Mood Responses to Passive and Active Motion Leg Cycling Exercise in Healthy Sedentary Young Adults.

Previous studies suggest that passive motion exercise (PME) may be useful for overcoming exercise limitations associated with a sedentary lifestyle, orthopedic disorders, and various other debilitating conditions. Negative mood response is one of the factors that limit a person's ability to exercise. Therefore, this study tests the hypothesis that the mood response associated with PME is not different than the mood response associated with active motion exercise (AME). Eight women and seven men participated in the study and were administrated the Profile of Mood States (POMS) during modes of PME and AME in a randomized order. Outcome of the POMS consisted of the total mood disturbance score [(feelings of tension + depression + fatigue + anger + confusion) - vigor]. ANOVA was used to determine significance of differences in total mood disturbance, oxygen uptake (V.O2), and middle cerebral blood flow velocity (MCAv) at baseline and immediately after 30-minute conditions of PME and AME. Postexercise total mood disturbance score was significantly decreased for both conditions (PME baseline 29.2 ± 5.2 vs. postexercise 16.4 ± 6.8, P < 0.05) and AME baseline 22.4 ± 4.4 vs. postexercise 13.1 ± 5.2, P < 0.05). These senses of changes in feelings were associated with significant physiological increases in V.O2 and MCAv during both PME and AME (P < 0.05). These results demonstrate that physiological and mood responses to passive and active motion cycling exercise are not different. Future studies should determine whether passive motion cycling exercise is a useful preventive medicine strategy for overcoming various disease-related exercise limitations and counteracting the adverse effects of sedentary lifestyles.

qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance.

OBJECTIVES: Attentional and memory functions are important aspects of neural plasticity that, theoretically, should be amenable to pharmacopuncture treatments. A previous study from our laboratory suggested that quantitative electroencephalographic (qEEG) measurements of theta/beta ratio (TBR), an index of attentional control, may be indicative of academic performance in a first-semester medical school course. The present study expands our prior report by extracting and analyzing data on frontal theta and beta asymmetries. We test the hypothesis that the amount of frontal theta and beta asymmetries (fTA, fBA), are correlated with TBR and academic performance, thereby providing novel targets for pharmacopuncture treatments to improve cognitive performance. METHODS: Ten healthy male volunteers were subjected to 5-10 min of qEEG measurements under eyes-closed conditions. The qEEG measurements were performed 3 days before each of first two block examinations in anatomy-physiology, separated by five weeks. Amplitudes of the theta and beta waveforms, expressed in µV, were used to compute TBR, fTA and fBA. Significance of changes in theta and beta EEG wave amplitude was assessed by ANOVA with post-hoc t-testing. Correlations between TBR, fTA, fBA and the raw examination scores were evaluated by Pearson's product-moment coefficients and linear regression analysis. RESULTS: fTA and fBA were found to be negatively correlated with TBR (P<0.03, P<0.05, respectively) and were positively correlated with the second examination score (P<0.03, P=0.1, respectively). CONCLUSION: Smaller fTA and fBA were associated with lower academic performance in the second of two first-semester medical school anatomy-physiology block examination. Future studies should determine whether these qEEG metrics are useful for monitoring changes associated with the brain's cognitive adaptations to academic challenges, for predicting academic performance and for targeting phamacopuncture treatments to improve cognitive performance.

Association of Endothelial Function with Parental Hypertension in Normotensive-Obese African-American Women: A Pilot Study.

Obese African-American (AA) women are at high risk of hypertension (HT) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) and arterial augmentation index (AI) are measures of endothelial function and arterial stiffness. Whether endothelial function and arterial stiffness predict risk of HT or CVD in obese African-American women with, versus without, parental histories of HT and whether aerobic exercise is an effective countermeasure remain unclear. The capacity for FMD is partly heritable. Therefore, we tested the hypotheses that less FMD and greater AI may be found in normotensive-obese, young-adult (18-26 year-old) AA women with hypertensive parents (n=10) than in a matched control group with normotensive parents (n=10) and that a single bout of aerobic exercise improves both endothelial function and arterial stiffness, with less improvement in the women with hypertensive parents. We studied each subject while at rest, 20 min before and 20 min after, 30 min of aerobic exercise. The exercise-induced changes and parental hypertension-related differences in AI were not significant. The exercise increased FMD in both of the groups with no significant difference in magnitude between the women with hypertensive and normotensive parents. FMD was significantly less in the women with hypertensive parents than in the women with normotensive parents after, but not before, the exercise (mean ±95% confidence interval of 11.3 ± 4.9% vs. 15.6 ± 4.9%, P=0.05). These findings suggest that a 30-min bout of aerobic exercise may improve FMD and unmask endothelial dysfunction in normotensive-obese, young-adult AA women with parental histories of HT. Future studies should determine whether regular aerobic exercise protects obese AA women from the endothelial dysfunction associated with diabetes and prevents CVD in this high-risk population.

