Blue carbon benefits from global saltmarsh restoration.

Coastal saltmarshes are found globally, yet are 25%-50% reduced compared with their historical cover. Restoration is incentivised by the promise that marshes are efficient storers of 'blue' carbon, although the claim lacks substantiation across global contexts. We synthesised data from 431 studies to quantify the benefits of saltmarsh restoration to carbon accumulation and greenhouse gas uptake. The results showed global marshes store approximately 1.41-2.44 Pg carbon. Restored marshes had very low greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes and rapid carbon accumulation, resulting in a mean net accumulation rate of 64.70 t CO2 e ha-1 year-1 . Using this estimate and potential restoration rates, we find saltmarsh regeneration could result in 12.93-207.03 Mt CO2 e accumulation per year, offsetting the equivalent of up to 0.51% global energy-related CO2 emissions-a substantial amount, considering marshes represent <1% of Earth's surface. Carbon accumulation rates and GHG fluxes varied contextually with temperature, rainfall and dominant vegetation, with the eastern coasts of the USA and Australia particular hotspots for carbon storage. While the study reveals paucity of data for some variables and continents, suggesting need for further research, the potential for saltmarsh restoration to offset carbon emissions is clear. The ability to facilitate natural carbon accumulation by saltmarshes now rests principally on the action of the management-policy community and on financial opportunities for supporting restoration.

Alterations in fast-twitch muscle membrane conductance regulation do not explain decreased muscle function of SOD1G93A rats.

INTRODUCTION/AIMS: Both neuromuscular junction (NMJ) dysfunction and altered electrophysiological properties of muscle fibers have been reported in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. ALS-related preclinical studies typically use rodent SOD1G93A overexpression models, but translation to the human disease has been challenged. The present work explored NMJ function and cellular electrophysiological properties of muscles fibers in SOD1G93A overexpression rats. METHODS: Longitudinal studies of compound muscle action potentials (CMAPs) were performed in SOD1G93A rats. Cellular studies were performed to evaluate electrophysiological properties of muscle fibers, including the resting membrane conductance (Gm ) and its regulation during prolonged action potential (AP) firing. RESULTS: SOD1G93A rats showed a substantial loss of gastrocnemius CMAP amplitude (35.8 mV, P < .001) and a minor increase in CMAP decrement (8.5%, P = .002) at 25 weeks. In addition, SOD1G93A EDL muscle fibers showed a lower baseline Gm (wild-type, 1325 µS/cm2 ; SOD1G93A , 1137 µS/cm2 ; P < .001) and minor alterations in Gm regulation during repeated firing of APs as compared with wild-type rats. DISCUSSION: The current data suggest that loss of CMAP amplitude is largely explained by defects in either lower motor neuron or skeletal muscle with only minor indications of a role for neuromuscular transmission defects in SOD1G93A rats. Electrophysiological properties of muscle fibers were not markedly affected, and an elevated Gm , as has been reported in motor neuron disease (MND) patients, was not replicated in SOD1G93A muscles. Collectively, the neuromuscular pathology of SOD1G93A rats appears to differ from that of ALS/MND patients with respect to neuromuscular transmission defects and electrophysiological properties of muscle fibers.

Evaluative judgment across domains: Liking balance, contour, symmetry and complexity in melodies and visual designs.

Evaluative judgment-i.e., assessing to what degree a stimulus is liked or disliked-is a fundamental aspect of cognition, facilitating comparison and choosing among alternatives, deciding, and prioritizing actions. Neuroimaging studies have shown that evaluative judgment involves the projection of sensory information to the reward circuit. To investigate whether evaluative judgments are based on modality-specific or modality-general attributes, we compared the extent to which balance, contour, symmetry, and complexity affect liking responses in the auditory and visual modalities. We found no significant correlation for any of the four attributes across sensory modalities, except for contour. This suggests that evaluative judgments primarily rely on modality-specific sensory representations elaborated in the brain's sensory cortices and relayed to the reward circuit, rather than abstract modality-general representations. The individual traits art experience, openness to experience, and desire for aesthetics were associated with the extent to which design or compositional attributes influenced liking, but inconsistently across sensory modalities and attributes, also suggesting modality-specific influences.

The role of working memory capacity in evaluative judgments of liking and beauty.

