased seed yield, but when flowers of mock-inoculated and CMV-infected plants were buzz-pollinated, the increased seed yield for CMV-infected plants was similar to that for mock-inoculated plants. Increased pollinator preference can potentially increase plant reproductive success in two ways: i) as female parents, by increasing the probability that ovules are fertilized; ii) as male parents, by increasing pollen export. Mathematical modeling suggested that over a wide range of conditions in the wild, these increases to the number of offspring of infected susceptible plants resulting from increased pollinator preference could outweigh underlying strong selection pressures favoring pathogen resistance, allowing genes for disease susceptibility to persist in plant populations. We speculate that enhanced pollinator service for infected individuals in wild plant populations might provide mutual benefits to the virus and its susceptible hosts.Major funding for this project was provided to JPC by the Leverhulme Trust (Grant numbers RPG-2012-667 and F/09741/F: https://www. leverhulme.ac.uk/). Additional funding to JPC and studentships to support JHW and SCG came from the Biotechnological and Biological Sciences Research Council (Grant number BB/J011762/1: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/). Other additional funding was obtained from the Isaac Newton Trust (http://www. newtontrust.cam.ac.uk/: grant number 12.07/I to AMM).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the Public Library of Science via http://dx.doi.org/:10.1371/journal.ppat.100579

What are the short-term benefits and potential harms of therapeutic modalities for the management of overactive bladder syndrome in women? : A review of evidence under the auspices of the European Association of Urology, Female Non-Neurogenic LUTS Guidelines Panel

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