Ostracods from a Marmara Sea lagoon (Turkey) as tsunami indicators

This is the post print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright @ Elsevier Ltd.A 352 cm long sediment core from Hersek Lagoon (Gulf of İzmit) was investigated for its ostracod species composition in order to evaluate the potential of ostracods to detect tsunami deposits in coastal environments. The Gulf of İzmit is the eastern bay of the Marmara Sea which is tectonically controlled by the North Anatolian Fault. Ostracod shells are rare in the lower third of the core, which probably represents a coastal wetland environment. According to radiocarbon dating of terrestrial plant remains, this unit was deposited between AD 500 and AD 800. Above, ostracod shells are abundant and dominantly monospecific, composed almost exclusively of the widespread brackish water ostracod Cyprideis torosa. This almost monospecific occurrence indicates the establishment and maintenance of the Hersek Lagoon after AD 800. Three distinct layers of mollusc shells and fragments contain ostracod shells of marine and to a lesser extent non-marine origin in addition to those of C. torosa. The shell layers are further characterized by significant maxima in total ostracod shell numbers. The high concentration of ostracod shells, the higher species numbers and the mixture of marine, lagoonal and non-marine ostracod shells shows that shell layers were formed as high-energy deposits resulting from tsunamis or large storms in the Marmara Sea. The partial occurrence of non-marine ostracod shells in the shell layers possibly indicates that tsunamis with extensive run-ups and significant backwash flows caused the high-energy deposits rather than large storms. The investigated sediments show that lagoonal ostracods can serve as good proxies for tsunamis or large storms through significant variations in total shell numbers, species numbers and the mixing of shells of different origin.Funding was provided by the European Union in the framework of the REL.I.E.F. (RELiable Information on Earthquake Faulting) project (EVG1-CT-2002-00069)

Category-selective Attention Modulates Unconscious Processing: Evidence from ERP

Aims: Recently, using the fMRI method in a paradigm in which visible word cues were followed by masked faces at a completely unconscious level or masked tools at a partially conscious level, Tu, Qiu, Martens, & Zhang [31] showed that the top-down modulation effects were in opposite directions for the two conditions. Because five different pictures of masked faces/tools were displayed in a trial, the authors proposed that the modulation effects could further interact with the conscious component of the partial awareness processing (i.e., awareness of the global contour change). In the present event-related potential study, we employed a paradigm similar to that of Tu et al.’s [31] except that the masked stimulus was displayed only once to test the effect of category selective attention on unconscious processing of picture identity and to try to investigate the above hypothesis. Study Design: Two semantic category cues (“face” or “tool”) and two types of subliminal stimuli (face or tool images) were crossed to generate four conditions: a face cue followed by a masked face picture, a face cue followed by a masked tool picture, a tool cue followed by a masked face picture, and a tool cue followed by a masked tool picture. Place and Duration of Study: Department of psychology, Institute of education, China West Normal University, between September 2013 and April 2014. Methodology: The technique of event-related potentials (ERP) was used. Results: Processing of masked face and tool images both elicited the ERP components of C1, P1, N1, and P2. In addition, C1 component between 25 ms and 55 ms was smaller in the valid category cue-word condition (face cue-word followed by masked face image & tool cue-word followed by masked tool image) than in the invalid cue-words (face cue-word followed by masked tool image & tool cue-word followed by masked face image). The other three waves, P1, N1, and P2, were found to be unaffected by the top–down modulation Conclusion: Category-selective attention can modulate unconscious processes at an early stage of visual processing supporting the interaction hypothesis

The RNA landscape of the human placenta in health and disease

AbstractThe placenta is the interface between mother and fetus and inadequate function contributes to short and long-term ill-health. The placenta is absent from most large-scale RNA-Seq datasets. We therefore analyze long and small RNAs (~101 and 20 million reads per sample respectively) from 302 human placentas, including 94 cases of preeclampsia (PE) and 56 cases of fetal growth restriction (FGR). The placental transcriptome has the seventh lowest complexity of 50 human tissues: 271 genes account for 50% of all reads. We identify multiple circular RNAs and validate 6 of these by Sanger sequencing across the back-splice junction. Using large-scale mass spectrometry datasets, we find strong evidence of peptides produced by translation of two circular RNAs. We also identify novel piRNAs which are clustered on Chr1 and Chr14. PE and FGR are associated with multiple and overlapping differences in mRNA, lincRNA and circRNA but fewer consistent differences in small RNAs. Of the three protein coding genes differentially expressed in both PE and FGR, one encodes a secreted protein FSTL3 (follistatin-like 3). Elevated serum levels of FSTL3 in pregnant women are predictive of subsequent PE and FGR. To aid visualization of our placenta transcriptome data, we develop a web application (https://www.obgyn.cam.ac.uk/placentome/).</jats:p

The RNA landscape of the human placenta in health and disease.

Funder: Department of HealthThe placenta is the interface between mother and fetus and inadequate function contributes to short and long-term ill-health. The placenta is absent from most large-scale RNA-Seq datasets. We therefore analyze long and small RNAs (~101 and 20 million reads per sample respectively) from 302 human placentas, including 94 cases of preeclampsia (PE) and 56 cases of fetal growth restriction (FGR). The placental transcriptome has the seventh lowest complexity of 50 human tissues: 271 genes account for 50% of all reads. We identify multiple circular RNAs and validate 6 of these by Sanger sequencing across the back-splice junction. Using large-scale mass spectrometry datasets, we find strong evidence of peptides produced by translation of two circular RNAs. We also identify novel piRNAs which are clustered on Chr1 and Chr14. PE and FGR are associated with multiple and overlapping differences in mRNA, lincRNA and circRNA but fewer consistent differences in small RNAs. Of the three protein coding genes differentially expressed in both PE and FGR, one encodes a secreted protein FSTL3 (follistatin-like 3). Elevated serum levels of FSTL3 in pregnant women are predictive of subsequent PE and FGR. To aid visualization of our placenta transcriptome data, we develop a web application ( https://www.obgyn.cam.ac.uk/placentome/ )

The RNA landscape of the human placenta in health and disease.

