A heritable profile of six miRNAs in autistic patients and mouse models.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of developmental pathologies that impair social communication and cause repetitive behaviors. The suggested roles of noncoding RNAs in pathology led us to perform a comparative analysis of the microRNAs expressed in the serum of human ASD patients. The analysis of a cohort of 45 children with ASD revealed that six microRNAs (miR-19a-3p, miR-361-5p, miR-3613-3p, miR-150-5p, miR-126-3p, and miR-499a-5p) were expressed at low to very low levels compared to those in healthy controls. A similar but less pronounced decrease was registered in the clinically unaffected parents of the sick children and in their siblings but never in any genetically unrelated control. Results consistent with these observations were obtained in the blood, hypothalamus and sperm of two of the established mouse models of ASD: valproic acid-treated animals and Cc2d1a+/- heterozygotes. In both instances, the same characteristic miRNA profile was evidenced in the affected individuals and inherited together with disease symptoms in the progeny of crosses with healthy animals. The consistent association of these genetic regulatory changes with the disease provides a starting point for evaluating the changes in the activity of the target genes and, thus, the underlying mechanism(s). From the applied societal and medical perspectives, once properly confirmed in large cohorts, these observations provide tools for the very early identification of affected children and progenitors.

Evaluation of divided attention using different stimulation models in event-related potentials.

Divided attention is defined as focusing on different tasks at once, and this is described as one of the biggest problems of today's society. Default examinations for understanding attention are questionnaires or physiological signals, like evoked potentials and electroencephalography. Physiological records were obtained using visual, auditory, and auditory-visual stimuli combinations with 48 participants-18-25-year-old university students-to find differences between sustained and divided attention. A Fourier-based filter was used to get a 0.01-30-Hz frequency band. Fractal dimensions, entropy values, power spectral densities, and Hjorth parameters from electroencephalography and P300 components from evoked potentials were calculated as features. To decrease the size of the feature set, some features, which yield less detail level for data, were eliminated. The visual and auditory stimuli in selective attention were compared with the divided attention state, and the best accuracy was found to be 88.89% on a support vector machine with linear kernel. As a result, it was seen that divided attention could be more difficult to determine from selective attention, but successful classification could be obtained with appropriate methods. Contrary to literature, the study deals with the infrastructure of attention types by working on a completely healthy and attention-high group. Graphical abstract.

Effect of Vitamin E Administration on Learning of the Young Male Rats.

The effect of vitamin E intake on spatial learning and working memory performances of young rats has been investigated in the Morris water maze and locomotor activity has been assessed by an open-field test. A total of 45 young male Wistar albino rats aged two months were divided into three equal groups: control, olive oil, and vitamin E groups. These groups were treated for 30 days with a once daily intraperitoneal injection. The rats were then tested for their ability to find the location of the platform (spatial learning). The results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between the time spent to find the platform and the time spent in half area of the tank, including the platform among the group, while the time spent to find the platform was found to have increased from the first day to the fourth day in all the groups. In the open-field test, the locomotor activity quite significantly increased in the peripheral area in the olive oil group. The supplementation with vitamin E for a short period had not improved the learning performance of the healthy young rats. It was concluded that the beneficial effect of vitamin E intake on learning is related to the beginning time and the duration of vitamin E intake.

Maternal intake of Omega-3 essential fatty acids improves long term potentiation in the dentate gyrus and Morris water maze performance in rats.

