1,087 research outputs found
Solution of the Multi-Channel Anderson Impurity Model: Ground state and thermodynamics
We present the solution of the SU(N) x SU(M) Anderson impurity model using
the Bethe-Ansatz. We first explain what extensions to the formalism were
required for the solution. Subsequently we determine the ground state and
derive the thermodynamics over the full range of temperature and fields. We
identify the different regimes of valence fluctuation at high temperatures,
followed by moment formation or intrinsic mixed valence at intermediate
temperatures and a low temperature non-Fermi liquid phase. Among other things
we obtain the impurity entropy, charge valence and specific heat over the full
range of temperature. We show that the low-energy physics is governed by a line
of fixed points. This describes non-Fermi-liquid behavior in the integral
valence regime, associated with moment formation, as well as in the mixed
valence regime where no moment forms.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
COMT val158met Polymorphism and Neural Pain Processing
A functional polymorphism (val158met) of the gene coding for Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COM) has been demonstrated to be related to processing of emotional stimuli. Also, this polymorphism has been found to be associated with pain regulation in healthy subjects. Therefore, we investigated a possible influence of this polymorphism on pain processing in healthy persons as well as in subjects with markedly reduced pain sensitivity in the context of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Fifty females (25 patients with BPD and 25 healthy control participants) were included in this study. Genotype had a significant – though moderate - effect on pain sensitivity, but only in healthies. The number of val alleles was correlated with the BOLD response in several pain-processing brain regions, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, lateral globus pallidus, anterior and posterior insula. Within the subgroup of healthy participants, the number of val alleles was positively correlated with the BOLD response in posterior parietal, posterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. BPD patients revealed a positive correlation between the number of val alleles and BOLD signal in anterior and posterior insula. Thus, our data show that the val158met polymorphism in the COMT gene contributes significantly to inter-individual differences in neural pain processing: in healthy people, this polymorphism was more related to cognitive aspects of pain processing, whereas BPD patients with reduced pain sensitivity showed an association with activity in brain regions related to affective pain processing
The Electron-Phonon Interaction in the Presence of Strong Correlations
We investigate the effect of strong electron-electron repulsion on the
electron-phonon interaction from a Fermi-liquid point of view: the strong
interaction is responsible for vertex corrections, which are strongly dependent
on the ratio. These corrections generically lead to a strong
suppression of the effective coupling between quasiparticles mediated by a
single phonon exchange in the limit. However, such effect
is not present when . Analyzing the Landau stability
criterion, we show that a sizable electron-phonon interaction can push the
system towards a phase-separation instability. A detailed analysis is then
carried out using a slave-boson approach for the infinite-U three-band Hubbard
model. In the presence of a coupling between the local hole density and a
dispersionless optical phonon, we explicitly confirm the strong dependence of
the hole-phonon coupling on the transferred momentum versus frequency ratio. We
also find that the exchange of phonons leads to an unstable phase with negative
compressibility already at small values of the bare hole-phonon coupling. Close
to the unstable region, we detect Cooper instabilities both in s- and d-wave
channels supporting a possible connection between phase separation and
superconductivity in strongly correlated systems.Comment: LateX 3.14, 04.11.1994 Preprint no.101
The effects of a DTNBP1 gene variant on attention networks: an fMRI study
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Attention deficits belong to the main cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia and come along with altered neural activity in previously described cerebral networks. Given the high heritability of schizophrenia the question arises if impaired function of these networks is modulated by susceptibility genes and detectable in healthy risk allele carriers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The present event-related fMRI study investigated the effect of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1018381 of the <it>DTNBP1 </it>(dystrobrevin-binding protein 1) gene on brain activity in 80 subjects while performing the attention network test (ANT). In this reaction time task three domains of attention are probed simultaneously: alerting, orienting and executive control of attention.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Risk allele carriers showed impaired performance in the executive control condition associated with reduced neural activity in the left superior frontal gyrus [Brodmann area (BA) 9]. Risk allele carriers did not show alterations in the alerting and orienting networks.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>BA 9 is a key region of schizophrenia pathology and belongs to a network that has been shown previously to be involved in impaired executive control mechanisms in schizophrenia. Our results identified the impact of <it>DTNBP1 </it>on the development of a specific attention deficit via modulation of a left prefrontal network.</p
Genetic risk prediction and neurobiological understanding of alcoholism
We have used a translational Convergent Functional Genomics (CFG) approach to discover genes involved in alcoholism, by gene-level integration of genome-wide association study (GWAS) data from a German alcohol dependence cohort with other genetic and gene expression data, from human and animal model studies, similar to our previous work in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. A panel of all the nominally significant P-value single-nucleotide length polymorphisms (SNPs) in the top candidate genes discovered by CFG (n = 135 genes, 713 SNPs) was used to generate a genetic risk prediction score (GRPS), which showed a trend towards significance (P = 0.053) in separating alcohol dependent individuals from controls in an independent German test cohort. We then validated and prioritized our top findings from this discovery work, and subsequently tested them in three independent cohorts, from two continents. In order to validate and prioritize the key genes that drive behavior without some of the pleiotropic environmental confounds present in humans, we used a stress-reactive animal model of alcoholism developed by our group, the D-box binding protein (DBP) knockout mouse, consistent with the surfeit of stress theory of addiction proposed by Koob and colleagues. A much smaller panel (n = 11 genes, 66 SNPs) of the top CFG-discovered genes for alcoholism, cross-validated and prioritized by this stress-reactive animal model showed better predictive ability in the independent German test cohort (P = 0.041). The top CFG scoring gene for alcoholism from the initial discovery