A Multivariate Surface-Based Analysis of the Putamen in Premature Newborns: Regional Differences within the Ventral Striatum

Many children born preterm exhibit frontal executive dysfunction, behavioral problems including attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder and attention related learning disabilities. Anomalies in regional specificity of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits may underlie deficits in these disorders. Nonspecific volumetric deficits of striatal structures have been documented in these subjects, but little is known about surface deformation in these structures. For the first time, here we found regional surface morphological differences in the preterm neonatal ventral striatum. We performed regional group comparisons of the surface anatomy of the striatum (putamen and globus pallidus) between 17 preterm and 19 term-born neonates at term-equivalent age. We reconstructed striatal surfaces from manually segmented brain magnetic resonance images and analyzed them using our in-house conformal mapping program. All surfaces were registered to a template with a new surface fluid registration method. Vertex-based statistical comparisons between the two groups were performed via four methods: univariate and multivariate tensor-based morphometry, the commonly used medial axis distance, and a combination of the last two statistics. We found statistically significant differences in regional morphology between the two groups that are consistent across statistics, but more extensive for multivariate measures. Differences were localized to the ventral aspect of the striatum. In particular, we found abnormalities in the preterm anterior/inferior putamen, which is interconnected with the medial orbital/prefrontal cortex and the midline thalamic nuclei including the medial dorsal nucleus and pulvinar. These findings support the hypothesis that the ventral striatum is vulnerable, within the cortico-stiato-thalamo-cortical neural circuitry, which may underlie the risk for long-term development of frontal executive dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attention-related learning disabilities in preterm neonates. © 2013 Shi et al

CDK5-mediated phosphorylation of SIRT1 at serine 47 contributes to the development of endothelial senescence

ISA 2012 Monday AbstractsPoster Session 1 – Vascular Biology of Atherosclerosis: Poster no. 98: Monday abstract no. 206BACKGROUND: Senescence of endothelial cells precedes the occurrence of vascular dysfunction and promotes the development of atherosclerosis. SIRT1 is a NAD-dependent deacetylase possessing anti-aging activities. In senescent endothelial cells, both the activity and expression level of SIRT1 are decreased. However, mechanisms underlying this down-regulation of SIRT1 are largely uncharacterized. The present study evaluated the regulation and role of ...postprintThe 16th International Symposium on Atherosclerosis (ISA2012), Sydney, Australia, 25-29 March 2012. In ISA2012 Monday Abstract

An assessment of pulse transit time for detecting heavy blood loss during surgical operation

Copyright @ Wang et al.; Licensee Bentham Open. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.The main contribution of this paper is the use of non-invasive measurements such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmographic (PPG) pulse oximetry waveforms to develop a new physiological signal analysis technique for detecting blood loss during surgical operation. Urological surgery cases were considered as the control group due to its generality, and cardiac surgery as experimental group since it involves blood loss and water supply. Results show that the control group has the tendency of a reduction of the pulse transient time (PTT), and this indicates an increment in the blood flow velocity changes from slow to fast. While for the experimental group, the PTT indicates high values during blood loss, and low values during water supply. Statistical analysis shows considerable differences (i.e., P <0.05) between both groups leading to the conclusion that PTT could be a good indicator for monitoring patients' blood loss during a surgical operation.The National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan and the Centre for Dynamical Biomarkers and Translational Medicine, National Central University, Taiwan

Asymmetric interlimb transfer of concurrent adaptation to opposing dynamic forces

Interlimb transfer of a novel dynamic force has been well documented. It has also been shown that unimanual adaptation to opposing novel environments is possible if they are associated with different workspaces. The main aim of this study was to test if adaptation to opposing velocity dependent viscous forces with one arm could improve the initial performance of the other arm. The study also examined whether this interlimb transfer occurred across an extrinsic, spatial, coordinative system or an intrinsic, joint based, coordinative system. Subjects initially adapted to opposing viscous forces separated by target location. Our measure of performance was the correlation between the speed profiles of each movement within a force condition and an ‘average’ trajectory within null force conditions. Adaptation to the opposing forces was seen during initial acquisition with a significantly improved coefficient in epoch eight compared to epoch one. We then tested interlimb transfer from the dominant to non-dominant arm (D → ND) and vice-versa (ND → D) across either an extrinsic or intrinsic coordinative system. Interlimb transfer was only seen from the dominant to the non-dominant limb across an intrinsic coordinative system. These results support previous studies involving adaptation to a single dynamic force but also indicate that interlimb transfer of multiple opposing states is possible. This suggests that the information available at the level of representation allowing interlimb transfer can be more intricate than a general movement goal or a single perceived directional error

Quantum teleportation with nonclassical correlated states in noninertial frames

Quantum teleportation is studied in noninertial frame, for fermionic case, when Alice and Bob share a general nonclassical correlated state. In noninertial frames two fidelities of teleportation are given. It is found that the average fidelity of teleportation from a separable and nonclassical correlated state is increasing with the amount of nonclassical correlation of the state. However, for any particular nonclassical correlated state, the fidelity of teleportation decreases by increasing the acceleration.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, expanded version to appear in Quantum Inf. Proces

