White matter integrity as a predictor of response to treatment in first episode psychosis

The integrity of brain white matter connections is central to a patient's ability to respond to pharmacological interventions. This study tested this hypothesis using a specific measure of white matter integrity, and examining its relationship to treatment response using a prospective design in patients within their first episode of psychosis. Diffusion tensor imaging data were acquired in 63 patients with first episode psychosis and 52 healthy control subjects (baseline). Response was assessed after 12 weeks and patients were classified as responders or non-responders according to treatment outcome. At this second time-point, they also underwent a second diffusion tensor imaging scan. Tract-based spatial statistics were used to assess fractional anisotropy as a marker of white matter integrity. At baseline, non-responders showed lower fractional anisotropy than both responders and healthy control subjects (P < 0.05; family-wise error-corrected), mainly in the uncinate, cingulum and corpus callosum, whereas responders were indistinguishable from healthy control subjects. After 12 weeks, there was an increase in fractional anisotropy in both responders and non-responders, positively correlated with antipsychotic exposure. This represents one of the largest, controlled investigations of white matter integrity and response to antipsychotic treatment early in psychosis. These data, together with earlier findings on cortical grey matter, suggest that grey and white matter integrity at the start of treatment is an important moderator of response to antipsychotics. These findings can inform patient stratification to anticipate care needs, and raise the possibility that antipsychotics may restore white matter integrity as part of the therapeutic response

QCD sum rules for the pseudoscalar decay constants - To constrain the strange quark mass

We study the higher order corrections of quark masses to the Gell-Mann$-$Oakes$-$Renner (GOR) relation by constructing QCD sum rules exclusively for pseudoscalar mesons from the axial-vector correlation function, $i \int d^4x~ e^{ip\cdot x}$. To project out the pseudoscalar meson contributions, we apply $-p^\mu p^\nu/p^2$ to this correlation function and construct sum rules for the decay constants of pseudoscalar mesons, $f_\pi, f_k$ and $f_{\eta_8}$. The OPE is proportional to quark masses due to PCAC. To leading order in quark mass, each sum rule reproduces the corresponding GOR relation. For kaon and $\eta_8$, the deviation from the GOR relation due to higher orders in quark mass is found to be substantial. But the deviation gives better agreements with the phenomenology. Our sum rule provides a sensitive relation between $f_K$ and $m_s$, which stringently constrain the value for $m_s$. To reproduce the experimental value for $f_K$, $m_s$ is found to be 186 MeV at 1 GeV scale. The $f_{\eta_8}$ sum rule also supports this finding.Comment: 14 pages including 3 figures. slightly revised. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Isospin Breaking in the Pion-Nucleon Coupling from QCD Sum Rules

We use QCD sum rules for the three point function of a pseudoscalar and two nucleonic currents in order to estimate the charge dependence of the pion nucleon coupling constant $g_{NN\pi}$ coming from isospin violation in the strong interaction. The effect can be attributed primarily to the difference of the quark condensates $$and$$. For the splitting $(g_{pp\pi_0} - g_{nn\pi_0}) / g_{NN\pi}$ we obtain an interval of $1.2 * 10^{-2}$ to $3.7 * 10^{-2}$, the uncertainties coming mainly from the input parameters. The charged pion nucleon coupling is found to be the average of $g_{pp\pi_0}$ and $g_{nn\pi_0}$. Electromagnetic effects are not included.Comment: 18 pages (REVTeX) + 2 figures (as PostScript), to be published in PRC, replaced with final version: inclusion of pi-eta mixing and N -> N* transition

Higher Resonance Contamination of pi NN Couplings Obtained Via the Three-Point Function Method in QCD Sum Rules

We investigate the size of potential higher pseudoscalar resonance contaminations of the estimates of isospin-conserving and isospin-violating $\pi NN$ couplings obtained using the 3-point function method in QCD sum rules. For the isospin-conserving case it is shown that conventional models of the isovector pseudoscalar spectral function imply resonance decay constants large enough to create significant contaminations, and that assuming these models are incorrect, and that the decay constants are actually much smaller, implies physically implausible values for the flavor-breaking quark condensate ratios. For the isospin-violating case it is shown explicitly that such resonance contamination is unavoidably present and precludes using the 3-point function method as a means of estimating the at present unmeasured isospin-violating $\pi NN$ couplings.Comment: 8 page