step, synuclein alpha (SNCA) remained the top gene after the stress-reactive animal model cross-validation. We also tested this small panel of genes in two other independent test cohorts from the United States, one with alcohol dependence (P = 0.00012) and one with alcohol abuse (a less severe form of alcoholism; P = 0.0094). SNCA by itself was able to separate alcoholics from controls in the alcohol-dependent cohort (P = 0.000013) and the alcohol abuse cohort (P = 0.023). So did eight other genes from the panel of 11 genes taken individually, albeit to a lesser extent and/or less broadly across cohorts. SNCA, GRM3 and MBP survived strict Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Taken together, these results suggest that our stress-reactive DBP animal model helped to validate and prioritize from the CFG-discovered genes some of the key behaviorally relevant genes for alcoholism. These genes fall into a series of biological pathways involved in signal transduction, transmission of nerve impulse (including myelination) and cocaine addiction. Overall, our work provides leads towards a better understanding of illness, diagnostics and therapeutics, including treatment with omega-3 fatty acids. We also examined the overlap between the top candidate genes for alcoholism from this work and the top candidate genes for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety from previous CFG analyses conducted by us, as well as cross-tested genetic risk predictions. This revealed the significant genetic overlap with other major psychiatric disorder domains, providing a basis for comorbidity and dual diagnosis, and placing alcohol use in the broader context of modulating the mental landscape
Role of Van Hove Singularities and Momentum Space Structure in High-Temperature Superconductivity
There is a great deal of interest in attributing the high critical
temperatures of the cuprates to either the proximity of the Fermi level to a
van Hove singularity or to structure of the superconducting pairing potential
in momentum space far from the Fermi surface. We examine these ideas by
calculating the critical temperature Tc for model Einstein-phonon- and
spin-fluctuation-mediated superconductors within both the standard,
Fermi-surface-restricted Eliashberg theory and the exact mean field theory,
which accounts for the full momentum structure of the pairing potential and the
energy dependence of the density of states. By using two models of
spin-fluctuation-mediated pairing in the cuprates, we demonstrate that our
results are independent of the details of the dynamical susceptibility, which
is taken to be the pairing potential. We also compare these two models against
available neutron scattering data, since these data provide the most direct
constraints on the susceptibility. We conclude that the van Hove singularity
does not drastically alter Tc from its value when the density of states is
constant and that the effect of momentum structure is significant but secondary
in importance to that of the energy dependence in the density of states.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures upon request, revtex version 2, vHs-
The Depression Network (DeNT) Study: methodology and sociodemographic characteristics of the first 470 affected sibling pairs from a large multi-site linkage genetic study
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Polygenic risk for circulating reproductive hormone levels and their influence on hippocampal volume and depression susceptibility
Altered reproductive hormone levels have been associated with the pathophysiology of depressive disorders and this risk may be imparted by their modulatory effect upon hippocampal structure and function. Currently it is unclear whether altered levels of reproductive hormones are causally associated with hippocampal volume reductions and the risk of depressive disorders. Here, we utilize genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics from a GWAS focusing on reproductive hormones, consisting of 2913 individuals. Using this data, we generated polygenic risk scores (PRS) for estradiol, progesterone, prolactin and testosterone in the European RADIANT cohort consisting of 176 postpartum depression (PPD) cases (100% female, mean age: 41.6 years old), 2772 major depressive disorder (MDD) cases (68.6% female, mean age: 46.9 years old) and 1588 control participants (62.5% female, mean age: 42.4 years old), for which there was also a neuroimaging subset of 111 individuals (60.4% female, mean age: 50.0 years old). Only the best-fit PRS for estradiol showed a significant negative association with hippocampal volume, as well as many of its individual subfields; including the molecular layer and granule cell layer of the dentate gyrus, subiculum, CA1, CA2/3 and CA4 regions. Interestingly, several of these subfields are implicated in adult hippocampal neurogenesis. When we tested the same estradiol PRS for association with case-control status for PPD or MDD there was no significant relationship observed. Here, we provide evidence that genetic risk for higher plasma estradiol is negatively associated with hippocampal volume, but this does not translate into an increased risk of MDD or PPD. This work suggests that the relationship between reproductive hormones, the hippocampus, and depression is complex, and that there may not be a clear-cut pathway for etiology or risk moderation
Parity nonconserving cold neutron-parahydrogen interactions
Three pion dominated observables of the parity nonconserving interactions
between the cold neutrons and parahydrogen are calculated. The transversely
polarized neutron spin rotation, unpolarized neutron longitudinal polarization,
and photon-asymmetry of the radiative polarized neutron capture are considered.
For the numerical evaluation of the observables, the strong interactions are
taken into account by the Reid93 potential and the parity nonconserving
interactions by the DDH model along with the two-pion exchange.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure
Polarons and bipolarons in strongly interacting electron-phonon systems
The Holstein Hubbard and Holstein t--J models are studied for a wide range of
phonon frequencies, electron--electron and electron--phonon interaction
strengths on finite lattices with up to ten sites by means of direct Lanczos
diagonalization. Previously the necessary truncation of the phononic Hilbert
space caused serious limitations to either very small systems (four or even two
sites) or to weak electron--phonon coupling, in particular in the adiabatic
regime. Using parallel computers we were able to investigate the transition
from `large' to `small' polarons in detail. By resolving the low--lying
eigenstates of the Hamiltonian and by calculating the spectral function we can
identify a polaron band in the strong--coupling case, whose dispersion deviates
from the free--particle dispersion at low and intermediate phonon frequencies.
For two electrons (holes) we establish the existence of bipolaronic states and
discuss the formation of a bipolaron band. For the 2D Holstein t--J model we
demonstrate that the formation of hole--polarons is favoured by strong Coulomb
correlations. Analyzing the hole--hole correlation functions we find that hole
binding is enhanced as a dynamical effect of the electron--phonon interaction.Comment: 23 pages (Revtex) with 13 figures (ps, uuencoded
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