Omega-3 fatty acid deprivation during development reduces performance in learning tasks, and dietary DHA supplementation improves learning ability and enhances long term memory in both young and old animals. However, little attention has been paid to the effect of maternal intake of Omega-3 fatty acids on hippocampal function in their pups. Randomly some of the pregnant dams were supplemented with Omega-3 essential fatty acid, others with tap-water, during pregnancy and breast-feeding by gavage daily. Spatial learning and memory was tested in Morris water maze. Field potentials from the dentate gyrus were recorded in response to medial perforant pathway in urethane-anesthetized pups. Omega-3-treated rats found the platform less traveled and closer to platform than control animals. However the pups from both groups show the same performance in retrieval task. No differences were found between corresponding animal groups in the input-output curves of the field potential slopes, suggesting no effect of Omega-3 supplementation on basal synaptic efficacy. Potentiation of population spike amplitude was much higher in pups of Omega-3 treated dams than control. Up to now Omega 3 fatty acid has been shown to be beneficial on the synaptic plasticity only under some pathological conditions. For the first time, we showed improved dentate gyrus-LTP and enhanced Morris water maze performance in healthy pups from healthy dams treated with Omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy and breast-feeding period. Molecular studies are needed to explain Omega-3 effect on hippocampal synaptic plasticity.

Dose-related anxiogenic effect of glycine in the elevated plus maze and in electrodermal activity.

We investigated effect of glycine on anxiety at different doses using electrodermal activity and an elevated-plus maze. A single dose of glycine was injected intraperitoneally into three different groups of mice at 250 mg/kg, 750 mg/kg, and 1250 mg/kg. The anxiety scores with the elevated-plus maze, consisting of two open arms and two enclosed arms, were measured 30 minutes after injection. Then skin conductance level was measured. Glycine significantly decreased the times spent on the open arms in middle-dose and high-dose groups compared with the control group. The skin conductance level was statistically lower in high dose group than control groups. Conclusion; glycine at a dose of 750 mg/kg induced a nearly maximal anxiogenic effect because a higher dose was not more effective.

Arousal and continuous attention during Ramadan intermittent fasting.

During the month of Ramadan, practicing Muslims abstain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. We aimed to investigate the effect of Ramadan fasting on arousal and continuous attention. The electrodermal activity and cancellation test of students were measured in fasting and non-fasting conditions after the conclusion of the Ramadan fast period. The skin conductance level of the fasting group was no different from the non-fasting group. In non-fasting group, the skin conductance response amplitude to an auditory stimulus was higher and the skin conductance response onset latency was lower than in the fasting group. Cancellation test results: the fasting group had a lower total number of marked targets (TNTM) but a higher total number of missed targets (TNMT) and length of time for the subject to complete the test (LTCT) than the non-fasting group. Ramadan fasting did not change arousal, but the reaction time to an auditory stimulus increased during the Ramadan intermittent fasting. Both reaction amplitude and continuous attention also decreased in the fasting condition.

Effect of PUVA therapy on electrodermal activity parameters in vitiligo patients.

UNLABELLED: Recent electrophysiological studies on autonomic dysfunction in vitiligo patients show an autonomic dysfunction as measured by absent sympathetic skin response (SSR). Nothing is known about the reversibility of these autonomic parameters with treatment. The present study examined how Electrodermal Activity (EDA) parameters were affected from vitiligo illness before PUVA therapy and whether any electrophysiological gains acquired from PUVA therapy would influence the progression of the condition itself. We studied in 14 healthy subjectS and 14 patients with generalized vitiligo before and after treatment. EDA was recorded with a skin conductance unit connected to a personal computer. Before treatment, skin conductance level (SCL) and habituation number (HN) was higher in vitiligo group than control groups. After treatment, SCL and HN were decreased nearly to normal value. Before and after treatment, prevalence of non-responsivity was higher in vitiligo group than controls. CONCLUSION: The sympathetic nervous system might have a particular role in the pathogenesis of vitiligo. Thus, patients with vitiligo may have changes to EDA parameters that are reversible to great extent with PUVA therapy. EDA is a useful method of studying the autonomic dysfunction in humans.

Sex-related differences in time estimation and the role of expectancy.

