Effects of Xiaoyaosan on Stress-Induced Anxiety-Like Behavior in Rats: Involvement of CRF1 Receptor

Background. Compared with antidepressant activity of Xiaoyaosan, the role of Xiaoyaosan in anxiety has been poorly studied. Objective. To observe the effects of Xiaoyaosan on anxiety-like behavior induced by chronic immobilization stress (CIS) and further explore whether these effects were related to CRF1R signaling. Methods. Adult male SD rats were randomly assigned to five groups (n=12): the nonstressed control group, vehicle-treated (saline, p.o.) group, Xiaoyaosan-treated (3.854 g/kg, p.o.) group, vehicle-treated (surgery) group, and antalarmin-treated (surgery) group. Artificial cerebrospinal fluid (0.5 μL/side) or CRF1R antagonist antalarmin (125 ng/0.5 μL, 0.5 μL/side) was bilaterally administered into the basolateral amygdala in the surgery groups. Except for the nonstressed control group, the other four groups were exposed to CIS (14 days, 3 h/day) 30 minutes after treatment. On days 15 and 16, all animals were subjected to the elevated plus-maze (EPM) and novelty suppressed feeding (NSF) test. We then examined the expression of CRF1R, pCREB, and BDNF in the amygdala. Results. Chronic pretreatment with Xiaoyaosan or antalarmin significantly reversed elevated anxiety-like behavior and the upregulated level of CRF1R and BDNF in the amygdala of stressed rats. pCREB did not differ significantly among the groups. Conclusions. These results suggest that Xiaoyaosan exerts anxiolytic-like effects in behavioral tests and the effects may be related to CRF1R signaling in the amygdala

Identification of optimum scopes of environmental factors for snails using spatial analysis techniques in Dongting Lake Region, China

BACKGROUND: Owing to the harmfulness and seriousness of Schistosomiasis japonica in China, the control and prevention of S. japonica transmission are imperative. As the unique intermediate host of this disease, Oncomelania hupensis plays an important role in the transmission. It has been reported that the snail population in Qiangliang Lake district, Dongting Lake Region has been naturally declining and is slowly becoming extinct. Considering the changes of environmental factors that may cause this phenomenon, we try to explore the relationship between circumstance elements and snails, and then search for the possible optimum scopes of environmental factors for snails. METHODS: Moisture content of soil, pH, temperature of soil and elevation were collected by corresponding apparatus in the study sites. The LISA statistic and GWR model were used to analyze the association between factors and mean snail density, and the values in high-high clustered areas and low-low clustered areas were extracted to find out the possible optimum ranges of these elements for snails. RESULTS: A total of 8,589 snail specimens were collected from 397 sampling sites in the study field. Besides the mean snail density, three environmental factors including water content, pH and temperature had high spatial autocorrelation. The spatial clustering suggested that the possible optimum scopes of moisture content, pH, temperature of the soil and elevation were 58.70 to 68.93%, 6.80 to 7.80, 22.73 to 24.23°C and 23.50 to 25.97 m, respectively. Moreover, the GWR model showed that the possible optimum ranges of these four factors were 36.58 to 61.08%, 6.541 to 6.89, 24.30 to 25.70°C and 23.50 to 29.44 m, respectively. CONCLUSION: The results indicated the association between snails and environmental factors was not linear but U-shaped. Considering the results of two analysis methods, the possible optimum scopes of moisture content, pH, temperature of the soil and elevation were 58.70% to 68.93%, 6.6 to 7.0, 22.73°C to 24.23°C, and 23.5 m to 26.0 m, respectively. The findings in this research will help in making an effective strategy to control snails and provide a method to analyze other factors

Competitions of magnetism and superconductivity in FeAs-based materials

Using the numerical unrestricted Hartree-Fock approach, we study the ground state of a two-orbital model describing newly discovered FeAs-based superconductors. We observe the competition of a $(0, \pi)$ mode spin-density wave and the superconductivity as the doping concentration changes. There might be a small region in the electron-doping side where the magnetism and superconductivity coexist. The superconducting pairing is found to be spin singlet, orbital even, and mixed s$_{xy}$ + d$_{x^{2}-y^{2}}$ wave (even parity).Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

An Updated Search of Steady TeV γ−\gamma-Ray Point Sources in Northern Hemisphere Using the Tibet Air Shower Array

Using the data taken from Tibet II High Density (HD) Array (1997 February-1999 September) and Tibet-III array (1999 November-2005 November), our previous northern sky survey for TeV $\gamma-$ray point sources has now been updated by a factor of 2.8 improved statistics. From $0.0^{\circ}$ to $60.0^{\circ}$ in declination (Dec) range, no new TeV $\gamma-$ray point sources with sufficiently high significance were identified while the well-known Crab Nebula and Mrk421 remain to be the brightest TeV $\gamma-$ray sources within the field of view of the Tibet air shower array. Based on the currently available data and at the 90% confidence level (C.L.), the flux upper limits for different power law index assumption are re-derived, which are approximately improved by 1.7 times as compared with our previous reported limits.Comment: This paper has been accepted by hepn