Funder: Department of HealthThe placenta is the interface between mother and fetus and inadequate function contributes to short and long-term ill-health. The placenta is absent from most large-scale RNA-Seq datasets. We therefore analyze long and small RNAs (~101 and 20 million reads per sample respectively) from 302 human placentas, including 94 cases of preeclampsia (PE) and 56 cases of fetal growth restriction (FGR). The placental transcriptome has the seventh lowest complexity of 50 human tissues: 271 genes account for 50% of all reads. We identify multiple circular RNAs and validate 6 of these by Sanger sequencing across the back-splice junction. Using large-scale mass spectrometry datasets, we find strong evidence of peptides produced by translation of two circular RNAs. We also identify novel piRNAs which are clustered on Chr1 and Chr14. PE and FGR are associated with multiple and overlapping differences in mRNA, lincRNA and circRNA but fewer consistent differences in small RNAs. Of the three protein coding genes differentially expressed in both PE and FGR, one encodes a secreted protein FSTL3 (follistatin-like 3). Elevated serum levels of FSTL3 in pregnant women are predictive of subsequent PE and FGR. To aid visualization of our placenta transcriptome data, we develop a web application ( https://www.obgyn.cam.ac.uk/placentome/ )

Functional hemispheric asymmetries of global/local processing mirrored by the steady-state visual evoked potential

While hemispheric differences in global/local processing have been reported by various studies, it is still under dispute at which processing stage they occur. Primarily, it was assumed that these asymmetries originate from an early perceptual stage. Instead, the content-level binding theory (Hübner & Volberg, 2005) suggests that the hemispheres differ at a later stage at which the stimulus information is bound to its respective level. The present study tested this assumption by means of steady-state evoked potentials (SSVEPs). In particular, we presented hierarchical letters flickering at 12Hz while participants categorised the letters at a pre- cued level (global or local). The information at the two levels could be congruent or incongruent with respect to the required response. Since content-binding is only necessary if there is a response conflict, asymmetric hemispheric processing should be observed only for incongruent stimuli. Indeed, our results show that the cue and congruent stimuli elicited equal SSVEP global/local effects in both hemispheres. In contrast, incongruent stimuli elicited lower SSVEP amplitudes for a local than for a global target level at left posterior electrodes, whereas a reversed pattern was seen at right hemispheric electrodes. These findings provide further evidence for a level-specific hemispheric advantage with respect to content-level binding. Moreover, the fact that the SSVEP is sensitive to these processes offers the possibility to separately track global and local processing by presenting both level contents with different frequencies

Cortical reactions to verbal abuse: event-related brain potentials reflecting the processing of socially threatening words

Wabnitz P, Martens U, Neuner F. Cortical reactions to verbal abuse: event-related brain potentials reflecting the processing of socially threatening words. Neuroreport. 2012;23(13):774-779.Human information processing is sensitive to aversive stimuli, in particular to negative cues that indicate a threat to physical integrity. We investigated the extent to which these findings can be transferred to stimuli that are associated with a social rather than a physical threat. Event-related potentials were recorded during silent reading of neutral, positive, physically threatening, and socially threatening words, whereby socially threatening words were represented by swear words. We found facilitated processing of positive and physically threatening words in contrast to both neutral and socially threatening words at a first potential that emerged at about 120 ms after stimulus onset At a semantic processing stage reflected by the N400, processing of all classes of affective words, including socially threatening words, differed from neutral words. We conclude that socially threatening words as well as neutral words capture more attentional resources than positive and physically threatening words at early stages. However, social threatening words are processed in a manner similar to other emotional words and different from neutral words at higher levels. NeuroReport 23:774-779 (C) 2012 Wolters Kluwer Health vertical bar Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Written threat: electrophysiological evidence for an attention bias to affective words in social anxiety disorder

Wabnitz P, Martens U, Neuner F. Written threat: electrophysiological evidence for an attention bias to affective words in social anxiety disorder. Cognition &amp; Emotion. 2016;30(3):516-538.Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with heightened sensitivity to threat cues, typically represented by emotional facial expressions. To examine if this bias can be transferred to a general hypersensitivity or whether it is specific to disorder relevant cues, we investigated electrophysiological correlates of emotional word processing (alpha activity and event-related potentials) in 20 healthy participants and 20 participants with SAD. The experimental task was a silent reading of neutral, positive, physically threatening and socially threatening words (the latter were abusive swear words) while responding to a randomly presented dot. Subsequently, all participants were asked to recall as many words as possible during an unexpected recall test. Participants with SAD showed blunted sensory processing followed by a rapid processing of emotional words during early stages (early posterior negativity - EPN). At later stages, all participants showed enhanced processing of negative (physically and socially threatening) compared to neutral and positive words (N400). Moreover, at later processing stages alpha activity was increased specifically for negative words in participants with SAD but not in healthy controls. Recall of emotional words for all subjects was best for socially threatening words, followed by negative and positive words irrespective of social anxiety. The present findings indicate that SAD is associated with abnormalities in emotional word processing characterised by early hypervigilance to emotional cues followed by cognitive avoidance at later processing stages. Most importantly, the specificity of these attentional biases seems to change as a function of time with a general emotional bias at early and a more specific bias at later processing stages