Phenotyping peripheral neuropathic pain in male and female adolescents

Neuropathic pain (NeuP) can be difficult to diagnose and manage in children. Data regarding prevalence and sex-dependent differences are limited, and more detailed phenotyping is needed. This observational cohort study recruited adolescents (10-17 years) with NeuP or complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). After pain history and NeuP questionnaires, quantitative sensory testing was performed. Individual z-score plots were calculated with body-region control measures and matched to mechanism-related sensory profiles (sensory loss, thermal hyperalgesia, and mechanical hyperalgesia). Conditioned pain modulation was assessed with pressure pain threshold and a contralateral cold conditioning stimulus, and meaningful conditioned pain modulation defined as twice the standard error of measurement. Patients and parents completed validated questionnaires for child quality of life (QoL), pain catastrophizing, and self-reported anxiety/depression. Males (n = 23) and females (n = 43) with NeuP (n = 52) or CRPS (n = 14) reported moderate–severe pain with neuropathic sensory descriptors. Mixed patterns of sensory gain/loss at pain sites were not sex-dependent. Thermal hyperalgesia was common in both NeuP and CRPS, whereas sensory loss occurred only with NeuP and in a smaller proportion than adult cohorts. Conditioned pain modulation was inhibitory in 54%, facilitatory in 14%, and nonresponders had variable cold conditioning sensitivity. Males and females reported marked impairment of QoL, increased emotional distress, and pain catastrophising. Child–parent QoL scores correlated, but catastrophizing scores were discordant when parents or adolescents reported higher anxiety/depression. NeuP in adolescents is associated with significant pain, physical impairment, and psychosocial impairment. Quantifying alterations in somatosensory profiles, descending modulation, child and parent psychological function will inform individualized therapy and stratification for future clinical trials

Intervention for word-finding difficulty for children starting school who have diverse language backgrounds

Children who have word-finding difficulty can be identified by the pattern of disfluencies in their spontaneous speech; in particular whole-word repetition of prior words often occurs when they cannot retrieve the subsequent word. Work is reviewed that shows whole-word repetitions can be used to identify children from diverse language backgrounds who have word-finding difficulty. The symptom-based identification procedure was validated using a non-word repetition task. Children who were identified as having word-finding difficulty were given phonological training that taught them features of English that they lacked (this depended on their language background). Then they received semantic training. In the cases of children whose first language was not English, the children were primed to use English and then presented with material where there was interference in meanings across the languages (English names had to be produced). It was found that this training improved a range of outcome measures related to education

Candida albicans pathogenicity mechanisms

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Terahertz response of patterned epitaxial graphene

We study the interaction between polarized terahertz (THz) radiation and micro-structured large-area graphene in transmission geometry. In order to efficiently couple the radiation into the two-dimensional material, a lateral periodic patterning of a closed graphene sheet by intercalation doping into stripes is chosen. We observe unequal transmittance of the radiation polarized parallel and perpendicular to the stripes. The relative contrast, partly enhanced by Fabry-Perot oscillations reaches 20 %. The effect even increases up to 50 % when removing graphene stripes in analogy to a wire grid polarizer. The polarization dependence is analyzed in a large frequency range from < 80 GHz to 3 THz, including the plasmon-polariton resonance. The results are in excellent agreement with theoretical calculations based on the electronic energy spectrum of graphene and the electrodynamics of the patterned structureThe authors thank J. Jobst for fruitful discussions. The research was performed in the framework of the Sonderforschungsbereich 953 "Synthetic carbon allotropes", funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. We acknowledge support from the EC under Graphene Flagship (contract no. CNECT-ICT-604391)

Structural and Functional Dissection of Mif2p, a Conserved DNA-binding Kinetochore Protein

Mif2p is the budding-yeast orthologue of the mammalian centromere-binding protein CENP-C. We have mapped domains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mif2p and studied the phenotyptic consequences of their deletion. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and electrophoretic mobility shift assays, we have further shown that Mif2p binds in the CDEIII region of the budding-yeast centromere, probably in close spatial association with Ndc10p. Moreover, ChIP experiments show that Mif2p recruits to yeast kinetochores a substantial subset of inner and outer kinetochore proteins, but not the Ndc80 or Spc105 complexes. We have determined the crystal structure of the C-terminal, dimerization domain of Mif2p. It has a "cupin" fold, extremely similar both in polypeptide chain conformation and in dimer geometry to the dimerization domain of a bacterial transcription factor. The Mif2p dimer seems to be part of an enhanceosome-like structure that nucleates kinetochore assembly in budding yeast.Molecular and Cellular Biolog

Time-resolved searchlight analysis of imagined visual motion using 7T ultra-high field fMRI: Data on interindividual differences

AbstractInterindividual differences play a crucial role in research on mental imagery. The inherently private nature of imagery does not allow for the same experimental control that is possible in perception research. Even when there are precise instructions subjects will differ in their particular imagery strategy and, hence, show different brain activations. Here, we show results of a time-resolved searchlight analysis for 12 individual subjects who perform a visual motion imagery task. The data show the spatial and temporal extent of brain areas and time windows that allow for a successful decoding of the direction of imagined motion out of four options. Accuracy maps for six different time windows are shown for every individual subject and are made freely available on NeuroVault. These data accompany the findings in the publication “Decoding the direction of imagined visual motion using 7T ultra-high field fMRI” (Emmerling et al., 2016) [1]

Low-Energy Electron Potentiometry: Contactless Imaging of Charge Transport on the Nanoscale

Charge transport measurements form an essential tool in condensed matter physics. The usual approach is to contact a sample by two or four probes, measure the resistance and derive the resistivity, assuming homogeneity within the sample. A more thorough understanding, however, requires knowledge of local resistivity variations. Spatially resolved information is particularly important when studying novel materials like topological insulators, where the current is localized at the edges, or quasi-two-dimensional (2D) systems, where small-scale variations can determine global properties. Here, we demonstrate a new method to determine spatially-resolved voltage maps of current-carrying samples. This technique is based on low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM) and is therefore quick and non-invasive. It makes use of resonance-induced contrast, which strongly depends on the local potential. We demonstrate our method using single to triple layer graphene. However, it is straightforwardly extendable to other quasi-2D systems, most prominently to the upcoming class of layered van der Waals materials.Quantum Matter and Optic

Twenty-five years of two-dimensional rational conformal field theory

In this article we try to give a condensed panoramic view of the development of two-dimensional rational conformal field theory in the last twenty-five years.Comment: A review for the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Mathematical Physics. Some references added, typos correcte