The past, the present, and the future of future-oriented mental time travel: Editors' introduction

This introductory chapter reviews research on future-oriented mental time travel to date (the past), provides an overview of the contents of the book (the present), and enumerates some possible research directions suggested by the latter (the future)

Episodic future thinking in generalized anxiety disorder

Research on future-oriented cognition in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) has primarily focused on worry, while less is known about the role of episodic future thinking (EFT), an imagery-based cognitive process. To characterize EFT in this disorder, we used the experimental recombination procedure, in which 21 GAD and 19 healthy participants simulated positive, neutral and negative novel future events either once or repeatedly, and rated their phenomenological experience of EFT. Results showed that healthy controls spontaneously generated more detailed EFT over repeated simulations. Both groups found EFT easier to generate after repeated simulations, except when GAD participants simulated positive events. They also perceived higher plausibility of negative-not positive or neutral-future events than did controls. These results demonstrate a negativity bias in GAD individuals' episodic future cognition, and suggest their relative deficit in generating vivid EFT. We discuss implications for the theory and treatment of GAD.R01 MH060941 - NIMH NIH HHS; R01 MH078308 - NIMH NIH HHS; R01AG08441 - NIA NIH HHS; R01 AT007257 - NCCIH NIH HHS; R01MH60941 - NIMH NIH HHS; R01 AG008441 - NIA NIH HHS; R34 MH099311 - NIMH NIH HHS; R21MH102646 - NIMH NIH HHS; R01AT007257 - NCCIH NIH HHS; R21 MH102646 - NIMH NIH HHS; R34MH078308 - NIMH NIH HH

Coherent photonuclear reactions for isotope transmutation

Coherent photonuclear isotope transmutation (CPIT) produces exclusively radioactive isotopes (RIs) by coherent photonuclear reactions via E1 giant resonances. Photons to be used are medium energy photons produced by laser photons backscattered off GeV electrons. The cross sections are as large as 0.2 - 0.6 b, being independent of individual nuclides. A large fraction of photons is effectively used for the photonuclear reactions, while the scattered GeV electrons remain in the storage ring to be re-used. CPIT with medium energy photons provides specific/desired RIs with the high rate and the high density for nuclear science, molecular biology and for nuclear medicines.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Remembering and imagining alternative versions of the personal past

Although autobiographical memory and episodic simulations recruit similar core brain regions, episodic simulations engage additional neural recruitment in the frontoparietal control network due to greater demands on constructive processes. However, previous functional neuroimaging studies showing differences in remembering and episodic simulation have focused on veridical retrieval of past experiences, and thus have not fully considered how retrieving the past in different ways from how it was originally experienced may also place similar demands on constructive processes. Here we examined how alternative versions of the past are constructed when adopting different egocentric perspectives during autobiographical memory retrieval compared to simulating hypothetical events from the personal past that could have occurred, or episodic counterfactual thinking. Participants were asked to generate titles for specific autobiographical memories from the last five years, and then, during functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) scanning, were asked to repeatedly retrieve autobiographical memories or imagine counterfactual events cued by the titles. We used an fMRI adaptation paradigm in order to isolate neural regions that were sensitive to adopting alternative egocentric perspectives and counterfactual simulations of the personal past. The fMRI results revealed that voxels within left posterior inferior parietal and ventrolateral frontal cortices were sensitive to novel visual perspectives and counterfactual simulations. Our findings suggest that the neural regions supporting remembering become more similar to those underlying episodic simulation when we adopt alternative egocentric perspectives of the veridical past

Detection and characterization of biogenic selenium nanoparticles in selenium-rich yeast by single particle ICPMS

A method based on single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICPMS) was developed for the analysis of commercial Se-rich yeasts, to confirm the occurrence of selenium nanoparticles in these food supplements. A considerable reduction of background levels was achieved by combining data acquisition at microsecond dwell times and the use of a H2 reaction cell, improving by a factor of 10 the current state-of-the-art methodology, and bringing size detection limits down to 18 nm for selenium nanoparticles. The presence of nanoparticulate selenium was revealed by size-exclusion chromatography ICPMS, with detection of a selenium peak at the exclusion volume of the column showing absorption at a wavelength corresponding to selenium nanoparticles. SP-ICPMS allowed us to confirm the presence of Se-nanoparticles, as well as to calculate the nanoparticle size distribution, from information about the shape and elemental composition of the nanoparticles obtained by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), respectively. These results reveal the significance of nanoparticles in the speciation of metals and metalloids in biological samples and the capability of SP-ICPMS in combination with TEM-EDS to carry out these analyses

Protention and retention in biological systems

This paper proposes an abstract mathematical frame for describing some features of cognitive and biological time. We focus here on the so called "extended present" as a result of protentional and retentional activities (memory and anticipation). Memory, as retention, is treated in some physical theories (relaxation phenomena, which will inspire our approach), while protention (or anticipation) seems outside the scope of physics. We then suggest a simple functional representation of biological protention. This allows us to introduce the abstract notion of "biological inertia".Comment: This paper was made possible only as part of an extended collaboration with Francis Bailly (see references), a dear friend and "ma\^itre \'a penser", who contributed to the key ideas. Francis passed away in february 2008: we continue here our inspiring discussions and joint wor

Pharmacokinetics of ibuprofen in man. I. Free and total area/dose relationships

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110022/1/cptclpt1983136.pd

Relationships between Molecular Characteristics of Novel Organic Selenium Compounds and the Formation of Sulfur Compounds in Selenium Biofortified Kale Sprouts

Due to problems with selenium deficiency in humans, the search for new organic molecules containing this element in plant biofortification process is highly required. Selenium organic esters evaluated in this study (E-NS-4, E-NS-17, E-NS-71, EDA-11, and EDA-117) are based mostly on benzoselenoate scaffolds, with some additional halogen atoms and various functional groups in the aliphatic side chain of different length, while one compound contains a phenylpiperazine moiety (WA-4b). In our previous study, the biofortification of kale sprouts with organoselenium compounds (at the concentrations of 15 mg/L in the culture fluid) strongly enhanced the synthesis of glucosinolates and isothiocyanates. Thus, the study aimed to discover the relationships between molecular characteristics of the organoselenium compounds used and the amount of sulfur phytochemicals in kale sprouts. The statistical partial least square model with eigenvalues equaled 3.98 and 1.03 for the first and second latent components, respectively, which explained 83.5% of variance in the predictive parameters, and 78.6% of response parameter variance was applied to reveal the existence of the correlation structure between molecular descriptors of selenium compounds as predictive parameters and biochemical features of studied sprouts as response parameters (correlation coefficients for parameters in PLS model in the range—0.521 ÷ 1.000). This study supported the conclusion that future biofortifiers composed of organic compounds should simultaneously contain nitryl groups, which may facilitate the production of plant-based sulfur compounds, as well as organoselenium moieties, which may influence the production of low molecular weight selenium metabolites. In the case of the new chemical compounds, environmental aspects should also be evaluated.This research received no external fundin