Differential involvement of the anterior and posterior hippocampus, parahippocampus, and retrosplenial cortex in making precise judgments of spatial distance and object size for remotely acquired memories of environments and objects.

The hippocampus is known to support processing of precise spatial information in recently learned environments. It is less clear, but crucial for theories of systems consolidation, to know whether it also supports processing of precise spatial information in familiar environments learned long ago and whether such precision extends to objects and numbers. In this fMRI study, we asked participants to make progressively more refined spatial distance judgments among well-known Toronto landmarks (whether landmark A is closer to landmark B or C) to examine hippocampal involvement. We also tested whether the hippocampus was similarly engaged in estimating magnitude regarding sizes of familiar animals and numbers. We found that the hippocampus was only engaged in spatial judgment. Activation was greater and lasted longer in the posterior than anterior hippocampus, which instead showed greater modulation as discrimination between spatial distances became more fine grained. These findings suggest that the anterior and posterior hippocampus have different functions which are influenced differently by estimation of differential distance. Similarly, parahippocampal-place-area and retrosplenial cortex were involved only in the spatial condition. By contrast, activation of the intraparietal sulcus was modulated by precision in all conditions. Therefore, our study supports the idea that the hippocampus and related structures are implicated in retrieving and operating even on remote spatial memories whenever precision is required, as posted by some theories of systems consolidation.

Working Memory Precision and Associative Binding in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

To better understand working memory (WM) deficits in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), we examined information precision and associative binding in WM in 21 participants with MCI, compared to 16 healthy controls, using an item-location delayed reproduction task. WM, along with other executive functions (i.e. Trail Making Task (TMT) and Stroop task), were measured before and after a 2-h nap. The napping manipulation was intended as an exploratory element to this study exploring potential impacts of napping on executive functions.Compared to healthy participants, participants with MCI exhibited inferior performance not only in identifying encoded WM items but also on item-location associative binding and location precision even when only one item was involved. We also found changes on TMT and Stroop tasks in MCI, reflecting inferior attention and inhibitory control. Post-napping performance improved in most of these WM and other executive measures, both in MCI and their healthy peers.Our study shows that associative binding and WM precision can reliably differentiate MCIs from their healthy peers. Additionally, most measures showed no differential effect of group pre- and post-napping. These findings may contribute to better understanding cognitive deficits in MCI therefore improving the diagnosis of MCI.

Physicochemical properties of esterified/crosslinked quinoa starches and their influence on bread quality.

BACKGROUND: Starch is the main component of quinoa seeds. However, quinoa starch has poor solubility in cold water and poor mechanical resistance and is easily aged, which limit its application. Therefore, modification of its structure to improve its functional properties is necessary. RESULTS: This research used acetic anhydride and sodium trimetaphosphate to modify the structure of starch molecules and investigated their influence on bread quality. The results showed that both esterification and crosslinking prevented the aggregation behavior of starch molecules. Moreover, they both decreased the gelatinization enthalpy change and relative crystallinity of the starch. Compared with native starch, modification significantly decreased the gelatinization temperature from 57.01 to 52.01 °C and the esterified starch exhibited the lowest enthalpy change with a 44.2% decrease. Modified starch increased the specific volume and decreased the hardness and chewiness of bread. Modification did not influence the moisture content in bread but impacted the water retention capacity, depending on the degree of modification. Low and medium degrees of modification improved the water retention capacity during storage. By contrast, a high degree of modification (10 g kg-1 crosslinking agent) decreased the water retention capacity. The dually modified quinoa starch (esterified and crosslinked) showed no influence on the textural properties of bread. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated that both esterification and crosslinking significantly improved the functional properties of quinoa starch. Crosslinked or esterified quinoa starches have the potential to improve the textural properties of bakery products. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli for efficient production of l-arginine.

As a semi-essential amino acid, l-arginine (l-Arg) plays an important role in food, health care, and medical treatment. At present, the main method of producing l-Arg is the use of microbial fermentation. Therefore, the selection and breeding of high-efficiency microbial strains is the top priority. To continuously improve the l-Arg production performance of the strains, a series of metabolic engineering strategies have been tried to transform the strains. The production of l-Arg by metabolically engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum (C. glutamicum) reached a relatively high level. Escherichia coli (E. coli), as a strain with great potential for l-Arg production, also has a large number of research strategies aimed at screening effective E. coli for producing l-Arg. E. coli also has a number of advantages over C. glutamicum in producing l-Arg. Therefore, it is of great significance to screen out excellent and stable E. coli to produce l-Arg. Here, based on recent research results, we review the metabolic pathways of l-Arg production in E. coli, the research progress of l-Arg production in E. coli, and various regulatory strategies implemented in E. coli.

