Impact of feeding habits on the development of language-specific processing of phonemes in brain: An event-related potentials study.

Introduction: Infancy is a stage characterized by multiple brain and cognitive changes. In a short time, infants must consolidate a new brain network and develop two important properties for speech comprehension: phonemic normalization and categorical perception. Recent studies have described diet as an essential factor in normal language development, reporting that breastfed infants show an earlier brain maturity and thus a faster cognitive development. Few studies have described a long-term effect of diet on phonological perception. Methods: To explore that effect, we compared the event-related potentials (ERPs) collected during an oddball paradigm (frequent /pa/80%, deviant/ba/20%) of infants fed with breast milk (BF), cow-milk-based formula (MF), and soy-based formula (SF), which were assessed at 3, 6, 9, 12, and 24 months of age [Mean across all age groups: 127 BF infants, Mean (M) 39.6 gestation weeks; 121 MF infants, M = 39.16 gestation weeks; 116 SF infants, M = 39.16 gestation weeks]. Results: Behavioral differences between dietary groups in acoustic comprehension were observed at 24-months of age. The BF group displayed greater scores than the MF and SF groups. In phonological discrimination task, the ERPs analyses showed that SF group had an electrophysiological pattern associated with difficulties in phonological-stimulus awareness [mismatch negativity (MMN)-2 latency in frontal left regions of interest (ROI) and longer MMN-2 latency in temporal right ROI] and less brain maturity than BF and MF groups. The SF group displayed more right-lateralized brain recruitment in phonological processing at 12-months old. Discussion: We conclude that using soy-based formula in a prolonged and frequent manner might trigger a language development different from that observed in the BF or MF groups. The soy-based formula's composition might affect frontal left-brain area development, which is a nodal brain region in phonological-stimuli awareness.

Effects of Early Nutrition Factors on Baseline Neurodevelopment during the First 6 Months of Life: An EEG Study.

Throughout infancy, the brain undergoes rapid changes in structure and function that are sensitive to environmental influences, such as diet. Breastfed (BF) infants score higher on cognitive tests throughout infancy and into adolescence than formula fed (FF) infants, and these differences in neurocognitive development are reflected in higher concentrations of white and grey matter as measured by MRI. To further explore the effect diet has on cognitive development, electroencephalography (EEG) is used as a direct measure of neuronal activity and to assess specific frequency bands associated with cognitive processes. Task-free baseline EEGs were collected from infants fed with human milk (BF), dairy-based formula (MF), or soy-based formula (SF) at 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 months of age to explore differences in frequency bands in both sensor and source space. Significant global differences in sensor space were seen in beta and gamma bands between BF and SF groups at ages 2 and 6 months, and these differences were further observed through volumetric modeling in source space. We conclude that BF infants exhibit earlier brain maturation reflected in greater power spectral density in these frequency bands.

Traditional Mexican Food: Phenolic Content and Public Health Relationship.

Phenolic compounds have a positive effect on obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases because of their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capacity. The prevalence of these diseases has increased in the last years in the Mexican population. Therefore, the Mexican diet must be assessed as provider of phenolic compounds. To assess this, a survey of phenolic compound intake was validated and applicated to 973 adults (798 females) between 18 and 79 years old. We compared the phenolic compound intake of 324 participants with more diseases (239 females) and 649 participants with healthier condition (559 females). The groups differed in sex, age, and scholarship. Males, older participants, and those with lower schooling reported suffering from more diseases. Regarding phenolic compound intake analyses, the participants with healthier conditions displayed a higher phenolic compound intake than the other group in all foods assessed. In addition, the regression model showed that the phenolic compounds intake of Mexican dishes, such as arroz con frijol or enchiladas, positively affected health status, suggesting that this traditional food is beneficial for the participant's health condition. However, the weight effect of PCI was different for each disease. We conclude that, although PCI of Mexican food positively affects health conditions, this effect depends on sex, age, and participants' diseases.

Curcumin-loaded microemulsion: formulation, characterization, and in vitro skin penetration.

