Association between habenula dysfunction and motivational symptoms in unmedicated major depressive disorder

The lateral habenula plays a central role in reward and punishment processing and has been suggested to drive the cardinal symptom of anhedonia in depression. This hypothesis is largely based on observations of habenula hypermetabolism in animal models of depression, but the activity of habenula and its relationship with clinical symptoms in patients with depression remains unclear. High-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational modelling were used to investigate the activity of the habenula during a probabilistic reinforcement learning task with rewarding and punishing outcomes in 21 unmedicated patients with major depression and 17 healthy participants. High-resolution anatomical scans were also acquired to assess group differences in habenula volume. Healthy individuals displayed the expected activation in the left habenula during receipt of punishment and this pattern was confirmed in the computational analysis of prediction error processing. In depressed patients, there was a trend towards attenuated left habenula activation to punishment, while greater left habenula activation was associated with more severe depressive symptoms and anhedonia. We also identified greater habenula volume in patients with depression, which was associated with anhedonic symptoms. Habenula dysfunction may contribute to abnormal response to punishment in patients with depression, and symptoms such as anhedonia

The economic burden of influenza-associated outpatient visits and hospitalizations in China: a retrospective survey

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Recent progress of mesoporous silica materials

Since the synthesis of novel mesoporous silica materials in 1992, the materials have become a great demand in many research fields. The authors reviewed the synthesis of mesoporous silica materials and their classification, their formation mechanism, as well as the aspects of controlling porosity and recent progresses of their applications. The mesoporous silica materials may be found great utility in catalysis and nano-technology etc

Polymorphism of the pig-implantation protein 3 (preis3) gene and its association with litter size traits

The pre-implantation protein 3 (prei3), which might play a role in pre-implantation embryogenesis, is one of the promising candidate genes for litter size traits in pigs. In this study, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP: T802G) in intron 6 of the pig prei3 gene was detected and a genotyping assay for this SNP was developed. An association study for this SNP with litter size was performed in two independent populations. One population consisted of crossbred sows derived from Landrace, Large White, Chinese Tongcheng and/or Chinese Meishan (Line DIV). The other population constituted of crossbred animals derived from Chinese Qingping and Duroc (QD). Statistical analysis demonstrated that, in first parity, 2.65 more piglets were born and 3.82 more piglets were born alive in sows in Line DIV with genotype TT than with genotype GG. For second and subsequent litters, in both the DIV and QD lines there were significant differences in the number of piglets born alive between TG and GG sows, with the TG sows producing more piglets born alive than the GG sows. These results suggest that the prei3 SNP is significantly associated with litter size in the two populations studied, and could be useful in selection for increasing litter size in pigs. Further investigations on more pig populations with large sample sizes are needed to confirm this. South African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 36(3) 2006: 209-21

An ABA triblock copolymer strategy for intrinsically stretchable semiconductors

A novel semiconductor-rubber-semiconductor (P3HT-PMA-P3HT) triblock copolymer has been designed and prepared according to the principle of thermoplastic elastomers. It behaves as a thermoplastic elastomer with a Young's modulus (E) of 6 MPa for an elongation at break of 140% and exhibits good electrical properties with a carrier mobility of 9 x 10(-4) cm(2) V-1 s(-1). This novel semiconductor may play an important role in low-cost and large-area stretchable electronics.open112223sciescopu

Effect of Ti-doping on the framework Structure of Mesoporous silica

The Ti-doped mesoporous silica MCM-41 materials were synthesized under basic condition at room temperature. The characteristics of samples were investigated by using XRD, HREM, IR, and N-2 adsorption techniques. The results show that Ti ions can get into the Si frame work and lead to the vibration of Si-O-Ti bond, with the increase of Ti ion addition, the mesoporous silica framework structure can be disordered and finally deteriorated

Study on the synthesis and mechanism of mesoporous silica with hexastyle structure

The mesoporous silica MCM-41 materials with hexastyle structure were synthesized under strongly acidic condition. The characteristics of samples were investigated by using XRD, N-2 adsorption, HREM, and SEM techniques. The results show that MCM-41 powder with hexastyle structure, which is wormlike in micrometer-scale, consists of thousands of mesoporous channels in nano-scale. The morphogenesis of hexastyle mesoporous silica is due to the accretion of surfactant micella combined with silica oligmers in the low concentration of TEOS

Synthesis of ordered mesoporous aluminosilicate under a low surfactant/silica molar ratio condition

Ordered mesoporous aluminosilicate materials with atomic Si/Al ratios of 16 similar to 64 were synthesized at a very low molar ratio of surfactant/silica (0.12) by using aluminium chloride hexahydrate and TEOS as the sources of aluminium and silicon. The resulting materials were characterized by XRD, TEM, FTIR and nitrogen sorption. As the NaOH/Si molar ratio increases from 0.2 to 0.6, the products obtained change from hexagonal MCM-41 to cubic MCM-48. The quality of the product rapidly deteriorates as the aluminium content of the solid increases beyond a certain limit. XRD shows that the substitution of the silicon by the large aluminium atoms leads to the expansion of the unit cell

Photoluminescence properties of lamellar aggregates of titania nanosheets accommodating rare earth ions

Fluorescent semiconductor materials doped with rare earth ions have been synthesized by flocculation of colloidal titania nanosheets, Ti0.91O2, with Eu3 or Tb3 ions. The composites had a lamellar structure with a gallery height of 1.06 nm, accommodating rare earth ions between the nanosheets with a doping concentration as high as 101 mol %. The composite with Eu3 exhibited intense characteristic emission from Eu3 either by exciting the Ti0.91O2 host with UV light (lambd

SUMO-2 promotes mRNA translation by enhancing interaction between eIF4E and eIF4G

Small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) proteins regulate many important eukaryotic cellular processes through reversible covalent conjugation to target proteins. In addition to its many well-known biological consequences, like subcellular translocation of protein, subnuclear structure formation, and modulation of transcriptional activity, we show here that SUMO-2 also plays a role in mRNA translation. SUMO-2 promoted formation of the active eukaryotic initiation factor 4F (eIF4F) complex by enhancing interaction between Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 4E (eIF4E) and Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 4G (eIF4G), and induced translation of a subset of proteins, such as cyclinD1 and c-myc, which essential for cell proliferation and apoptosis. As expected, overexpression of SUMO-2 can partially cancel out the disrupting effect of 4EGI-1, a small molecule inhibitor of eIF4E/eIF4G interaction, on formation of the eIF4F complex, translation of the cap-dependent protein, cell proliferation and apoptosis. On the other hand, SUMO-2 knockdown via shRNA partially impaired cap-dependent translation and cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis. These results collectively suggest that SUMO-2 conjugation plays a crucial regulatory role in protein synthesis. Thus, this report might contribute to the basic understanding of mammalian protein translation and sheds some new light on the role of SUMO in this process. © 2014 Chen et al