Systematic investigation of the trafficking of glycoproteins on the cell surface.

Glycoproteins located on the cell surface play a pivotal role in nearly every extracellular activity. N-glycosylation is one of the most common and important protein modifications in eukaryotic cells, and it often regulates protein folding and trafficking. Glycosylation of cell-surface proteins undergoes meticulous regulation by various enzymes in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the Golgi, ensuring their proper folding and trafficking to the cell surface. However, the impacts of protein N-glycosylation, N-glycan maturity, and protein folding status on the trafficking of cell-surface glycoproteins remain to be explored. In this work, we comprehensively and site-specifically studied the trafficking of cell-surface glycoproteins in human cells. Integrating metabolic labeling, bioorthogonal chemistry, and multiplexed proteomics, we investigated 706 N-glycosylation sites on 396 cell-surface glycoproteins in monocytes, either by inhibiting protein N-glycosylation, disturbing N-glycan maturation, or perturbing protein folding in the ER. The current results reveal their distinct impacts on the trafficking of surface glycoproteins. The inhibition of protein N-glycosylation dramatically suppresses the trafficking of many cell-surface glycoproteins. The N-glycan immaturity has more substantial effects on proteins with high N-glycosylation site densities, while the perturbation of protein folding in the ER exerts a more pronounced impact on surface glycoproteins with larger sizes. Furthermore, for N-glycosylated proteins, their trafficking to the cell surface is related to the secondary structures and adjacent amino acid residues of glycosylation sites. Systematic analysis of surface glycoprotein trafficking advances our understanding of the mechanisms underlying protein secretion and surface presentation.

Tooth replacement in the early-diverging neornithischian Jeholosaurus shangyuanensis and implications for dental evolution and herbivorous adaptation in Ornithischia.

BACKGROUND: Tooth replacement patterns of early-diverging ornithischians, which are important for understanding the evolution of the highly specialized dental systems in hadrosaurid and ceratopsid dinosaurs, are poorly known. The early-diverging neornithischian Jeholosaurus, a small, bipedal herbivorous dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, is an important taxon for understanding ornithischian dental evolution, but its dental morphology was only briefly described previously and its tooth replacement is poorly known. RESULTS: CT scanning of six specimens representing different ontogenetic stages of Jeholosaurus reveals significant new information regarding the dental system of Jeholosaurus, including one or two replacement teeth in nearly all alveoli, relatively complete tooth resorption, and an increase in the numbers of alveoli and replacement teeth during ontogeny. Reconstructions of Zahnreihen indicate that the replacement pattern of the maxillary dentition is similar to that of the dentary dentition but with a cyclical difference. The maxillary tooth replacement rate in Jeholosaurus is probably 46 days, which is faster than that of most other early-diverging ornithischians. During the ontogeny of Jeholosaurus, the premaxillary tooth replacement rate slows from 25 days to 33 days with similar daily dentine formation. CONCLUSIONS: The tooth replacement rate exhibits a decreasing trend with ontogeny, as in Alligator. In a phylogenetic context, fast tooth replacement and multi-generation replacement teeth have evolved at least twice independently in Ornithopoda, and our analyses suggest that the early-diverging members of the major ornithischian clades exhibit different tooth replacement patterns as an adaption to herbivory.

A novel membrane-free electrochemical separation-filtering crystallization coupling process for treating circulating cooling water.

The traditional electrochemical descaling process exhibits drawbacks, including low OH- utilization efficiency, constrained cathode deposition area, and protracted homogeneous precipitation time. Consequently, this study introduces a novel membrane-free electrochemical separation-filtering crystallization (MFES-FC) coupling process to treat circulating cooling water (CCW). In the membrane-free electrochemical separation (MFES) system, OH- is rapidly extracted by pump suction from the porous cathode boundary layer solution, preventing neutralization with H+, thereby enhancing the removal of Ca2+ and Mg2+. Experimental results indicate that the pH of the pump suction water can swiftly increase from 8.13 to 11.42 within 10 min. Owing to the high supersaturation of the pump suction water, this study couples the MFES with a filtration crystallization (FC) system that employs activated carbon as the medium. This approach captures scale particles to enhance water quality and expedites the homogeneous precipitation of hardness ions, shortening the treatment time while further augmenting the removal rate. After the MFES-FC treatment, the single-pass removal rates for total hardness, Ca2+ hardness, Mg2+ hardness, and alkalinity in the effluent reached 92 %, 97 %, 64 %, and 67 %, respectively, with turbidity of 3 NTU, current efficiency of 86.6 %, and energy consumption of 7.19 kWh·kg-1 CaCO3. This coupling process facilitates an effective removal of hardness and alkalinity at a comparatively low cost, offering a new reference and inspiration for advancements in electrochemical descaling technology.

