Sex and Eating: Relationships Based On Wanting and Liking

Sex and eating may have behavioral and psychological relationships and have cortical regions in common. This research investigated the general relationship between sex and eating from a reward perspective among the general population. Two-hundred and sixty-one Chinese participants were recruited via the internet (136 males, 125 females, mean age 30.46 years) to fill in questionnaires about wanting and liking for sex and eating. The results revealed that first, there was a positive correlation between wanting for sex and wanting to eat only for males. Second, the relationship between liking for sex and eating was also positive for males and not significant in females. Third, the correlation between sociosexual orientation and wanting to eat was significant only in females, and there was no significant correlation between sociosexual orientation and liking for eating. Fourth, emotional sex cravings (or emotional sexual activity) was positively correlated with emotional food cravings (or emotional eating behavior), with a higher magnitude correlation in males than females. Finally, analysis of wanting (liking) models of sex and eating for males and females revealed three models for wanting among females: high wanting, low wanting for eating, and low wanting for sex; and two models for wanting among males: high wanting and low wanting. Liking for sex and eating among females consisted of two types of model: high liking and low liking; whereas three type models existed for males: high liking for sex, high liking for eating, and low liking. In general, our research revealed that, as with other natural rewards, sex and eating have considerable commonality and are related in numerous ways

Neural mechanisms underlying social conformity in an ultimatum game

When individuals’ actions are incongruent with those of the group they belong to, they may change their initial behavior in order to conform to the group norm. This phenomenon is known as social conformity. In the present study, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain activity in response to group opinion during an ultimatum game. Results showed that participants changed their choices when these choices conflicted with the normative opinion of the group they were members of, especially in conditions of unfair treatment. The fMRI data revealed that a conflict with group norms activated the brain regions involved in norm violations and behavioral adjustment. Furthermore, in the reject-unfair condition, we observed that a conflict with group norms activated the medial frontal gyrus. These findings contribute to recent research examining neural mechanisms involved in detecting violations of social norms, and provide information regarding the neural representation of conformity behavior in an economic game

Rapid identification and multiple susceptibility testing of pathogens from positive-culture sterile body fluids by a combined MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry and Vitek Susceptibility system

Infections of the bloodstream, central nervous system, peritoneum, joints and other sterile areas are associated with high morbidity and sequelae risk. Timely initiation of effective antimicrobial therapy is crucial to improving patient prognosis. However, standard final identification and antimicrobial susceptibility tests (ASTs) are reported 16–48 hours after a positive alert. For a rapid, effective and low-cost diagnosis, we combined matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry with a Vitek AST system, and performed rapid microbial identification (RMI) and rapid multiple AST (RMAST) on non-duplicated positive body fluid cultures collected from a hospital in Shanghai, China. Sterile body fluid positive culture and blood positive culture caused by Gram negative (GN) or polymicrobial were applied to the MALDI–TOF measurement directly. When positive blood culture caused by Gram positive (GP) bacteria or yeasts, they were resuspended in 1 ml brain heart infusion for 2h or 4h enrichment, respectively. Regardless of enrichment, the RMI (completed in 40 min per sample) accurately identified GN and GP bacteria (98.9% and 87.2%, respectively), fungi (75.7%) and anaerobes (94.7%). Dominant species in multiple cultures and bacteria that failed to grow on the routing plates were correctly identified in 81.2% and 100% of cases, respectively. The category agreements of RMAST results, determined in the presence of various antibiotics, were similarly to previous studies. The RMI and RMAST results not only reduce the turnaround time of the patient report by 18–36 hours, but also indicate whether a patient’s antibiotic treatment should be accelerated, ceased or de-escalated, and adjusted the essential drugs modification for an optimised therapy

The large-scale distribution of ammonia oxidizers in paddy soils is driven by soil pH, geographic distance and climatic factors

