The apéritif effect: Alcohol's effects on the brain's response to food aromas in women

OBJECTIVE: Consuming alcohol prior to a meal (an apéritif) increases food consumption. This greater food consumption may result from increased activity in brain regions that mediate reward and regulate feeding behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we evaluated the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response to the food aromas of either roast beef or Italian meat sauce following pharmacokinetically controlled intravenous infusion of alcohol. METHODS: BOLD activation to food aromas in non-obese women (n = 35) was evaluated once during intravenous infusion of 6% v/v EtOH, clamped at a steady-state breath alcohol concentration of 50 mg%, and once during infusion of saline using matching pump rates. Ad libitum intake of roast beef with noodles or Italian meat sauce with pasta following imaging was recorded. RESULTS: BOLD activation to food relative to non-food odors in the hypothalamic area was increased during alcohol pre-load when compared to saline. Food consumption was significantly greater, and levels of ghrelin were reduced, following alcohol. CONCLUSIONS: An alcohol pre-load increased food consumption and potentiated differences between food and non-food BOLD responses in the region of the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus may mediate the interplay of alcohol and responses to food cues, thus playing a role in the apéritif phenomenon

Hoosiers’ Health in a Changing Climate: A Report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment

In the coming decades, Indiana’s changing climate will bring with it higher temperatures, longer heat waves, more extremely hot days and more frequent extreme storm events. Those changes will affect the health of Hoosiers in every part of the state. This report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) describes historical and future climate-related health impacts that affect Hoosiers

Near Real Time Prospecting for Lunar Volatiles: Demonstrating RESOLVE Science in the Field

The Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen & Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) project aims to demonstrate the utility of "in situ resource utilization". In situ resource utilization (ISRU) is a way to rebalance the economics of spaceflight by reducing or eliminating materials that must be brought up from Earth and placed on the surface of the Moon for human use. RESOLVE is developing a rover-borne payload that (1) can locate near subsurface volatiles, (2) excavate and analyze samples of the volatile-bearing regolith, and (3) demonstrate the form, extractability and usefulness of the materials. Such investigations are important not only for ISRU but are also critically important for understanding the scientific nature of these intriguing lunar polar volatile deposits. Temperature models and orbital data suggest near surface volatile concentrations may exist at briefly lit lunar polar locations outside persistently shadowed regions. A lunar rover could be remotely operated at some of these locations for the 4-7 days of expected sunlight at relatively low cost. In July 2012 the RESOLVE project conducted a full-scale field demonstration. In particular, the ability to perform the real-time measurement analysis necessary to search for volatiles and the ability to combine the various measurement techniques to meet the mission measurement and science goals. With help from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES), a lunar rover prototype (provided by the Canadian Space Agency) was equipped with prospecting instruments (neutron spectrometer and near-infrared spectrometer), subsurface access and sampling tools, including both an auger and coring drill (provided by CSA) and subsurface sample analysis instrumentation, including a sample oven system, the Oxygen and Volatile Extraction Node (OVEN), and Gas Chromatograph / Mass Spectrometer system, the Lunar Advanced Volatile Analysis (LAVA) system. Given the relatively short time period this lunar mission is being designed to, prospecting needs to occur in near real-time. The two prospecting instruments are the neutron and NIR spectrometers. In the field demo a small radioactive source was provided the neutron flux. The NIR spectrometer, which includes its own light source, looks at surface reflectance for signatures of bound H20/0H and general mineralogy. Once a "hot spot" was found by the prospecting instruments, the drill could either auger or core. The auger drill worked to a depth of 50 cm and is monitored with a drill camera and the NIR spectrometer. As cuttings are brought up the NIR spectra is monitored. If a particular location is considered of high -interest then the decision to core could be made. The coring drill (a push-tube) allowed a meter sample to be acquired processed by the OVEN/LAVA sys-tem. This presentation will provide details as how these instruments worked together and how and if the planned measurements and science was obtained

A microarray study of MPP(+)-treated PC12 Cells: Mechanisms of toxicity (MOT) analysis using bioinformatics tools

BACKGROUND: This paper describes a microarray study including data quality control, data analysis and the analysis of the mechanism of toxicity (MOT) induced by 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP(+)) in a rat adrenal pheochromocytoma cell line (PC12 cells) using bioinformatics tools. MPP(+ )depletes dopamine content and elicits cell death in PC12 cells. However, the mechanism of MPP(+)-induced neurotoxicity is still unclear. RESULTS: In this study, Agilent rat oligo 22K microarrays were used to examine alterations in gene expression of PC12 cells after 500 μM MPP(+ )treatment. Relative gene expression of control and treated cells represented by spot intensities on the array chips was analyzed using bioinformatics tools. Raw data from each array were input into the NCTR ArrayTrack database, and normalized using a Lowess normalization method. Data quality was monitored in ArrayTrack. The means of the averaged log ratio of the paired samples were used to identify the fold changes of gene expression in PC12 cells after MPP(+ )treatment. Our data showed that 106 genes and ESTs (Expressed Sequence Tags) were changed 2-fold and above with MPP(+ )treatment; among these, 75 genes had gene symbols and 59 genes had known functions according to the Agilent gene Refguide and ArrayTrack-linked gene library. The mechanism of MPP(+)-induced toxicity in PC12 cells was analyzed based on their genes functions, biological process, pathways and previous published literatures. CONCLUSION: Multiple pathways were suggested to be involved in the mechanism of MPP(+)-induced toxicity, including oxidative stress, DNA and protein damage, cell cycling arrest, and apoptosis