Synthesis and evaluation of imidazo[1,2-a]quinoxaline derivatives as potential antifungal agents against phytopathogenic fungi.

To discover novel and effective potential agricultural antifungal agents, various kinds of imidazo[1,2-a]quinoxaline derivatives were designed, and synthesized from available and inexpensive reagents. Their antifungal activities were first evaluated against ten typical phytopathogenic fungi. The in vitro antifungal activity showed that some compounds exhibited more obvious broad-spectrum fungicidal activity than the two commercially-available fungicides chlorothalonil and hymexazol. Valsa mali and Botrytis cinerea strains exhibited the highest susceptibility with EC50 values of 1.4-27.0 µg/mL to more than ten compounds. Compounds 5c and 5f showed the most promising inhibitory effects against Valsa mali (EC50 = 5.6 µg/mL) and Fusarium solani (EC50 = 5.1 µg/mL), respectively. Preliminary studies on the mechanism of action indicated that the imidazo[1,2-a]quinoxaline skeleton likely exerted its antifungal effects by disrupting hyphal differentiation, spore germination, and germ tube growth. Moreover, the cell experiment results indicated that these target compounds possessed good safety to BV2 cells. Overall, compounds 5c and 5f can be considered candidate compounds against specific fungi for further detailed research. This study can provide a theoretical basis for the application of imidazo[1,2-a]quinoxaline scaffolds as novel fungicides in agriculture.

The prevalence and risk factors of work related musculoskeletal disorders among electronics manufacturing workers: a cross-sectional analytical study in China.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the prevalence of self-reported musculoskeletal disorders among workers in the electronics manufacturing industry and to investigate the relations between work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) and work-related variables. METHODS: An interview-based questionnaire survey was carried out in thirty electronics manufacturing factories in China in 2018. The prevalence of WMSDs was estimated using the modified Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ). A multivariate logistic regression model was applied to evaluate the effects of risk factors on WMSDs on multiple body parts. RESULTS: The 12-month prevalence of WMSDs among participants was 40.6%, and the common body sites affected were the neck (26.8%), shoulder (22.8%), upper back (14.9%), and lower back (14.8%). The results of logistic regression showed that female adults, > 5 job tenure and work-related factors (including awkward posture, lifting or carrying weights, excessive repetition, prolonged sitting, monotonous work and working under conditions of cold or temperature variations) led to a higher risk of WMSDs on most body parts. Upper back, wrist/hand and elbow pain levels were significantly higher for workers with vibration. However, more frequently, physical exercise was a protective factor against WMSDs on most body parts except the upper back, leg and knee. CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates a high prevalence of musculoskeletal pain among the electronics manufacturing industry in China. Different personal and work factors are related to the occurrence of WMSD on different body parts. Preventive measures should be implemented based on the characteristics of WMSD in the electronic manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the training and intervention guidance of ergonomic hazards in the workplace need to be strengthened by understanding the impact of bad posture, avoiding long-term sitting posture and increasing physical activities.

Synthesis of Novel 3-Butylphthalide Derivatives Containing Isopentenylphenol Moiety as Potential Antiplatelet Agents for the Treatment of Ischemic Stroke.

In order to find novel antiplatelet drugs for the treatment of ischemic stroke, a series of 3-butylphthalide derivatives containing isopentenylphenol moiety were designed, synthesized and characterized with spectroscopic analyses. The in vitro antiplatelet activity results indicated that compound 3 better inhibited the arachidonic acid (AA) induced platelet aggregation than aspirin (ASP) and 3-butylphthalide (NBP). Additionally, compared with precursor NBP, compound 3 possessed outstanding antithrombotic activity in the animal experiment model, which could effectively alleviate the formation of tail thrombus and carotid artery thrombus in mice. More importantly, intraperitoneal administration of compound 3 can well protected the rats against ischemia/reperfusion-induced brain injury. Further pharmacokinetic (PK) assay indicated that compound 3 had good absorption characteristics and metabolic stability in vivo. Overall, the present research provides a new candidate compound for the treatment of ischemic stroke caused by platelet aggregation.

