The effects of venlafaxine on depressive-like behaviors and gut microbiome in cuprizone-treated mice

BackgroundCuprizone (CPZ)-treated mice show significant demyelination, altered gut microbiome, and depressive-like behaviors. However, the effects of venlafaxine (Ven) on the gut microbiome and depressive-like behavior of CPZ-treated mice are largely unclear.MethodsMale C57BL/6J mice were fed a chow containing 0.2% cuprizone (w/w) for 5 weeks to induce a model of demyelination. Meanwhile, the gut microbiota and depressive-like behaviors were assessed after the mice were fed with Ven (20 mg/kg/day) or equal volumes of distilled water for 2 weeks by oral gavage from the third week onward during CPZ treatment.ResultsCPZ treatment decreased the sucrose preference rate in the sucrose preference test and increased the immobility time in the tail-suspension test, and it also induced an abnormality in β-diversity and changes in microbial composition. Ven alleviated the depressive-like behavior and regulated the composition of the gut microbiota, such as the increase of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium in CPZ-treated mice.ConclusionThe anti-depressant effects of Ven might be related to the regulation of gut microbiota in the CPZ-treated mice

Macro Perspectives and New Directions in the Studies of Chinese Overseas

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Stretchable conductive fibers based on a cracking control strategy for wearable electronics

Stretchability plays an important role in wearable devices. Repeated stretching often causes the conductivity dramatically decreasing due to the damage of the inner conductive layer, which is a fatal and undesirable issue in this field. Herein, a convenient rolling strategy to prepare conductive fibers with high stretchability based on a spiral structure is proposed. With the simple rolling design, low resistance change can be obtained due to confined elongation nof the gold thin-film cracks, which is caused by the encapsulated effect in such a structure. When the fiber is under 50% strain, the resistance change (R/R0) is about 1.5, which is much lower than a thin film at the same strain (R/R0 ≈ 10). The fiber can even afford a high load strain (up to 100%), but still retain good conductivity. Such a design further demonstrates its capability when it is used as a conductor to confirm signal transfer with low attenuation, which can also be woven into textile to fabricate wearable electronics.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore

<i>In Situ</i> Observation of Thermal Proton Transport through Graphene Layers

Protons can penetrate through single-layer graphene, but thicker graphene layers (more than 2 layers), which possess more compact electron density, are thought to be unfavorable for penetration by protons at room temperature and elevated temperatures. In this work, we developed an <i>in situ</i> subsecond time-resolved grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction technique, which fully realizes the real-time observation of the thermal proton interaction with the graphene layers at high temperature. By following the evolution of interlayer structure during the protonation process, we demonstrated that thermal protons can transport through multilayer graphene (more than 8 layers) on nickel foil at 900 °C. In comparison, under the same conditions, the multilayer graphenes are impermeable to argon, nitrogen, helium, and their derived ions. Complementary <i>in situ</i> transport measurements simultaneously verify the penetration phenomenon at high temperature. Moreover, the direct transport of protons through graphene is regarded as the dominant contribution to the penetration phenomenon. The thermal activation, weak interlayer interaction between layers, and the affinity of the nickel catalyst may all contribute to the proton transport. We believe that this method could become one of the established approaches for the characterization of the ions intercalated with 2D materials <i>in situ</i> and in real-time