The pathophysiology of prospective memory failure after diffuse axonal injury - Lesion-symptom analysis using diffusion tensor imaging

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prospective memory (PM) is one of the most important cognitive domains in everyday life. The neuronal basis of PM has been examined by a large number of neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies, and it has been suggested that several cerebral domains contribute to PM. For these activation studies, a constellation of experimental PM trials was developed and adopted to healthy subjects. In the present study, we used a widely used clinical PM assessment battery to determine the lesions attributable to PM failure, with the hypothesis that lesion-symptom analysis using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in subjects with diffuse axonal injury (DAI) can reveal the neuronal basis of PM in everyday life.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fourteen DAI patients (age: range of 18-36, median 24) participated in this study. PM failure was scored in the range of 0-6 using three sub-tests of the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test. The PM scores of DAI patients were in the range of 2-6 (median 4.5, inter-quartile range 2.25). The severity of axonal injury following DAI was examined using fractional anisotropy (FA), one of the DTI parameters, at voxel level in each subject. We then obtained clusters correlated with PM failure by conducting voxel-based regression analysis between FA values and PM scores. Three clusters exhibited significant positive correlation with PM score, the left parahippocampal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobe, and left anterior cingulate.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This is the first lesion-symptom study to reveal the neuronal basis of PM using DTI on subjects with DAI. Our findings suggest that the neuronal basis of PM is in the left parahippocampal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobe, and/or left anterior cingulate. These findings are similar to those of previous activation studies with loading experimental PM tasks.</p

段階的基質利用コンセプトを用いた土壌微生物呼吸の定量的解析

京都大学0048新制・課程博士博士(農学)甲第15422号農博第1807号新制||農||979(附属図書館)学位論文||H22||N4521(農学部図書室)27900京都大学大学院農学研究科地域環境科学専攻(主査)教授 舟川 晋也, 教授 二井 一禎, 教授 北山 兼弘学位規則第4条第1項該当Doctor of Agricultural ScienceKyoto UniversityDA

Discrimination thresholds for recognizing facial emotions : Mostly higher among the elderly

Elderly people have lower ability for recognizing facial emotions than younger people. Previous studies showed that older adults had difficulty in recognizing anger, sadness and fear, but there were no consistent results for happiness, surprise and disgust. Most of these studies used a small number of stimuli, and tabulated the number of correct responses for facial expressions. These characteristics of the task might be the source of the discrepancy in the findings. The present study used a task which measures participants' discrimination thresholds for six basic emotions using psychophysical measurement methods. The results showed that the thresholds for elderly participants (74.8±6.5 yrs) were significantly higher than for younger participants (20.1±1.6 yrs) for sadness, surprise, anger, disgust and fear. There was no significant difference for happiness. Since the task that we developed was sufficiently sensitive, it is a useful tool for assessing individuals' ability to perceive emotion

Bacterial and fungal community composition and community-level physiological profiles in forest soils.

We characterized the potential functioning and composition of the bacterial and fungal communities in the O and A horizons of forest soils using community-level physiological profile (CLPP) based on BIOLOG analysis, and polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) analysis of 16S and 18S rDNA fragments, respectively. In addition, relationships between the potential functioning and the community composition in each horizon, and between the O and A horizons, were assessed using Procrustes analysis. For the bacterial and fungal communities, the CLPP and DGGE profile were clearly separated between the O and A horizons in a principal coordinate analysis except for the fungal CLPP. No significant links for CLPP and DGGE profile between the O and A horizons were observed for either bacterial or fungal communities, suggesting that different factors had considerable influence on the microbial communities between the O and A horizons. Significant couplings between bacterial and fungal DGGE profiles (p <0.05 for O horizon; p <0.01 for A horizon), and between bacterial and fungal CLPPs (p = 0.001 for O horizon; p <0.01 for A horizon), were observed in the O and A horizons, implying that common factors strongly influenced the bacterial and fungal communities in each horizon. Although a significant correlation was observed between bacterial community composition and the potential functioning in the A horizon (p <0.01), such a correlation was not observed for the fungal community in the A horizon, and for the bacterial and fungal communities in the O horizon. This finding suggested that potential functioning, which would reflect only rapidly growing microorganisms, was not strongly associated with the composition of the entire microbial community. Further studies are needed to unravel the factors shaping the composition and functioning of microbial communities in forest soils

Application of Biogas Digestate with Rice Straw Mitigates Nitrate Leaching Potential and Suppresses Root-Knot Nematode (<i>Meloidogyne incognita</i>)

This study investigated the effects of biogas digestate application to soil with rice straw on nitrate leaching potential and nematicidal activity toward root-knot nematodes Meloidogyne incognita. The following seven treatments were set up: (i) control (CONT); (ii) chemical fertilizer (CF); (iii) wet biogas digestate derived from pig manure (WBD); (iv) and (v) dry biogas digestate derived from a mixture of pig manure and rice straw at an initial C/N ratio of 20 and 30 (DBD20 and DBD30); (vi) and (vii) DBD20 mixed with rice straw to adjust the C/N ratio to 16 (Mix1) and 30 (Mix2), respectively. The application rate of CF and digestates was adjusted to 200 mg N kg&#8722;1 soil based on the inorganic ammonium nitrogen contents. Nitrate contents readily increased in all the treatments with incubation, except for Mix2, and those at day 90 were decreased with increasing initial labile C contents. Garden balsam was grown as a test plant for root-knot nematodes using the soils at day 90 and the results showed that the gall index was significantly lower in Mix2 and Mix1 than in CF. These results suggest that dry digestate mixed with rice straw might have potential for lower nitrate leaching and nematicidal properties