Improving the signal detection accuracy of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Available online 12 April 2018A major drawback of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) concerns the lack of detection accuracy of the measured signal. Although this limitation stems in part from the neuro-vascular nature of the fMRI signal, it also reflects particular methodological decisions in the fMRI data analysis pathway. Here we show that the signal detection accuracy of fMRI is affected by the specific way in which whole-brain volumes are created from individually acquired brain slices, and by the method of statistically extracting signals from the sampled data. To address these limitations, we propose a new framework for fMRI data analysis. The new framework creates whole-brain volumes from individual brain slices that are all acquired at the same point in time relative to a presented stimulus. These whole-brain volumes contain minimal temporal distortions, and are available at a high temporal resolution. In addition, statistical signal extraction occurred on the basis of a non-standard time point-by-time point approach. We evaluated the detection accuracy of the extracted signal in the standard and new framework with simulated and real-world fMRI data. The new slice-based data-analytic framework yields greatly improved signal detection accuracy of fMRI signals.See https://github.com/iamnielsjanssen/slice-based for a full analysis script using the Slice-Based method. This work was supported by The Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (RYC2011-08433 and PSI2013-46334 to NJ)

Functional connectivity of the hippocampus and its subfields in resting-state networks

First published: 30 March 2021Many neuroimaging studies have shown that the hippocampus participates in a resting-state network called the default mode network. However, how the hippocampus connects to the default mode network, whether the hippocampus connects to other resting-state networks and how the different hippocampal subfields take part in resting-state networks remains poorly understood. Here, we examined these issues using the high spatial-resolution 7T resting-state fMRI dataset from the Human Connectome Project. We used data-driven techniques that relied on spatially-restricted Independent Component Analysis, Dual Regression and linear mixed-effect group-analyses based on participant-specific brain morphology. The results revealed two main activity hotspots inside the hippocampus. The first hotspot was located in an anterior location and was correlated with the somatomotor network. This network was subserved by co-activity in the CA1, CA3, CA4 and Dentate Gyrus fields. In addition, there was an activity hotspot that extended from middle to posterior locations along the hippocampal long-axis and correlated with the default mode network. This network reflected activity in the Subiculum, CA4 and Dentate Gyrus fields. These results show how different sections of the hippocampus participate in two known resting-state networks and how these two resting-state networks depend on different configurations of hippocampal subfield co-activity.Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Grant/Award Number: PSI2017-84933- P, PSI2017-91955- EXP and TEC2016-80063- C3- 2- R; NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, Grant/Award Number: 1U54MH091657; McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience; European Social Fund (ESF

Semantic parafoveal processing in natural reading: Insight from fixation-related potentials & eye movements

First published: 23 December 2021Prior research suggests that we may access the meaning of parafoveal words during reading. We explored how semantic-plausibility parafoveal processing takes place in natural reading through the co-registration of eye movements (EM) and fixation-related potentials (FRPs), using the boundary paradigm. We replicated previous evidence of semantic parafoveal processing from highly controlled reading situations, extending their findings to more ecologically valid reading scenarios. Additionally, and exploring the time-course of plausibility preview effects, we found distinct but complementary evidence from EM and FRPs measures. FRPs measures, showing a different trend than EM evidence, revealed that plausibility preview effects may be long-lasting. We highlight the importance of a co-registration set-up in ecologically valid scenarios to disentangle the mechanisms related to semantic-plausibility parafoveal processing.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Grant/Award Number: PID2020-118487GB- I00; Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España, Grant/Award Number: BES-2017- 08179

Aislados de Bacillus provenientes de la rizósfera de cactus incrementan la germinación y la floración en Mammillaria spp. (Cactaceae)

ResumenLas cactáceas son la vegetación característica de las zonas áridas en México, donde las lluvias son escasas, la evapotranspiración es elevada y la fertilidad de los suelos es baja. Las plantas han desarrollado estrategias fisiológicas como la asociación con microorganismos en la zona de la rizósfera para incrementar la captación de nutrientes. En el presente trabajo se obtuvieron 4 aislados bacterianos de la rizósfera de Mammillaria magnimamma y Coryphantha radians, los que fueron nombrados como QAP3, QAP19, QAP22 y QAP24 e identificados genéticamente como pertenecientes al género Bacillus. Estos aislados exhibieron in vitro propiedades bioquímicas como solubilización de fosfatos, producción de ácido indolacético y actividad ACC deaminasa, que se relacionan con la promoción del crecimiento de las plantas. Dicha promoción fue ensayada inoculando semillas de M. magnimamma y evaluando luego algunos parámetros. Se encontró que todos los aislados incrementaron la germinación desde un 17% hasta un 34,3% (con respecto a las semillas testigo sin inocular); el aislado QAP24 fue el que presentó el mayor efecto en este sentido y permitió la germinación de todas las semillas viables (84,7%) 3 días antes que en el testigo. La inoculación de este aislado en plantas de Mammillaria zeilmanniana mostró un efecto positivo sobre la floración: en 2 meses dentro del período de un año se detectó un incremento en el número de plantas en floración con respecto a las plantas testigo, de hasta el 31,0% en uno de ellos. Se concluye que los aislados de Bacillus spp. caracterizados poseen potencial para ser empleados en programas de conservación de especies vegetales de zonas áridas.AbstractCacti are the most representative vegetation of arid zones in Mexico where rainfall is scarce, evapotranspiration is high and soil fertility is low. Plants have developed physiological strategies such as the association with microorganisms in the rhizosphere zone to increase nutrient uptake. In the present work, four bacterial isolates from the rhizosphere of Mammillaria magnimamma and Coryphantha radians were obtained and named as QAP3, QAP19, QAP22 and QAP24, and were genetically identified as belonging to the genus Bacillus, exhibiting in vitro biochemical properties such as phosphate solubilization, indoleacetic acid production and ACC deaminase activity related to plant growth promotion, which was tested by inoculating M. magnimamma seeds. It was found that all isolates increased germination from 17 to 34.3% with respect to the uninoculated control seeds, being QAP24 the one having the greatest effect, accomplishing the germination of viable seeds (84.7%) three days before the control seeds. Subsequently, the inoculation of Mammillari zeilmanniana plants with this isolate showed a positive effect on bloom, registering during two months from a one year period, an increase of up to 31.0% in the number of flowering plants compared to control plants. The characterized Bacillus spp. isolates have potential to be used in conservation programs of plant species from arid zones