OBJECTIVE: Formulation of curcumin in a microemulsion with a high loading capacity and that favors its penetration into the skin. SIGNIFICANCE: Take advantage of the properties of microemulsions to promote the penetration of curcumin into the skin, with the aim of enhancing its therapeutic effects. METHODS: Curcumin was formulated in microemulsions based on oleic acid (oil phase), Tween® 80 (surfactant), and Transcutol® HP (cosurfactant). The microemulsion formation area was mapped by constructing pseudo-ternary diagrams for surfactant:co-surfactant ratios 1:1, 1:2, and 2:1. Microemulsions were characterized through measurements of specific weight, refractive index, conductivity, viscosity, droplet size, and in vitro skin permeation studies. RESULTS: Nine microemulsions were prepared and characterized, showing clear, stable formulations with globule size dependent on the proportion of the components. The microemulsion with the highest loading capacity (60 mg/mL), based on Tween® 80, Transcutol® HP, oleic acid, and water (40:40:10:10) was able to penetrate the viable epidermis, finding a total amount of curcumin in the receptor medium at 24 h of 10.17 ± 9.7 µg/cm2. The distribution of curcumin in the skin, visualized by confocal laser scanning microscopy, showed that the maximum amount was located between 20 and 30 µm. CONCLUSION: The inclusion of curcumin in a microemulsion allows its passage into and through the skin. The localization of curcumin, especially in the viable epidermis, would be important for those cases where local conditions are sought to be treated.

Effect of Obesity on Arithmetic Processing in Preteens With High and Low Math Skills: An Event-Related Potentials Study.

Preadolescence is an important period for the consolidation of certain arithmetic facts, and the development of problem-solving strategies. Obese subjects seem to have poorer academic performance in math than their normal-weight peers, suggesting a negative effect of obesity on math skills in critical developmental periods. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials (ERPs) were collected during a delayed-verification math task using simple addition and subtraction problems in obese [above 95th body mass index (BMI) percentile] and non-obese (between 5th and 90th BMI percentile) preteens with different levels of math skill; thirty-one with low math skills (14 obese, mean BMI = 26.40, 9.79 years old; 17 non-obese, BMI = 17.45, 9.76 years old) and thirty-one with high math skills (15 obese, BMI = 26.90, 9.60 years old; 16 non-obese, BMI = 17.13, 9.63 years old). No significant differences between weight groups were observed in task accuracy regardless of their mathematical skill level. For ERPs, electrophysiological differences were found only in the subtraction condition; participants with obesity showed an electrophysiologic pattern associated with a reduced ability to allocate attention resources regardless of their math skill level, these differences were characterized by longer P300 latency than their normal-weight peers. Moreover, the participants with obesity with high math skills displayed hypoactivity in left superior parietal lobule compared with their normal-weight peers. Additionally, obese preteens with low math skills displayed smaller arithmetic N400 amplitude than non-obese participants, reflecting difficulties in retrieving visual, semantic, and lexical information about numbers. We conclude that participants with obesity are less able than their normal-weight peers to deploy their attention regardless of their behavioral performance, which seems to have a greater effect on obese participants with low math skills because they also show problems in the retrieval of solutions from working memory, resulting in a delay in the development of mathematical skills.

One-Year Follow-Up of Healthy Older Adults with Electroencephalographic Risk for Neurocognitive Disorder After Neurofeedback Training.

BACKGROUND: In healthy older adults, excess theta activity is an electroencephalographic (EEG) predictor of cognitive impairment. In a previous study, neurofeedback (NFB) treatment reinforcing reductions theta activity resulted in EEG reorganization and cognitive improvement. OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical applicability of this NFB treatment, the present study performed a 1-year follow-up to determine its lasting effects. METHODS: Twenty seniors with excessive theta activity in their EEG were randomly assigned to the experimental or control group. The experimental group received an auditory reward when the theta absolute power (AP) was reduced. The control group received the reward randomly. RESULTS: Both groups showed a significant decrease in theta activity at the training electrode. However, the EEG results showed that only the experimental group underwent global changes after treatment. These changes consisted of delta and theta decreases and beta increases. Although no changes were found in any group during the period between the posttreatment evaluation and follow-up, more pronounced theta decreases and beta increases were observed in the experimental group when the follow-up and pretreatment measures were compared. Executive functions showed a tendency to improve two months after treatment which became significant one year later. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the EEG and behavioral benefits of this NFB treatment persist for at least one year, which adds up to the available evidence contributing to identifying factors that increase its efficacy level. The relevance of this study lies in its prophylactic features of addressing a clinically healthy population with EEG risk of cognitive decline.

An Event-Related Brain Potential (ERP) Study of Complex Anaphora in Spanish.

