380 research outputs found
Nonequilibrium fluctuations of a remodeling in vitro cytoskeleton
Motor proteins actively contract the actin cytoskeleton of cells and thereby give rise to nonequilibrium fluctuations as well as changes in the architecture of the cytoskeleton. Here, we show, by video microrheology of a reconstituted cytoskeleton, that motors generate time-dependent nonequilibrium fluctuations, which evolve as the network is remodeled. At earlier times, the fluctuation spectrum is dominated by strong non-Gaussian fluctuations, which arise from large displacements. At later times, directed displacements are infrequent and finally disappear. We show that these effects are due to contractile coarsening of the network into large actin-myosin foci. © 2012 American Physical Society
Synaptic processes and immune-related pathways implicated in Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neuropsychiatric disorder of complex genetic architecture involving multiple interacting genes. Here, we sought to elucidate the pathways that underlie the neurobiology of the disorder through genome-wide analysis. We analyzed genome-wide genotypic data of 3581 individuals with TS and 7682 ancestry-matched controls and investigated associations of TS with sets of genes that are expressed in particular cell types and operate in specific neuronal and glial functions. We employed a self-contained, set-based association method (SBA) as well as a competitive gene set method (MAGMA) using individual-level genotype data to perform a comprehensive investigation of the biological background of TS. Our SBA analysis identified three significant gene sets after Bonferroni correction, implicating ligand-gated ion channel signaling, lymphocytic, and cell adhesion and transsynaptic signaling processes. MAGMA analysis further supported the involvement of the cell adhesion and trans-synaptic signaling gene set. The lymphocytic gene set was driven by variants in FLT3, raising an intriguing hypothesis for the involvement of a neuroinflammatory element in TS pathogenesis. The indications of involvement of ligand-gated ion channel signaling reinforce the role of GABA in TS, while the association of cell adhesion and trans-synaptic signaling gene set provides additional support for the role of adhesion molecules in neuropsychiatric disorders. This study reinforces previous findings but also provides new insights into the neurobiology of TS
Seeing sadness: Comorbid effects of loneliness and depression on emotional face processing
© 2021 The Authors. Background/Objective: Loneliness and depression are highly comorbid, and both are associated with social processing deficits. However, there is a paucity of research aimed at differentiating emotional face-processing deficits that are comorbid to loneliness and depression versus those attributable to loneliness or depression only. Methods: 502 participants were recruited and screened for loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory). Of those, seventy-seven took part in a fully crossed 2 (loneliness; low/high) * 2 (depression; low/high) factorial between-subjects design study to assess individual and comorbid effects of loneliness and depression on a computerized morphed facial emotion processing task. Results: Comorbidity was confirmed by a significant positive correlation between loneliness and depression. On the emotion processing task, loneliness was associated with an increased accuracy for sad faces and decreased accuracy for fearful faces and depression with decreased accuracy in identifying happy faces. Comorbid loneliness and depression resulted in an increased misattribution of neutral faces as sad, an effect that was also seen in those who were either only lonely or only depressed. Conclusion: This if the first study to tease out comorbid versus independent effects of loneliness and depression on social information processing. To the extent that emotional biases may act as risk factors for detrimental outcomes, our findings highlight the importance of treating both loneliness and depression
Dynamic nuclear polarization and spin-diffusion in non-conducting solids
There has been much renewed interest in dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP),
particularly in the context of solid state biomolecular NMR and more recently
dissolution DNP techniques for liquids. This paper reviews the role of spin
diffusion in polarizing nuclear spins and discusses the role of the spin
diffusion barrier, before going on to discuss some recent results.Comment: submitted to Applied Magnetic Resonance. The article should appear in
a special issue that is being published in connection with the DNP Symposium
help in Nottingham in August 200
Rare Copy Number Variants in \u3cem\u3eNRXN1\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eCNTN6\u3c/em\u3e Increase Risk for Tourette Syndrome
Tourette syndrome (TS) is a model neuropsychiatric disorder thought to arise from abnormal development and/or maintenance of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits. TS is highly heritable, but its underlying genetic causes are still elusive, and no genome-wide significant loci have been discovered to date. We analyzed a European ancestry sample of 2,434 TS cases and 4,093 ancestry-matched controls for rare (\u3c 1% frequency) copy-number variants (CNVs) using SNP microarray data. We observed an enrichment of global CNV burden that was prominent for large (\u3e 1 Mb), singleton events (OR = 2.28, 95% CI [1.39–3.79], p = 1.2 × 10−3) and known, pathogenic CNVs (OR = 3.03 [1.85–5.07], p = 1.5 × 10−5). We also identified two individual, genome-wide significant loci, each conferring a substantial increase in TS risk (NRXN1 deletions, OR = 20.3, 95% CI [2.6–156.2]; CNTN6 duplications, OR = 10.1, 95% CI [2.3–45.4]). Approximately 1% of TS cases carry one of these CNVs, indicating that rare structural variation contributes significantly to the genetic architecture of TS
Polarised Quark Distributions in the Nucleon from Semi-Inclusive Spin Asymmetries
We present a measurement of semi-inclusive spin asymmetries for positively
and negatively charged hadrons from deep inelastic scattering of polarised
muons on polarised protons and deuterons in the range 1
GeV. Compared to our previous publication on this subject, with the new
data the statistical errors have been reduced by nearly a factor of two.
From these asymmetries and our inclusive spin asymmetries we determine the
polarised quark distributions of valence quarks and non-strange sea quarks at
=10 GeV. The polarised valence quark distribution, , is positive and the polarisation increases with . The polarised
valence quark distribution, , is negative and the non-strange
sea distribution, , is consistent with zero over the measured
range of . We find for the first moments , and
, where we assumed
. We also determine for the first time the
second moments of the valence distributions .Comment: 17 page
Spin Structure of the Proton from Polarized Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Muon-Proton Scattering
We have measured the spin-dependent structure function in inclusive
deep-inelastic scattering of polarized muons off polarized protons, in the
kinematic range and . A
next-to-leading order QCD analysis is used to evolve the measured
to a fixed . The first moment of at is .
This result is below the prediction of the Ellis-Jaffe sum rule by more than
two standard deviations. The singlet axial charge is found to be . In the Adler-Bardeen factorization scheme, is
required to bring in agreement with the Quark-Parton Model. A
combined analysis of all available proton and deuteron data confirms the
Bjorken sum rule.Comment: 33 pages, 22 figures, uses ReVTex and smc.sty. submitted to Physical
Review
Large enhancement of deuteron polarization with frequency modulated microwaves
We report a large enhancement of 1.7 in deuteron polarization up to values of
0.6 due to frequency modulation of the polarizing microwaves in a two liters
polarized target using the method of dynamic nuclear polarization. This target
was used during a deep inelastic polarized muon-deuteron scattering experiment
at CERN. Measurements of the electron paramagnetic resonance absorption spectra
show that frequency modulation gives rise to additional microwave absorption in
the spectral wings. Although these results are not understood theoretically,
they may provide a useful testing ground for the deeper understanding of
dynamic nuclear polarization.Comment: 10 pages, including the figures coming in uuencoded compressed tar
files in poltar.uu, which also brings cernart.sty and crna12.sty files neede
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