Judgments of liking and beauty appear to be expressions of a common hedonic state, but they differ in how they engage cognitive processes. We hypothesised that beauty judgments place greater demands on limited executive resources than judgments of liking. We tested this hypothesis by asking two groups of participants to judge works of visual art for their beauty or liking while having to remember the location of 1, 3, or 5 dots in a 4 by 4 matrix. We also examined the effect of individual differences in working memory capacity. Our results show that holding information about the location of the dots in working memory delayed judgments of beauty but not of liking. Also, the greater participants' working memory capacity, the faster they completed the working memory task when judging liking, but not when judging beauty. Our study provides evidence that judging beauty draws more on working memory resources than judging liking.

Task-Modulated Cortical Representations of Natural Sound Source Categories.

In everyday sound environments, we recognize sound sources and events by attending to relevant aspects of an acoustic input. Evidence about the cortical mechanisms involved in extracting relevant category information from natural sounds is, however, limited to speech. Here, we used functional MRI to measure cortical response patterns while human listeners categorized real-world sounds created by objects of different solid materials (glass, metal, wood) manipulated by different sound-producing actions (striking, rattling, dropping). In different sessions, subjects had to identify either material or action categories in the same sound stimuli. The sound-producing action and the material of the sound source could be decoded from multivoxel activity patterns in auditory cortex, including Heschl's gyrus and planum temporale. Importantly, decoding success depended on task relevance and category discriminability. Action categories were more accurately decoded in auditory cortex when subjects identified action information. Conversely, the material of the same sound sources was decoded with higher accuracy in the inferior frontal cortex during material identification. Representational similarity analyses indicated that both early and higher-order auditory cortex selectively enhanced spectrotemporal features relevant to the target category. Together, the results indicate a cortical selection mechanism that favors task-relevant information in the processing of nonvocal sound categories.

The anti-convulsants lacosamide, lamotrigine, and rufinamide reduce myotonia in isolated human and rat skeletal muscle.

INTRODUCTION: In myotonia congenita, loss of ClC-1 Cl- channel function results in skeletal muscle hyperexcitability and myotonia. Anti-myotonic treatment has typically targeted the voltage-gated sodium channel in skeletal muscle (Nav1.4). In this study we explored whether 3 sodium channel-modulating anti-epileptics can reduce myotonia in isolated rat and human muscle. METHODS: Dissected muscles were rendered myotonic by ClC-1 channel inhibition. The ability of the drugs to suppress myotonia was then assessed from subclinical to maximal clinical concentrations. Drug synergy was determined using isobole plots. RESULTS: All drugs were capable of abolishing myotonia in both rat and human muscles. Lamotrigine and rufinamide completely suppressed myotonia at submaximal clinical concentrations, whereas lacosamide had to be raised above the maximal clinical concentration to suppress myotonia completely. A synergistic effect of lamotrigine and rufinamide was observed. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that lamotrigine and rufinamide could be considered for anti-myotonic treatment in myotonia congenita. Muscle Nerve 56: 136-142, 2017.

Psychological models of art reception must be empirically grounded.

We commend Menninghaus et al. for tackling the role of negative emotions in art reception. However, their model suffers from shortcomings that reduce its applicability to empirical studies of the arts: poor use of evidence, lack of integration with other models, and limited derivation of testable hypotheses. We argue that theories about art experiences should be based on empirical evidence.

Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture.

On average, we urban dwellers spend about 90% of our time indoors, and share the intuition that the physical features of the places we live and work in influence how we feel and act. However, there is surprisingly little research on how architecture impacts behavior, much less on how it influences brain function. To begin closing this gap, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to examine how systematic variation in contour impacts aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions, outcome measures of interest to both architects and users of spaces alike. As predicted, participants were more likely to judge spaces as beautiful if they were curvilinear than rectilinear. Neuroanatomically, when contemplating beauty, curvilinear contour activated the anterior cingulate cortex exclusively, a region strongly responsive to the reward properties and emotional salience of objects. Complementing this finding, pleasantness--the valence dimension of the affect circumplex--accounted for nearly 60% of the variance in beauty ratings. Furthermore, activation in a distributed brain network known to underlie the aesthetic evaluation of different types of visual stimuli covaried with beauty ratings. In contrast, contour did not affect approach-avoidance decisions, although curvilinear spaces activated the visual cortex. The results suggest that the well-established effect of contour on aesthetic preference can be extended to architecture. Furthermore, the combination of our behavioral and neural evidence underscores the role of emotion in our preference for curvilinear objects in this domain.

Soil stabilization linked to plant diversity and environmental context in coastal wetlands.