This study examines the event- related brain potential (ERP) of 25 Mexican monolingual Spanish-speakers when reading Spanish sentences with single entity anaphora or complex anaphora. Complex anaphora is an expression that refer to propositions, states, facts or events while, a single entity anaphora is an expression that refers back to a concrete object. Here we compare the cognitive cost in processing a single entity anaphora [ésta feminine; La renuncia (resignation)] from a complex anaphora [esto neuter; La renuncia fue aceptada (The resignation was accepted)]. Ésta elicited a larger positive peak at 200 ms, and esto elicited a larger frontal negativity around 400 ms. The positivity resembles the P200 component, and its amplitude is thought to represent an interaction between predictive qualities in sentence processing (i.e., graphical similarity and frequency of occurrence). Unlike parietal negativities (typical N400), frontal negativities are thought to represent the ease by which pronouns are linked with its antecedent, and how easy the information is recovered from short-term memory. Thus, the complex anaphora recruited more cognitive resources than the single entity anaphora. We also included an ungrammatical control sentence [éste masculine; La renuncia (resignation)] to better understand the unique processes behind complex anaphoric resolution, as opposed to just general difficulty in sentence processing. In this case, event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by éste masculine and ésta feminine were compared. Again, ésta elicited a larger P200. However, different from the experimental condition, a left anterior negativity (LAN) effect was observed for éste; the ungrammatical condition. Altogether, the present research provides electrophysiological evidence indicating that demonstrative pronouns with different morphosyntactic features (i.e., gender) and discourse parameters (i.e., single entity or complex referent) interact during the first stage of anaphoric processing of anaphora. This stage initiated as early as 200 milliseconds after the pronoun onset and probably ends around 400 ms.

Effect of obesity on inhibitory control in preadolescents during stop-signal task. An event-related potentials study.

Preadolescence is a period in which structural and functional changes occur in brain network reorganization that relate to the development of executive control functions, particularly in the areas of attention and cognitive inhibition. Obesity has been associated with a deficit in executive functions and behavioral and electrophysiological differences using the go/no-go task (proactive inhibition), but no study has assessed brain-electrical activity using the stop-signal task (reactive inhibition) in this population. Therefore, we hypothesized that obese preadolescents would show less efficiency in reactive inhibition than their same-age non-obese peers. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials (ERPs) were collected during a stop-signal task and compared between 27 obese preadolescents (mean BMI = 25.9; 9.65 years old) and 29 normal-weight preadolescents (mean BMI = 17.5; 9.60 years old). No significant differences between groups were observed in behavioral responses. As for ERPs, the obese group had an electrophysiological pattern associated with less efficient conflict monitoring during the "no-go" condition (i.e., less modulation of N200 latency based on the experimental condition), differences in attentional allocation in the "go" condition (less modulation of P300a latency based on experimental condition), and difficulties in rule retrieval from working memory associated with the trial-type in both experimental conditions (smaller P300b amplitude). We conclude that obese preadolescents displayed less ability to modulate conflict-monitoring in the "no-go" condition and attention allocation in the "go" condition, evidencing differences between groups in the development of attention and inhibitory control.

Effects of incidental physical activity on morphosyntactic processing in aging.

Older adults have difficulties in sentence comprehension when working memory (WM) load increases (e.g., multiple embedded clauses). Structured physical activity has been related to improvements in cognition; however, incidental physical activity (PA, i.e., unstructured daily physical activities), particularly incidental vigorous activity has been poorly studied in relation to its effects on behavior. Furthermore, no positive effect on language has been reported in either form of physical activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate how two levels of PA (high or low) affect WM processing and how this, in turn, may affect morphosyntactic processing in older adults. Individuals with high PA (n = 18) had a higher WM load effect than those with low PA (n = 18), both behaviorally (greater differences between high and low WM loads in correct responses) and in terms of event-related potentials (only subjects with high PA showed LAN and P600b amplitude differences between high and low WM loads). These findings suggest that PA promotes cognitive strategies to face WM loads and morphosyntactic processing.

Poor working memory performance in healthy elderly adults with electroencephalographic risk of cognitive decline affects syntactic processing.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of working memory (WM) load and gender agreement on sentence processing as a function of the electroencephalographic risk (i.e., abnormally high values of theta absolute power) of cognitive decline in older adults. METHODS: Event-related potentials (ERPs) were collected from Spanish speakers (22 older adults belonged to the Risk group, mean age = 67.7 years; 22 older adults belonged to the Control group, mean age = 65.2 years) while reading sentences to detect grammatical errors. Sentences varied with regard to (1) the gender agreement of the noun and adjective, where gender of the adjective either agreed or disagreed with the noun, and (2) WM load (i.e., the number of words between the noun and adjective in the sentence). RESULTS: The Risk group showed a lower percentage of correct answers and longer reaction times than the Control group. The Risk group also showed a different pattern of ERP components, which was characterized by smaller amplitude and longer latency of the P600a component under high WM load conditions. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that the Risk group shows difficulties integrating information associated with the previous sentence context. SIGNIFICANCE: The electroencephalographic risk factor of cognitive decline might be not only a predictor of but also an indicator of current decline.

