Disconnection and reconnection: the morphological basis of (mal)adaptation to stress

We would like to thank Antonio Pinheiro, Hugo Almeida, and José Miguel Soares for help with the illustrations. We also thank all past and present members of our laboratories for stimulating discussions.Maladaptive responses to stress and the associated hypersecretion of glucocorticoids cause psychopathologies ranging from hyperemotional states and mood dysfunction to cognitive impairments. Research in both humans and animal models has begun to identify morphological correlates of these functional changes. These include dendritic and synaptic reorganization, glial remodeling, and altered cell fate in cortical and subcortical structures. The emerging view is that stress induces a disconnection syndrome’ whereby the transmission and integration of information that are critical for orchestrating appropriate physiological and behavioral responses are perturbed. High-resolution spatiotemporal mapping of the complete neural circuitry and identification of the cellular processes impacted by stress will help to advance discovery of strategies to reduce or reverse the burden of stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders.Work in our laboratories was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service - Acções Luso-Alemãs, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (PTDC/SAUNSC/ 111814/2009), and European Union FP7 (SwitchBox Project, Contract 259772; Neuroendocrine Immune Networks in Ageing Scientific Network, Contract 238665)

Comparative biochemical evolution during ripening of bovine, ovine and caprine cheeses manufactured with extracts of flowers of Cynara cardunculus

Changes in the main physicochemical and biochemical characteristics of bovine, ovine and caprine milk cheeses manufactured with aqueous extracts of flowers of Cynara cardunculus were studied throughout ripening (0 – 68 days). At the end of ripening the pH in the centre was (mean ± ISD) 5.05±0.07, 5.15±0.21 and 4.91±0.07 for bovine, ovine and caprine milk cheeses, respectively; whereas the pH at the top of the cheese was 5.21±0.09, 5.44±0.12 and 5.12±0.07, respectively; the moisture content values of bovine, ovine and caprine milk cheeses were 37.68±2.32, 40.23±4.34 and 45.73±1.44%, respectively; the NaCl content values were 4.00±0.43, 4.00±0.56 and 4.08±0.58 (%TS); the fat content values were 41.01±5.32, 63.60±7.80 and 45.14±9.14 (%TS); the protein content values were 28.96±1.84, 22.89±2.37 and 30.02±1.22 (%TS); the water-soluble nitrogen values were 32.91±1.76, 46.44±1.86 and 48.72±1.08 (%TN); the values of nitrogen soluble in trichloroacetic acid were 10.25±1.93, 10.41±2.91 and 7.25±0.84 (%TN); the values of nitrogen soluble in phosphotungstic acid were 1.50±0.18, 1.87±0.65 and 1.38±0.32 (%TN); finally, the free amino acid content values were 21.33±5.34, 17.51±5.08 and 23.93±4.80 μM equivalents of leucine. Urea-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of water-insoluble fractions from cheeses indicated high degrees of proteolysis of αs1-casein in bovine cheeses and more extensive proteolysis of the αs-casein region in caprine than in ovine cheeses, but a moderate degree of proteolysis of β-casein in all types of cheese; electrophoregrams of the water-soluble fraction displayed increasing numbers of bands throughout ripening, an observation that is consistent with the increase in the ratio of water-soluble nitrogen to total nitrogen

Influence of pasteurization of milk and addition of starter cultures on protein breakdown in ovine cheeses manufactured with extracts from flowers of Cynara cardunculus

Ovine cheeses were manufactured from raw milk (R), pasteurized milk without starter addition (P), and pasteurized milk with starter addition (PS), using in all cases extracts of Cynara cardunculus as rennet and mimicking as far as possible the traditional manufacture process. The microbial counts were higher in (R) cheeses than in (P) cheeses, and the lowest microbial counts were found for (PS) cheeses. Such physicochemical characteristics as moisture, fat, protein, NaCl content, and pH of the three types of cheeses were similar to one another at each sampling time. In particular, pasteurization had no significant effect on protein breakdown as evaluated by either the water-soluble nitrogen, the trichloroaceticacid (TCA)-soluble nitrogen, or the phosphotungstic acid (PTA)-soluble nitrogen fractions. However, the TCA-soluble and the PTA-soluble fractions for the PS cheeses ripened for more than 28 days were higher than those for the (R) or (P) cheeses at similar ripening times. The cheeses and their water-soluble extracts could not be distinguished by urea-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis for up to 7 days, but clear differences were apparent at 68 days of ripening for the (PS) cheeses with respect to the (R) and (P) cheeses

Euclidean thermal spinor Green's function in the spacetime of a straight cosmic string

Within the framework of the quantum field theory at finite temperature on a conical space, we determine the Euclidean thermal spinor Green's function for a massless spinor field. We then calculate the thermal average of the energy-momentum tensor of a thermal bath of massless fermions. In the high-temperature limit, we find that the straight cosmic string does not perturb the thermal bathComment: 11 pages, latex, no figure

