Emotion and motor function: a clinical and developmental perspective

The idea that emotions and physical actions are strongly intertwined has been widely accepted for quite some time. Yet surprisingly, in both the affective neuroscience and movement neuroscience literature, relatively little empirical attention has been paid to the (psycho)neurophysiological processes underpinning emotion-motor interactions. This body of work provides new insights into emotion-motor interactions by furthering our understanding of the temporal relationship between emotion and motor preparation and motor output during different stages of brain maturation as well as the neurobiological correlates of abnormal motor output in the form of non-epileptic seizures

Nonmyeloablative Unrelated Donor Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation to Treat Patients with Poor-Risk, Relapsed, or Refractory Multiple Myeloma

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to determine long-term outcome of unrelated donor nonmyeloablative hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) in patients with poor-risk multiple myeloma. A total of 24 patients were enrolled; 17 patients (71%) had chemotherapy-refractory disease, and 14 (58%) experienced disease relapse or progression after previous autologous transplantation. Thirteen patients underwent planned autologous transplantation followed 43–135 days later with unrelated transplantation, whereas 11 proceeded directly to unrelated transplantation. All 24 patients were treated with fludarabine (90 mg/m2) and 2 Gy of total body irradiation before HLA-matched unrelated peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. Postgrafting immunosuppression consisted of cyclosporine and mycophenolate mofetil. The median follow-up was 3 years after allografting. One patient experienced nonfatal graft rejection. The incidences of acute grades II and III and chronic graft-versus-host disease were 54%, 13%, and 75%, respectively. The 3-year nonrelapse mortality (NRM) was 21%. Complete responses were observed in 10 patients (42%); partial responses, in 4 (17%). At 3 years, overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 61% and 33%, respectively. Patients receiving tandem autologous-unrelated transplantation had superior OS and PFS (77% and 51%) compared with patients proceeding directly to unrelated donor transplantation (44% and 11%) (PFS P value = .03). In summary, for patients with poor-risk, relapsed, or refractory multiple myeloma, cytoreductive autologous HCT followed by nonmyeloablative conditioning and unrelated HCT is an effective treatment approach, with low NRM, high complete remission rates, and prolonged disease-free survival

Targeting of B and T lymphocyte associated (BTLA) prevents graft-versus-host disease without global immunosuppression

One-time treatment with an antibody against BTLA provides long-term protection against graft-versus-host disease without affecting effector T cell responses to tumors or pathogens

Mechanisms of impulsive choice: I. Individual differences in interval timing and reward processing

Impulsive choice behavior incorporates the psychological mechanisms involved in the processing of the anticipated magnitude and delay until reward. The goal of the present experiment was to determine whether individual differences in such processes related to individual differences in impulsive choice behavior. Two groups of rats (Delay Group and Magnitude Group) were initially exposed to an impulsive choice task with choices between smaller-sooner (SS) and larger-later (LL) rewards. The Delay Group was subsequently exposed to a temporal discrimination task followed by a progressive interval task, whereas the Magnitude Group was exposed to a reward magnitude sensitivity task followed by a progressive ratio task. Inter-task correlations revealed that the rats in the Delay Group that made more self-controlled (LL) choices also displayed lower standard deviations in the temporal bisection task and greater delay tolerance in the progressive interval task. Impulsive choice behavior in the Magnitude Group did not display any substantial correlations with the reward magnitude sensitivity and progressive ratio tasks. The results indicate the importance of core timing processes in impulsive choice behavior, and encourage further research examining the effects of changes in core timing processes on impulsive choice

Partial purification and characterization of an X-prolyl dipeptidyl aminopeptidase from Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis CB1

An X-prolyldipeptidylaminopeptidase (PepX) from LactobacillussanfranciscensisCB1, a key sourdough lactic acid bacterium, was partially purified by five chromatographic steps. As estimated by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and gel filtration, the enzyme appeared to be a 49.2–56 kDa monomer. Optimal activity occurred at pH 6.0 and 30 °C, with Km of 0.6 mM and Vmax of 99.6 nmol mg−1 min−1. The D value, calculated at 45 °C, was ∼5.46 s. The enzyme hydrolyzed (almost exclusively) substrates with a X-Pro N-terminal sequence. It did not possess prolidase, aminopeptidase or endopeptidase activities. No hydrolysis of the Pro-rich 33-mer epitope (a potent inducer of gut-derived human T-cell lines in celiac patients) was found when it was treated with PepX alone. When the general aminopeptidase type N was combined with PepX, the hydrolysis of 33-mer peptide (0.2 mM) was complete after 24 h of incubation at 30 °C. Leucine and glutamine residues were liberated from the Pro-rich 33-mer peptide by aminopeptidase type N, thus favouring the subsequent PepX activity. PepX was inactivated by p-chloromercuribenzoate, 3,4-dichloroisocoumarin and phenanthroline which exerted a competitive mode of inhibition. Among divalent cations, only Zn2+, Hg2+ and Mn2+ markedly decreased the enzyme activity. Quadratic response surface methodology was used to study the individual and interactive effects of temperature, pH and NaCl on the PepX activity. The enzyme maintained considerable activity under the environmental conditions which characterize the sourdough fermentation