BACKGROUND: Plants play a pivotal role in soil stabilization, with above-ground vegetation and roots combining to physically protect soil against erosion. It is possible that diverse plant communities boost root biomass, with knock-on positive effects for soil stability, but these relationships are yet to be disentangled. QUESTION: We hypothesize that soil erosion rates fall with increased plant species richness, and test explicitly how closely root biomass is associated with plant diversity. METHODS: We tested this hypothesis in salt marsh grasslands, dynamic ecosystems with a key role in flood protection. Using step-wise regression, the influences of biotic (e.g. plant diversity) and abiotic variables on root biomass and soil stability were determined for salt marshes with two contrasting soil types: erosion-resistant clay (Essex, southeast UK) and erosion-prone sand (Morecambe Bay, northwest UK). A total of 132 (30-cm depth) cores of natural marsh were extracted and exposed to lateral erosion by water in a re-circulating flume. RESULTS: Soil erosion rates fell with increased plant species richness (R2 = 0.55), when richness was modelled as a single explanatory variable, but was more important in erosion-prone (R2 = 0.44) than erosion-resistant (R2 = 0.18) regions. As plant species richness increased from two to nine species·m-2, the coefficient of variation in soil erosion rate decreased significantly (R2 = 0.92). Plant species richness was a significant predictor of root biomass (R2 = 0.22). Step-wise regression showed that five key variables accounted for 80% of variation in soil erosion rate across regions. Clay-silt fraction and soil carbon stock were linked to lower rates, contributing 24% and 31%, respectively, to variation in erosion rate. In regional analysis, abiotic factors declined in importance, with root biomass explaining 25% of variation. Plant diversity explained 12% of variation in the erosion-prone sandy region. CONCLUSION: Our study indicates that soil stabilization and root biomass are positively associated with plant diversity. Diversity effects are more pronounced in biogeographical contexts where soils are erosion-prone (sandy, low organic content), suggesting that the pervasive influence of biodiversity on environmental processes also applies to the ecosystem service of erosion protection.

A comprehensive overview of exosomes as drug delivery vehicles - endogenous nanocarriers for targeted cancer therapy.

Exosomes denote a class of secreted nanoparticles defined by size, surface protein and lipid composition, and the ability to carry RNA and proteins. They are important mediators of intercellular communication and regulators of the cellular niche, and their altered characteristics in many diseases, such as cancer, suggest them to be important both for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, prompting the idea of using exosomes as drug delivery vehicles, especially for gene therapy. This review covers the current status of evidence presented in the field of exosome-based drug delivery systems. Components for successful exosome-based drug delivery, such as choice of donor cell, therapeutic cargo, use of targeting peptide, loading method and administration route are highlighted and discussed with a general focus pertaining to the results obtained in models of different cancer types. In addition, completed and on-going clinical trials are described, evaluating exosome-based therapies for the treatment of different cancer types. Due to their endogenous origin, exosome-based drug delivery systems may have advantages in the treatment of cancer, but their design needs further refinement to justify their usage on the clinical scale.

Extracellular magnesium and calcium reduce myotonia in isolated ClC-1 chloride channel-inhibited human muscle.

INTRODUCTION: Experimental myotonia induced in rat muscle by ClC-1 chloride channel-inhibited has been shown to be related inversely to extracellular concentrations of Mg(2+) and Ca(2+) ([Mg(2+) ]o and [Ca(2+) ]o) within physiological ranges. Because this implicates a role for [Mg(2+)]o and [Ca(2+)]o in the variability of symptoms among myotonia congenita patients, we searched for similar effects of [Mg(2+)]o and [Ca(2+)]o on myotonia in human muscle. METHODS: Bundles of muscle fibers were isolated from abdominal rectus in patients undergoing abdominal surgery. Myotonia was induced by ClC-1 inhibition using 9-anthracene carboxylic acid (9-AC) and was assessed from integrals of force induced by 5-Hz stimulation for 2 seconds. RESULTS: Myotonia disappeared gradually when [Mg(2+)]o or [Ca(2+)]o were elevated throughout their physiological ranges. These effects of [Mg(2+)]o and [Ca(2+)]o were additive and interchangeable. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that variations in symptoms in myotonia congenita patients may arise from physiological variations in serum Mg(2+) and Ca(2+).

Sparse encoding of automatic visual association in hippocampal networks.

