Effects of congruent emotional contexts during encoding on recognition: An ERPs study.

Past research showed that emotional contexts can impair recognition memory for the target item. Given that item-context congruity may enhance recognition memory, the present study aims to examine the effect of the congruent emotional encoding contexts on recognition memory. Participants studied congruent word-picture pairs (e.g., the word "cow" - a picture describing a cow) and incongruent word-picture pairs (e.g., the word "cow" - a picture describing a goat) and, subsequently, were asked to report the nature of the picture (emotional or neutral). Behavioral results revealed that emotional contexts impaired source but not item recognition, with congruent word-context mitigating this impairment and enhancing item recognition. Neural results from ERPs and theta oscillations found the recollection process, as shown by the LPC old/new effect and theta oscillations, for both item and source recognition across emotional contexts, irrespective of congruity. Meanwhile, the familiarity process as indexed by the FN400 old/new effect was found only for item recognition in congruent emotional contexts. These findings suggest that the congruent relationship of item-context could mitigate the emotion-induced source memory impairment and enhance item memory, with neural results elucidating the memory processes involved in retrieval of emotional information. Specifically, while emotion-related information generally elicits the recollection-based memory process, only congruent emotional information elicits the familiarity-based process.

Evolution origin analysis and health risk assessment of groundwater environment in a typical mining area: Insights from water-rock interaction and anthropogenic activities.

Coal mining changes groundwater environment, results in deterioration of water quality and endangering human health in the mining area. However, the comprehensive study of groundwater evolution and its potential impact in mining area is still insufficient. In this study, 95 groundwater samples were collected from 2019 to 2020 in a typical mining area of China. Ion ratio coefficients, isotopic tracing technology, Entropy-weighted water quality index (EWQI) and human health risk assessment model (HHRA) were applicated to investigate the hydrochemical variation reasons, groundwater quality and its potential health risk in the study area. Results showed that the groundwater hydrochemical types changed from HCO3∙SO4-Ca∙Mg type to SO4-Ca∙Mg and SO4∙Cl-Ca∙Mg type. Water-rock interaction, agricultural activities, manure and sewage input, precipitation and evaporation controlled the groundwater hydrochemical composition. Groundwater quality showed a trend of fluctuation with an average EWQI of 59.23, 68.92, 63.75, 58.02 and 64.92, respectively. 91.6% of the water samples was fair and acceptable for drinking. The groundwater health risk of nitrate in the study area ranged from 0.03 to 17.80. Infants had the highest health risk and nitrate concentration was the most sensitive parameter. The results will present a comprehensive research of groundwater evolution and potential impacts through a typical mining area example. Thereby offering valuable insights into the influencing factors identification, hydrochemical processes evolution, protection and utilization of groundwater in global mining areas.

Multi-evidences investigation into spatiotemporal variety, sources tracing, and health risk assessment of surface water nitrogen contamination in China.

A comprehensive understanding of nitrogen pollution status, especially the identification of sources and fate of nitrate is essential for effective water quality management at the local scale. However, the nitrogen contamination of surface water across China was poorly understood at the national scale. A dataset related to nitrogen was established based on 111 pieces of literature from 2000 to 2020 in this study. The spatiotemporal variability, source tracing, health risk assessment, and drivers of China's surface water nitrogen pollution were analyzed by integrating multiple methods. These results revealed a significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the nitrogen concentration of surface water across China. Spatially, the Haihe River Basin and Yellow River Basin were the basins where surface water was seriously contaminated by nitrogen in China, while the surface water of Southwest Basin was less affected. Temporally, significant differences were observed in the nitrogen content of surface water in the Songhua and Liaohe River Basin, Pearl River Basin, Southeast Basin, and Yellow River Basin. There were 1%, 1%, 12%, and 46% probability exceeding the unacceptable risk level (HI＞1) for children in the Songhua and Liaohe River Basin, Pearl River Basin, Haihe River Basin, and Yellow River Basin, respectively. The primary sources of surface water nitrate in China were found to be domestic sewage and manure (37.7%), soil nitrogen (31.7%), and chemical fertilizer (26.9%), with a limited contribution from atmospheric precipitation (3.7%). Human activities determined the current spatiotemporal distribution of nitrogen contamination in China as well as the future development trend. This research could provide scientifically reasonable recommendations for the containment of surface water nitrogen contamination in China and even globally.