Low-energy gluon contributions to the vacuum polarization of heavy quarks

We calculate a correction to the electromagnetic current induced by a heavy quark loop. The contribution of this correction to the vacuum polarization function appears at the O(alpha_s^3) order of perturbation theory and has a qualitatively new feature -- its absorptive part starts at zero energy in contrast to other contributions where the absorptive parts start at the two-particle threshold. Our result imposes a constraint on the order n of the moments used in the heavy-quark sum rules, n<4.Comment: 8 pages in LaTeX, 1 PostScript figure included in the tex

Octet Baryons at Finite Temperature: QCD Sum Rules vs. Chiral Symmetry

Correlators of the octet baryons in the hot pion gas are studied in the framework of the QCD sum rule. The condensates appearing in the OPE side of the correlators become T-dependent through the interaction with thermal pions. We present an explicit demonstration that the $O(T^2)$-dependence of the condensates is completely compensated by the change of the pole residue and the $\pi + B \rightarrow B'$ scattering effect in the spectral functions. Therefore the baryon masses are constant to this order, although $\langle\bar{u}u\rangle_T\simeq\langle\bar{u}u\rangle_0(1-T^2/8f_\pi^2)$, which is consistent with the chiral symmetry constraint by Leutwyler and Smilga.Comment: 19 pages, MSUNSCL-870, LaTex files, 2 figs. consisting of simple Feynmann diagrams not included, Phys.Rev.D in pres

Isospin Breaking Effects in the Extraction of Isoscalar and Isovector Spectral Functions From e+e−→hadronse^+e^-\to hadrons

We investigate the problem of the extraction of the isovector and isoscalar spectral functions from data on $e^+e^-\to hadrons$, in the presence of non-zero isospin breaking. It is shown that the conventional approach to extracting the isovector spectral function in the $\rho$ resonance region, in which only the isoscalar contribution associated with $\omega\to \pi\pi$ is subtracted, fails to fully remove the effects of the isoscalar component of the electromagnetic current. The additional subtractions required to extract the pure isovector and isoscalar spectral functions are estimated using results from QCD sum rules. It is shown that the corrections are small ($\sim 2$) in the isovector case (though relevant to precision tests of CVC), but very large ($\sim 20$) in the case of the $\omega$ contribution to the isoscalar spectral function. The reason such a large effect is natural in the isoscalar channel is explained, and implications for other applications, such as the extraction of the sixth order chiral low-energy constant, $Q$, are discussed.Comment: minor changes to introduction, section 2. In Press Phys. Rev.

Light-Quark Mesons and Four-Quark Condensates at Finite Temperature

We propose an analog of the familiar gap equation for the case of four-quark condensates at finite temperature. The condensates of interest correspond to scalar, vector, psudoscalar, axial vector, and tensor Dirac structures. Working with correlators at zero chemical potential without factorization, we arrive at coupled equations for these four-quark condensates and the masses of certain light-quark mesons. We study the temperature dependence of the four-quark condensates and masses; in one of our models, factorization of the four-quark condensates is shown to be increasingly violated as the temperature is increased toward $T_c$. The 2$^{++}$ tensor mesons a$_2$(1320)-f$_2$(1270) are identified as especially sensitive probes of the four-quark condensates.Comment: Latex file, 6 Fig

Vacuum Condensates in the Global Color Symmetry Model

Based on the quark propagator in the instanton dilute liquid approximation, we calculate analytically the quark condensate , the mixed quark gluon condensate $g_{s}$ and the four quark condensate at the mean field level in the framework of global color symmetry model. The numerical calculation shows that the values of these condensates are compatible with the ranges determined by other nonperturbative approaches. Moreover, we find that for nonlocal four quark condensate the previous vacuum saturation assumption is not a good approximation even at the mean field level.Comment: 8 latex pages, no figure, Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Charge and Isospin Fluctuations in High Energy pp-Collisions

Charge and isospin event-by-event fluctuations in high-energy pp-collisions are predicted within the Unitary Eikonal Model, in particular the fluctuation patterns of the ratios of charged-to-charged and neutral-to-charged pions. These fluctuations are found to be sensitive to the presence of unstable resonances, such as $\rho$ and $\omega$ mesons. We predict that the charge-fluctuation observable $D_{UEM}$ should be restricted to the interval $8/3\le D_{UEM}\le 4$ depending on the $\rho /\pi$ production ratio. Also, the isospin fluctuations of the DCC-type of the ratio of neutral-to-charged pions are suppressed if pions are produced together with $\rho$ mesons.Comment: Latex, 5 pages, no figures. To appear in the proceedings of 9th Adriatic Meeting, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 4 - 14 September 2003. Added reference into reference no.