Intelligent action entails exploiting predictions about associations between elements of ones environment. The hippocampus and mediotemporal cortex are endowed with the network topology, physiology, and neurochemistry to automatically and sparsely code sensori-cognitive associations that can be reconstructed from single or partial inputs. Whilst acquiring fMRI data and performing an attentional task, participants were incidentally presented with a sequence of cartoon images. By assigning subjects a post-scan free-association task on the same images we assayed the density of associations triggered by these stimuli. Using multivariate Bayesian decoding, we show that human hippocampal and temporal neocortical structures host sparse associative representations that are automatically triggered by visual input. Furthermore, as predicted theoretically, there was a significant increase in sparsity in the Cornu Ammonis subfields, relative to the entorhinal cortex. Remarkably, the sparsity of CA encoding correlated significantly with associative memory performance over subjects; elsewhere within the temporal lobe, entorhinal, parahippocampal, perirhinal and fusiform cortices showed the highest model evidence for the sparse encoding of associative density. In the absence of reportability or attentional confounds, this charts a distribution of visual associative representations within hippocampal populations and their temporal lobe afferent fields, and demonstrates the viability of retrospective associative sampling techniques for assessing the form of reflexive associative encoding.

Neural correlates of viewing paintings: evidence from a quantitative meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data.

Many studies involving functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have exposed participants to paintings under varying task demands. To isolate neural systems that are activated reliably across fMRI studies in response to viewing paintings regardless of variation in task demands, a quantitative meta-analysis of fifteen experiments using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) method was conducted. As predicted, viewing paintings was correlated with activation in a distributed system including the occipital lobes, temporal lobe structures in the ventral stream involved in object (fusiform gyrus) and scene (parahippocampal gyrus) perception, and the anterior insula-a key structure in experience of emotion. In addition, we also observed activation in the posterior cingulate cortex bilaterally-part of the brain's default network. These results suggest that viewing paintings engages not only systems involved in visual representation and object recognition, but also structures underlying emotions and internalized cognitions.

Role of recovery of acetylcholine release in compromised neuromuscular junction function.

Everyday physical activities, such as walking, are enabled by repeated skeletal muscle contractions and require a well-functioning neuromuscular transmission. In myasthenic disorders, activities of daily living are debilitated by a compromised neuromuscular transmission leading to muscle weakness and fatiguability in patients. To enable physical activity, acetylcholine (ACh) is released repeatedly from the motor nerve, however, the role of the nerve terminals' capacity to sustain ACh release to support repetitive contractions under compromised neuromuscular transmission remains unclear. To explore this, we studied synaptic and contractile function during repeated contractions in healthy rat skeletal muscles under conditions of pharmacological induced compromised neuromuscular transmission. Using recordings of endplate potentials, compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and force production in isolated skeletal muscles and living, anesthetized animals, we found that force and CMAP were markedly reduced by even very light activity performed up to 5 s prior to contraction showing that recovery of ACh release was insufficient to maintain synaptic transmission strength. Our results suggest that the timing of depletion and restoration of ACh release may impact clinical signs of weakness and fatigability in patients with impaired neuromuscular transmission and affect the sensitivity of electromyographic recordings in the clinic.

Organic carbon accumulation in British saltmarshes.

Saltmarshes are a crucial component of the coastal carbon (C) system and provide a natural climate regulation service through the accumulation and long-term storage of organic carbon (OC) in their soils. These coastal ecosystems are under growing pressure from a changing climate and increasing anthropogenic disturbance. To manage and protect these ecosystems for C and to allow their inclusion in emissions and natural-capital accounting, as well as carbon markets, accurate and reliable estimates of OC accumulation are required. However, globally, such data are rare or of varying quality. Here, we quantify sedimentation rates and OC densities for 21 saltmarshes in Great Britain (GB). We estimate that, on average, saltmarshes accumulate OC at a rate of 110.88 ± 43.12 g C m-2 yr-1. This is considerably less than widely applied global saltmarsh averages. It is therefore highly likely that the contribution of northern European saltmarshes to global saltmarsh OC accumulation has been significantly overestimated. Taking account of the climatic, geomorphological, oceanographic, and ecological characteristics of all GB saltmarshes and the areal extent of different saltmarsh zones, we estimate that the 451.65 km2 of GB saltmarsh accumulates 46,563 ± 4353 t of OC annually. These low OC accumulation rates underline the importance of the 5.20 ± 0.65 million tonnes of OC already stored in these vulnerable coastal ecosystems. Going forward the protection and preservation of the existing stores of OC in GB saltmarshes must be a priority for the UK as this will provide climate benefits through avoided emissions several times more significant than the annual accumulation of OC in these ecosystems.

The ClC-1 chloride channel inhibitor NMD670 improves skeletal muscle function in rat models and patients with myasthenia gravis.