Attentional Bias in Older Adults with Non-Clinical Depression: An Eye-Tracking Study.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive models of depression assert that attentional biases play an important role in the maintenance of depression. However, few studies have explored attentional bias in depressed older adults, and no consistent conclusions have been reached. METHODS: In the current study, we investigated attentional bias in older adults with non-clinical depression. Older adults aged over 60 with non-clinical depression and without depression were instructed to perform a free viewing task while their eye movements were tracked. RESULTS: The results showed that, compared to older adults without depression, non-clinically depressed older adults had longer total fixation durations and a greater number of fixations on sad stimuli. Moreover, non-depressed older adults exhibited a preference for pleasant images, whereas this effect was not observed in older adults with non-clinical depression. CONCLUSION: This study suggested that non-clinically depressed older adults have attentional bias, which is manifested as increased attention to sad stimuli and decreased attention to pleasant stimuli.The current study has functional and potential functional implications.

Dual stable isotopes to rethink the watershed-scale spatiotemporal interaction between surface water and groundwater.

The interaction between groundwater and surface water, including their recharge relationship and ratio, is crucial for water cycling, management, and pollution control. However, accurately estimating their spatiotemporal interaction at the watershed scale remains challenging. In this study, we used dual stable isotopes (δ18O, δ2H, d-excess, and lc-excess) and hydrochemistry methods to rethink spatiotemporal interaction at the Yiluo River watershed in central China. We collected 20 groundwater and 40 surface water samples over four periods in two seasons (dry and wet). Our results showed that in the downstream region, groundwater recharged surface water in the dry season while surface water recharged groundwater in the wet season, with average recharge ratios of 89.82% and 90.02%, respectively. In the midstream region, surface water recharged groundwater in both seasons with average ratios of 93.79% and 91.35%. In contrast, in the upstream region, groundwater recharged surface water in both seasons with ratios of 67.35% and 76.89%. Seasonal changes in the recharge relationship between surface water and groundwater in the downstream region also been found. Our findings provide valuable insights for watershed-scale water resource and pollution management.

Temporal relationship between depression and cognitive decline in the elderly: a two-wave cross-lagged study in a Chinese sample.

Objectives: Less information is available about the temporal relationship between depression in the elderly and cognitive decline. In the current study, we (1) evaluated the temporal association between depression and cognitive decline in older adults over a 4-year period; (2) indicated which cognitive domains have a strong temporal relationship with depression.Methods: Using data from China Family Panel Studies, we examined the relationship between depression and cognition among adults aged 65 and older with a cross-lagged design.Results: The results showed that initial depression affected subsequent cognitive function, especially immediate and delayed recall, but that cognition decline did not predict depression over time.Conclusion: The findings suggest that depression precedes cognitive decline in older adults, which is of great significance for the future research of mild cognitive impairment and dementia in the elderly.

Meta-analysis of microbial source tracking for the identification of fecal contamination in aquatic environments based on data-mining.

Microbial source tracking (MST) technology represents an innovative approach employed to trace fecal contamination in environmental water systems. The performance of primers may be affected by amplification techniques, target primer categories, and regional differences. To investigate the influence of these factors on primer recognition performance, a meta-analysis was conducted on the application of MST in water environments using three databases: Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed (n = 2291). After data screening, 46 studies were included in the final analysis. The investigation encompassed Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)/quantitative PCR (qPCR) methodologies, dye-based (SYBR)/probe-based (TaqMan) techniques, and geographical differences of a human host-specific (HF183) primer and other 21 additional primers. The results indicated that the primers analyzed were capable of differentiating host specificity to a certain degree. Nonetheless, by comparing sensitivity and specificity outcomes, it was observed that virus-based primers exhibited superior specificity and recognition capacity, as well as a stronger correlation with human pathogenicity in water environments compared to bacteria-based primers. This finding highlights an important direction for future advancements. Moreover, within the same category, qPCR did not demonstrate significant benefits over conventional PCR amplification methods. In comparing dye-based and probe-based techniques, it was revealed that the probe-based method's advantage lay primarily in specificity, which may be associated with the increased propensity of dye-based methods to produce false positives. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of the HF183 primer was not detected in China, Canada, and Singapore respectively, indicating a low likelihood of regional differences. The variation among the 21 other primers may be attributable to regional differences, sample sources, detection techniques, or alternative factors. Finally, we identified that economic factors, climatic conditions, and geographical distribution significantly influence primer performance.

