Resting-state functional connectivity and structural differences between smokers and healthy non-smokers.

Previous studies have shown an association between cigarette use and altered resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in many large-scale networks, sometimes complemented by measures of cortical atrophy. In this study, we aimed to further explore the neural differences between smokers and healthy non-smokers through the integration of functional and structural analyses. Imaging data of fifty-two smokers and forty-five non-smokers were analyzed through an independent component analysis for group differences in rsFC. Smokers showed lower rsFC within the dorsal attention network (DAN) in the left superior and middle frontal gyrus and left superior division of the lateral occipital cortex compared to non-smokers; moreover, cigarette use was found to be associated with reduced grey matter volume in the left superior and middle frontal gyrus and right orbitofrontal cortex, partly overlapping with functional findings. Within smokers, daily cigarette consumption was positively associated with increased rsFC within the cerebellar network and the default mode network and decreased rsFC within the visual network and the salience network, while carbon monoxide level showed a positive association with increased rsFC within the sensorimotor network. Our results suggest that smoking negatively impacts rsFC within the DAN and that changes within this network might serve as a circuit-based biomarker for structural deficits.

The influence of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism on prefrontal TDCS effects on aggression.

Increasing dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity by anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) enhances cognitive control and might reduce aggression. The Val158Met polymorphism within the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene (rs4680) plays a pivotal role in prefrontal dopamine signaling, displaying associations with aggressive behavior, and potentially influencing the effects of tDCS. In a double-blind, sham-controlled study, we investigated the influence of rs4680 on tDCS effects on aggression. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, 89 healthy male participants performed the Taylor aggression paradigm before and immediately after tDCS. Actively stimulated participants (n = 45) received anodal tDCS (1.5 mA) for 20 min targeting the right DLPFC. Carriers of the val-allele (val+; n = 46; active tDCS n = 23) were compared to met-allele homozygotes (val-; n = 43; active tDCS n = 22). Analysis revealed decreased aggressive behavior in the val- group following active tDCS (p < 0.001). The val+ group showed increased aggression during the second session (p < 0.001) with an even higher increase following active as compared to sham tDCS (p < 0.001). No effects of stimulation or rs4680 on brain activation were found. Our study provides evidence for opposite tDCS effects on aggressive behavior in val-carriers and val-noncarriers. By shedding light on genetic factors predicting tDCS responsivity, the study will help to pave the way toward individualized-and thus more effective-tDCS treatment options.

HD-tDCS induced changes in resting-state functional connectivity: Insights from EF modeling.

BACKGROUND: High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) holds promise for therapeutic use in psychiatric disorders. One obstacle for the implementation into clinical practice is response variability. One way to tackle this obstacle is the use of Individualized head models. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the variability of HD-tDCS induced electric fields (EFs) and its impact on resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) during different time windows. METHODS: In this randomized, double-blind, and sham controlled study, seventy healthy males underwent 20 min of 1.5 mA HD-tDCS on the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) while undergoing resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Individual head models and EF simulations were created from anatomical images. The effects of HD-tDCS on rsFC were assessed using a seed-to-voxel analysis. A subgroup analysis explored the relationship between EF magnitude and rsFC during different stimulation time windows. RESULTS: Results highlighted significant variability in HD-tDCS-induced EFs. Compared to the sham group, the active group showed increased rsFC between the rIFG and the left prefrontal cortex, during and after stimulation. During active stimulation, EF magnitude correlated positively with rsFC between the rIFG and the left hippocampus initially, and negatively during the subsequent period. CONCLUSION: This study indicated an HD-tDCS induced increase of rsFC between left and right prefrontal areas. Furthermore, an interaction between the magnitude and the duration of HD-tDCS on rsFC was observed. Due to the high EF variability that was apparent, these findings highlight the need for individualized HD-tDCS protocols and the creation of head models to optimize effects and reduce response heterogeneity.

Pilot-scale removal of persistent and mobile organic substances in granular activated carbon filters and experimental predictability at lab-scale.

Present knowledge about the fate of persistent and mobile (PM) substances in drinking water treatment is limited. Hence, this study assesses the potential of fixed-bed granular activated carbon (GAC) filters to fill the treatment gap for PM substances and the elimination predictability from lab-scale experiments. Two parallel pilot filters (GAC bed height 2 m, diameter 15 cm) with different GAC were operated for 1.5 years (ca. 47,000 BV throughput) alongside rapid small-scale column tests (RSSCT) designed based on the proportional diffusivity (PD) and the constant diffusivity (CD) approaches. Background dissolved organic matter (DOM) and a set of 17 target substances were investigated, among them 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonate (AAMPS), adamantan-1-amine (ATA), melamine (MEL) and trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFMSA). Nine substances were predominantly present in the drinking water used as pilot filter influent (frequencies of detection above 80 %, median concentrations 0.003-1.868 µg/L) and their breakthrough behaviors could be observed: TFMSA was not retained at all, four substances including AAMPS and ATA reached complete breakthrough below 20,000 BV, three compounds were partially retained until the end of operation and oxypurinol was retained completely. The comparable PM candidate and DOM removal performances of both GAC aligns with their very similar surface characteristics and elemental compositions. The agreement of results between RSSCT with the pilot-scale filters were substance specific and no superior RSSCT design could be identified. However, CD-RSSCT provide a conservative removal prediction for most studied compounds. MEL adsorption was significantly underestimated by both RSSCT designs. Using the criterion of a carbon usage rate (with respect to 50 % breakthrough) below 25 mgGAC/Lwater for an economic retention by fixed-bed GAC filters, five (out of nine) substances met the requirement.

High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) for the enhancement of working memory - A systematic review and meta-analysis of healthy adults.

BACKGROUND: High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) administers weak electric current through multiple electrodes, enabling focal brain stimulation. An increasing number of studies investigate the effects of anodal HD-tDCS on the enhancement of working memory (WM). The effectiveness of the technique is, however, still unclear. OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESIS: This systematic review analyzed the current literature on anodal HD-tDCS for WM enhancement, investigating its effectiveness and the influence of different moderators to allow for comparison with conventional tDCS. METHODS: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) guidelines, a comprehensive literature review was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. Sixteen single- or double-blind, sham-controlled studies were included in the review. Eleven studies were included in the meta-analysis, focusing solely on stimulation of the left prefrontal cortex (PFC). RESULTS: No significant effect of anodal HD-tDCS on the left PFC for WM accuracy (g = 0.23, p = 0.08), and reaction time (g = 0.03, p = 0.75 after trim-and-fill) was found. Further analysis revealed heterogeneity in the accuracy results. Here, moderator analysis indicated a significant difference between studies that repeatedly used HD-tDCS enhanced WM training and studies with one-time use of HD-tDCS (p < 0.001), the latter having a smaller effect size. Another moderator was the research design, with differences between within-subjects-, and between-subjects designs (p < 0.05). Within-subject studies showed lower effect sizes and substantially lower heterogeneity. Qualitative analysis reinforced this finding and indicated that the motivation of the participant to engage in the task also moderates the effectiveness of HD-tDCS. CONCLUSION: This review highlights the importance of inter-individual differences and the setup for the effectiveness of anodal, HD-tDCS augmented WM training. Limited evidence for increased sensitivity of HD-tDCS to these factors as compared to conventional tDCS is provided.

Correlating h→µ

Recently, both ATLAS and CMS measured the decay h→µ^{+}µ^{-}, finding a signal strength with respect to the standard model expectation of 1.2±0.6 and 1.19_{-0.39-0.16}^{+0.41+0.17}, respectively. This provides, for the first time, evidence that the standard model Higgs couples to second generation fermions. This measurement is particularly interesting in the context of the intriguing hints for lepton flavor universality violation, accumulated within recent years, as new physics explanations could also be tested in the h→µ^{+}µ^{-} decay mode. Leptoquarks are prime candidates to account for the flavor anomalies. In particular, they can provide the necessary chiral enhancement (by a factor m_{t}/m_{µ}) to address a_{µ} with tera-electron-volt scale new physics. In this Letter we point out that such explanations of a_{µ} also lead to enhanced effects in h→µ^{+}µ^{-} and we examine the correlations between h→µ^{+}µ^{-} and a_{µ} within leptoquark models. We find that the effect in the branching ratio of h→µ^{+}µ^{-} ranges from several percent up to a factor of 3, if one aims at accounting for a_{µ} at the 2σ level. Hence, the new ATLAS and CMS Collaboration measurements already provide important constraints on the parameter space, rule out specific a_{µ} explanations, and will be very important to test the flavor anomalies in the future.

Importance of Loop Effects in Explaining the Accumulated Evidence for New Physics in B Decays with a Vector Leptoquark.

In recent years experiments revealed intriguing hints for new physics (NP) in B decays involving b→cτν and b→sℓ^{+}ℓ^{-} transitions at the 4σ and 5σ level, respectively. In addition, there are slight disagreements in b→uτν and b→dµ^{+}µ^{-} observables. While not significant on their own, they point in the same direction. Furthermore, V_{us} extracted from τ decays shows a slight tension (≈2.5σ) with its value determined from Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa unitarity, and an analysis of BELLE data found an excess in B_{d}→τ^{+}τ^{-}. Concerning NP explanations, the vector leptoquark SU(2) singlet is of special interest since it is the only single particle extension of the standard model which can (in principle) address all the anomalies described above. For this purpose, large couplings to τ leptons are necessary and loop effects, which we calculate herein, become important. Including them in our phenomenological analysis, we find that neither the tension in V_{us} nor the excess in B_{d}→τ^{+}τ^{-} can be fully explained without violating bounds from K→πνν[over ¯]. However, one can account for b→cτν and b→uτν data finding intriguing correlations with B_{q}→τ^{+}τ^{-} and K→πνν[over ¯]. Furthermore, the explanation of b→cτν predicts a positive shift in C_{7} and a negative one in C_{9}, being nicely in agreement with the global fit to b→sℓ^{+}ℓ^{-} data. Finally, we point out that one can fully account for b→cτν and b→sℓ^{+}ℓ^{-} without violating bounds from τ→ϕµ, ϒ→τµ, or b→sτµ processes.

Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in reaction-diffusion systems inside Hele-Shaw cell modified by the action of temperature.

The influence of temperature in the buoyancy driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability of reaction-diffusion fronts is investigated experimentally in Hele-Shaw cells. The acid autocatalysis of chlorite-tetrathionate reaction coupled to molecular diffusion yields exothermic planar reaction-diffusion fronts separating two miscible reactant and product solutions. The resulting chemical front moves downwards invading the fresh reactants, leaving the products of the reaction behind it. The density of the product solution is higher than the reactant solution; hence, the traveling front is buoyantly unstable and develops density fingers in time (Rayleigh-Taylor instability) when the products are above the reactants. The kinetic constant of a chemical reaction varies due to thermal effects. This may stabilize the exothermic descending front when temperature is increased, so that the mixing zone decreases, modifying the fingering patterns, until it almost disappears. The authors study the influence of the temperature variation on the instability pattern figure observed in the chlorite-tetrathionate reaction for long times, corresponding to the nonlinear regime.