Effects of land use on surface-atmosphere exchanges of trace gases and energy in Borneo: comparing fluxes over oil palm plantations and a rainforest.

This paper reports measurements of land-atmosphere fluxes of sensible and latent heat, momentum, CO(2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), NO, NO(2), N(2)O and O(3) over a 30 m high rainforest canopy and a 12 m high oil palm plantation in the same region of Sabah in Borneo between April and July 2008. The daytime maximum CO(2) flux to the two canopies differs by approximately a factor of 2, 1200 mg C m(-2) h(-1) for the oil palm and 700 mg C m(-2) h(-1) for the rainforest, with the oil palm plantation showing a substantially greater quantum efficiency. Total VOC emissions are also larger over the oil palm than over the rainforest by a factor of 3. Emissions of isoprene from the oil palm canopy represented 80 per cent of the VOC emissions and exceeded those over the rainforest in similar light and temperature conditions by on average a factor of 5. Substantial emissions of estragole (1-allyl-4-methoxybenzene) from the oil palm plantation were detected and no trace of this VOC was detected in or above the rainforest. Deposition velocities for O(3) to the rainforest were a factor of 2 larger than over oil palm. Emissions of nitrous oxide were larger from the soils of the oil palm plantation than from the soils of the rainforest by approximately 25 per cent. It is clear from the measurements that the large change in the species composition generated by replacing rainforest with oil palm leads to profound changes in the net exchange of most of the trace gases measured, and thus on the chemical composition of the boundary layer over these surfaces.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of 2-(4-fluorophenoxy)-2-phenyl-ethyl piperazines as serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors with a potentially improved adverse reaction profile.

Three new 2-(4-fluorophenoxy)-2-phenyl-ethyl piperazines, 1-(3-chlorophenyl)-4-[2-(4-fluorophenoxy)-2-phenylethyl]-piperazine 7, 1-[2-(4-fluorophenoxy)-2-phenylethyl]-4-(2-methoxyphenyl)-piperazine 8, and 1-[2-(4-fluorophenoxy)-2-phenylethyl]-4-(3-trifluoromethylphenyl)-piperazine 9, modeled after the potent antidepressant fluoxetine and coupled with several functionalized piperazines, have been prepared by chemical synthesis as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) with a potentially improved adverse reaction profile. Typical SSRIs, although very effective in the treatment of depression, still face the troublesome side effect of sexual dysfunction. A number of pharmacological agents-notably, drugs in the piperazine class-have been used to reverse SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction, and evidence for developing an improved SSRI by coupling a fluoxetine congener with the pharmacophore of a reversal agent holds promise. Preliminary data indicates that the hydrochloride (HCl) salts 10, 11, and 12 each exhibit single-site binding at the site of the serotonin reuptake transporter (SERT). However, each of the three compounds are much less potent than typical SSRIs, showing micromolar (microM) affinity for the SERT with IC(50) values of 1.45 microM, 3.27 microM, and 9.56 microM, respectively. Further biological evaluation of compounds 10, 11, and 12 is needed before definitive conclusions can be made with regard to each compound's potential for use as an SSRI-type candidate which is devoid of sexual side effects. Nevertheless, the initial findings are quite encouraging, thus lending credence to the idea of hybridizing an SSRI congener with that of the pharmacophore of an agent known to reverse or treat SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction.

Micrometeorological measurements of the urban heat budget and CO2 emissions on a city scale.

Direct measurements of urban CO2 emissions and heat fluxes are presented, made using the eddy covariance technique. The measurements were made from the top of a tower, approximately 65 m above the street level of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the fluxes are representative of footprint source areas of several square kilometers. The application of a stationarity test and spectral analysis techniques shows that at this height, the stationarity criterion for eddy covariance is fulfilled for wind directions from the city center for 93% of the time, while for other wind directions this declines to 59%, demonstrating that pollutant fluxes from urban areas can be measured. The average CO2 emission from the city center was 26 micromol m(-2) s(-1) (10 kt of C km(-2) yr(-1)), with typical daytime peaks of 50-75 and nighttime values of 10 micromol m(-2) s(-1). The correlation between CO2 emission and traffic flow is highly significant, while residential and institutional heating with natural gas are estimated to contribute about 39% to the emissions during the day and 64% at night. An analysis of the energy budget shows that, during the autumn, fossil fuel combustion within the city contributed one-third of the daily anthropogenic energy input of 3.8 MJ m(-2) d(-1), with the remainder coming from other energy sources, dominated by electricity. Conversely, the total energy input in late spring (May/June) was found to be approximately half this value.