A cross-sectional analysis of the association between physical activity, depression, and all-cause mortality in Americans over 50 years old

Depression is estimated to be the second leading cause of disability in the United States and is associated with a 52% increased risk of death. Lifestyle components may have an important role in depression pathogenesis. The aims of this study were to analyze the association of meeting the physical activity (PA) recommendation guidelines and depression, and to analyze the all-cause mortality risk of the joint association of PA and depression. This cross-sectional study included 7201 participants from the 2007–2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey aged ≥ 50 years and linked to National Death Index records through December 31, 2015. Depression was defined as a score ≥ 10 using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). PA was self-reported, and total PA was used to classify participants as more active (≥ 600 MET-min/week) or less active (< 600 MET-min/week). The odds ratios for depression were examined according to be more active or less active. The hazard ratios (HR) for the association of PA level and depression status with all-cause mortality were examined. Being more active was associated with reduced odds for depression. Compared with less active participants with depression, those who were more active and having depression had HR 0.45 (95% CI 0.22, 0.91, p = 0.026) for all-cause mortality. Being more active is associated with lower odds for depression and seems to be a protective factor against the increased all-cause mortality risk due to depression

Detection of a Corrugated Velocity Pattern in the Spiral Galaxy NGC 5427

Here we report the detection, in Halpha emission, of a radial corrugation in the velocity field of the spiral galaxy NGC 5427. The central velocity of the Halpha line displays coherent, wavy-like variations in the vicinity of the spiral arms. The spectra along three different arm segments show that the maximum amplitude of the sinusoidal line variations are displaced some 500 pc from the central part of the spiral arms. The peak blueshifted velocities appear some 500 pc upstream the arm, whereas the peak redshifted velocities are located some 500 pc downstream the arm. This kinematical behavior is similar to the one expected in a galactic bore generated by the interaction of a spiral density wave with a thick gaseous disk, as recently modeled by Martos & Cox (1998).Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The metabolic interplay between dietary carbohydrate and exercise and its role in acute appetite-regulation in males: a randomised controlled study

Understanding the metabolic determinants of post-exercise appetite-regulation would facilitate the development of adjunctive-therapeutics to supress compensatory eating behaviours and improve the efficacy of exercise as a weight loss treatment. Metabolic responses to acute exercise are however dependent on pre-exercise nutritional practices, including carbohydrate intake. We therefore aimed to determine the interactive effects of dietary carbohydrate and exercise on plasma hormonal and metabolite responses and explore mediators of exercise-induced changes in appetite-regulation across nutritional states. In this randomised crossover study, participants completed four 120 min visits: (i) control (water) followed by rest; (ii) control followed by exercise (30 min at ∼75% V̇O2 max); (iii) carbohydrate (75 g maltodextrin) followed by rest; and (iv) carbohydrate followed by exercise. An ad libitum meal was provided at the end of each 120 min visit, with blood sample collection and appetite assessment performed at pre-defined intervals. We found that dietary carbohydrate and exercise exerted independent effects on the hormones GLP-1 (Carbohydrate: 16.8 pmol/L, Exercise: 7.4 pmol/L), ghrelin (Carbohydrate: -48.8 pmol/L, Exercise: -22.7 pmol/L) and glucagon (Carbohydrate: 9.8 ng/L, Exercise: 8.2 ng/L) that were linked to the generation of distinct plasma 1H-NMR metabolic phenotypes. These metabolic responses were associated with changes in appetite and energy intake, and plasma acetate and succinate were subsequently identified as potential novel mediators of exercise-induced appetite and energy intake responses. In summary, dietary carbohydrate and exercise independently influence gastrointestinal hormones associated with appetite regulation. Future work is warranted to probe the mechanistic importance of plasma acetate and succinate in post-exercise appetite-regulation

Maternal imprinting on cognition markers of wild type and transgenic Alzheimer's disease model mice

The risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is higher in individuals from AD-affected mothers. The purpose of this investigation was to study whether maternal transmission might produce AD-related alterations in progenies of mice that do not have any genotypic alteration. We used cognitively-intact mothers harbouring in heterozygosity the transgene for overexpressing the Swedish double mutant version of the human amyloid precursor protein (hAβPPswe). The phenotype of the offspring with or without the transgene resulting from crossing young Tg2576 females with wild-type males were compared with those of the offspring resulting from crossing wild-type females with Tg2576 males. The hAβPPswe-bearing offspring from Tg2576 mothers showed an aggravated AD-like phenotype. Remarkably, cognitive, immunohistochemical and some biochemical features displayed by Tg2576 heterozygous mice were also found in wild-type animals generated from Tg2576 females. This suggests the existence of a maternal imprinting in the wild-type offspring that confers a greater facility to launch an AD-like neurodegenerative cascade. Such progeny, lacking any mutant amyloid precursor protein, constitutes a novel model to study maternal transmission of AD and, even more important, to discover early risk markers that predispose to the development of AD

Cosmological quantum entanglement

We review recent literature on the connection between quantum entanglement and cosmology, with an emphasis on the context of expanding universes. We discuss recent theoretical results reporting on the production of entanglement in quantum fields due to the expansion of the underlying spacetime. We explore how these results are affected by the statistics of the field (bosonic or fermionic), the type of expansion (de Sitter or asymptotically stationary), and the coupling to spacetime curvature (conformal or minimal). We then consider the extraction of entanglement from a quantum field by coupling to local detectors and how this procedure can be used to distinguish curvature from heating by their entanglement signature. We review the role played by quantum fluctuations in the early universe in nucleating the formation of galaxies and other cosmic structures through their conversion into classical density anisotropies during and after inflation. We report on current literature attempting to account for this transition in a rigorous way and discuss the importance of entanglement and decoherence in this process. We conclude with some prospects for further theoretical and experimental research in this area. These include extensions of current theoretical efforts, possible future observational pursuits, and experimental analogues that emulate these cosmic effects in a laboratory setting.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures. v2 Added journal reference and minor changes to match the published versio

