PainDroid: An android-based virtual reality application for pain assessment

Earlier studies in the field of pain research suggest that little efficient intervention currently exists in response to the exponential increase in the prevalence of pain. In this paper, we present an Android application (PainDroid) with multimodal functionality that could be enhanced with Virtual Reality (VR) technology, which has been designed for the purpose of improving the assessment of this notoriously difficult medical concern. Pain- Droid has been evaluated for its usability and acceptability with a pilot group of potential users and clinicians, with initial results suggesting that it can be an effective and usable tool for improving the assessment of pain. Participant experiences indicated that the application was easy to use and the potential of the application was similarly appreciated by the clinicians involved in the evaluation. Our findings may be of considerable interest to healthcare providers, policy makers, and other parties that might be actively involved in the area of pain and VR research

Increased Terpenoid Accumulation in Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) Foliage is a General Wound Response

The subepidermal pigment glands of cotton accumulate a variety of terpenoid products, including monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, and terpenoid aldehydes that can act as feeding deterrents against a number of insect herbivore species. We compared the effect of herbivory by Spodoptera littoralis caterpillars, mechanical damage by a fabric pattern wheel, and the application of jasmonic acid on levels of the major representatives of the three structural classes of terpenoids in the leaf foliage of 4-week-old Gossypium hirsutum plants. Terpenoid levels increased successively from control to mechanical damage, herbivory, and jasmonic acid treatments, with E-β-ocimene and heliocide H1 and H4 showing the highest increases, up to 15-fold. Herbivory or mechanical damage to older leaves led to terpenoid increases in younger leaves. Leaf-by-leaf analysis of terpenes and gland density revealed that higher levels of terpenoids were achieved by two mechanisms: (1) increased filling of existing glands with terpenoids and (2) the production of additional glands, which were found to be dependent on damage intensity. As the relative response of individual terpenoids did not differ substantially among herbivore, mechanical damage, and jasmonic acid treatments, the induction of terpenoids in cotton foliage appears to represent a non-specific wound response mediated by jasmonic acid

The Effects of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi on Direct and Indirect Defense Metabolites of Plantago lanceolata L.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can strongly influence the metabolism of their host plant, but their effect on plant defense mechanisms has not yet been thoroughly investigated. We studied how the principal direct defenses (iridoid glycosides) and indirect defenses (volatile organic compounds) of Plantago lanceolata L. are affected by insect herbivory and mechanical wounding. Volatile compounds were collected and quantified from mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal P. lanceolata plants that underwent three different treatments: 1) insect herbivory, 2) mechanical wounding, or 3) no damage. The iridoids aucubin and catalpol were extracted and quantified from the same plants. Emission of terpenoid volatiles was significantly higher after insect herbivory than after the other treatments. However, herbivore-damaged mycorrhizal plants emitted lower amounts of sesquiterpenes, but not monoterpenes, than herbivore-damaged non-mycorrhizal plants. In contrast, mycorrhizal infection increased the emission of the green leaf volatile (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate in untreated control plants, making it comparable to emission from mechanically wounded or herbivore-damaged plants whether or not they had mycorrhizal associates. Neither mycorrhization nor treatment had any influence on the levels of iridoid glycosides. Thus, mycorrhizal infection did not have any effect on the levels of direct defense compounds measured in P. lanceolata. However, the large decline in herbivore-induced sesquiterpene emission may have important implications for the indirect defense potential of this species

Wound-induced changes in root and shoot jasmonic acid pools correlate with induced nicotine synthesis in Nicotiana sylvestris Spegazzini and comes

Leaf damage by herbivores in Nicotiana sylvestris Spegazzini and Comes (Solanaceae) produces a damage signal that dramatically increases de novo nicotine synthesis in the roots. The increased synthesis leads to increases in whole-plant nicotine pools,

Within-plant relationships among wounding, jasmonic acid, and nicotine - implications for defence in Nicotiana sylvestris

Tn Nicotiana sylvestris Spegazzini and Comes (Solanaceae), we examined the relationships among wounding, endogenous leaf jasmonic acid (JA) pools, and whole-plant (WP) nicotine accumulation over a range of wounding intensities and spatial distributions

Quantification, correlations and manipulations of wound-induced changes in jasmonic acid and nicotine in Nicotiana sylvestris

Jasmonic acid (JA) is thought to be part of a signal-transduction pathway which dramatically increases de-novo nicotine synthesis in the roots and increases whole-plant (WP) nicotine pools in response to the wounding of the leaves in Nicotiana sylvestl

Cotton Gossypium hirsutum L., defense in response to nitrogen fertilization and beet armyworm density.

Plants respond to insect herbivory by producing dynamic changes in an array of defense-related volatile and nonvolatile secondary metabolites. A scaled response relative to herbivory levels and nutrient availability would be adaptive, particularly under nutrient-limited conditions, in minimizing the costs of expressed defensive pathways and synthesis. In this study, we investigated effects of varying nitrogen (N) fertilization (42, 112, 196, and 280 ppm N) on levels of cotton plant (Gossypium hirsutum) phytohormones [jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA)], terpenoid aldehydes (hemigossypolone, heliocides H1, H2, H3, and H4), and volatile production in response to beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua) herbivory. Additional bioassays assessed parasitoid (Cotesia marginiventris) host-searching success in response to cotton plants grown under various N fertilizer regimes. At low N input (42 ppm N), herbivore damage resulted in significant increases in local leaf tissue concentrations of JA and volatiles and in systemic accumulation of terpenoid aldehydes. However, increased N fertilization of cotton plants suppressed S. exigua-induced plant hormones and led to reduced production of various terpenoid aldehydes in damaged mature leaves and undamaged young leaves. While increased N fertilization significantly diminished herbivore-induced leaf volatile concentrations, the parasitism of S. exigua larvae by the parasitoid C. marginiventris in field cages did not differ among N treatments. This suggests that, despite significant N fertilization effects on herbivore-induced plant defenses, at short range, the parasitoids were unable to differentiate between S. exigua larvae feeding on physiologically different cotton plants that share large constitutive volatile pools releasable when damaged by herbivores