Experimental measurement of the quality factor of a Fabry-P\'erot open-cavity axion haloscope

The axion is a hypothetical boson arising from the most natural solution to the problem of charge and parity symmetry in the strong nuclear force. Moreover, this pseudoscalar emerges as a dark matter candidate in a parameter space extending several decades in mass. The Dark-photons \& Axion-Like particles Interferometer (DALI) is a proposal to search for axion dark matter in a range that remains under-examined. Currently in a design and prototyping phase, this haloscope is a multilayer Fabry-P\'erot interferometer. A proof-of-principle experiment is performed to observe the resonance in a prototype. The test unveils a quality factor per open cavity of a few hundred over a bandwidth of the order of dozens of megahertz. The result elucidates a physics potential to find the, so far elusive, axion, in a sector which can simultaneously solve the symmetry problem in the strong interaction and the enigma of dark matter.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

What a transparent Romance language with a Germanic gender-determiner mapping tells us about gender retrieval: Insights from European Portuguese

The study of the representation and processing of grammatical gender during language production has encountered mixed results regarding which conditions must be met to observe gender effects and whether these reflect the selection of gender values or competition between elements of agreement. The answer seems to depend on the number of determiners associated with each gender and on the language being explored. The present study aims to assess this issue through three picture-word interference tasks in European Portuguese. This is a transparent Romance language featuring a one-to-one gender-determiner mapping system similar to opaque Germanic languages. Conditions of gender in/congruency between targets and distractors were considered, along with gender transparency and agreement. We observed a gender congruency effect restricted to noun phrases. Importantly, the effect was modulated by transparency, which seems relevant regardless of agreement. To explain the results, we adapted the Dual-Route Model of language comprehension to productionThis work was supported by the Government of Spain, Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, through the Training program for Academic Staff (Ayudas para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario, FPU [FPU16/06983]); the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [research project PID2019-110583GB-I00]; the Galician Government [grant for research groups ED431B 2022/2019]; and the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal [IF / 00784/2013 / CP1158 / CT0013]. Finally, the study has also been partially supported by the FCT and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement [POCI-01-0145- FEDER-007653]S

PHF2 regulates homology-directed DNA repair by controlling the resection of DNA double strand breaks

Post-translational histone modifications and chromatin remodelling play a critical role controlling the integrity of the genome. Here, we identify histone lysine demethylase PHF2 as a novel regulator of the DNA damage response by regulating DNA damage-induced focus formation of 53BP1 and BRCA1, critical factors in the pathway choice for DNA double strand break repair. PHF2 knockdown leads to impaired BRCA1 focus formation and delays the resolution of 53BP1 foci. Moreover, irradiation-induced RPA phosphorylation and focus formation, as well as localization of CtIP, required for DNA end resection, to sites of DNA lesions are affected by depletion of PHF2. These results are indicative of a defective resection of double strand breaks and thereby an impaired homologous recombination upon PHF2 depletion. In accordance with these data, Rad51 focus formation and homology-directed double strand break repair is inhibited in cells depleted for PHF2. Importantly, we demonstrate that PHF2 knockdown decreases CtIP and BRCA1 protein and mRNA levels, an effect that is dependent on the demethylase activity of PHF2. Furthermore, PHF2-depleted cells display genome instability and are mildly sensitive to the inhibition of PARP. Together these results demonstrate that PHF2 promotes DNA repair by homologous recombination by controlling CtIP-dependent resection of double strand breaks.España Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion SAF2016-80626-REspaña, Fundación Canaria Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Canarias (FIISC) [PIFUN16/18

Looking Towards 2030: Strengthening the Environmental Health in Childhood-Adolescent Cancer Survivor Programs