Chronic disease and depression among the elderly in China: the mediating role of instrumental activities of daily living and the moderating role of area of residence.

Chronic diseases are associated with depressive symptoms in older adults. However, the mechanism of this relation is not clear. In this study, we explored the mediating role of instrumental activities of daily living and the moderating role of area of residence in the relationship between chronic diseases and depression. The data was from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study. Results showed that chronic diseases were positively correlated with depression, and negatively associated with instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Moreover, IADLs mediated the relationship between chronic diseases and depression. In addition, area of residence (rural/urban) moderated the relation between IADLs and depression, such that this negative relation was stronger for old adults lived in rural area than for urban area. These results have important significance for prevention and intervention of depression in the elderly.

Unitization could facilitate item recognition but inhibit verbatim recognition for picture stimuli: behavioral and event-related potential study.

It is widely accepted that unitization can promote familiarity-based associative recognition, but the effect of unitization on item recognition remains unclear. The goals of this study were to elaborate on how unitization affected item recognition and the neural correlates of familiarity and recollection for item recognition. In study, the participants were asked to learn related and unrelated picture pairs, and in test, they were required to distinguish single old pictures form new pictures. In experiment 1, we used R/K/N paradigm to estimate the contribution of familiarity and recollection to item recognition, the results showed that unitization could improve item recognition through increasing recollection selectively. In experiment 2, we used ERP old/new effects to estimate the neural correlates of familiarity and recollection, the results showed that unitization could improve item recognition through a selective reduction in LPC effect. Inspired by DRM paradigm, in experiment 3, we divided the new pictures into semantically related lure pictures and semantically unrelated new pictures to explore the effects of unitization on item recognition and verbatim recognition (the ability to distinguish old pictures from lure pictures). The behavioral results showed that unitization could improve item recognition, but it damaged verbatim recognition. The ERP results revealed that there were larger LPC effects in the unrelated condition than in the related condition, regardless of item or verbatim recognition. In summary, we believed that unitization could indeed improve item recognition, but it damaged verbatim recognition.

The effect of unitization on associative recognition was not moderated by the unitization-congruence between original and rearranged picture pairs (UC) for picture stimuli.

It is widely accepted that associative recognition can be supported by familiarity through integrating more than two stimuli into a unit, but the role of unitization in recollection-based associative recognition remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to illustrate how the level of unitization (LOU) affected recollection-based associative recognition and to examine whether the unitization-congruence between original and rearranged picture pairs (UC) could have effect on the relationship between LOU and associative recognition. In encoding, participants were asked to learn related and unrelated picture pairs, and in retrieval, they needed to distinguish intact pairs from rearranged pairs. We also distinguished the LOU of the pairs based on its status at encoding or retrieval separately. The results showed that: (1) LOU-at-encoding could improve associative recognition through increasing recollection-based associative recognition selectively; (2) LOU-at-retrieval could improve associative recognition through increasing familiarity-based and recollection-based associative recognitions; (3) UC did not moderate the relationship between LOU and associative recognition. Hence, in future studies, researchers do not need to pay much attention to the construction of rearranged pairs to ensure that the LOU between original and rearranged picture pairs is matched. It greatly reduces the difficulty of materials selection.

Under the condition of unitization at encoding rather than unitization at retrieval, familiarity could support associative recognition and the relationship between unitization and recollection was moderated by unitization-congruence.

