Mechanisms of Action Anticipation in Table Tennis Players: A Multivoxel Pattern Analysis Study.

An exceptional ability to accurately anticipate an opponent's action is paramount for competitive athletes and highlights their experiential mastery. Despite conventional associations of action observation with specific brain regions, neuroimaging discrepancies persist. To explore the brain regions and neural mechanisms undergirding action anticipation, we compared distinct brain activation patterns involved in table tennis serve anticipation of expert table tennis athletes vs. non-experts by using both univariate analysis and multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA). We collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 29 table tennis experts and 34 non-experts as they pressed a button to predict the trajectory of a ball in a table tennis serve video truncated at the moment of racket-ball contact vs. pressing any button while viewing a static image of the first video frame. MVPA was applied to assess whether it could accurately differentiate experts from non-experts. MVPA results indicated moderate accuracy (90.48%) for differentiating experts from non-experts. Brain regions contributing most to the differentiation included the left cerebellum, the vermis, the right middle temporal pole, the inferior parietal cortex, the bilateral paracentral lobule, and the left supplementary motor area. The findings suggest that brain regions associated with cognitive conflict monitoring and motor cognition contribute to the action anticipation ability of expert table tennis players.

Task relevance alters the effect of emotion on congruency judgments during action understanding.

The congruency judgments in action understanding helps individuals make timely adjustments to unexpected occurrence, and this process may be influenced by emotion. Previous research has showed contradictory effect of emotion on conflict processing, possibly due to the degree of relevance between emotion and task. However, to date, no study has systematically manipulated the relevance to explore how emotion affects congruency judgments in action understanding. We employed a cue-target paradigm and controlled the way emotional stimuli were presented on the target interface, setting up three experiments: emotion served as task-irrelevant distractor, task-irrelevant target and task-relevant target. The results showed that when emotion was irrelevant to the task, it impaired congruency judgements performance, regardless of a distractor or a target, while task-relevant emotion facilitated this process. These findings indicate that the impact of emotion on congruency judgements during action understanding depends on the degree of emotion-task relevance.

fMRI evidence of movement familiarization effects on recognition memory in professional dancers.

Dual-process theories propose that recognition memory involves recollection and familiarity; however, the impact of motor expertise on memory recognition, especially the interplay between familiarity and recollection, is relatively unexplored. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study used videos of a dancer performing International Latin Dance Styles as stimuli to investigate memory recognition in professional dancers and matched controls. Participants observed and then reported whether they recognized dance actions, recording the level of confidence in their recollections, whereas blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals measured encoding and recognition processes. Professional dancers showed higher accuracy and hit rates for high-confidence judgments, whereas matched controls exhibited the opposite trend for low-confidence judgments. The right putamen and precentral gyrus showed group-based moderation effects, especially for high-confidence (vs. low-confidence) action recognition in professional dancers. During action recognition, the right superior temporal gyrus and insula showed increased activation for accurate recognition and high-confidence retrieval, particularly in matched controls. These findings highlighting enhanced action memory of professional dancers-evident in their heightened recognition confidence-not only supports the dual-processing model but also underscores the crucial role of expertise-driven familiarity in bolstering successful recollection. Additionally, they emphasize the involvement of the action observation network and frontal brain regions in facilitating detailed encoding linked to intention processing.

Monotropein induces autophagy through activation of the NRF2/PINK axis, thereby alleviating sepsis-induced colonic injury.

Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory disease that is caused by a dysregulated host response to infection and is a life-threatening organ dysfunction that affects many organs, which includes the colon. Mounting evidence suggests that sepsis-induced colonic damage is a major contributor to organ failure and cellular dysfunction. Monotropein (MON) is the major natural compound in the iris glycoside that is extracted from Morendae officinalis radix, which possesses the potent pharmacological activities of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. This research evaluated whether MON is able to alleviate septic colonic injury in mice by cecal ligation and puncture. Colonic tissues were analyzed using histopathology, immunofluorescence, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, and Western blot methods. It was initially discovered that MON reduced colonic damage in infected mice, in addition to inflammation, apoptosis, and oxidative stress in colonic tissues, while it activated autophagy, with the NRF2/keap1 and PINK1/Parkin pathways also being activated. Through the stimulation of NCM460 cells with lipopolysaccharides, an in vitro model of sepsis was created as a means of further elucidating the potential mechanisms of MON. In the in vitro model, it was found that MON could still activate the NRF2/keap1, PINK1/Parkin, and autophagy pathways. However, when MON was paired with the NRF2 inhibitor ML385, it counteracted MON-induced activation of PINK1/Parkin and autophagy, while also promoting inflammatory response and apoptosis in NCM460 cells. Therefore, the data implies that MON could play a therapeutic role through the activation of the NFR2/PINK pathway as a means of inducing autophagy to alleviate the oxidative stress in colonic tissues that is induced by sepsis, which will improve inflammation and apoptosis in colonic tissues.

Gypenoside XLIX attenuates sepsis-induced splenic injury through inhibiting inflammation and oxidative stress.

BACKGROUND: To investigate the effect of Gypenoside XLIX (Gyp-XLIX) on acute splenic injury (ASI) induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) in septic mice, a study was conducted. METHODS: Sixty healthy mice were randomly divided into six groups: the NC group, the Sham group, the Sham + Gyp-XLIX group, the CLP group, the CLP + Gyp-XLIX group, and the CLP + Dexamethasone (DEX) group. The NC group did not undergo any operation, while the rest of the groups underwent CLP to establish the sepsis model. The Sham group only underwent open-abdominal suture surgery without cecum puncture. After the operation, the groups were immediately administered the drug for a total of 5 days. Various methods such as hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining, biochemical kits, qRT-PCR, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) were used for analysis. RESULTS: The results demonstrated that Gyp-XLIX effectively mitigated the splenic histopathological damage, while reducing the malondialdehyde (MDA) lipid peroxidation index and enhancing the antioxidant activities of catalase (CAT), glutathione (GSH) and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC). The utilization of Dihydroethidium (DHE) fluorescent probe revealed that Gyp-XLIX inhibited the acute splenic accumulation of ROS induced by CLP in septic mice. Further investigations revealed that Gyp-XLIX exhibited a down-regulatory effect on the protein levels of inflammatory mediators iNOS and COX-2, consequently leading to the suppression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1ß. Additionally, it up-regulated the expression of anti-inflammatory factor IL-10. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, Gyp-XLIX was significantly effective in attenuating CLP-induced acute splenic inflammation and oxidative stress in septic mice.

Rapid and specific detection of Enterococcus faecium with an isothermal amplification and lateral flow strip combined method.

Enterococcus faecium is responsible for a highly contagious, drug-resistant nosocomial infection that often causes serious illness. In this study, a rapid and sensitive RPA-LFS (recombinase polymerase amplification-lateral flow strip) method for the detection of E. faecium was established based on specific primers and probes designed using the ddl gene. To verify the specificity and sensitivity of the method, 26 specific strains and 100-106 CFU/µL E. faecium were selected for detection. The results show that the proposed method can specifically detect E. faecium, and the minimum detection limit is 100 CFU/µL. To compare the clinical application of the method with qPCR, 181 clinical samples were collected for testing. RPA-LFS and qPCR had the same practical applicability, and 61 parts of E. faecium were detected in 183 clinical samples. The methods developed in this study not only have the advantages of rapid sensitivity and specificity but also meet the needs of remote areas with scarce medical resources.

Rapid Detection of Enterobacter cloacae With a Visualized Isothermal Recombinase Polymerase Amplification Assay.

Enterobacter cloacae exhibits strong adhesion and invasion properties that contribute its ability to infect the host; it is considered an important opportunistic pathogen throughout the world. To control the spread of E. cloacae, simple, rapid, and accurate detection methods are required. Current methods suffer from various shortcomings and do not meet the demand for on-site quickly detection. Using recombinase polymerase amplification combined with lateral flow strip (RPA-LFS), an isothermal detection method was developed to target the outer membrane protein X (ompX) gene of E. cloacae. This reaction can be performed in 30 min at 37 °C. Limit of detection of 10 CFU/reaction was equivalent to that of the qPCR method. The detection accuracy of clinical samples was also equal to that of the qPCR method. In this study, we developed the RPA-LFS assay, which is simple, rapid, accurate, and does not require a laboratory facility. This assay may prove useful for detecting E. cloacae on-site.

Recombinase Polymerase Amplification Assay with Lateral Flow Strips for Rapid Detection of Candidiasis Due to Candida parapsilosis.

Candida parapsilosis is a common cause of candidiasis among hospitalized patients, often surpassing Candida albicans. Due to the recent increase in C. parapsilosis infections, there is an urgent need for rapid, sensitive, and real-time on-site detection of nucleic acids for timely diagnosis of candidiasis. We developed an assay for detection of C. parapsilosis by combining recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) with a lateral flow strip (LFS). The RPA-LFS assay was used to amplify the beta-1,3-glucan synthase catalytic subunit 2 (FKS2) gene of C. parapsilosis with a primer-probe set optimized by introducing base mismatches (four bases modified by the probe and one by the reverse primer) to achieve specific and sensitive detection of clinical samples. The RPA assays can rapidly amplify and visualize a target gene within 30 min, while the entire process can be completed within 40 min by pre-processing the sample. The product of RPA has two chemical labels, FITC and Biotin, of the amplification product can be carefully on the strip. The sensitivity and specificity of the RPA-LFS assay were determined by analysis of 35 common clinical pathogens and 281 clinical samples against quantitative PCR. The results confirmed that the proposed RPA-LFS assay is a reliable molecular diagnostic method for the detection of C. parapsilosis to meet the urgent need for rapid, specific, sensitive, and portable field testing.

Single-trial-based temporal principal component analysis on extracting event-related potentials of interest for an individual subject.

BACKGROUND: Temporal principal component analysis (tPCA) has been widely used to extract event-related potentials (ERPs) at group level of multiple subjects ERP data and it assumes that the underlying factor loading is fixed across participants. However, such assumption may fail to work if latency and phase for one ERP vary considerably across participants. Furthermore, effect of number of trials on tPCA decomposition has not been systematically examined as well, especially for within-subject PCA. NEW METHOD: We reanalyzed a real ERP data of an emotional experiment using tPCA to extract N2 and P2 from single-trial EEG of an individual. We also explored influence of the number of trials (consecutively increased from 10 to 42 trials) on PCA decomposition by comparing temporal correlation, the statistical result, Cronbach's alpha, spatial correlation of both N2 and P2 for the proposed method with the conventional time-domain analysis, trial-averaged group PCA, and single-trial-based group PCA. RESULTS: The results of the proposed method can enhance spatial and temporal consistency. We could obtain stable N2 with few trials (about 20) for the proposed method, but, for P2, approximately 30 trials were needed for all methods. COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHOD(S): About 30 trials for N2 were required and the reconstructed P2 and N2 were poor correlated across participants for the other three methods. CONCLUSION: The proposed approach may efficiently capture variability of one ERP from an individual that cannot be extracted by group PCA analysis.

Corrigendum: Behavioral and brain reactivity associated with drug-related and non-drug-related emotional stimuli in methamphetamine addicts.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.894911.].

Rapid and specific detection of Enterococcus faecalis with a visualized isothermal amplification method.

Enterococcus faecalis is a serious problem for hospitals and can spread from patient to patient. Most of the current detection methods are associated with limitations associated with the need for trained personnel; they are also time-consuming. Thus, it is necessary to develop rapid and accurate detection methods to control the spread of E. faecalis. In this study, we developed a rapid and accurate detection method for E. faecalis using recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) combined with a lateral flow strip (LFS). This method could be completed in approximately 35 min at 37°C. The limit of detection was 10 CFU/µL, irrespective of whether the templates were pure or complex. This method also showed good specificity and compatibility. In total, 278 clinical samples were tested using the RPA-LFS method; the detection accuracy was equal to that of the conventional qPCR method. This visualized isothermal amplification method could be useful for the future on-site detection of E. faecalis.

Prognostic Value of MUC16 Mutation and Its Correlation with Immunity in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients.

Objective: Identifying gene mutation signatures will enable a better understanding for the occurrence, development, and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and provide some potential biomarkers for clinical practice. This study investigated the mutated genes in HCC patients and assessed their relationship with tumor mutation burden (TMB) and prognosis. Methods: The somatic mutation annotation format (MAF) document, mRNA expression matrix, and clinical information of HCC patients were obtained from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The differences of TMB between the mutant type and the wild-type genes were detected using the Mann-Whitney U test. The link of gene mutations with prognosis was explored by the Kaplan-Meier analysis. The proportion of 22 immune cells' composition was measured using CIBERSORT algorithm. Results: The two databases screened 16 common mutated genes, which included TP53, TTN, LRP1B, ZFHX4, MUC16, OBSCN, CSMD3, FLG, CSMD1, SYNE1, SPTA1, USH2A, KMT2C, PCLO, HMCN1, and FAT3. After a series of analysis, MUC16 mutation was found to be highly correlated with TMB and was regarded as an independent factor predicting HCC. Furthermore, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) indicated that the MUC16 mutation was significantly involved in HCC cell metabolism. Conclusions: MUC16 mutation seems to be a valuable potential biomarker for HCC development and its overall survival.

Behavioral and Brain Reactivity Associated With Drug-Related and Non-Drug-Related Emotional Stimuli in Methamphetamine Addicts.

Background: Methamphetamine addicts can experience severe emotional processing disorders, with abnormal responses to emotional and drug-related stimuli. These aberrant behaviors are one of the key factors leading to relapse. Nevertheless, the characteristics of addicts' responses to drug-related stimuli and their responses to emotional stimuli remain controversial. Methods: 52 methamphetamine addicts from China passively viewed three different categories of images: Drug-related; positive emotional; and negative emotional. In the first task, participants completed a 9-point Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) scale, rating the valence of each image. In the second, they performed a cued-action task while electroencephalography (EEG) data were recorded. Result: Drug-related images were rated negatively, with an average rating of 3.57. However, reaction times to drug-related stimuli were significantly faster than for negative stimuli (p = 0.030), and were indistinguishable from positive stimuli (p > 0.99). Similarly, EPN amplitudes evoked by drug-related images were significantly larger than those evoked by negative stimuli (p < 0.001), but no different than positive stimuli (p > 0.99). LPP amplitudes evoked by drug-related stimuli were significantly smaller than those evoked by negative (p < 0.001) and positive stimuli (p = 0.004). Conclusion: Despite negative self-assessments of drug-related imagery, MA-addicts reaction times were no slower than positive reactions. Similarly, drug-related and positive imagery EPN amplitudes were indistinguishable. Together, these results suggest increased attentional resources were allocated to the processing of drug-related stimuli and the pathways responsible partially overlap with the those recruited in processing positive emotional imagery in addicts. Moreover, in the late stage of visual processing, MA-addicts showed reduced brain activity in response to drug-related stimuli, suggesting reverse inhibition in response preparation and emotional appraisal. These findings may provide a reference for clinicians treating drug-taking behavior and for the development of new models of rehabilitation therapy.

Development and Clinical Application of a Recombinase Polymerase Amplification-Lateral Flow Strip Assay for Detection of Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a worldwide, primary cause of respiratory tract infections, septicemia, urinary apparatus infections, and secondary meningitis. It can be fatal. Rapid and accurate detection methods are needed to control the spread of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB). Current molecular diagnostic methods are limited and not suitable for on-site detection. In this study, an isothermal detection method using recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) combined with a lateral flow strip (LFS) was developed to target the blaOXA-51 and blaOXA-23 genes of A. baumannii. The reaction was completed in about 40 min at 37°C. This method can also effectively distinguish A. baumannii and CRAB. The limit of detection of 100-101 CFU/reaction was equal to that of other detection methods. The detection accuracy was equal to that of the qPCR method with the use of clinical samples. The RPA-LFS assay is portable, rapid, and accurate and could replace existing detection methods for on-site detection of A. baumannii and CRAB.

Malvidin alleviates mitochondrial dysfunction and ROS accumulation through activating AMPK-α/UCP2 axis, thereby resisting inflammation and apoptosis in SAE mice.

This study aimed to explore the protective roles of malvidin in life-threatened sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE) and illustrate the underlying mechanism. SAE mice models were developed and treated with malvidin for subsequently protective effects evaluation. Malvidin restored neurobehavioral retardation, declined serum S100ß and NSE levels, sustained cerebrum morphological structure, improved blood-brain barrier integrity with elevated tight junction proteins, and decreased evans blue leakage, and finally protect SAE mice from brain injury. Mechanistically, malvidin prevented cerebrum from mitochondrial dysfunction with enhanced JC-1 aggregates and ATP levels, and ROS accumulation with decreased lipid peroxidation and increased antioxidant enzymes. UCP2 protein levels were found to be decreased after LPS stimulation in the cerebrum and BV-2 cells, and malvidin recovered its levels in a ROS dependent manner. In vivo inhibition of UCP2 with genipin or in vitro interference with siRNA UCP2 both disrupted the mitochondrial membrane potential, decreased ATP levels and intensified DCF signals, being a key target for malvidin. Moreover, dorsomorphin block assays verified that malvidin upregulated UCP2 expression through phosphorylating AMPK in SAE models. Also, malvidin alleviated SAE progression through inhibition of ROS-dependent NLRP3 inflammasome activation mediated serum pro-inflammatory cytokines secretion and mitochondrial pathway mediated apoptosis with weakened apoptosis body formation and tunel positive signals, and decreased Bax, cytochrome C, caspase-3 and increased Bcl-2 protein levels. Overall, this study illustrated that malvidin targeted AMPK-α/UCP2 axis to restore LPS-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and alleviate ROS accumulation, which further inhibits NLRP3 inflammasome activation and mitochondrial apoptosis in a ROS dependent way, and ultimately protected SAE mice, providing a reference for the targeted development of SAE prophylactic approach.

Hand-related action words impair action anticipation in expert table tennis players: Behavioral and neural evidence.

Athletes extract kinematic information to anticipate action outcomes. Here, we examined the influence of linguistic information (experiment 1, 2) and its underlying neural correlates (experiment 2) on anticipatory judgment. Table tennis experts and novices remembered a hand- or leg-related verb or a spatial location while predicting the trajectory of a ball in a video occluded at the moment of the serve. Experiment 1 showed that predictions by experts were more accurate than novices, but experts' accuracy significantly decreased when hand-related words versus spatial locations were memorized. For nonoccluded videos with ball trajectories congruent or incongruent with server actions in experiment 2, remembering hand-related verbs shared cognitive resources with action anticipation only in experts, with heightened processing load (increased P3 amplitude) and more efficient conflict monitoring (decreased N2 amplitude) versus leg-related verbs. Thus, action anticipation required updating of motor representations facilitated by motor expertize but was also affected by effector-specific semantic representations of actions, suggesting a link from language to motor systems.

FAT1 and PTPN14 Regulate the Malignant Progression and Chemotherapy Resistance of Esophageal Cancer through the Hippo Signaling Pathway.

BACKGROUND: Esophageal cancer (EC) is a common malignant tumor, which brings heavy economic burden to patients and society. Therefore, it is important to understand the molecular mechanism of recurrence, metastasis, and drug resistance of esophageal cancer. METHODS: Human esophageal cancer cell line TE13 (poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma) and normal human esophageal epithelial cell line het-1a were selected for aseptic culture. At the same time, 6 bottles of TE13 cell line were inoculated in logarithmic phase. Cell apoptosis was analyzed by flow cytometry (FCM). Cell clone formation assay was used to analyze the proliferation. Fibronectin-coated dishes were used to detect the characteristics of cell adhesion to extracellular matrix. The Transwell method was used to detect the cell invasion ability. Western blot was used to analyze the expression of Yap1, PTPN14, FAT1, and Myc. RESULTS: Results showed that FAT1 and PTPN14 were downregulated, while Yap1 was upregulated in esophageal cancer tissues. FAT1 inhibited the proliferation, adhesion, and invasion of human esophageal cancer cell lines, which might be associated with the upregulation of PTPN14 and the inhibition of Yap1 and Myc. CONCLUSION: The results suggested that PTPN14 and FAT1 could regulate malignant progression and chemotherapy resistance of esophageal cancer based on the Hippo signaling pathway.

Expertise influences congruency monitoring during action observation at the motor level.

Congruency monitoring of action occurs in individuals with relevant motor experience while observing actions. However, it remains unclear whether congruency monitoring can occur at the motor level and the extent to which expertise contributes. Here, we examined the behavioral performance and electrophysiological brain activity of individuals with and without domain-specific expertise when judging the action congruency of occluded video clips of a snowboard halfpipe trick and normal walking. For the halfpipe trick, experts exhibited better task performance and greater midline theta oscillations before possible incongruency compared with controls. Source reconstruction for the theta oscillation revealed a stronger activation in the middle and superior frontal gyrus for experts in response to incongruency compared with controls. Incongruent halfpipe actions elicited a higher N400 amplitude in experts compared with congruent actions, while no such differences were observed in controls. Source reconstruction revealed the activation in the board frontal regions and middle temporal gyrus for experts. These findings suggest that congruency monitoring can occur at the motor level during action observations and is modulated by individual expertise. The modulation of expertise reflects in the special N400 effect and midline theta oscillation.

Relationship between individual alpha peak frequency and attentional performance in a multiple object tracking task among ice-hockey players.

Individual alpha peak frequency (IAPF), the discrete frequency with the highest power value in the alpha oscillation range of the electroencephalogram, is a stable neurophysiological marker and is closely associated with various cognitive functions, including aspects of attention and working memory. However, the relationship between IAPF and attentional performance as well as the effects of engaging attention on IAPF are unknow. Here, we examined whether IAPF values were associated with attentional performance by evaluating accuracy during the performance of a multiple object tracking (MOT) task, a well-established paradigm for investigating goal-driven attention in dynamic environments, and whether engagement in the task affected IAPF values. In total, 18 elite players and 20 intermediate players completed the study. Resting electroencephalogram recordings were obtained for 120 s while players kept their eyes open and an additional 120 s while players' eyes were closed, before and again after performing the MOT task. Tracking accuracy in the MOT task and IAPF values before and after the MOT task were analyzed. As expected, tracking accuracies were higher in elite players than in intermediate-level players. Baseline IAPF values were significantly and positively correlated with the accuracy of target tracking in the MOT task. IAPF values were higher in elite than intermediate players in both the eyes open and closed conditions and both before and after MOT task performance. Interindividual IAPF values did not differ before and after the MOT task. These findings indicate that IAPF is a stable marker, without intraindividual changes associated with engagement in the MOT task. Elite players had higher IAPF values and exhibited more accurate MOT performance than intermediate-level players; thus, baseline IAPF values may be useful to predict attentional performance in the MOT task among athletes.