A Combined Physical and Mathematical Calibration Method for Low-Cost Cameras in the Air and Underwater Environment.

Low-cost camera calibration is vital in air and underwater photogrammetric applications. However, various lens distortions and the underwater environment influence are difficult to be covered by a universal distortion compensation model, and the residual distortions may still remain after conventional calibration. In this paper, we propose a combined physical and mathematical camera calibration method for low-cost cameras, which can adapt to both in-air and underwater environments. The commonly used physical distortion models are integrated to describe the image distortions. The combination is a high-order polynomial, which can be considered as basis functions to successively approximate the image deformation from the point of view of mathematical approximation. The calibration process is repeated until certain criteria are met and the distortions are reduced to a minimum. At the end, several sets of distortion parameters and stable camera interior orientation (IO) parameters act as the final camera calibration results. The Canon and GoPro in-air calibration experiments show that GoPro owns distortions seven times larger than Canon. Most Canon distortions have been described with the Australis model, while most decentering distortions for GoPro still exist. Using the proposed method, all the Canon and GoPro distortions are decreased to close to 0 after four calibrations. Meanwhile, the stable camera IO parameters are obtained. The GoPro Hero 5 Black underwater calibration indicates that four sets of distortion parameters and stable camera IO parameters are obtained after four calibrations. The camera calibration results show a difference between the underwater environment and air owing to the refractive and asymmetric environment effects. In summary, the proposed method improves the accuracy compared with the conventional method, which could be a flexible way to calibrate low-cost cameras for high accurate in-air and underwater measurement and 3D modeling applications.

(-)-Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate Reduces Perfluorodecanoic Acid-Exacerbated Adiposity and Hepatic Lipid Accumulation in High-Fat Diet-Fed Male C57BL/6J Mice.

Perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA), an enduring and harmful organic pollutant, is widely employed in diverse food-related sectors. Our previous studies have provided evidence that PFDA has the potential to facilitate obesity and hepatic fat accumulation induced by high-fat diet (HFD) intake. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a polyphenol found in green tea, has been suggested to possess potential preventive effects against metabolic abnormalities and fatty liver. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of EGCG on PFDA-exacerbated adiposity and hepatic lipid accumulation in HFD-fed mice. The results showed that EGCG reduced body weight gain; tissue and organ weights; blood glucose, serum insulin, HOMA-IR, leptin, and lipid parameters; serum inflammatory cytokines (IL-1ß, IL-18, IL-6, and TNF-α); and hepatic lipid accumulation in PFDA-exposed mice fed an HFD. Further work showed that EGCG improved liver function and glucose homeostasis in mice fed an HFD and co-exposed to PFDA. The elevated hepatic mRNA levels of SREBP-1 and associated lipogenic genes, NLRP3, and caspase-1 in PFDA-exposed mice fed an HFD were significantly decreased by EGCG. Our work provides evidence for the potential anti-obesity effect of EGCG on co-exposure to HFD and PFDA and may call for further research on the bioactivity of EGCG to attenuate the endocrine disruption effects of long-term exposure to pollutants.

[Multi-modal synergistic quantitative analysis and rehabilitation assessment of lower limbs for exoskeleton].

In response to the problem that the traditional lower limb rehabilitation scale assessment method is time-consuming and difficult to use in exoskeleton rehabilitation training, this paper proposes a quantitative assessment method for lower limb walking ability based on lower limb exoskeleton robot training with multimodal synergistic information fusion. The method significantly improves the efficiency and reliability of the rehabilitation assessment process by introducing quantitative synergistic indicators fusing electrophysiological and kinematic level information. First, electromyographic and kinematic data of the lower extremity were collected from subjects trained to walk wearing an exoskeleton. Then, based on muscle synergy theory, a synergistic quantification algorithm was used to construct synergistic index features of electromyography and kinematics. Finally, the electrophysiological and kinematic level information was fused to build a modal feature fusion model and output the lower limb motor function score. The experimental results showed that the correlation coefficients of the constructed synergistic features of electromyography and kinematics with the clinical scale were 0.799 and 0.825, respectively. The results of the fused synergistic features in the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) model yielded higher correlation coefficients ( r = 0.921, P < 0.01). This method can modify the rehabilitation training mode of the exoskeleton robot according to the assessment results, which provides a basis for the synchronized assessment-training mode of "human in the loop" and provides a potential method for remote rehabilitation training and assessment of the lower extremity.

