Dopamine Transporter and Reward Anticipation in a Dimensional Perspective : A Multimodal Brain Imaging Study

We would like to thank Christine Baron, Vincent Brulon, Stéphane LeHelleix, Stéphane Demphel, Claude Comtat, Frédéric Dollé, Philippe Gervais, and Renaud Maroy from the Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot for their efficient technical support and 11C radioligand preparation. They thank Marie Prat, Audrey Pepin, and Audrey Mabondo for their help in PET processing and Pr. Maria-Joao Santiago-Ribeiro and Dr Renaud de Beaurepaire for their involvement in the recruitment of participants.Peer reviewedPostprin

Serum paraoxonase and arylesterase activities in patients with lung cancer in a Turkish population

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer (LC) is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Oxidative DNA damage may contribute to the cancer risk. The antioxidant paraoxonase (PON1) is an endogenous free radical scavenger in the human body. The aim of this study was to determine serum PON1 and arylesterase (ARE) activities in patients with newly diagnosed LC. METHODS: This case control study involved a total of 39 patients with newly diagnosed LC (untreated) and same number of age- and sex-matched healthy individuals. Serum PON1 and ARE activities in addition to lipid parameters were measured in both groups. RESULTS: Serum PON1 and ARE activities were found to be lower in patients with LC compared to the controls (p = 0.001 and p = 0.018, respectively). The ratio of PON1/high density lipoprotein (HDL) was significantly lower in the LC group compared to the control one (p = 0.009). There were positive correlations between the serum levels of HDL and PON1 in both the control (r = 0.415, p = 0.009) and the LC groups (r = 0.496, p = 0.001), respectively. PON1 enzyme activity was calculated as three different phenotypes in both groups. In regard to lipid parameters, total cholesterol levels were significantly lower (p = 0.014) in the LC group whereas the other lipid parameters such as HDL, LDL, and triglyceride levels were not significantly different among groups. CONCLUSION: Serum PON1 activity is significantly low in the LC group compared with the healthy controls. Metastasis status and cigarette smoking do not affect serum PON1 activity in the LC patients

Task-Specific Effects of tDCS-Induced Cortical Excitability Changes on Cognitive and Motor Sequence Set Shifting Performance

In this study, we tested the effects of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on two set shifting tasks. Set shifting ability is defined as the capacity to switch between mental sets or actions and requires the activation of a distributed neural network. Thirty healthy subjects (fifteen per site) received anodal, cathodal and sham stimulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) or the primary motor cortex (M1). We measured set shifting in both cognitive and motor tasks. The results show that both anodal and cathodal single session tDCS can modulate cognitive and motor tasks. However, an interaction was found between task and type of stimulation as anodal tDCS of DLPFC and M1 was found to increase performance in the cognitive task, while cathodal tDCS of DLPFC and M1 had the opposite effect on the motor task. Additionally, tDCS effects seem to be most evident on the speed of changing sets, rather than on reducing the number of errors or increasing the efficacy of irrelevant set filtering

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Squaring the circle? Collective and distributive effects of United Nations Security Council reform

United Nations Security Council, United Nations General Assembly, Decision-making, Distribution of votes, Coalition-formation,