Exercise intervention in middle-aged and elderly individuals with insomnia improves sleep and restores connectivity in the motor network.

Exercise is a potential treatment to improve sleep quality in middle-aged and elderly individuals. Understanding exercise-induced changes in functional plasticity of brain circuits that underlie improvements in sleep among middle-aged and older adults can inform treatment of sleep problems. The aim of the study is to identify the effects of a 12-week exercise program on sleep quality and brain functional connectivity in middle-aged and older adults with insomnia. The trial was registered with Chinese Clinical Trial Register (ChiCTR2000033652). We recruited 84 healthy sleepers and 85 individuals with insomnia. Participants with insomnia were assigned to receive either a 12-week exercise intervention or were placed in a 12-week waitlist control condition. Thirty-seven middle-aged and older adults in the exercise group and 30 in the waitlist group completed both baseline and week 12 assessments. We found that middle-aged and older adults with insomnia showed significantly worse sleep quality than healthy sleepers. At the brain circuit level, insomnia patients showed decreased connectivity in the widespread motor network. After exercise intervention, self-reported sleep was increased in the exercise group (P < 0.001) compared to that in the waitlist group. We also found increased functional connectivity of the motor network with the cerebellum in the exercise group (P < 0.001). Moreover, we observed significant correlations between improvement in subjective sleep indices and connectivity changes within the motor network. We highlight exercise-induced improvement in sleep quality and functional plasticity of the aging brain.

Does a Recycling Carbon Tax with Technological Progress in Clean Electricity Drive the Green Economy?

The environmental issue is a significant challenge that China faces in leading the development of the green economy. In this context, reducing CO2 emissions is the key to combatting this problem. Taking the 2017 social accounting matrix (SAM) as the database and combing macroeconomic parameters from previous studies, this article constructed the environmentally computable general equilibrium (CGE) model as an analytical model to analyze the economic-environmental-energy impacts of recycling carbon tax with technological progress in clean electricity. We found that when the rate of clean electricity technological progress reaches 10%, the carbon recycling tax that reduces corporate income taxes will achieve a triple dividend of the carbon tax, namely, promoting economic development, reducing carbon emissions, and improving social welfare. In the meantime, on the basis of carbon tax policies that raise the price of fossil energy, clean electricity technological progress will help accelerate the transformation of electricity structure, reduce the proportion of thermal power generation, and better promote emission reduction. In addition, due to the high carbon emission coefficient, coal contributes significantly to carbon emission reduction. Therefore, China should implement a carbon tax recycling policy supplemented by the progress of clean power technology as soon as possible to better promote green economy development.

Spatial Correlation of Air Pollution and Its Causes in Northeast China.

To understand the status of air pollution in northeastern China, we explore the structure of air pollution transmission networks and propose targeted policy recommendations. Using air pollution data from 35 cities in northeastern China for a total of 879 periods from 6 January 2015 to 3 June 2017, this paper used social network analysis (SNA) to construct a spatial association network of air pollution in the region, and analyzed the spatial association of air pollution among cities and its causes in an attempt to reveal the transmission path of air pollution in the region. The results show that inter-city air pollution in northeast China forms a complex and stable correlation network with obvious seasonal differences of "high in winter and low in summer". Different cities in the region play the roles of "spillover", "intermediary" and "receiver" of air pollution in the network. Small respirable particulate (PM2.5) pollution constitutes a significant component of air pollution in northeast China, which spreads from Liaoning province to Heilongjiang province via Jilin province. Therefore, regional joint pollution prevention and control measures should be adopted to combat the air pollution problem, and different treatment measures should be developed for different city "roles" in the pollution network, in order to fundamentally solve the air pollution problem in the region.

A substantia innominata-midbrain circuit controls a general aggressive response.

Although aggressive behaviors are universal and essential for survival, "uncontrollable" and abnormal aggressive behaviors in animals or humans may have severe adverse consequences or social costs. Neural circuits regulating specific forms of aggression under defined conditions have been described, but how brain circuits govern a general aggressive response remains unknown. Here, we found that posterior substantia innominata (pSI) neurons responded to several aggression-provoking cues with the graded activity of differential dynamics, predicting the aggressive state and the topography of aggression in mice. Activation of pSI neurons projecting to the periaqueductal gray (PAG) increased aggressive arousal and robustly initiated/promoted all the types of aggressive behavior examined in an activity-level-dependent manner. Inactivation of the pSI circuit largely blocked diverse aggressive behaviors but not mating. By encoding a general aggressive response, the pSI-PAG circuit universally drives multiple aggressive behaviors and may provide a potential target for alleviating human pathological aggression.