An evaluation of habitat conditions and species composition above, in, and below the atomizer falls complex of the Little Colorado River

Water chemistry (carbon dioxide, pH, alkalinity, hardness, and turbidity) and physical habitat (depth, velocity and substrate) change gradually on the Little Colorado River, Arizona, downstream from Blue Springs (river kilometer 11.40 to 21.06). Fish distribution is correlated with changes in water chemistry and physical habitat. Monthly trends in water chemistry and physical habitat depended upon seasonal conditions: summer rain runoff (July and September 1992), spring runoff (April 1993), and base flow (June and July 1993)

Effect of Dna Damage By Mitomycin C Or Ultraviolet Irradiation on Bacteriophage T4 Deoxyribonucleotide Synthetase.

In phage T(,4) infection deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates are formed by a channeled process from ribonucleotides by a system of enzymes, called the deoxyribonucleotide synthetase complex. By our concept the synthetase intimately interacts with the T4 DNA replication enzyme complex and transfers the deoxyribonucleotides directly to the 3' growing point. Agents altering the structure of DNA have been shown to inhibit the de novo synthesis of deoxyribonucleotides in T4-infection, not through direct action on the biosynthetic enzymes of the system but via DNA as an intermediary. As a result it had been proposed that T4 template DNA has a structural/regulatory role in the deoxyribonucleotide synthetase complex. This thesis has examined the inhibition of deoxyribonucleotide synthesis by mitomycin C, an antibiotic which forms covalent crosslinks between guanine residues on opposite str and s of DNA. To determine whether damage of DNA by mitomycin C preferentially inhibited one of the two pathways UDP (--->) dUDP (--->) dUMP (--->) dTMP and CDP (--->) dCDP (--->) dCMP (--->) HmdCMP T4 cd uvsX phage was employed. This double mutant carries, respectively, mutations in the structural gene for dCMP deaminase, to prevent conversion of dCMP to dTMP, and in a gene required for repair of DNA damage by mitomycin C or ultraviolet irradiation. In fact, mitomycin C inhibited the two pathways equally. However, in the presence of the uvsX('+) gene product the antibiotic did not inhibit deoxyribonucleotide synthesis, in keeping with the proposal that these agents function through their action on DNA itself. Together with other evidence the studies indicate that damage of template DNA inhibits phage-coded ribonucleoside diphosphate reductase, the limiting step in the pathway, but has no differential effects on the enzyme. While mitomycin C inhibited deoxyribonucleotide synthesis by about 30 to 35% in cultures infected by uvsX Dna('+) phage, the agent had little or no effect in infections with uvsX Dna('-) double mutants. Similarly, ultraviolet irradiation of a uvsX Dna(,ts) double mutant inhibited deoxyribonucleotide synthesis only if infection was at temperatures permissive for DNA synthesis. Since DNA damage by the level of ultraviolet irradiation or mitomycin C employed occurs at a limited number of sites, estimated to be in the order of 1 in several thous and base pairs, the probability is great that the deoxyribonucleotide synthetase complexes will assemble at undamaged replication origins on the template. A model is presented in which a phage deoxyribonucleotide synthetase complex, associated with the replication complex at the leading str and of the growing point, is inhibited only when it reaches the site of DNA damage; in the absence of DNA replication inhibition cannot occur. The model also predicts that the deoxyribonucleotide synthetase complexes associated with DNA replication complexes carrying out discontinuous DNA synthesis, i.e., forming Okazaki fragments on the lagging str and will not be inhibited. Mitomycin C crosslinking of DNA has been suggested by other workers to occur at the sequence pGpC:pGpC. In the alternating polymer poly(dGdC):poly(dGdC) 50% of the dinucleotide sequences are such sites. Reaction of this synthetic polymer with reduced mitomycin C resulted in antibiotic:polynucleotide complexes with binding ratios in a range of one drug molecule per 2 to 4 base pairs. At a ratio of 1:4 the mitomycin C-polynucleotide complex showed no thermal hyperchromic transition even at temperatures 18 degrees above the Tm of the untreated polynucleotide. This finding suggests that almost every mitomycin molecule bound to poly(dGdC):poly(dGdC) forms an interstr and crosslink, since the two str and s of the DNA do not unstack at all even under strongly denaturing conditions. The model reaction supports the proposal that pGpC:pGpC represents the site of mitomycin C-induced crosslinks.Ph.D.BiochemistryUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158307/1/8116294.pd