Effects of Age and Working Memory Load on Syntactic Processing: An Event-Related Potential Study.

Cognitive changes in aging include working memory (WM) decline, which may hamper language comprehension. An increase in WM demands in older adults would probably provoke a poorer sentence processing performance in this age group. A way to increase the WM load is to separate two lexical units in an agreement relation (i.e., adjective and noun), in a given sentence. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials (ERPs) were collected from Spanish speakers (30 older adults, mean age = 66.06 years old; and 30 young adults, mean age = 25.7 years old) who read sentences to detect grammatical errors. The sentences varied with regard to (1) the gender agreement of the noun and adjective, where the gender of the adjective either agreed or disagreed with the noun, and (2) the WM load (i.e., the number of words between the noun and adjective in the sentence). No significant behavioral differences between groups were observed in the accuracy of the response, but older adults showed longer reaction times regardless of WM load condition. Compared with young participants, older adults showed a different pattern of ERP components characterized by smaller amplitudes of LAN, P600a, and P600b effects when the WM load was increased. A smaller LAN effect probably reflects greater difficulties in processing the morpho-syntactic features of the sentence, while smaller P600a and P600b effects could be related to difficulties in recovering and mapping all sentence constituents. We concluded that the ERP pattern in older adults showed subtle problems in syntactic processing when the WM load was increased, which was not sufficient to affect response accuracy but was only observed to result in a longer reaction time.

High levels of incidental physical activity are positively associated with cognition and EEG activity in aging.

High levels of physical activity seem to positively influence health and cognition across the lifespan. Several studies have found that aerobic exercise enhances cognition and likely prevents cognitive decline in the elderly. Nevertheless, the association of incidental physical activity (IPA) with health and cognition during aging has not been studied. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the association of IPA level with cognitive functions and resting electroencephalogram (EEG) in healthy old participants. Participants (n = 97) with normal scores on psychometric and neuropsychological tests and normal values in blood analyses were included. A cluster analysis based on the scores of the Yale Physical Activity Scale (YPAS) allowed the formation of two groups: active, with high levels of IPA, and passive, with low levels of IPA. Eyes-closed resting EEG was recorded from the participants; the fast Fourier transform was used offline to calculate absolute power (AP), relative power (RP), and mean frequency (MF) measures. There were no differences in socioeconomic status, cognitive reserve, general cognitive status, or lipid and TSH profiles between the groups. The results of cognitive tests revealed significant differences in the performance variables of the WAIS scores (p = .015), with advantages for the active group. The resting EEG exhibited significantly slower activity involving the frontal, central, and temporal regions in the passive group (p < .05). Specifically, higher delta RP (F7, T3), lower delta MF (F4, C4, T4, T6, Fz, Cz), higher theta AP (C4), higher theta RP (F4, C4, T3, Fz), lower alpha AP (F3, F7, T3), lower alpha RP (F7), and lower total MF (F3, F7, T3, T5, Fz) were found. Altogether, these results suggest that IPA induces a neuroprotective effect, which is reflected both in behavioral and electrophysiological variables during aging.

Two Different Populations within the Healthy Elderly: Lack of Conflict Detection in Those at Risk of Cognitive Decline.

During healthy aging, inhibitory processing is affected at the sensorial, perceptual, and cognitive levels. The assessment of event-related potentials (ERPs) during the Stroop task has been used to study age-related decline in the efficiency of inhibitory processes. Studies using ERPs have found that the P300 amplitude increases and the N500 amplitude is attenuated in healthy elderly adults compared to those in young adults. On the other hand, it has been reported that theta excess in resting EEG with eyes closed is a good predictor of cognitive decline during aging 7 years later, while a normal EEG increases the probability of not developing cognitive decline. The behavioral and ERP responses during a Counting-Stroop task were compared between 22 healthy elderly subjects with normal EEG (Normal-EEG group) and 22 healthy elderly subjects with an excess of EEG theta activity (Theta-EEG group). Behaviorally, the Normal-EEG group showed a higher behavioral interference effect than the Theta-EEG group. ERP patterns were different between the groups, and two facts are highlighted: (a) the P300 amplitude was higher in the Theta-EEG group, with both groups showing a P300 effect in almost all electrodes, and (b) the Theta-EEG group did not show an N500 effect. These results suggest that the diminishment in inhibitory control observed in the Theta-EEG group may be compensated by different processes in earlier stages, which would allow them to perform the task with similar efficiency to that of participants with a normal EEG. This study is the first to show that healthy elderly subjects with an excess of theta EEG activity not only are at risk of developing cognitive decline but already have a cognitive impairment.