The HARPS search for southern extrasolar planets XXV. Results from the metal-poor sample

Searching for extrasolar planets around stars of different metallicity may provide strong constraints to the models of planet formation and evolution. In this paper we present the overall results of a HARPS (a high-precision spectrograph mostly dedicated to deriving precise radial velocities) program to search for planets orbiting a sample of 104 metal-poor stars (selected [Fe/H] below -0.5). Radial velocity time series of each star are presented and searched for signals using several statistical diagnostics. Stars with detected signals are presented, including 3 attributed to the presence of previously announced giant planets orbiting the stars HD171028, HD181720, and HD190984. Several binary stars and at least one case of a coherent signal caused by activity-related phenomena are presented. One very promising new, possible giant planet orbiting the star HD107094 is discussed, and the results are analyzed in light of the metallicity-giant planet correlation. We conclude that the frequency of giant planets orbiting metal-poor stars may be higher than previously thought, probably reflecting the higher precision of the HARPS survey. In the metallicity domain of our sample, we also find evidence that the frequency of planets is a steeply rising function of the stellar metal content, as found for higher metallicity stars.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Reptilia, Squamata, Polychrotidae, <i>Anolis fuscoauratus</i> D'Orbigny, 1837: Distribution extension for the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

We provide the first record of Anolis fuscoauratus D’Orbigny, 1837 for the state of Rio Grande do Norte anda distribution map for the species in the Atlantic Rainforest of northeastern Brazil. The record of A. fuscoauratus in themunicipality of Tibau do Sul, state of Rio Grande do Norte, represents a distribution extension of 170 km northwesternfrom the municipality of Cabedelo, state of Paraíba. This is the northernmost record of this species in the Atlantic Rainforest

Spinning straw into gold: Innovation recycling, innovation sourcing modes, and innovation ability in Sub-Saharan Africa

Copyright © 2022 The Authors. As innovation is inherently risky and uncertain, it is common for firms to suspend or abandon new product/service development projects that cannot achieve pre-defined objectives. Multiple cases exist where firms have attempted to resume the development of an innovative product or service after previously suspending or abandoning it prior to completion. Research on this important innovation recycling activity is surprisingly scarce, despite its critical role in mitigating risk in the context of high environmental uncertainty. We draw our inferences from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where innovation resources are relatively limited and environmental uncertainty and institutional voids prevail, a context that encourages the use of innovation recycling. This study examines how innovation recycling influences a firm's innovation ability and the moderating impact of innovation sourcing modes using a knowledge-based view of the firm and arguments from transaction cost economics. We retrieved data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the Innovation Follow-up Survey of 1076 firms located in eight SSA countries (Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) spanning from 2011 to 2014 to test our conceptual model. Our findings show that (1) innovation recycling has a positive influence on a firm's innovation ability and (2) this relationship is moderated by different innovation sourcing modes. These findings enrich the theory and imply that firms operating in developing countries need to develop innovation recycling by focusing on sourcing knowledge within, rather than across, firm boundaries

Foreign Market Re-entry: A Review and Future Research Directions

Foreign market re-entry has increasingly attracted academic interest. However, different streams of research have developed largely independently of each other, which has hindered theory development and practical advancement in the field. By reviewing 45 relevant articles in international business and related disciplines between 1996 and 2020, this study provides a systematic review and analysis of the literature on re-entry. In addition, a framework is developed to direct future research efforts. Following the logic of ‘Antecedents-Phenomenon-Consequences’ and focusing on the time dimension, this study enables better understanding of the re-entry phenomenon and provides recommendations for future research in this area

The stressed prefrontal cortex. Left? Right!

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role in the integration of cognitive and affective behavior and regulating autonomic and neuroendocrine functions. This region of the brain, which may be considered analogous to the RAM memory of a computer, is important for translating stressful experience into adaptive behavior. The PFC responds to stress and modulates the response to stress through regulation of the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) which, in turn, controls sympathoadrenal and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity. Interestingly, the latter convey the signals that link the CNS with the immune system. The present review highlights findings that contribute to elucidate the involvement of the PFC in the control of behavioral and neuroendocrine responses to chronic stress. It also considers the implications of these regulatory links for disorders of the nervous and immune systems.Authors’ work was in part supported by grants from the Portuguese J.J. Cerqueira et al. / Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 22 (2008) 630–638 635 government Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)—Project PTDC/SAU-NEU/72699/2006—and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation—Project JG/0495

Generation of artificial neural networks models in anticancer study

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have several applications; one of them is the prediction of biological activity. Here, ANNs were applied to a set of 32 compounds with anticancer activity assayed experimentally against two cancer cell lines (A2780 and T-47D). Using training and test sets, the obtained correlation coefficients between experimental and calculated values of activity, for A2780, were 0.804 and 0.829, respectively, and for T-47D, we got 0.820 for the training set and 0.927 for the test set. Com paring multiple linear regression and ANN models, the latter were better suited in establishing relationships between compounds’ structure and their anticancer activity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio