Determination of nitroimidazole antibiotics based on dispersive solid-phase extraction combined with capillary electrophoresis.

For a long time, the detection of nitroimidazole antibiotics (NIABs) has been a research focus in environmental analytical chemistry. In this work, a novel technique for the analysis of nitroimidazoles was established based on capillary electrophoresis (CE). UiO-66, synthesized using a solvothermal method, was utilized as an adsorbent in the dispersive solid-phase extraction (DSPE) of five different NIABs. The separation and detection of NIABs in environmental water samples were accomplished using the CE diode array detection method. The optimal extraction conditions were obtained after systematically studying the effects of adsorption time, the amount of extractant, and elution solvent on extraction efficiency. According to the results of the study, the limit of detections of the five NIABs were between 16 and 97 ng/mL, the relative standard deviations were between 0.32% and 0.55%, and the spike recoveries were between 87.43% and 104.8%. This study presents a novel technique for measuring NIABs in complex water samples.

Peptide nanotube/hemin composite with enhanced peroxidase activity for the detection of dopamine in food and drug samples.

Inspired by natural enzymes, artificial enzymes have been widely studied due to their ease of mass production, robustness to harsh environments and high stability. In this work, a peptide nanotube/hemin composite (KL@hemin) as an artificial enzyme was prepared by immobilizing hemin onto self-assembled peptide nanotubes (PNTs). The successful loading of hemin was determined by a series of characterizations. The multiple noncovalent interactions between the PNTs and hemin endow KL@hemin with strong stability. Subsequent enzyme activity tests showed that the prepared KL@hemin exhibited enhanced peroxidase activity. Further experiments indicate that PNTs as carriers can not only protect hemin from dimerization to maintainenzyme activity but also increase the affinity of hemin to the substrate for faster binding and accelerate mass transfer, thus promoting the whole catalytic process. Coupled with a peroxidase-catalyzed chromogenic system, a colorimetric method for dopamine detection was constructed based on KL@hemin. The strategy shows high sensitivity and selectivity and has been applied to the determination of dopamine in dopamine injection and meat samples.

Neural correlates for word-frequency effect in Chinese natural reading.

Word frequency effect has always been of interest for reading research because of its critical role in exploring mental processing underlying reading behaviors. Access to word frequency information has long been considered an indicator of the beginning of lexical processing and the most sensitive marker for studying when the brain begins to extract semantic information Sereno & Rayner, Brain and Cognition, 42, 78-81, (2000), Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 489-493, (2003). While the word frequency effect has been extensively studied in numerous eye-tracking and traditional EEG research using the RSVP paradigm, there is a lack of corresponding evidence in studies of natural reading. To find the neural correlates of the word frequency effect, we conducted a study of Chinese natural reading using EEG and eye-tracking coregistration to examine the time course of lexical processing. Our results reliably showed that the word frequency effect first appeared in the N200 time window and the bilateral occipitotemporal regions. Additionally, the word frequency effect was reflected in the N400 time window, spreading from the occipital region to the central parietal and frontal regions. Our current study provides the first neural correlates for word-frequency effect in natural Chinese reading so far, shedding new light on understanding lexical processing in natural reading and could serve as an important basis for further reading study when considering neural correlates in a realistic manner.

Glaucoma Rehabilitation Using ElectricAI Transcranial Stimulation (GREAT)-Optimizing Stimulation Protocol for Vision Enhancement Using an RCT.

Purpose: We compared the effect of three different transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) protocols delivered to the occipital lobe on peripheral vision in patients with glaucoma. Methods: A double-masked, placebo-controlled study was conducted with 35 patients with glaucoma. We compared three different tES protocols: anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS), transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), and transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) against sham stimulation. Each patient attended four stimulation sessions (a-tDCS, tACS, tRNS, and sham) in a random order with at least 48 hours between visits. Stimulation involved placing an anodal electrode over the occipital lobe (Oz) and cathodal electrode on the cheek for 20 minutes. High-resolution perimetry (HRP) and multifocal visual evoked potential (mfVEP) measurements were made before and immediately after stimulation. Changes in HRP detection accuracy/reaction time and mfVEP signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)/latency were analyzed using linear mixed models. Results: Compared to sham, HRP detection accuracy was significantly improved after a-tDCS in both the central 20-degree (b = 0.032, P = 0.018) and peripheral analysis (b = 0.051, P = 0.002). Additionally, mfVEP SNR was significantly increased (b = 0.016, P = 0.017) and the latency was shortened (b = -1.405, P = 0.04) by the a-tDCS in the central 20-degree analysis. In the peripheral analysis, there was a trend toward an enhancement of SNR after a-tDCS stimulation (b = 0.014, P = 0.052), but it did not reach statistical significance; latency was increased after tACS (b = 1.623, P = 0.041). No significant effects were found in comparison to other active tES protocols. Conclusions: A single session of a-tDCS enhances perceptual and electrophysiologic measures of vision in patients with glaucoma. However, the small magnitude of changes observed in HRP (3.2% for accuracy in central and 5.1% in peripheral) did not exceed previous test variability and may not be clinically meaningful. Translational Relevance: a-tDCS holds promise as a potential treatment for enhancing visual function. However, future studies are needed to evaluate the long-term effects and clinical relevance of this intervention using validated measures of perimetric changes in the visual field.

Glaucoma Rehabilitation using ElectricAI Transcranial Stimulation (GREAT)-study protocol for randomized controlled trial using combined perceptual learning and transcranial electrical stimulation for vision enhancement.

BACKGROUND: Glaucoma patients with irreversible visual field loss often experience decreased quality of life, impaired mobility, and mental health challenges. Perceptual learning (PL) and transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) have emerged as promising interventions for vision rehabilitation, showing potential in restoring residual visual functions. The Glaucoma Rehabilitation using ElectricAI Transcranial stimulation (GREAT) project aims to investigate whether combining PL and tES is more effective than using either method alone in maximizing the visual function of glaucoma patients. Additionally, the study will assess the impact of these interventions on brain neural activity, blood biomarkers, mobility, mental health, quality of life, and fear of falling. METHODS: The study employs a three-arm, double-blind, randomized, superiority-controlled design. Participants are randomly allocated in a 1:1:1 ratio to one of three groups receiving: (1) real PL and real tES, (2) real PL and sham tES, and (3) placebo PL and sham tES. Each participant undergoes 10 sessions per block (~ 1 h each), with a total of three blocks. Assessments are conducted at six time points: baseline, interim 1, interim 2, post-intervention, 1-month post-intervention, and 2-month post-intervention. The primary outcome is the mean deviation of the 24-2 visual field measured by the Humphrey visual field analyzer. Secondary outcomes include detection rate in the suprathreshold visual field, balance and gait functions, and electrophysiological and biological responses. This study also investigates changes in neurotransmitter metabolism, biomarkers, self-perceived quality of life, and psychological status before and after the intervention. DISCUSSION: The GREAT project is the first study to assess the effectiveness of PL and tES in the rehabilitation of glaucoma. Our findings will offer comprehensive assessments of the impact of these treatments on a wide range of brain and vision-related metrics including visual field, neural activity, biomarkers, mobility, mental health, fear of falling, and quality of life. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05874258 . Registered on May 15, 2023.

Sex differences in noradrenergic modulation of attention and impulsivity in rats.