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a neuromuscular disease that results in compromised transmission of electrical signals at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) from motor neurons to skeletal muscle fibers. As a result, patients with MG have reduced skeletal muscle function and present with symptoms of severe muscle weakness and fatigue. ClC-1 is a skeletal muscle specific chloride (Cl-) ion channel that plays important roles in regulating neuromuscular transmission and muscle fiber excitability during intense exercise. Here, we show that partial inhibition of ClC-1 with an orally bioavailable small molecule (NMD670) can restore muscle function in rat models of MG and in patients with MG. In severely affected MG rats, ClC-1 inhibition enhanced neuromuscular transmission, restored muscle function, and improved mobility after both single and prolonged administrations of NMD670. On this basis, NMD670 was progressed through nonclinical safety pharmacology and toxicology studies, leading to approval for testing in clinical studies. After successfully completing phase 1 single ascending dose in healthy volunteers, NMD670 was tested in patients with MG in a randomized, placebo-controlled, single-dose, three-way crossover clinical trial. The clinical trial evaluated safety, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of NMD670 in 12 patients with mild MG. NMD670 had a favorable safety profile and led to clinically relevant improvements in the quantitative myasthenia gravis (QMG) total score. This translational study spanning from single muscle fiber recordings to patients provides proof of mechanism for ClC-1 inhibition as a potential therapeutic approach in MG and supports further development of NMD670.

Species mixing boosts root yield in mangrove trees.

Enhanced species richness can stimulate the productivity of plant communities; however, its effect on the belowground production of forests has scarcely been tested, despite the role of tree roots in carbon storage and ecosystem processes. Therefore, we tested for the effects of tree species richness on mangrove root biomass: thirty-two 6 m by 6 m plots were planted with zero (control), one, two or three species treatments of six-month-old Avicennia marina (A), Bruguiera gymnorrhiza (B) and Ceriops tagal (C). A monoculture of each species and the four possible combinations of the three species were used, with four replicate plots per treatment. Above- and belowground biomass was measured after three and four years' growth. In both years, the all-species mix (ABC) had significant overyielding of roots, suggesting complementarity mediated by differences in rhizosphere use amongst species. In year four, there was higher belowground than aboveground biomass in all but one treatment. Belowground biomass was strongly influenced by the presence of the most vigorously growing species, A. marina. These results demonstrate the potential for complementarity between fast- and slow-growing species to enhance belowground growth in mangrove forests, with implications for forest productivity and the potential for belowground carbon sequestration.

Defensive emotions and evaluative judgements: Sensitivity to anger and fear predicts moral judgements, whereas sensitivity to disgust predicts aesthetic judgements.

Aesthetic and moral evaluations engage appetitive and defensive emotions. While the role played by pleasure in positive aesthetic and moral judgements has been extensively researched, little is known about how defensive emotions influence negative aesthetic and moral judgements. Specifically, it is unknown which defensive emotions such judgements tap into, and whether both kinds of judgement share a common emotional root. Here, we investigated how participants' individual sensitivity to disgust, fear, anger and sadness predicted subjective judgements of aesthetic and moral stimuli. Bayesian modelling revealed that participants who were more sensitive to anger and fear found conventional and moral transgressions more wrong. In contrast, participants who were more sensitive to disgust disliked asymmetrical geometric patterns and untidy rooms more. These findings suggest that aesthetic and moral evaluations engage multiple defensive emotions, not just disgust, and that they may rely on different defensive emotions as part of their computational mechanism.

Impact of mangrove forest structure and landscape on macroplastics capture.

Complex networks of above-ground roots and trunks make mangrove forests trap plastic litter. We tested how macroplastics relate to tree biomass, root abundance, mangrove geomorphology and river mouth proximity, surveying landward and seaward margins of seven forests in the Philippines, a global hotspot for marine plastic pollution. Macroplastics were abundant (mean ± s.e.: 1.1 ± 0.22 items m-2; range: 0.05 ± 0.05 to 3.79 ± 1.91), greatest at the landward zone (mean ± s.e.: 1.60 ± 0.41 m-2) and dominated by land-derived items (sachets, bags). Plastic abundance and weight increased with proximity to river mouths, with root abundance predicting plastic litter surface area (i.e., the cumulative sum of all the surface areas of each plastic element per plot). The study confirms rivers are a major pathway for marine plastic pollution, with mangrove roots are the biological attribute that regulate litter retention. The results suggest land-based waste management that prevent plastics entering rivers will reduce marine plastic pollution in Southeast Asia.