Childhood and adolescent cancer survivors (CACS) are a high-risk population for non-communicable diseases and secondary carcinogenesis. The Environmental and Community Health Program for Longitudinal Follow-up of CACS in the region of Murcia, Spain, is an ongoing pioneering program that constitutes a model for social innovation. This study aims to present the program tools and protocol as a whole, as well as a profile of the incidence, survival, and spatiotemporal distribution of childhood cancer in the region of Murcia, Spain, using 822 sample cases of cancer diagnosed in children under 15 years of age (1998-2020). While the crude incidence rate across that entire period was 149.6 per 1 million, there was an increase over that time in the incidence. The areas with a higher standardized incidence ratio have shifted from the northwest (1998-2003) to the southeast (2016-2020) region. Overall, the ten-year survival rate for all tumor types was 80.1% over the entire period, increasing the five-year survival rate from 76.1 (1998-2003) to 85.5 (2014-2018). CACS living in areas with very poor outdoor air quality had lower survival rates. Furthermore, integrating environmental health into clinical practice could improve knowledge of the etiology and prognosis, as well as the outcomes of CACS. Finally, monitoring individual carbon footprints and creating healthier lifestyles, alongside healthier environments for CACS, could promote wellbeing, environmental awareness, and empowerment in order to attain Sustainable Development Goals for non-communicable diseases in this population.This research was supported by the Environment, Survival and Childhood Cancer Project, Spanish Federation of Parents of Children with Cancer (FFIS-CCE-2019-11); Environmental Health Profile for Children Project funded by Sociedad Pediatria Sureste Esp. (FFIS-DF-2022-36); the International Network of Environment, Survival and Childhood Cancer (ENSUCHICA) in Europe and Latin America (FFIS EU17-01-01); Fundación Científica de la AECC (MACAPE-2004); Medio Ambiente Cáncer Pediátrica en la Región De Murcia (MACAPEMUR-2009 ~FFIS/EMER09/15); the Mount Sinai International Exchange Program for Minority Students funded by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (T37 MD001452); and the International Training and Research Program in Environmental and Occupational Health funded by the Fogarty International Center, United States (TW00640). The funders had no role in the completion of the research project, the writing of the manuscript for publication, or the decision to publish the results.S

Psychometric properties of the CEMA-A questionnaire: motives for lying

Previous research on the motives for lying lacks factorial models that allow grouping of motives into specific categories. The objective of this study is to confirm the factorial structure of the questionnaire of motives for lying (CEMA-A). Participants were 1,722 adults residing in the Canary Islands (Spain) who completed the CEMA-A and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). The four-dimensional structure of the questionnaire was confirmed (χ2 = 1460.97, df = 325, p = 0.001; CFI = 0.94; TLI = 0.93; NFI = 0.93; NNFI = 0.93; RMSEA = 0.05, CI = 0.051–0.057; SRMR = 0.04). The four factors of the CEMA-A were Intrapersonal Motivation–Emotionality, Interpersonal Motivation–Sociability, Egoism/Hardness Motivation, and Malicious Motivation, with an internal consistency between 0.79 and 0.91. Invariance analyses confirmed the equivalence of the instrument for men and women. The CEMA-A factors positively correlated with Neuroticism and Psychoticism, and negatively with Dissimulation. Extraversion was not related to any of the factors, and only displayed a low negative correlation with Intrapersonal Motivation–Emotionality. Analysis of variance showed that men scored higher in Egoism/Hardness and Malicious Motivation. The CEMA-A has proven capable of apprehending the motives for lying and has adequate psychometric criteria for use in various populations

Ordenamiento ambiental y gestión costera integrada: experiencias y retos en el norte de la provincia de Matanzas (Cuba)

En Cuba, país costero con diferentes insuficiencias económicas y sociales que se deben resolver, el equilibrio con el medio ambiente costero-marino está sujeto a altas presiones humanas, y ello ocurre bajo una intensa dinámica natural y antropogénica, por lo que los asuntos de protección y gestión de zonas costeras han adquirido especial atención y prioridad. En este contexto, la provincia de Matanzas se ha perfilado como una región clásica para los estudios costeros y la aplicación del enfoque de manejo costero integrado, justamente por contar en su costa sur con el humedal más extenso y mejor conservado de Cuba: la Ciénaga de Zapata, y en su costa norte, con una subregión singular del país, que se destaca por presentar una diversidad de ecosistemas costeromarinos, que constituyen al mismo tiempo el soporte de varias e importantes actividades económico-productivas y sociales, donde sobresalen las bahías y ciudades portuarias de Matanzas y Cárdenas, el reconocido destino turístico de la playa de Varadero, y el humedal costero de Majagüillar. En este Capítulo se sintetizan las experiencias de diseño e implementación en lo referido al ordenamiento ambiental y los programas de gestión costera integrada, durante más de 15 años de esfuerzos ininterrumpidos, lo que ha demostrado que la articulación entre tales procesos es la mejor fórmula de adaptación a los nuevos escenarios ambientales y climáticos, y deja interesantes lecciones aprendidas y también importantes retos a considerar en proyecciones futuras