RATIONALE: Noradrenaline (NE) is closely related to attentive performance and impulsive control. However, the potential sex differences regarding attention and impulsivity under the noradrenergic modulation have been largely neglected. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate whether male and female rats exhibit differential responses to NE-related drugs during the five-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRT). METHODS: Male and female rats were trained in 5CSRT and administered with different NE drugs after obtaining stable baseline performance: atipamezole, a highly selective α2 receptor antagonist; prazosin, an α1 receptor antagonist; and atomoxetine, a selective NE reuptake inhibitor. Later, prazosin was selected to co-administration with atomoxetine. RESULTS: Male and female rats exhibited equal learning speed, and no significant baseline differences were found as measured by the 5CSRT. Atomoxetine decreased premature responses in both sexes, but the extent of this reduction was different, with the reduction greater in males. Besides, atomoxetine (1.8 mg/kg) increased the error of omissions in females. The high dose of prazosin (0.5 mg/kg) decreased the accuracy only in male rats, but this was ameliorated by the co-administration with atomoxetine. CONCLUSIONS: Atomoxetine showed significant improvement in impulsivity, but atomoxetine had less beneficial effects on impulsive control in females than in males, and it even impaired attentional performance in female rats. The α1 receptors were mainly responsible for NE drug-related sex differences in attention rather than impulsivity. The results obtained in this study indicate that the sex differences exist in both attention and impulsivity by the modulation of noradrenaline and raise the concern to improve sex-specific treatments.

Temporal recalibration in vision requires location-based binding.

Occupying the same location and occurring at the same time are the essential spatial and temporal factors for different features of a natural event or object to be integrated. Audio-visual temporal recalibration, as a temporal integration mechanism, refers to the brain's capacity to perceive simultaneity by adjusting for differential delays in the transmission of auditory and visual signals. Co-localization of auditory and visual information, however, is found not to be necessary for audio-visual temporal recalibration to occur. Here, we show that after exposure to a time lag between a visual flash and a visual collision, simultaneity responses were shifted toward an adapt lag in a bound condition where the flash and collision belonged to the same object but not in a separate condition where the flash and collision belonged to spatially separated objects. The results demonstrate that location-based binding is a requisite for temporal recalibration within the visual modality. Our finding suggests that the brain takes the modality difference in object localization into consideration when integrating temporally asynchronous signals.

Interference of Illusory Contour Perception by a Distractor.

The visual system is capable of recognizing objects when object information is widely separated in space, as revealed by the Kanizsa-type illusory contours (ICs). Attentional involvement in perception of ICs is an important topic, and the present study examined whether and how the processing of ICs is interfered with by a distractor. Discrimination between thin and short deformations of an illusory circle was investigated in the absence or presence of a central dynamic patch, with difficulty of discrimination varied in three levels (easy, medium, and hard). Reaction time (RT) was significantly shorter in the absence compared to the presence of the distractor in the easy and medium conditions. Correct rate (CR) was significantly higher in the absence compared to the presence of the distractor in the easy condition, and the magnitude of the difference between CRs of distracted and non-distracted responses significantly reduced as task difficulty increased. These results suggested that perception of ICs is more likely to be vulnerable to distraction when more attentional resources remain available. The present finding supports that attention is engaged in perception of ICs and that distraction of IC processing is associated with perceptual load.

Synchronization to auditory and visual beats in Parkinson's disease.

The ability to move in synchrony with a perceived regular beat in time is essential for humans to interact with environments in an anticipatory manner, and the basal ganglia have been shown to be preferentially involved in beat processing. Auditory beats are often adopted in assessing the sensorimotor deficiency of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), which is characterized by basal ganglia dysfunction. Whereas beat synchronization has long been considered to be specific to the auditory modality, recent studies employing moving instead of static visual stimuli have shown comparable synchronization performances of auditory and visual beats. Here, we show that compared with control subjects, synchronization stability of PD patients significantly decreased for beats composed of visual contracting rings but not for beats consisting of auditory tones or static visual flashes. The results revealed specific impairment of visual beat synchronization in PD. Considering the common experience of visuomotor interactions in daily lives of PD patients, the present finding emphasizes the importance of evaluation of visuomotor timing deficiency in PD by employing moving visual stimuli that have ecological relevance.

The role of dopamine D1- and D2-like receptors related to muscarinic M1 receptors in impulsive choice in high-impulsive and low-impulsive rats.