Compensatory larger cortical thickness in healthy elderly individuals with electroencephalographic risk for cognitive decline.

Excess theta electroencephalographic (EEG) activity has been described as an accurate predictor for cognitive decline at least 7 years before symptom presentation. To test whether this predictor for cognitive decline correlates with structural changes in the brains of healthy elderly individuals, we compared the magnetic resonance structural images of healthy individuals with excess of theta activity [group with a risk for cognitive decline, risk group (RG); n=14] with healthy controls with normal EEG activity (control group; n=14). Neuropsychological and epidemiological analyses showed significant differences in only two features: more years of education and better performance in the visuospatial process task in the control group. Voxel-based morphometry results were not conclusive, but showed tendencies toward larger volumes in the prefrontal and parietal lobes, and smaller volumes in the right temporal lobe, right occipital lobe, and left cerebellum for the RG; these tendencies are in agreement with those proposed by the posterior-anterior shift in an aging model. Cortical-thickness analyses yielded a significant correlation between cortical thickness and years of education in the prefrontal and inferior-temporal regions, and larger cortical thickness in the RG, independent of age and years of education, in the right superior temporal region. These results suggest changes in the cortical thickness of structures related to memory and visuospatial functions in healthy, cognitively normal individuals before the appearance of cognitive decline. Thus, the performance of healthy elderly individuals with EEG risk may only be slightly different from normal because of compensation mechanisms allowing them to fulfill daily-life tasks, masking structural changes during preclinical neurocognitive disorders.

Isolation and characterization of mesenchymal stromal cells from human degenerated nucleus pulposus: comparison with bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells from the same subjects.

STUDY DESIGN: To identify mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) from degenerate human nucleus pulposus (NP) and compare them with bone marrow (BM) MSC. OBJECTIVE: To test whether MSC obtained from NP and BM from the same subjects share similar biologic characteristics. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Recent studies have proposed biologic strategies for the treatment of intervertebral disc degeneration, including cell therapy. Bone marrow (BM) MSC could be an attractive approach to restore disc function, and there is evidence that NP may contain MSC-like cells. METHODS: Tissue samples were obtained from degenerate lumbar NP and from iliac crest of the same 16 patients with degenerative disc diseases, undergoing discectomy and fusion procedures. MSC isolated from both sources were compared regarding their expansion time, immunophenotype, differentiation ability, and molecular analysis. RESULTS: In all cases, MSC from NP were isolated and expanded. They fulfil nearly all morphological, inmunophenotypical, and differentiation criteria described by the International Society of Cell Therapy for MSC, with the exception that NP-MSC are not able to differentiate into adipocytes. Slight differences were observed with BM-MSC from the same subjects. CONCLUSION: The NP contains mesenchymal stem cells. These cells were quite similar to mesenchymal stem cells from BM, with the exception of their adipogenic differentiation ability. These findings suggest that we may treat intervertebral disc degeneration by cell therapy (MSC from BM) and by stimulating endogenous MSC from NP.

Multiparametric comparison of mesenchymal stromal cells obtained from trabecular bone by using a novel isolation method with those obtained by iliac crest aspiration from the same subjects.

Trabecular bone fragments from femoral heads are sometimes used as bone grafts and have been described as a source of mesenchymal progenitor cells. Nevertheless, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) from trabecular bone have not been directly compared with MSC obtained under standard conditions from iliac crest aspiration of the same patients. This is the ideal control to avoid inter-individual variation. We have obtained MSC by a novel method (grinding bone fragments with a bone mill without enzymatic digestion) from the femoral heads of 11 patients undergoing hip replacement surgery and compared them with MSC obtained by standard iliac crest aspiration of bone marrow from the same patients. We have shown that trabecular bone MSC obtained by mechanically fragmented femoral heads fulfil the immunophenotypic and multilineage (adipogenic, osteogenic and chondrogenic) differentiation criteria used to define MSC. We have also differentially compared cellular yields, growth kinetics, cell cycle assessment, and colony-forming unit-fibroblast content of MSC from both sources and conclude that these parameters do not significantly differ. Nevertheless, the finding of slight differences, such as a higher expression of the immature marker CD90, a lower expansion time through the different passages, and a higher percentage of cycling cells in the trabecular bone MSC, warrants further studies with the isolation method proposed here in order to gain further knowledge of the status of MSC in this setting.