Neural Correlates of Subsequent Memory-Related Gaze Reinstatement.

Mounting evidence linking gaze reinstatement-the recapitulation of encoding-related gaze patterns during retrieval-to behavioral measures of memory suggests that eye movements play an important role in mnemonic processing. Yet, the nature of the gaze scanpath, including its informational content and neural correlates, has remained in question. In this study, we examined eye movement and neural data from a recognition memory task to further elucidate the behavioral and neural bases of functional gaze reinstatement. Consistent with previous work, gaze reinstatement during retrieval of freely viewed scene images was greater than chance and predictive of recognition memory performance. Gaze reinstatement was also associated with viewing of informationally salient image regions at encoding, suggesting that scanpaths may encode and contain high-level scene content. At the brain level, gaze reinstatement was predicted by encoding-related activity in the occipital pole and BG, neural regions associated with visual processing and oculomotor control. Finally, cross-voxel brain pattern similarity analysis revealed overlapping subsequent memory and subsequent gaze reinstatement modulation effects in the parahippocampal place area and hippocampus, in addition to the occipital pole and BG. Together, these findings suggest that encoding-related activity in brain regions associated with scene processing, oculomotor control, and memory supports the formation, and subsequent recapitulation, of functional scanpaths. More broadly, these findings lend support to Scanpath Theory's assertion that eye movements both encode, and are themselves embedded in, mnemonic representations.

Unrestricted eye movements strengthen effective connectivity from hippocampal to oculomotor regions during scene construction.

Scene construction is a key component of memory recall, navigation, and future imagining, and relies on the medial temporal lobes (MTL). A parallel body of work suggests that eye movements may enable the imagination and construction of scenes, even in the absence of external visual input. There are vast structural and functional connections between regions of the MTL and those of the oculomotor system. However, the directionality of connections between the MTL and oculomotor control regions, and how it relates to scene construction, has not been studied directly in human neuroimaging. In the current study, we used dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to interrogate effective connectivity between the MTL and oculomotor regions using a scene construction task in which participants' eye movements were either restricted (fixed-viewing) or unrestricted (free-viewing). By omitting external visual input, and by contrasting free- versus fixed- viewing, the directionality of neural connectivity during scene construction could be determined. As opposed to when eye movements were restricted, allowing free-viewing during construction of scenes strengthened top-down connections from the MTL to the frontal eye fields, and to lower-level cortical visual processing regions, suppressed bottom-up connections along the visual stream, and enhanced vividness of the constructed scenes. Taken together, these findings provide novel, non-invasive evidence for the underlying, directional, connectivity between the MTL memory system and oculomotor system associated with constructing vivid mental representations of scenes.

Numerical analysis of an ultra-broadband and highly efficient beam splitter in the visible region.

We report a quasi-continuous beam splitter with highly efficient equal-power beam splitting in a wide spectral range. It consists of rhombic aluminum antimonide nanorods standing on a silica substrate. Firstly, a beam splitter based on discrete structures is designed, and the structures are optimized to obtain the quasi-continuous beam splitter. The beam splitter achieves a splitting efficiency of over 80% within the region of 675-786 nm (bandwidth = 111 nm), where the splitting angle can vary in the range of 97.2°-121.8°. In particular, the splitting efficiency reaches 93.4% when the wavelength is 690 nm. Overall, the proposed beam splitter potentially paves the way for realizing broadband metasurfaces and high-performance quasi-continuous metasurface-based devices.

High-efficiency, four-channel beam splitter based on a fishnet-shaped continuous metasurface.

Beam splitters play important roles in several optical systems. Due to the growing demand for the miniaturization of optical systems, it is necessary to design beam splitters with nanoscale dimensions to miniaturize the essential components for integrated optical circuits. In this work, we propose and numerically demonstrate a broadband, high efficient, and four-channel beam splitter based on a fishnet-shaped metasurface. The proposed structure is constructed of cruciform AlSb nanoantennas on the PDMS substrate. The simple design can split a beam of light into four beams with equal intensity, it achieves a conversion efficiency above 83%, and an anomalous transmission intensity exceeding 0.8 for the wavelength range of 761-835 nm. In this wavelength range, the beam splitting angle changes from 46.45° to 53.68°. Moreover, the four-channel beam splitter is tunable when the metasurface is designed as a discrete structure. At the wavelength of 874 nm, the beam splitting angle can be adjusted from 56.34° to 46.39° as the period increases from 1050 nm to 1207 nm by stretching the substrate. The presented metasurface might enable promising applications in integrated optical devices, owing to its advantages of multi-channel, wide broadband, high efficiency, and large beam split angle.