Highly Multiplexing, Throughput and Efficient Single-Cell Protein Analysis with Digital Microfluidics.

Proteins as crucial components of cells are responsible for the majority of cellular processes. Sensitive and efficient protein detection enables a more accurate and comprehensive investigation of cellular phenotypes and life activities. Here, a protein sequencing method with high multiplexing, high throughput, high cell utilization, and integration based on digital microfluidics (DMF-Protein-seq) is proposed, which transforms protein information into DNA sequencing readout via DNA-tagged antibodies and labels single cells with unique cell barcodes. In a 184-electrode DMF-Protein-seq system, ≈1800 cells are simultaneously detected per experimental run. The digital microfluidics device harnessing low-adsorbed hydrophobic surface and contaminants-isolated reaction space supports high cell utilization (>90%) and high mapping reads (>90%) with the input cells ranging from 140 to 2000. This system leverages split&pool strategy on the DMF chip for the first time to overcome DMF platform restriction in cell analysis throughput and replace the traditionally tedious bench-top combinatorial barcoding. With the benefits of high efficiency and sensitivity in protein analysis, the system offers great potential for cell classification and drug monitoring based on protein expression at the single-cell level.

Epitaxial Growth of CsPbBr3 Pyramids/CdS Nanobelt Heterostructures for High-Performance Photodetectors.

Perovskites have great potential for optoelectronic applications due to their high photoluminescence quantum yield, large absorption coefficient, great defect tolerance, and adjustable band gap. Perovskite heterostructures may further enhance the performance of optoelectronic devices. So far, however, most of perovskite heterostructures are fabricated by mechanical stacking or spin coating, which could introduce a large number of defects or impurities at the heterointerface owing to the random stacking process. Herein, we report the epitaxial growth of CsPbBr3 pyramids/CdS nanobelt heterostructures via a 2-step vapor deposition route. The CsPbBr3 triangular pyramids are well aligned on the surface of CdS nanobelts with the epitaxial relationships of (0-22)CsPbBr3||(1-20)CdS and (-211)CsPbBr3||(002)CdS. Time-resolved photoluminescence results reveal that effective charge transfer occurred at the heterointerface, which can be attributed to the type-II band arrangement. Theoretical simulations reveal that the unique CsPbBr3 pyramids/CdS nanobelt structure facilitates diminishing the reflection losses and enhancing the light absorption. The photodetector based on these CsPbBr3 pyramids/CdS nanobelt heterostructures exhibited an ultrahigh photoswitching ratio of 2.14 × 105, a high responsivity up to 4.07 × 104 A/W, a high detectivity reaching 1.36 × 1013 Jones, fast photoresponses (τrise = 472 µs and τdecay = 894 µs), low dark current, and suppressed hysteresis.

Size-Dependent Catalysis in Fenton-like Chemistry: From Nanoparticles to Single Atoms.

State-of-the-art Fenton-like reactions are crucial in advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) for water purification. This review explores the latest advancements in heterogeneous metal-based catalysts within AOPs, covering nanoparticles (NPs), single-atom catalysts (SACs), and ultra-small atom clusters. A distinct connection between the physical properties of these catalysts, such as size, degree of unsaturation, electronic structure, and oxidation state, and their impacts on catalytic behavior and efficacy in Fenton-like reactions. In-depth comparative analysis of metal NPs and SACs was conducted focusing on how particle size variations and metal-support interactions affect oxidation species and pathways. The review highlights the cutting-edge characterization techniques and theoretical calculations, indispensable for deciphering the complex electronic and structural characteristics of active sites in downsized metal particles. Additionally, the review underscores innovative strategies for immobilizing these catalysts onto membrane surfaces, offering a solution to the inherent challenges of powdered catalysts. Recent advances in pilot-scale or engineering applications of Fenton-like based devices have also been summarized for the first time. The paper concludes by charting new research directions, emphasizing advanced catalyst design, precise identification of reactive oxygen species, and in-depth mechanistic studies. These efforts aim to enhance the application potential of nanotechnology-based AOPs in real-world wastewater treatment. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Direct and Inverse Spin Splitting Effects in Altermagnetic RuO2.

Recently, the altermagnetic materials with spin splitting effect (SSE), have drawn significant attention due to their potential to the flexible control of the spin polarization by the Néel vector. Here, the direct and inverse altermagnetic SSE (ASSE) in the (101)-oriented RuO2 film with the tilted Néel vector are reported. First, the spin torque along the x-, y-, and z-axis is detected from the spin torque-induced ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR), and the z-spin torque emerges when the electric current is along the [010] direction, showing the anisotropic spin splitting of RuO2. Further, the current-induced modulation of damping is used to quantify the damping-like torque efficiency (ξDL) in RuO2/Py, and an anisotropic ξDL is obtained and maximized for the current along the [010] direction, which increases with the reduction of the temperature, indicating the present of ASSE. Next, by way of spin pumping measurement, the inverse altermagnetic spin splitting effect (IASSE) is studied, which also shows a crystal direction-dependent anisotropic behavior and temperature-dependent behavior. This work gives a comprehensive study of the direct and inverse ASSE effects in the altermagnetic RuO2, inspiring future altermagnetic materials and devices with flexible control of spin polarization.

Mediated Peroxymonosulfate Activation at the Single Atom Fe-N3 O1 Sites: Synergistic Degradation of Antibiotics by Two Non-Radical Pathways.

The activation of persulfates to degrade refractory organic pollutants is a hot issue in advanced oxidation right now. Here, it is reported that single-atom Fe-incorporated carbon nitride (Fe-CN-650) can effectively activate peroxymonosulfate (PMS) for sulfamethoxazole (SMX) removal. Through some characterization techniques and DFT calculation, it is proved that Fe single atoms in Fe-CN-650 exist mainly in the form of Fe-N3 O1 coordination, and Fe-N3 O1 exhibited better affinity for PMS than the traditional Fe-N4 structure. The degradation rate constant of SMX in the Fe-CN-650/PMS system reached 0.472 min-1 , and 90.80% of SMX can still be effectively degraded within 10 min after five consecutive recovery cycles. The radical quenching experiment and electrochemical analysis confirm that the pollutants are mainly degraded by two non-radical pathways through 1 O2 and Fe(IV)═O induced at the Fe-N3 O1 sites. In addition, the intermediate products of SMX degradation in the Fe-CN-650/PMS system show toxicity attenuation or non-toxicity. This study offers valuable insights into the design of carbon-based single-atom catalysts and provides a potential remediation technology for the optimum activation of PMS to disintegrate organic pollutants.

The Effect of Pixel Design and Operation Conditions on Linear Output Range of 4T CMOS Image Sensors.

We analyze several factors that affect the linear output range of CMOS image sensors, including charge transfer time, reset transistor supply voltage, the capacitance of integration capacitor, the n-well doping of the pinned photodiode (PPD) and the output buffer. The test chips are fabricated with 0.18 µm CMOS image sensor (CIS) process and comprise six channels. Channels B1 and B2 are 10 µm pixels and channels B3-B6 are 20 µm pixels, with corresponding pixel arrays of 1 × 2560 and 1 × 1280 respectively. The floating diffusion (FD) capacitance varies from 10 fF to 23.3 fF, and two different designs were employed for the n-well doping in PPD. The experimental results indicate that optimizing the FD capacitance and PPD design can enhance the linear output range by 37% and 32%, respectively. For larger pixel sizes, extending the transfer gate (TG) sampling time leads to an increase of over 60% in the linear output range. Furthermore, optimizing the design of the output buffer can alleviate restrictions on the linear output range. The lower reset voltage for noise reduction does not exhibit a significant impact on the linear output range. Furthermore, these methods can enhance the linear output range without significantly amplifying the readout noise. These findings indicate that the linear output range of pixels is not only influenced by pixel design but also by operational conditions. Finally, we conducted a detailed analysis of the impact of PPD n-well doping concentration and TG sampling time on the linear output range. This provides designers with a clear understanding of how nonlinearity is introduced into pixels, offering valuable insight in the design of highly linear pixels.

GSNOR overexpression enhances CAR-T cell stemness and anti-tumor function by enforcing mitochondrial fitness.

Chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) cell has been developed as a promising agent for patients with refractory or relapsed lymphoma and leukemia, but not all the recipients could achieve a long-lasting remission. The limited capacity of in vivo expansion and memory differentiation post activation is one of the major reasons for suboptimal CAR-T therapeutic efficiency. Nitric oxide (NO) plays multifaceted roles in mitochondrial dynamics and T cell activation, but its function on CAR-T cell persistence and anti-tumor efficacy remains unknown. Herein, we found the continuous signaling from CAR not only promotes excessive NO production, but also suppressed S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR) expression in T cells, which collectively led to increased protein S-nitrosylation, resulting in impaired mitochondrial fitness and deficiency of T cell stemness. Intriguingly, enforced expression of GSNOR promoted memory differentiation of CAR-T cell after immune activation, rendered CAR-T better resistance to mitochondrial dysfunction, further enhanced CAR-T cell expansion and anti-tumor capacity in vitro and in a mouse tumor model. Thus, we revealed a critical role of NO in restricting CAR-T cell persistence and functionality, and defined that GSNOR overexpression may provide a solution to combat NO stress and render patients with more durable protection from CAR-T therapy.

Selective and ultrafast oxidation of multiple pollutants by biomorphic diatomite-based catalyst and stable catalytic Fenton-like membrane: Degradation behavior and mechanism analysis.

Carbon-driven advanced oxidations show great potential in water purification, but regulating structures and properties of carbon-based catalysts to achieve ultrafast Fenton-like reactions remains challenging. Herein, a biomorphic diatomite-based catalyst (BD-C) with Si-O doping was prepared using natural diatomite as silicon source and porous template. The results showed that the metal-free BD-C catalyst exhibited ultrafast oxidation performances (0.95-2.58 min-1) towards a variety of pollutants in PMS-based Fenton-like reaction, with the Fenton-like activity of metal-free catalyst comparable to metal-based catalysts or even single-atom catalysts. Pollutants (e.g., CP, BPA, TC, and PCM) with electron-donating groups exhibited extremely low PMS decomposition with overwhelmed electron transfer process (ETP), while high PMS consumption was induced by the addition of electron-withdrawing pollutants (e.g., MNZ and ATZ), which was dominated by radical oxidation. The BD-C/PMS system also showed a high ability to resist the environmental interference. In-depth theoretical investigations demonstrated that the coordination of Si-O can lower the potential barrier of PMS activation for accelerating the generation of radicals, and also promote the electron transfer from pollutants to the BD-C/PMS complexes. In addition, BD-C was deposited onto a polytetrafluoroethylene membrane (PTFEM) with 100% of pollutants removal over 10 h, thereby revealing the promising prospects of utilizing BD-C for practical applications.

Semantics Disentangling for Cross-Modal Retrieval.

Cross-modal retrieval (e.g., query a given image to obtain a semantically similar sentence, and vice versa) is an important but challenging task, as the heterogeneous gap and inconsistent distributions exist between different modalities. The dominant approaches struggle to bridge the heterogeneity by capturing the common representations among heterogeneous data in a constructed subspace which can reflect the semantic closeness. However, insufficient consideration is taken into the fact that learned latent representations are actually heavily entangled with those semantic-unrelated features, which obviously further compounds the challenges of cross-modal retrieval. To alleviate the difficulty, this work makes an assumption that the data are jointly characterized by two independent features: semantic-shared and semantic-unrelated representations. The former presents characteristics of consistent semantics shared by different modalities, while the latter reflects the characteristics with respect to the modality yet unrelated to semantics, such as background, illumination, and other low-level information. Therefore, this paper aims to disentangle the shared semantics from the entangled features, andthus the purer semantic representation can promote the closeness of paired data. Specifically, this paper designs a novel Semantics Disentangling approach for Cross-Modal Retrieval (termed as SDCMR) to explicitly decouple the two different features based on variational auto-encoder. Next, the reconstruction is performed by exchanging shared semantics to ensure the learning of semantic consistency. Moreover, a dual adversarial mechanism is designed to disentangle the two independent features via a pushing-and-pulling strategy. Comprehensive experiments on four widely used datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed SDCMR method by achieving a new bar on performance when compared against 15 state-of-the-art methods.

Self-Competitive Growth of CsPbBr3 Planar Nanowire Array.

Semiconductor planar nanowire arrays (PNAs) are essential for achieving large-scale device integration. Direct heteroepitaxy of PNAs on a flat substrate is constrained by the mismatch in crystalline symmetry and lattice parameters between the substrate and epitaxial nanowires. This study presents a novel approach termed "self-competitive growth" for heteroepitaxy of CsPbBr3 PNAs on mica. The key to inducing the self-competitive growth of CsPbBr3 PNAs on mica involves restricting the nucleation of CsPbBr3 nanowires in a high-adsorption region, which is accomplished by overlaying graphite sheets on the mica surface. Theoretical calculations and experimental results demonstrate that CsPbBr3 nanowires oriented perpendicular to the boundary of the high-adsorption area exhibit greater competitiveness in intercepting the growth of nanowires in the other two directions, resulting in PNAs with a consistent orientation. Moreover, these PNAs exhibit low-threshold and stable amplified spontaneous emission under one-, two-, and three-photon excitation, indicating their potential for an integrated laser array.

Trachelogenin alleviates osteoarthritis by inhibiting osteoclastogenesis and enhancing chondrocyte survival.

BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent global health concern associated with the loss of articular cartilage and subchondral bone. The lack of disease-modifying drugs for OA necessitates the exploration of novel therapeutic options. Our previous study has demonstrated that traditional Chinese medical herb Trachelospermum jasminoides (Lindl.) Lem. extract suppressed osteoclastogenesis and identified trachelogenin (TCG) as a representative compound. Here, we delved into TCG's potential to alleviate OA. METHODS: We initially validated the in vivo efficacy of TCG in alleviating OA using a rat OA model. Subsequently, we isolated primary bone marrow-derived macrophages in vitro to investigate TCG's impact on osteoclastogenesis. We further employed a small molecule pull-down assay to verify TCG's binding target within osteoclasts. Finally, we isolated primary mouse chondrocytes in vitro to study TCG's regulatory effects and mechanisms on chondrocyte survival. RESULTS: TCG preserved subchondral bone integrity and protected articular cartilage in a rat OA model. Subsequently, in vitro experiments unveiled TCG's capability to inhibit osteoclastogenesis and function through binding to Ras association proximate 1 (Rap1) and inhibiting its activation. Further study demonstrated that TCG inhibited Rap1/integrin αvß3/c-Src/Pyk2 signaling cascade, and consequently led to failed F-actin ring formation. Besides, TCG promoted the proliferation of mouse primary chondrocytes while suppressing apoptosis in vitro. This is attributed to TCG's ability to upregulate HIF1α, thereby promoting glycolysis. CONCLUSION: TCG exerted inhibitory effects on osteoclastogenesis through binding to Rap1 and inhibiting Rap1 activation, consequently preventing subchondral bone loss. Moreover, TCG enhanced chondrocyte survival by upregulating HIF1α and promoting glycolysis. These dual mechanisms collectively provide a novel approach to prevented against cartilage degradation.

Insights into the efficient water treatment over N-doped carbon nanosheets with layered minerals as template: The role of interfacial electron tunneling and transfer.

Peroxymonosulfate (PMS) oxidation reactions have been extensively studied recently. Due to the high material cost and low catalytic capability, PMS oxidation technology cannot be effectively applied in an industrial water treatment process. In this work, we developed a modification strategy based on enhancing the neglected electron tunneling effect to optimize the intrinsic electron transport process of the catalyst. The 2D nitrogen-doped carbon-based nanosheets with small interlayer spacing were prepared by self-polymerization of dopamine hydrochloride inserted into the natural layered bentonite template. Systematic characterizations confirmed that the smaller layer spacing in the 2D nitride-doped carbon-based nanosheets reduces the depletion layer width. The weak electronic shielding effect derived by the small layer spacing on the material subsurface enhanced the bulk electron tunneling effect. More bulk electrons could be migrated to the catalyst surface to activate PMS molecules. The PMS activation system showed ultrafast oxidation capability to degrade organic pollutants and strong ability to resist interference from environmental matrixes due to the optimized electron transfer process. Furthermore, the developed membrane reactor exhibited strong catalytic stability during the continuous degradation of P-Chlorophenol (CP).

Macrolide sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids from Celastrus monospermus and evaluation of their immunosuppressive and anti-osteoclastogenesis activities.

Phytochemical investigation of the stems of Celastrus monospermus Roxb enabled isolation and identification of fifteen new macrolide sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids (1-15) along with five known analogues. Their structures were elucidated by comprehensive spectroscopic analysis (NMR, HRESIMS, IR, UV), chemical hydrolysis, and single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Bioassay of the abundant isolates revealed that seven compounds inhibited the proliferation of B lymphocytes with IC50 values ranging between 1.4 and 19.9 µM. Among them, celasmondine C (3) could significantly promote the apoptosis of activated B lymphocyte, especially late-stage apoptosis. Besides, compounds 3, 16, and 20 exhibited potent suppression of osteoclast formation at a concentration of 1.0 µM. This investigation enriched the chemical diversity of macrolide sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids, and supported evidence for the development of new immunosuppressive and anti-osteoclastogenesis agents.

Phillygenin prevents osteoclast differentiation and bone loss by targeting RhoA.

Forsythia suspensa tea is a popular traditional Chinese medicine decoction for its healthy and therapeutic benefits. However, its effects in bone metabolism were not clear. In recent study, we uncovered anti-osteoclastogenesis property of Phillygenin (Phi), a compound abundant in Forsythia suspensa leaves, and aimed to investigate the effect and mechanism of Phi on bone metabolism in vivo and in vitro. Lipopolysaccharides-induced murine calvaria osteolysis and ovariectomy-induced bone loss animal models were used to identify the bone-protective effect of Phi in vivo and micro-CT, pQCT, and TRAP staining were applied. We used CCK8, TUNEL, BrdU, and TRAP staining to evaluate the efficacy of Phi on the proliferation and formation of OCs in primary mBMMs. RNA sequence, activity-based protein profiling, molecular docking, G-LISA, and WB were used to inspect the target and underlying mechanism of Phi's actions in mBMMs. We found Phi significantly inhibited bone resorption in vivo and inhibited mBMMs osteoclastogenesis in vitro. Ras homolog gene family member A (RhoA) was identified as the direct target of Phi. It counteracted the effects of RhoA activator and acted as a RhoA inhibitor. By targeting RhoA, Phi modulated Rho-associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase 1 (ROCK1) activity and regulated its downstream NF-κB/NFATc1/c-fos pathway. Furthermore, Phi depressed the disassembling of F-actin ring through cofilin and myosin1a. Our findings provided Phi as a potential option for treating bone loss diseases by targeting RhoA and highlighted the importance of F. suspensa as a preventive approach in bone disorders.

Activating Lobule VI PCTH+-Med Pathway in Cerebellum Blocks the Acquisition of Methamphetamine Conditioned Place Preference in Mice.

Cerebellum has been implicated in drug addiction; however, its underlying cellular populations and neuronal circuitry remain largely unknown. In the current study, we identified a neural pathway from tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-positive Purkinje cells (PCTH+) in cerebellar lobule VI to calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII)-positive glutamatergic neurons in the medial cerebellar nucleus (MedCaMKII), forming the lobule VI PCTH+-MedCaMKII pathway in male mice. In naive male mice, inhibition of PCTH+ neurons activated Med neurons. During conditioned place preference (CPP) training, exposure to methamphetamine (METH) inhibited lobule VI PCTH+ neurons while excited MedCaMKII neurons in mice. Silencing MedCaMKII using a tetanus toxin light chain (tettox) suppressed the acquisition of METH CPP in mice but resulted in motor coordination deficits in naive mice. In contrast, activating lobule VI PCTH+ terminals within Med inhibited the activity of Med neurons and subsequently blocked the acquisition of METH CPP in mice without affecting motor coordination, locomotor activity, and sucrose reinforcements in naive mice. Our findings identified a novel lobule VI PCTH+-MedCaMKII pathway within the cerebellum and explored its role in mediating the acquisition of METH-preferred behaviors.

Avialan-like brain morphology in Sinovenator (Troodontidae, Theropoda).

Many modifications to the skull and brain anatomy occurred along the lineage encompassing non-avialan theropod dinosaurs and modern birds. Anatomical changes to the endocranium include an enlarged endocranial cavity, relatively larger optic lobes that imply elevated visual acuity, and proportionately smaller olfactory bulbs that suggest reduced olfactory capacity. Here, we use micro-computed tomographic (µCT) imaging to reconstruct the endocranium and its neuroanatomical features from an exceptionally well-preserved skull of Sinovenator changii (Troodontidae, Theropoda). While its overall morphology resembles the typical endocranium of other troodontids, Sinovenator also exhibits unique endocranial features that are similar to other paravian taxa and non-maniraptoran theropods. Landmark-based geometric morphometric analysis on endocranial shape of non-avialan and avialan dinosaurs points to the overall brain morphology of Sinovenator most closely resembling that of Archaeopteryx, thus indicating acquisition of avialan-grade brain morphology in troodontids and wide existence of such architecture in Maniraptora.