It is widely accepted that associative recognition can be supported by familiarity through integrating more than two stimuli into a unit, but there are still three unsolved questions: (1) how unitization affects recollection-based associative recognition; (2) whether it is necessary to match the level of unitization (LOU) between original and rearranged pairs, which was term as unitization-congruence (UC); (3) whether unitization can occur at encoding or at retrieval. The purposes of this study are to try to answer these questions. During the encoding phase, the participants were asked to learn compound words and unrelated word pairs, and during the retrieval phase, they needed to distinguish intact pairs from rearranged consistent and rearranged inconsistent pairs with "remember/know" paradigm. The results showed that (1) the role of unitization in recollection was moderated by UC; (2) Under the consistent UC condition, unitization could improve familiarity-based associative recognition without affecting recollection-based associative recognition, while under the inconsistent UC condition, unitization could improve familiarity-based and recollection-based associative recognition simultaneously, these results indicated that it was necessary to match the LOU between original and rearranged pairs; (3) unitization at encoding could support familiarity-based associative recognition, while unitization at retrieval did not. In briefly, unitization at encoding could improve associative recognition and this effect was moderated by UC, while unitization at retrieval did not affect associative recognition.

Unitization does not impede overall item recognition performance: Behavioral and event-related potential study.

It is widely accepted that unitization can promote familiarity-based associative recognition, but the role of unitization in recognition of individual component elements which originate from compound words remains unclear. The goals of this study were to elaborate on how unitization affects item recognition and further examine the effect of unitization on the extent to which familiarity and recollection contribute to item recognition. During the study phase, participants were asked to learn 48 compound words and 48 unrelated word pairs, and during the test phase, they were instructed to distinguish old from new words. We disassociated the contribution of familiarity and recollection to recognition with remember/know paradigm in experiment 1 and with ERPs old/new effects in experiment 2. The results showed that the overall item recognition was equivalent between the two retrieval conditions. Disassociation the contribution of familiarity and recollection, we found that there was higher recollection-based item recognition performance for compound-old words than for unrelated-old words in experiment 1. In contrast, in experiment 2, the magnitude of later parietal old/new effect related to recollection was larger for the former than for the latter, indicating that equivalent levels of memory retrieval were achieved through "less" neural correlates of familiarity and recollection. By synthesizing the results of experiment 1 and 2, we believed unitization did not impede overall item recognition performance.

Identifying At-Risk Subgroups for Acute Postsurgical Pain: A Classification Tree Analysis.

Objective: Acute postsurgical pain is common and has potentially negative long-term consequences for patients. In this study, we evaluated effects of presurgery sociodemographics, pain experiences, psychological influences, and surgery-related variables on acute postsurgical pain using logistic regression vs classification tree analysis (CTA). Design: The study design was prospective. Setting: This study was carried out at Chongqing No. 9 hospital, Chongqing, China. Subjects: Patients (175 women, 84 men) completed a self-report battery 24 hours before surgery (T1) and pain intensity ratings 48-72 hours after surgery (T2). Results: An initial logistic regression analysis identified pain self-efficacy as the only presurgery predictor of postoperative pain intensity. Subsequently, a classification tree analysis (CTA) indicated that lower vs higher acute postoperative pain intensity levels were predicted not only by pain self-efficacy but also by its interaction with disease onset, pain catastrophizing, and body mass index. CTA results were replicated within a revised logistic regression model. Conclusions: Together, these findings underscored the potential utility of CTA as a means of identifying patient subgroups with higher and lower risk for severe acute postoperative pain based on interacting characteristics.

Removal of humic acid from aqueous solution using polyacrylamide/chitosan semi-IPN hydrogel.

In this study, we provide the first documented removal of humic acid (HA) from aqueous solution using polyacrylamide/chitosan (PAAm/CS) semi-IPN hydrogel. The prepared semi-IPN hydrogel was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The factors effecting HA adsorption performance were individually tested, including initial pH, ionic strength, contact time, initial HA concentration, and temperature. The results indicated that semi-IPN hydrogel was successfully fabricated and can be applied in a wide pH range, from 3 to 9. Low ionic strength effectively enhanced the adsorption capacity. As the ionic strength increased, this enhancement was less obvious but still positive. The adsorption kinetics were fitted to a pseudo-first-order kinetic model, and the adsorption isotherm was described using the Sips isotherm model. The HA adsorption capacity increased with increasing temperature. The maximum adsorption capacity has the potential to attain 166.30 mg g-1, based on the Sips isotherm at 25 °C. Experiments demonstrated that the HA adsorption process can be primarily attributed to electrostatic interactions, and hydrogen bonding was also involved. Facile synthesis and good adsorptive performance indicate that semi-IPN hydrogel can be used for removing HA from water.