KCNJ5 Mutation Contributes to Complete Clinical Success in Aldosterone-Producing Adenoma: A Study From a Single Center.

OBJECTIVE: The KCNJ5 mutation is the most frequent mutation in aldosterone-producing adenoma (APA). We aimed to illustrate the relationship between KCNJ5 and prognosis after adrenalectomy as a guide for further treatment. METHODS: Our study included 458 patients with APA. Tumor tissues were screened for somatic mutations in KCNJ5 hot-spot regions. We performed a retrospective analysis to identify correlations between KCNJ5 and clinical outcomes in 334 patients with adrenal venous sampling lateralization. RESULTS: Somatic KCNJ5 mutations were identified in 324 of 458 patients with APA (70.7%). Compared with the KCNJ5-wild type patients, patients with KCNJ5 mutations were younger, had a higher proportion of women, and had shorter durations of hypertension, lower body mass indexes (BMIs), and lower systolic blood pressure values (P < .05). During follow-up, among the 334 patients with APA with adrenal venous sampling lateralization, 320 (95.8%) presented complete biochemical success and 187 (56.0%) presented complete clinical success. One hundred eighty-seven patients with primary aldosteronism who achieved complete clinical success presented the following characteristics: age <40 years (78.7%), BMI <24 kg/m2 (71.0%), hypertension duration <5 years (78.4%), females (66.9%), and KCNJ5 mutation (65.5%). A multivariate logistic regression analysis identified BMI, hypertension duration, and KCNJ5 mutation as independent predictors of complete clinical success. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of KCNJ5 mutations was 70.7%. KCNJ5 mutation is a protective factor of complete clinical success, while BMI and hypertension duration were risk factors of incomplete clinical success.

[Efficacy and safety of steroid combined with immunosuppressants in the treatment of primary IgA nephropathy in children: a Meta analysis].

OBJECTIVE: To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of steroid combined with immunosuppressants in the treatment of primary IgA nephropathy in children. METHODS: English and Chinese electronic databases were searched to include the studies on the efficacy and safety of steroid combined with immunosuppressants versus steroid alone in the treatment of primary IgA nephropathy in children. Outcome measures included proteinuria remission rate, urinary protein quantification, incidence of adverse events, estimated glomerular filtration rate, and incidence of renal dysfunction. Review Manager 5.3 software was used for data analysis. RESULTS: A total of 7 studies with 381 children were included. The children had moderate to severe proteinuria. The Meta analysis showed that compared with the steroid alone group, the steroid combined with immunosuppressants group achieved a significantly higher rate of proteinuria remission (RR=1.36, 95%CI: 1.19-1.55, P<0.001) and significantly lower urinary protein quantification (SMD=-0.82, 95%CI: -1.23 to -0.41, P<0.001). There was no significant difference in the incidence rate of adverse events between the two groups (RR=1.28, 95%CI: 0.92-1.77, P=0.14). CONCLUSIONS: The current evidence shows that for children with primary IgA nephropathy who have moderate to severe proteinuria, steroid combined with immunosuppressants has a better effect than steroid alone and does not increase the incidence rate of adverse events.

The Physical Vapor Transport Method for Bulk AlN Crystal Growth.

In this report, the development of physical vapor transport (PVT) methods for bulk aluminum nitride (AlN) crystal growth is reviewed. Three modified PVT methods with different features including selected growth at a conical zone, freestanding growth on a perforated sheet, and nucleation control with an inverse temperature gradient are discussed and compared in terms of the size and quality of the bulk AlN crystals they can produce as well as the process complexity. The PVT method with an inverse temperature gradient is able to significantly reduce the nucleation rate and realize the dominant growth of only one bulk AlN single crystal, and thus grow centimeter-sized bulk AlN single crystals. X-ray rocking curve (XRC) and Raman spectroscopy measurements showed a high crystalline quality of the prepared AlN crystals. The inverse temperature gradient provides an efficient and relatively low-cost method for the preparation of large-sized and high-quality AlN seed crystals used for seeded growth, devoted to the diameter enlargement and quality improvement of bulk AlN single crystals.