Paddy soils distribute widely from temperate to tropical regions, and are characterized by intensive nitrogen fertilization practices in China. Mounting evidence has confirmed the functional importance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) in soil nitrification, but little is known about their biogeographic distribution patterns in paddy ecosystems. Here, we used barcoded pyrosequencing to characterize the effects of climatic, geochemical and spatial factors on the distribution of ammonia oxidizers from 11 representative rice-growing regions (75-1945 km apart) of China. Potential nitrification rates varied greatly by more than three orders of magnitude, and were significantly correlated with the abundances of AOA and AOB. The community composition of ammonia oxidizer was affected by multiple factors, but changes in relative abundances of the major lineages could be best predicted by soil pH. The alpha diversity of AOA and AOB displayed contrasting trends over the gradients of latitude and atmospheric temperature, indicating a possible niche separation between AOA and AOB along the latitude. The Bray-Curtis dissimilarities in ammonia-oxidizing community structure significantly increased with increasing geographical distance, indicating that more geographically distant paddy fields tend to harbor more dissimilar ammonia oxidizers. Variation partitioning analysis revealed that spatial, geochemical and climatic factors could jointly explain majority of the data variation, and were important drivers defining the ecological niches of AOA and AOB. Our findings suggest that both AOA and AOB are of functional importance in paddy soil nitrification, and ammonia oxidizers in paddy ecosystems exhibit large-scale biogeographic patterns shaped by soil pH, geographic distance, and climatic factors

Pyrosequencing Reveals a Core Community of Anodic Bacterial Biofilms in Bioelectrochemical Systems from China

Bioelectrochemical systems (BESs) are promising technologies for energy and product recovery coupled with wastewater treatment, and the core microbial community in electrochemically active biofilm in BESs remains controversy. In the present study, 7 anodic communities from 6 bioelectrochemical systems in 4 labs in southeast, north and south-central of China are explored by 454 pyrosequencing. A total of 251,225 effective sequences are obtained for 7 electrochemically active biofilm samples at 3% cutoff level. While Alpha-, Beta- and Gamma-proteobacteria are the most abundant classes (averaging 16.0-17.7%), Bacteroidia and Clostridia are the two sub-dominant and commonly shared classes. Six commonly shared genera i.e. Azospira, Azospirillum, Acinetobacter, Bacteroides, Geobacter, Pseudomonas and Rhodopseudomonas dominate the electrochemically active communities and are defined as core genera. A total of 25 OTUs with average relative abundance >0.5% were selected and designated as core OTUs, and some species relating to these OTUs have been reported electrochemically active. Furthermore, cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry tests show that two strains from Acinetobacter guillouiae and Stappia indica, bacteria relate to two core OTUs, are electrochemically active. Using randomly selected bioelectrochemical systems, the study presented extremely diverse bacterial communities in anodic biofilms, though, we still can suggest some potential microbes for investigating the electrochemical mechanisms in bioelectrochemical systems

Regulation of Plant Growth, Photosynthesis, Antioxidation and Osmosis by an Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus in Watermelon Seedlings under Well-Watered and Drought Conditions

Drought stress has become an increasingly serious environmental issue that influences the growth and production of watermelon. Previous studies found that arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) colonization improved the fruit yield and water use efficiency of watermelon grown under water stress; however, the exact mechanisms remain unknown. In this study, the effects of Glomus versiforme symbiosis on the growth, physio-biochemical attributes, and stress-responsive gene expressions of watermelon seedlings grown under well-watered and drought conditions were investigated. The results showed that AM colonization did not significantly influence the shoot growth of watermelon seedlings under well-watered conditions but did promote root development irrespective of water treatment. Drought stress decreased the leaf relative water content and chlorophyll concentration, but to a lesser extent in the AM plants. Compared with the non-mycorrhizal seedlings, mycorrhizal plants had higher non-photochemical quenching values, which reduced the chloroplast ultrastructural damage in the mesophyll cells and thus maintained higher photosynthetic efficiency. Moreover, AM inoculation led to significant enhancements in the enzyme activities and gene expressions of SOD, CAT, APX, GR and MDHAR in watermelon leaves upon drought imposition. Consequently, AM plants exhibited lower accumulation of MDA, H2O2 and O2- compared with non-mycorrhizal plants. Under drought stress, the soluble sugar and proline contents were significantly increased, and further enhancements were observed by pre-treating the drought-stressed plants with AM. Taken together, our findings indicate that mycorrhizal colonization enhances watermelon drought tolerance through a stronger root system, greater protection of photosynthetic apparatus, a more efficient antioxidant system and improved osmoregulation. This study contributes to advances in the knowledge of AM-induced drought tolerance