Methylated DNA recognition during the reversal of epigenetic silencing is regulated by cysteine and cerine residues in the Epstein-Barr Virus lytic switch protein

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) causes infectious mononucleosis and is associated with various malignancies, including Burkitt's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Like all herpesviruses, the EBV life cycle alternates between latency and lytic replication. During latency, the viral genome is largely silenced by host-driven methylation of CpG motifs and, in the switch to the lytic cycle, this epigenetic silencing is overturned. A key event is the activation of the viral BRLF1 gene by the immediate-early protein Zta. Zta is a bZIP transcription factor that preferentially binds to specific response elements (ZREs) in the BRLF1 promoter (Rp) when these elements are methylated. Zta's ability to trigger lytic cycle activation is severely compromised when a cysteine residue in its bZIP domain is mutated to serine (C189S), but the molecular basis for this effect is unknown. Here we show that the C189S mutant is defective for activating Rp in a Burkitt's lymphoma cell line. The mutant is compromised both in vitro and in vivo for binding two methylated ZREs in Rp (ZRE2 and ZRE3), although the effect is striking only for ZRE3. Molecular modeling of Zta bound to methylated ZRE3, together with biochemical data, indicate that C189 directly contacts one of the two methyl cytosines within a specific CpG motif. The motif's second methyl cytosine (on the complementary DNA strand) is predicted to contact S186, a residue known to regulate methyl-ZRE recognition. Our results suggest that C189 regulates the enhanced interaction of Zta with methylated DNA in overturning the epigenetic control of viral latency. As C189 is conserved in many bZIP proteins, the selectivity of Zta for methylated DNA may be a paradigm for a more general phenomenon

Concurrent adaptation to opposing visual displacements during an alternating movement.

It has been suggested that, during tasks in which subjects are exposed to a visual rotation of cursor feedback, alternating bimanual adaptation to opposing rotations is as rapid as unimanual adaptation to a single rotation (Bock et al. in Exp Brain Res 162:513–519, 2005). However, that experiment did not test strict alternation of the limbs but short alternate blocks of trials. We have therefore tested adaptation under alternate left/right hand movement with opposing rotations. It was clear that the left and right hand, within the alternating conditions, learnt to adapt to the opposing displacements at a similar rate suggesting that two adaptive states were formed concurrently. We suggest that the separate limbs are used as contextual cues to switch between the relevant adaptive states. However, we found that during online correction the alternating conditions had a significantly slower rate of adaptation in comparison to the unimanual conditions. Control conditions indicate that the results are not directly due the alternation between limbs or to the constant switching of vision between the two eyes. The negative interference may originate from the requirement to dissociate the visual information of these two alternating displacements to allow online control of the two arms

Diabetes risk and amino acid profiles: cross-sectional and prospective analyses of ethnicity, amino acids and diabetes in a South Asian and European cohort from the SABRE (Southall And Brent REvisited) Study.

Aims/hypothesis: South Asian individuals have an increased risk of diabetes compared with Europeans that is unexplained by obesity and traditional or established metabolic measures. Circulating amino acids (AAs) may provide additional explanatory insights. In a unique cohort of European and South Asian men, we compared cross-sectional associations between AAs, metabolic and obesity traits, and longitudinal associations with incident diabetes. / Methods: Nuclear magnetic spectroscopy was used to measure the baseline (1988–1991) levels of nine AAs in serum samples from a British population-based cohort of 1,279 European and 1,007 South Asian non-diabetic men aged 40–69 years. Follow-up was complete for 19 years in 801 European and 643 South Asian participants. / Results: The serum concentrations of isoleucine, phenylalanine, tyrosine and alanine were significantly higher in South Asian men, while cross-sectional correlations of AAs with glycaemia and insulin resistance were similar in the two ethnic groups. However, most AAs were less strongly correlated with measures of obesity in the South Asian participants. Diabetes developed in 227 (35%) South Asian and 113 (14%) European men. Stronger adverse associations were observed between branched chain and aromatic AAs and incident diabetes in South Asian men. Tyrosine was a particularly strong predictor of incident diabetes in South Asian individuals, even after adjustment for metabolic risk factors, including obesity and insulin resistance (adjusted OR for a 1 SD increment, 1.47, 95% CI 1.17,1.85, p = 0.001) compared with Europeans (OR 1.10, 0.87, 1.39, p = 0.4; p = 0.045 for ethnicity × tyrosine interaction). / Conclusions/interpretation: Branched chain and aromatic AAs, particularly tyrosine, may be a focus for identifying novel aetiological mechanisms and potential treatment targets for diabetes in South Asian populations and may contribute to their excess risk of diabetes