Visual Sampling Predicts Hippocampal Activity.

Eye movements serve to accumulate information from the visual world, contributing to the formation of coherent memory representations that support cognition and behavior. The hippocampus and the oculomotor network are well connected anatomically through an extensive set of polysynaptic pathways. However, the extent to which visual sampling behavior is related to functional responses in the hippocampus during encoding has not been studied directly in human neuroimaging. In the current study, participants engaged in a face processing task while brain responses were recorded with fMRI and eye movements were monitored simultaneously. The number of gaze fixations that a participant made on a given trial was correlated significantly with hippocampal activation such that more fixations were associated with stronger hippocampal activation. Similar results were also found in the fusiform face area, a face-selective perceptual processing region. Notably, the number of fixations was associated with stronger hippocampal activation when the presented faces were novel, but not when the faces were repeated. Increases in fixations during viewing of novel faces also led to larger repetition-related suppression in the hippocampus, indicating that this fixation-hippocampal relationship may reflect the ongoing development of lasting representations. Together, these results provide novel empirical support for the idea that visual exploration and hippocampal binding processes are inherently linked. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The hippocampal and oculomotor networks have each been studied extensively for their roles in the binding of information and gaze function, respectively. Despite the evidence that individuals with amnesia whose damage includes the hippocampus show alterations in their eye movement patterns and recent findings that the two systems are anatomically connected, it has not been demonstrated whether visual exploration is related to hippocampal activity in neurologically intact adults. In this combined fMRI-eye-tracking study, we show how hippocampal responses scale with the number of gaze fixations made during viewing of novel, but not repeated, faces. These findings provide new evidence suggesting that the hippocampus plays an important role in the binding of information, as sampled by gaze fixations, during visual exploration.

The effect of prior knowledge on post-encoding brain connectivity and its relation to subsequent memory.

It is known that prior knowledge can facilitate memory acquisition. It is unclear, however, whether prior knowledge can affect post-encoding brain activity to facilitate memory consolidation. In this fMRI study, we asked participants to associate novel houses with famous/nonfamous faces and investigated how associative-encoding tasks with/without prior knowledge differentially affected post-encoding brain connectivity during rest. Besides memory advantages in the famous condition, we found that post-encoding hippocampal connectivity with the fusiform face area (FFA) and ventral-medial-prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) was stronger following encoding of associations with famous than non-famous faces. Importantly, post-encoding functional connectivity between the hippocampus (HPC) and FFA, and between the anterior temporal pole region (aTPL) and posterior perceptual regions (i.e., FFA and the parahippocampal place area), together predicted a large proportion of the variance in subsequent memory performance. This prediction was specific for face-house associative memory, not face/house item memory, and only in the famous condition where prior knowledge was involved. These results support the idea that when prior knowledge is involved, the HPC, vmPFC, and aTPL, which support prior episodic, social-evaluative/schematic, and semantic memories, respectively, continue to interact with each other and posterior perceptual brain regions during the post-encoding rest to facilitate off-line processing of the newly formed memory, and enhance memory consolidation.

Effects of Prior-Knowledge on Brain Activation and Connectivity During Associative Memory Encoding.

Forming new associations is a fundamental process of building our knowledge system. At the brain level, how prior-knowledge influences acquisition of novel associations has not been thoroughly investigated. Based on recent cognitive neuroscience literature on multiple-component memory processing, we hypothesize that prior-knowledge triggers additional evaluative, semantic, or episodic-binding processes, mainly supported by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), anterior temporal pole (aTPL), and hippocampus (HPC), to facilitate new memory encoding. To test this hypothesis, we scanned 20 human participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they associated novel houses with famous or nonfamous faces. Behaviorally, we found beneficial effects of prior-knowledge on associative memory. At the brain level, we found that the vmPFC and HPC, as well as the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and fusiform face area, showed stronger activation when famous faces were involved. The vmPFC, aTPL, HPC, and PPA also exhibited stronger activation when famous faces elicited stronger emotions and memories, and when associations were later recollected. Connectivity analyses also suggested that HPC connectivity with the vmPFC plays a more important role in the famous than nonfamous condition. Taken together, our results suggest that prior-knowledge facilitates new associative encoding by recruiting additional perceptual, evaluative, or associative binding processes.