The non-selective muscarinic receptor agonist oxotremorine-M has been found to decrease impulsive choice in high-impulsive (HI) rats and increase impulsive choice in low-impulsive (LI) rats, but little is known about the muscarinic M1 receptor agonist N-desmethylclozapine (NDMC). This study investigated effects of NDMC on impulsive choice, and the effect of co-administration of NDMC with the dopamine D1-like receptor antagonist SCH 23390 or D2-like receptor antagonist raclopride on impulsive choice in HI and LI rats, characterized by basal levels of impulsive choice in a delay-discounting task. The results revealed that NDMC (1 and 2 mg/kg) significantly increased impulsive choice in HI, but not LI rats. SCH 23390 significantly promoted impulsive choice in HI rats at 0.01 mg/kg, and in LI rats at 0.0075 and 0.01 mg/kg. Moreover, SCH 23390 (0.005 and 0.0075 mg/kg) significantly inhibited the increase in impulsive choice induced by NDMC (1 mg/kg) in HI rats, whereas the increase in impulsive choice produced by SCH 23390 (0.0075 mg/kg) was significantly reversed by NDMC (1 mg/kg) in LI rats. Raclopride (0.04, 0.08, and 0.12 mg/kg) did not affect choice in both HI and LI rats, but significantly antagonized the increase in impulsive choice induced by NDMC (1 mg/kg) in HI rats. These findings suggest that D1- and D2-like receptors might be involved in different effects of the M1 receptor agonist on impulsive choice between HI and LI rats.

A working memory task reveals different patterns of impulsivity in male and female college students.

Impulsivity is an important personality trait that affects people's lives every day. Because of the complicated structures and various measurements of impulsivity, the conclusion that whether there were gender differences on impulsivity remained controversial. In our study, we used delay discounting and probability discounting to measure impulsive choice and employed stop signal reaction time task (SSRT) to measure impulsive action within the same subjects. No inherent gender differences were found, either on impulsive choice or on impulsive action. However, after adding a working memory (WM) task, we found an interaction between gender and WM: males made more impulsive choices in the delay discounting task, but females remained no change, and this only occurred when the reward amount was large; in the SSRT, the males showed better inhibitory control under the WM load condition, but females did not. These results demonstrate that gender difference does not exist on impulsivity biologically, but the increased working memory load could affect the gender's sense of delay gratification and the ability of inhibitory control differently. These findings can contribute to the studies of gender differences on impulsivity and draw attention to the need for further research that gender factors should be considered more carefully when exploring the effects of working memory.

Evidence for retrovirus and paramyxovirus infection of multiple bat species in china.

Bats are recognized reservoirs for many emerging zoonotic viruses of public health importance. Identifying and cataloguing the viruses of bats is a logical approach to evaluate the range of potential zoonoses of bat origin. We characterized the fecal pathogen microbiome of both insectivorous and frugivorous bats, incorporating 281 individual bats comprising 20 common species, which were sampled in three locations of Yunnan province, by combining reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays and next-generation sequencing. Seven individual bats were paramyxovirus-positive by RT-PCR using degenerate primers, and these paramyxoviruses were mainly classified into three genera (Rubulavirus, Henipavirus and Jeilongvirus). Various additional novel pathogens were detected in the paramyxovirus-positive bats using Illumina sequencing. A total of 7066 assembled contigs (≥200 bp) were constructed, and 105 contigs matched eukaryotic viruses (of them 103 belong to 2 vertebrate virus families, 1 insect virus, and 1 mycovirus), 17 were parasites, and 4913 were homologous to prokaryotic microorganisms. Among the 103 vertebrate viral contigs, 79 displayed low identity (<70%) to known viruses including human viruses at the amino acid level, suggesting that these belong to novel and genetically divergent viruses. Overall, the most frequently identified viruses, particularly in bats from the family Hipposideridae, were retroviruses. The present study expands our understanding of the bat virome in species commonly found in Yunnan, China, and provides insight into the overall diversity of viruses that may be capable of directly or indirectly crossing over into humans.