Illuminating cellular formaldehyde

Writing in Nature communications, Zhu and collaborators reported the development of a genetically encoded sensor for the detection of formaldehyde in cells and tissues. This tool has great potential to transform formaldehyde research; illuminating a cellular metabolite that has remained elusive in live structures.Fil: Umansky, Carla. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Morellato, Agustín Ezequiel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Pontel, Lucas Blas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; Argentin

The toxic side of one-carbon metabolism and epigenetics

One-carbon metabolism is a central metabolic hub that provides one-carbon units for essential biosynthetic reactions and for writing epigenetics marks. The leading role in this hub is performed by the one-carbon carrier tetrahydrofolate (THF), which accepts formaldehyde usually from serine generating one-carbon THF intermediates in a set of reactions known as the folate or one-carbon cycle. THF derivatives can feed one-carbon units into purine and thymidine synthesis, and into the methionine cycle that produces the universal methyl-donor S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet). AdoMet delivers methyl groups for epigenetic methylations and it is metabolized to homocysteine (Hcy), which can enter the transsulfuration pathway for the production of cysteine and lastly glutathione (GSH), the main cellular antioxidant. This vital role of THF comes to an expense. THF and other folate derivatives are susceptible to oxidative breakdown releasing formaldehyde, which can damage DNA -a consequence prevented by the Fanconi Anaemia DNA repair pathway. Epigenetic demethylations catalysed by lysine-specific demethylases (LSD) and Jumonji histone demethylases can also release formaldehyde, constituting a potential threat for genome integrity. In mammals, the toxicity of formaldehyde is limited by a metabolic route centred on the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase 5 (ADH5/GSNOR), which oxidizes formaldehyde conjugated to GSH, lastly generating formate. Remarkably, this formate can be a significant source of one-carbon units, thus defining a formaldehyde cycle that likely restricts the toxicity of one-carbon metabolism and epigenetic demethylations. This work describes recent advances in one-carbon metabolism and epigenetics, focusing on the steps that involve formaldehyde flux and that might lead to cytotoxicity affecting human health.Fil: Morellato, Agustín Ezequiel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Umansky, Carla. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Pontel, Lucas Blas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; Argentin

Aportes neurocientíficos sobre interocepción cardíaca, emociones y redes insulares

El estudio de la Ínsula de Reil, ha cobrado un reciente interés por la que fuera un área cerebral poco mencionada en la neurociencia cognitiva moderna. Sucesivas revisiones de trabajos de campos diversos como estudios clínicos, modelos experimentales, y neuroimágenes, han revelado la participación de la ínsula en múltiples tareas cognitivas, afectivas y perceptuales. Un posible marco teórico integrador de estos variados procesos, es la interocepción o censado del estado homeostático y visceral. El procesamiento insular y su comunicación a áreas homólogas motrices como la corteza cingulada anterior (CCA), desencadenaría y regularía comportamientos que entrañan un contenido afectivo-emocional esencial para el mantenimiento de la consciencia corporal a nivel individual. En este artículo, se analiza evidencia que involucra a la interocepción y al procesamiento insular integrativo en el surgimiento de estados emocionales conscientes haciendo especial énfasis en el papel de los estudios de lesiones y el uso de técnicas de conectividad funcional en resonancia magnética funcional (RMf). Además, se revisa la conceptualización de la interocepción cardíaca, su estudio a través de la evaluación de pacientes con patología cerebral vascular isquémica y patología cardíaca en el marco de los de las interacciones corazón-cerebro, nuevo campo de estudio de las neurociencias.The insula of Reil has recently became an interesting research topic, in despite of its few mention in modern cognitive neuroscience. Several studies in different areas like clinical reports, experimental models and neuroimaging have revealed the role of the insula in cognitive, emotional and visceral perception tasks. In this article, we revise different studies in patients with stroke and cardiac disease regarding cardiac interoception. Particularly, it has been suggested that the insular processing through its connections with the anterior cingulate cortex is required for the representation of the visceral state of the body and critical for the emerging of emotional awareness. Furthermore, evidence from different methodologies such as lesion studies and functional connectivity analysis of magnetic resonance imaging support those hypotheses. We conclude that the understanding of this new field of research in neuroscience, the heart-brain relationships, would highly benefit from the study of insular integration and the arise of conscious emotional states while make emphasis on the convergent use of lesion and functional neuroimaging approaches as a powerful research strategy.Fil: García Cordero, Indira. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Laboratorio de Psicología Experimental y Neurociencia; Argentina. Universidad Favaloro; ArgentinaFil: Couto, Juan Blas Marcos. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Laboratorio de Psicología Experimental y Neurociencia; Argentina. Universidad Favaloro. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Neurociencias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Ibanez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Laboratorio de Psicología Experimental y Neurociencia; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Diego Portales; Chil

Detaching from the negative by reappraisal: the role of right superior frontal gyrus (BA9/32)

The ability to reappraise the emotional impact of events is related to long-term mental health. Self-focused reappraisal (REAPPself), i.e., reducing the personal relevance of the negative events, has been previously associated with neural activity in regions near right medial prefrontal cortex, but rarely investigated among brain-damaged individuals. Thus, we aimed to examine the REAPPself ability of brain-damaged patients and healthy controls considering structural atrophies and gray matter intensities, respectively. Twenty patients with well-defined cortex lesions due to an acquired circumscribed tumor or cyst and 23 healthy controls performed a REAPPself task, in which they had to either observe negative stimuli or decrease emotional responding by REAPPself. Next, they rated the impact of negative arousal and valence. REAPPself ability scores were calculated by subtracting the negative picture ratings after applying REAPPself from the ratings of the observing condition. The scores of the patients were included in a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) analysis to identify deficit related areas (ROI). Then, a ROI group-wise comparison was performed. Additionally, a whole-brain voxel-based-morphometry (VBM) analysis was run, in which healthy participant's REAPPself ability scores were correlated with gray matter intensities. Results showed that (1) regions in the right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), comprising the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA9) and the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (BA32), were associated with patient's impaired down-regulation of arousal, (2) a lesion in the depicted ROI occasioned significant REAPPself impairments, (3) REAPPself ability of controls was linked with increased gray matter intensities in the ROI regions. Our findings show for the first time that the neural integrity and the structural volume of right SFG regions (BA9/32) might be indispensable for REAPPself. Implications for neurofeedback research are discussed.Fil: Falquez, Rosalux. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Couto, Juan Blas Marcos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Ibáñez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Freitag, Martin T.. German Cancer Research Center; AlemaniaFil: Berger, Moritz. German Cancer Research Center; AlemaniaFil: Arens, Elisabeth A.. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Lang, Simone. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Barnow, Sven. University of Heidelberg; Alemani

Survey to evaluate the proficiency in the use of antibacterial drugs in shrimp farming in the state of Sonora, Mexico

Antibiotic drugs (ABD) are often used in shrimp farms to treat the disease when a bacterial diagnosis is presumed. This scenario was the impetus to carry out a field survey to define how ABD are employed in the State of Sonora, the second largest producer of shrimp in Mexico. Twenty‐nine farms were surveyed through their general managers. According to interviews conducted, the most frequent bacterial diseases that were treated with antibiotics in 2020 were: Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Disease (65%), vibriosis (51%), and Necrotizing hepatopancreatitis bacterium (41%). The most common ABDs were enrofloxacin, oxytetracycline and florfenicol, and drug preparations employed were often intended for non‐aquaculture species, mainly poultry, and pigs. The main criteria for selecting a given antibiotic was a direct recommendation, followed by the market price. Neither pharmacokinetics nor pharmacodynamics nor harvesting withdrawal time were taken into account. The absence of protocols to safeguard the health and integrity of workers was detected, training programs for the responsible use of ABD were not encountered, and no data on bacterial resistance to ABD is available in this region. It is concluded that at least formal studies to define the pharmacokinetics of antibiotics are needed to rationalize their use in shrimp production

Fomento de la creatividad desde el diseño en alumnos de ciencias: aprendizaje por retos para la unidad didáctica dinámica de la tierra

Se trata kit que incorpora las herramientas necesarias para la metodología planteada denominada “Aprendizaje por retos” , basada en que los problemas son planteados como desafíos a los alumnos, transformándose en nuevas posibilidades de aprendizaje competencial. Para la solución de dichos retos, se aplican metodologías de diseño en el ámbito educativo, fomentando los factores de la creatividad en los alumnos, ya que ésta se encuentra entre el reto y la solución. De esta forma, los docentes plantean retos relacionados con problemas sociales, haciendo que los contenidos se conecten con los intereses y la realidad de los alumnos. Estableciendo una nueva forma de interactuar con los estudiantes en torno al contenido