In this study, using auditory sequences, the authors designed an examination with three phases of stimulus-driven attention that is based on the possibility that involuntarily time shifts of attention are caused by nonunique stimulus properties. The purpose was to investigate whether attending and temporal expectancies are influenced by stimulus's properties and by sex. In each phase, an auditory stimulus train was presented, and the participant was asked to tap rhythmically in order to anticipate every fifth stimulus (or, in the third phase, the lack of it). The time between button pressing and stimulus onset was measured using a computer. Time estimation was accepted as a false response if the subject responded before 150 ms or 150 ms later from onset stimulus time. Error numbers were greater in Phase 3 and there was no significant difference between the male and female subjects for any of the phases when error numbers were compared. On the other hand, males pressed the button more accurately than females. Time estimation performance was affected by sex and expectancy-related motor responses are very important for time estimation.

Effects of cigarette smoking on cognitive processing.

Several previous studies have reported that cigarette smoking enhances performance of cognitive processing. These enhancements are generally attributed to the pharmacological effects of nicotine, while there is some debate whether the effects of smoking/nicotine are a result of recovery from abstinence. Evoked potentials (EPs) and event related potentials (ERPs) of the brain have been applied as an index of information processing in a wide variety of normal and cognitive impaired subjects. This study was carried out on 20 healthy students (23 +/- 2.3 years old) from the medical faculty of City University. Study population comprised ten chronic cigarette smokers consuming an average of 14 +/- 4.2 cigarettes per day, with a history of smoking for more than one year. Ten non -smokers served as control. Standard oddball paradigm was presented, and EEG activity was recorded at the Fz, Cz, Pz electrode sites. Twenty responses to target stimuli were averaged at each location. N1, P2, N2, and P300 components were evaluated in these recordings. Amplitudes were measured relative to prestimulus baseline, and peak latencies were defined as the time point of maximum amplitude. It was found that there were no significant differences between either N1, P2, N2, P300 amplitudes or peak latency values of cigarette smokers and non smokers. As a result, chronic cigarette smoking generally does not improve cognitive processing.

The effect of immobilization stress on sensory gating in mice.

Central sensory filtering processes can be demonstrated using a paired stimulus paradigm. Normal humans show a diminished, vertex-recorded mid-latency (50 ms) of auditory evoked potential to the second of paired clicks (0.5 s apart), a phenomenon termed as auditory gating. A loss of 50 ms in auditory gating is strongly related to psychosis. The N40 auditory evoked potential (EP) in rats has been used to develop an animal model for the study of sensory gating mechanisms. Previous animal studies of auditory gating have used psychotomimetic drug administration to induce sensory gating. However, a nonpharmacologic model of deficient gating would be advantageous. In the present study we investigated the effect of immobilization stress on sensory gating in twelve adult male mice. Evoked responses to the paired auditory click stimuli from vertex location of scalp were recorded using a silver needle electrode, a bioelectric amplifier, and an analog-digital converter. The mice were exposed to immobilization stress (IS) for 3 h. Data showed that the N40 potential was depressed in response to the second of the paired stimuli before application immobilization stress. At the end of the 3-h immobilization, the depression of the second N40 response was not observed. It was concluded that sensory gating is present in the mice and acutely disrupted by stressful stimuli, as shown in human subjects and rats.

Evaluation of auditory evoked potentials from the inferior colliculus in rat.

This study aimed to investigate the usefulness of auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) in rats. To this end, N1, P2 latencies, and the N1-P2 amplitude of responses to different acoustic stimuli from rats, which were implanted with permanent electrodes in the inferior colliculus (IC), were evaluated and used to demonstrate the frequency characteristics of IC region. Permanent electrodes were implanted in IC regions of 7 male albino rats by the stereotaxic method. The animals were exposed to five tones series of stimuli (1000 Hz, 2000 Hz, 4000 Hz, 6000 Hz, and 8000 Hz tones with 1500 ms interstimulus intervals) of 70 dB with a duration of 1000 ms. AEPs) were recorded and analyzed with the Brain-Data Acquisition system. There were no statistically significant differences in N1, P2 latencies, and the N1-P2 amplitude of AEPs from IC regions of rats as a result of changes in the frequency of stimulus. It was determined that the dominant frequency activity of the IC to acoustic stimulus was theta-alpha band, with theta as the peak frequency.