Protein kinase B and extracellular signal-regulated kinase contribute to the chondroprotective effect of morroniside on osteoarthritis chondrocytes.

Despite extensive studies on the multifaceted roles of morroniside, the main active constituent of iridoid glycoside from Corni Fructus, the effect of morroniside on osteoarthritis (OA) chondrocytes remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the influence of morroniside on cultured human OA chondrocytes and a rat experimental model of OA. The results showed that morroniside enhanced the cell viability and the levels of proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression (PCNA), type II collagen and aggrecan in human OA chondrocytes, indicating that morroniside promoted chondrocyte survival and matrix synthesis. Furthermore, different doses of morroniside activated protein kinase B (AKT) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in human OA chondrocytes, and in turn, triggered AKT/S6 and ERK/P70S6K/S6 pathway, respectively. The PI3K/AKT inhibitor LY294002 or the MEK/ERK inhibitor U0126 attenuated the effect of morroniside on human OA chondrocytes, indicating that the activation of AKT and ERK contributed to the regulation of morroniside in human OA chondrocytes. In addition, the intra-articular injection of morroniside elevated the level of proteoglycans in cartilage matrix and the thickness of articular cartilage in a rat experimental model of OA, with the increase of AKT and ERK activation. As a consequence, morroniside has chondroprotective effect on OA chondrocytes, and may have the therapeutic potential for OA treatment.

The Involvement of Mutual Inhibition of ERK and mTOR in PLCγ1-Mediated MMP-13 Expression in Human Osteoarthritis Chondrocytes.

The issue of whether ERK activation determines matrix synthesis or degradation in osteoarthritis (OA) pathogenesis currently remains controversial. Our previous study shows that PLCγ1 and mTOR are involved in the matrix metabolism of OA cartilage. Investigating the interplays of PLCγ1, mTOR and ERK in matrix degradation of OA will facilitate future attempts to manipulate ERK in OA prevention and therapy. Here, cultured human normal chondrocytes and OA chondrocytes were treated with different inhibitors or transfected with expression vectors, respectively. The levels of ERK, p-ERK, PLCγ1, p-PLCγ1, mTOR, p-mTOR and MMP-13 were then evaluated by Western blotting analysis. The results manifested that the expression level of ERK in human OA chondrocytes was lower than that in human normal articular chondrocytes, and the up-regulation of ERK could promote matrix synthesis, including the decrease in MMP-13 level and the increase in Aggrecan level in human OA chondrocytes. Furthermore, the PLCγ1/ERK axis and a mutual inhibition of mTOR and ERK were observed in human OA chondrocytes. Interestingly, activated ERK had no inhibitory effect on MMP-13 expression in PLCγ1-transformed OA chondrocytes. Combined with our previous study, the non-effective state of ERK activation by PLCγ1 on MMP-13 may be partly attributed to the inhibition of the PLCγ1/mTOR axis on the PLCγ1/ERK axis. Therefore, the study indicates that the mutual inhibition of ERK and mTOR is involved in PLCγ1-mediated MMP-13 expression in human OA chondrocytes, with important implication for the understanding of OA pathogenesis as well as for its prevention and therapy.

Disruption of phosphoinositide-specific phospholipases Cγ1 contributes to extracellular matrix synthesis of human osteoarthritis chondrocytes.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease characterized by articular cartilage degradation including extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation and cell loss. It is known that phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase γ1 (PLCγ1) can trigger several signaling pathways to regulate cell metabolism. However, whether this kinase is expressive and active in human OA chondrocytes and its role in the pathological progression of OA have not been investigated. The current study was designed to investigate the PLCγ1 expression in human OA cartilage, and whether PLCγ1 was involved in the ECM synthesis had been further explored using cultured human OA chondrocytes. Our results indicated that PLCγ1 was highly expressed in human OA chondrocytes. In our further study using the cultured human OA chondrocytes, the results demonstrated that the disruption of PLCγ1 by its inhibitor, U73122, and siRNA contributed to the ECM synthesis of human OA chondrocytes through regulating the expression of ECM-related signaling molecules, including MMP-13, Col II, TIMP1, Sox-9, and AGG. Furthermore, PLCγ1/IP3/Ca2+/CaMK II signaling axis regulated the ECM synthesis of human chondrocytes through triggering mTOR/P70S6K/S6 pathway. In summary, our results suggested that PLC-γ1 activities played an important role in the ECM synthesis of human OA chondrocytes, and may serve as a therapeutic target for treating OA.