New reconstruction methodology for chest tomosynthesis based on deep learning

Proceeding of: 7th International Conference on Image Formation in X-Ray Computed Tomography (ICIFXCT 2022), Baltimore, Maryland, 12-16 June 2022Tomosynthesis offers an alternative to planar radiography providing pseudo-tomographic information at a much lower radiation dose than CT. The fact that it cannot convey information about the density poses a major limitation towards the use of tomosynthesis in chest imaging, due to the wide range of pathologies that present an increase in the density of the pulmonary parenchyma. Previous works have attempted to improve image quality through enhanced analytical, iterative algorithms, or including a deep learning-based step in the reconstruction, but the results shown are still far from the quantitative information of a CT. In this work, we propose a reconstruction methodology consisting of a filtered back-projection step followed by post-processing based on Deep Learning to obtain a tomographic image closer to CT. Preliminary results show the potential of the proposed methodology to obtain true tomographic information from tomosynthesis data, which could replace CT scans in applications where the radiation dose is critical.This work has been supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Agencia Estatal de Investigación: PID2019-110369RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (RADHOR); PDC2021-121656-I00 (MULTIRAD), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union 'NextGenerationEU'/PRTR. Also funded by Comunidad de Madrid: Multiannual Agreement with UC3M in the line of 'Fostering Young Doctors Research' (DEEPCT-CM-UC3M), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation S2017/BMD-3867 RENIM-CM, co-funded by European Structural and Investment Fund. And also partially funded by CRUE Universidades, CSIC and Banco Santander (Fondo Supera Covid19), project RADCOV19 and by Instituto de Salud Carlos III through the project "PT20/00044", cofunded by European Regional Development Fund "A way to make Europe";. The CNIC is supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacióm and the Pro CNIC Foundation. The imaging and associated clinical data downloaded from MIDRC (The Medical Imaging Data Resource Center) and used for research in this publication was made possible by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the National Institutes of Health under contracts 75N92020C00008 and 75N92020C00021

Análisis comparativo del discurso sobre Innovación Disruptiva en los medios de comunicación y la literatura académica

[EN] This study aims to compare the media discourse on the disruptive innovation phenomenon with the academic literature published on that topic. For this purpose, 864 news articles referring to disruptive innovation were retrieved from the international news database Factiva. In addition, 161 academic papers including the term “disruptive innovation” were found on the Core collection of Web of Science published from 2004 until 2019. The automatic content analysis of the data will be carried out with the text-mining software Leximancer. The expected contribution of the study is related to uncovering how the media, in its role of agenda-setter and facilitator of the adoption of disruptive innovations describe this phenomenon and whether its discourse is aligned with the advancements in the academic research.[ES] El presente trabajo tiene por objetivo comparar el discurso sobre el fenómeno de innovación disruptiva en los medios de comunicación con los temas tratados por la investigación académica en este ámbito. Para ello, se ha consultado la base de datos de prensa internacional Factiva, de la cual se han recopilado 865 noticias relacionadas con el tema. Por otro lado, la búsqueda del término “innovación disruptiva” en la Colección Principal de la base de datos ISI Web of Science dio como resultado 161 artículos académicos publicados en el periodo 2004-2019. Para el análisis de contenido se utilizará el programa de minería de texto Leximancer. El estudio pretende contribuir a la literatura analizando cómo los medios de comunicación, en su rol de dinamizadores del debate público y facilitadores de la aceptación de las innovaciones disruptivas describen este fenómeno y si están alineados con los avances en la investigación académica.Buzova, D.; Sanz Blas, S.; Santos Rojo, C.; Carrilero Castillo, A. (2021). Análisis comparativo del discurso sobre Innovación Disruptiva en los medios de comunicación y la literatura académica. En Proceedings INNODOCT/20. International Conference on Innovation, Documentation and Education. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 765-771. https://doi.org/10.4995/INN2020.2020.11925OCS76577

Developing a long short-term memory-based model for forecasting the daily energy consumption of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems in buildings

Forecasting the energy consumption of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems is important for the energy efficiency and sustainability of buildings. In fact, conventional models present limitations in these systems due to their complexity and unpredictability. To overcome this, the long short-term memory-based model is employed in this work. Our objective is to develop and evaluate a model to forecast the daily energy consumption of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems in buildings. For this purpose, we apply a comprehensive methodology that allows us to obtain a robust, generalizable, and reliable model by tuning different parameters. The results show that the proposed model achieves a significant improvement in the coefficient of variation of root mean square error of 9.5% compared to that proposed by international agencies. We conclude that these results provide an encouraging outlook for its implementation as an intelligent service for decision making, capable of overcoming the problems of other noise-sensitive models affected by data variations and disturbances without the need for expert knowledge in the domain.Se buscó pronosticar el consumo de energía de los sistemas de calefacción Heating, ventilating y aire acondicionado (HVAC) para la eficiencia energética de los edificios. En este estudio, se desarrolla un modelo de red neuronal artificial (RNA) recurrente del tipo Long short-term memory (LSTM) destinada a pronosticar el consumo de energía de un sistema HVAC en los edificios, en concreto una bomba de calor del Teatro Real de España. El trabajo comparó diferentes configuraciones del modelo con respecto a los datos reales proporcionados por el BMS del edificio y se identificó los hiperparámetros adecuados para el LSTM. El objetivo fue desarrollar y evaluar el modelo para pronosticar el consumo diario de energía de los sistemas HVAC, lográndose una predicción del uso de la energía según los criterios indicados por las directrices de American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers ASHRAE, The International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol IPMVP y The Federal Energy Management Program organismos que validan un modelo HVAC. La contribución del solicitante se centró en el diseño del LSTM, y en la validación de las pruebas con los datos experimentales, así como en el análisis de los resultados obtenidos