Atypical Frontotemporal Connectivity of Cognitive Empathy in Male Adolescents With Conduct Disorder

Background: It has been suggested that adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) may have a deficit in the affective and cognitive domains empathy, but studies exploring networks within the key brain regions of affective and cognitive empathy in adolescents with CD are lacking.Methods: Functional connectivity (FC) analyses among key brain regions of the affective and cognitive empathy with resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were conducted in 30 adolescent boys with CD and 33 demographically matched healthy controls (HCs).Results: Atypical FC within the key brain regions of affective empathy was not observed in CD adolescents. However, we found that CD adolescents showed decreased frontotemporal connectivity within the key brain regions of cognitive empathy in relation to HCs, that is, the FCs between right temporoparietal junction and ventromedial prefrontal cortex as well as dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.Conclusion: These findings may provide insight into neural mechanism underlying a cognitive empathy deficiency of CD adolescents from the perspective of FC

Fragility Assessment of a Long-Unit Prestressed Concrete Composite Continuous Girder Bridge with Corrugated Steel Webs Subjected to Near-Fault Pulse-like Ground Motions Considering Spatial Variability Effects

Prestressed concrete composite girder bridges with corrugated steel webs (PCCGBCSWs) are extensively employed in bridge construction because of their low dead weight, fast construction, and high prestressing efficiency. Moreover, PCCGBCSWs will experience deformation and failure of the corrugated steel webs, including steel fatigue and fracture, during earthquakes. These changes will introduce safety hazards, which can be addressed via bridge disaster prevention and mitigation. Because near-fault pulse-like ground motions (NFPLGMs) have high peak accelerations, these motions can easily cause damage to a bridge. Therefore, in this study, a seismic fragility assessment is performed for long-unit PCCGBCSWs subjected to NFPLGMs considering spatial variability effects, and a sensitivity evaluation of the seismic fragility is conducted considering girder type, bearing type, ground motion type, and apparent wave velocity to offer a point of reference for seismic design. The results show that PCCGBCSWs are less vulnerable than concrete bridges. The shock absorption effect of the friction pendulum bearing is better than that of the viscous damper. The impact of NFPLGMs on bridges is greater than that of near-fault non-pulse-like ground motions (NFNPLMs) and far-fault ground motions (FFGMs). The seismic fragility under nonuniform excitation conditions is greater than that under uniform excitation conditions, showing an increasing trend with decreasing apparent wave velocity

Light-induced dimension crossover dictated by excitonic correlations.

In low-dimensional systems with strong electronic correlations, the application of an ultrashort laser pulse often yields novel phases that are otherwise inaccessible. The central challenge in understanding such phenomena is to determine how dimensionality and many-body correlations together govern the pathway of a non-adiabatic transition. To this end, we examine a layered compound, 1T-TiSe2, whose three-dimensional charge-density-wave (3D CDW) state also features exciton condensation due to strong electron-hole interactions. We find that photoexcitation suppresses the equilibrium 3D CDW while creating a nonequilibrium 2D CDW. Remarkably, the dimension reduction does not occur unless bound electron-hole pairs are broken. This relation suggests that excitonic correlations maintain the out-of-plane CDW coherence, settling a long-standing debate over their role in the CDW transition. Our findings demonstrate how optical manipulation of electronic interaction enables one to control the dimensionality of a broken-symmetry order, paving the way for realizing other emergent states in strongly correlated systems