The beneficial effects of concept definition and interactive imagery tasks on associative memory: Evidence from event-related potentials.

It is widely accepted that familiarity can support associative memory when the to-be-remember items are unitized into a new representation. However, there has been relatively little attention devoted to investigating the effects of different unitization manipulations on associative memory. The present study aimed to address this gap by examining the effects of varying levels of unitization through three tasks: Concept definition, interactive imagery, and sentence frame tasks. The behavioral results revealed that associative memory was significantly enhanced in the interactive imagery task compared to the sentence frame task. However, no significant differences were found between the sentence frame and concept definition tasks, or between the concept definition and interactive imagery tasks. In terms of the neural correlates, the event-related potential (ERP) results revealed that the sentence frame task only elicited a significant recollection-related LPC old/new effect, while the concept definition task only elicited a significant familiarity-related FN400 old/new effect. However, the interactive representation task elicited both of these distinct effects. These findings suggest that both the concept definition and interactive imagery tasks can enhance familiarity for supporting associative memory, but their beneficial effects on associative memory or LPC old/new effects may be different.

Structural feature-based strategy for the identification of diterpene alkaloids in Aconitum carmichaeli Debeaux.

The taproot of Aconitum carmichaelii Debeaux (AC), a poisonous Traditional Chinese Medicine, has been widely used to treat joint pain, rheumatism and dysmenorrhea. Fermentation is a traditional drug processing method that reduces toxicity or increases efficacy. However, the chemical composition of AC, especially fermented AC, has not been fully elucidated. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a method to characterize the chemical composition of raw and fermented AC. In this study, a structural feature-based comprehensive strategy was employed to identify the chemical components of raw and fermented AC. A highly selective method consisting of mass defect filtering (MDF), ring double bond (RDB), nitrogen rule, and feature MS fragments filtering was established using UPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS. By the established method, 230 diterpene alkaloids were characterized in raw AC, including 108 amine, 68 monoester, and 54 diester diterpene alkaloids. 145 of them were potential new compounds. Totals of 466 diterpene alkaloids were identified in fermented AC, including 231 amine, 162 monoester, and 73 diester diterpene alkaloids. 397 of them were potential new compounds. Ester hydrolysis, hydroxylation, and demethylation were the major transformation pathways during fermentation. An integrated approach with highly selective based on the structural feature of analytes was established and applied to identify the chemicals in AC. The strategy showed great performance in improving the accuracy and coverage of the identification by using LC-MS.

Improving associative memory in younger and older adults with unitization: evidence from meta-analysis and behavioral studies.

Introduction: The finding that familiarity can support associative memory by unitizing the to -be-learned items into a novel representation has been widely accepted, but its effects on overall performance of associative memory and recollection are still controversial. Methods: The current study aims to elucidate these discrepancies by identifying potential moderating factors through a combined approach of meta-analysis and behavioral experiment. Results: Results consistently showed that changes in the level of unitization and age groups were two important moderators. Specifically, unitization enhanced younger and older adults' associative memory and its supporting processes (i.e., familiarity and recollection) when the level of unitization between studied and rearranged pairs was changed. However, when this level remained constant, unitization exhibited no impact on associative memory and familiarity in younger adults, but showed an enhanced effect in older adults. Furthermore, results revealed a marked group difference between younger and older adults in associative memory when the unitization level of noncompound words remained unaltered. Upon breaking this condition, the group difference was reduced by enhancing familiarity or recollection. Discussion: These findings not only clarify some of the inconsistencies in the literature concerning the impact of unitization on associative memory, but also suggest that unitization is a beneficial strategy for reducing group difference in associative memory, with its effectiveness varying according to the level of unitization changes.