Sildenafil restores cognitive function without affecting β-amyloid burden in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

Abstract BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Inhibitors of phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) affect signalling pathways by elevating cGMP, which is a second messenger involved in processes of neuroplasticity. In the present study, the effects of the PDE5 inhibitor, sildenafil, on the pathological features of Alzheimer's disease and on memory-related behaviour were investigated. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: Sildenafil was administered to the Tg2576 transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease and to age-matched negative littermates (controls). Memory function was analysed using the Morris water maze test and fear conditioning tasks. Biochemical analyses were performed in brain lysates from animals treated with saline or with sildenafil. KEY RESULTS: Treatment of aged Tg2576 animals with sildenafil completely reversed their cognitive impairment. Such changes were accompanied in the hippocampus by a reduction of tau hyperphosphorylation and a decrease in the activity of glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β) and of cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5) (p25/p35 ratio). Moreover, sildenafil also increased levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and the activity-regulated cytoskeletal-associated protein (Arc) in the hippocampus without any detectable modification of brain amyloid burden. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Sildenafil improved cognitive functions in Tg2576 mice and the effect was not related to changes in the amyloid burden. These data further strengthen the potential of sildenafil as a therapeutic agent for Alzheimer's disease

X-ray fluorescence technique applied to archaeological sample

The main objective of this study was the chemical determination of elements present in the sample (archaeological fragments), used the X-ray fluorescence techniques. Three analytical techniques were used: (i) conventional energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF), (ii) X-ray microfluorescence (μ-XRF) and (iii) scanning electronic microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (SEM/ EDS). Starting from the chemical concentrations of the present elements in the samples of archaeological fragments, a clusters analysis was performed and with that a study of the identification of the ceramics origin.Com o intuito de se determinar a composição química elementar de amostras arqueológicas e de cerâmicas fabricadas, o presente trabalho utilizou as técnicas de fluorescência de raios X. Foram usadas três técnicas analíticas: (i) fluorescência de raios X dispersiva em energia (EDXRF) convencional, (ii) microfluorescência de raios X (μ-XRF) com fonte de luz Síncrotron e (iii) microscopia eletrônica de varredura acoplada com fluorescência de raios X dispersiva (SEM/EDS). A partir das concentrações químicas dos elementos presentes nas amostras de fragmentos arqueológicos, foi realizada uma análise de agrupamento e com isso um estudo de identificação de procedência das cerâmicas arqueológicas

Early Adaptive Immune Responses in the Respiratory Tract of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus-Infected Cattle

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease which affects both domestic and wild biungulate species. This acute disease, caused by the FMD virus (FMDV), usually includes an active replication phase in the respiratory tract for up to 72 h postinfection, followed by hematogenous dissemination and vesicular lesions at oral and foot epithelia. The role of the early local adaptive immunity of the host in the outcome of the infection is not well understood. Here we report the kinetics of appearance of FMDV-specific antibody-secreting cells (ASC) in lymphoid organs along the respiratory tract and the spleen in cattle infected by aerosol exposure. While no responses were observed for up to 3 days postinfection (dpi), all animals developed FMDV-ASC in all the lymphoid organs studied at 4 dpi. Tracheobronchial lymph nodes were the most reactive organs at this time, and IgM was the predominant isotype, followed by IgG1. Numbers of FMDV-ASC were further augmented at 5 and 6 dpi, with an increasing prevalence in upper respiratory organs. Systemic antibody responses were slightly delayed compared with the local reaction. Also, IgM was the dominant isotype in serum at 5 dpi, coinciding with a sharp decrease of viral RNA detection in peripheral blood. These results indicate that following aerogenous administration, cattle develop a rapid and vigorous genuine local antibody response throughout the respiratory tract. Time course and isotype profiles indicate the presence of an efficient T cell-independent antibody response which drives the IgM-mediated virus clearance in cattle infected by FMDV aerosol exposure.Instituto de VirologíaFil: Pega, Juan Franco. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Virología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Bucafusco, Danilo. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Virología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Di Giacomo, Sebastián. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Virología; ArgentinaFil: Schammas, Juan Manuel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Virología; ArgentinaFil: Malacari, Darío Amilcar. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Virología; ArgentinaFil: Capozzo, Alejandra Victoria. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Virología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Arzt, J. USDA. Agricultural Research Service. Plum Island Animal Disease Center; Estados UnidosFil: Pérez Beascoeachea, C. Servicio Nacional de Sanidad y Calidad Agroalimentaria. Dirección de Laboratorios; ArgentinaFil: Maradei, E. Servicio Nacional de Sanidad y Calidad Agroalimentaria. Dirección de Laboratorios; ArgentinaFil: Rodríguez, L. USDA. Agricultural Research Service. Plum Island Animal Disease Center; Estados UnidosFil: Borca, Manuel Victor. USDA. Agricultural Research Service. Plum Island Animal Disease Center; Estados UnidosFil: Perez Filgueira, Daniel Mariano. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Virología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin