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Major depressive disorder (MDD) patients exhibit a mood-congruent emotional processing bias within the amygdala toward negative facial stimuli at both unconscious and conscious levels. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate the temporal and spatial dynamics of amygdala along with its interactions with the whole brain during implicit and explicit conditions in MDD.
Methods
Thirty MDD patients and 26 healthy controls (HCs) underwent magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings and performed implicit and explicit emotional face recognition tasks with happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions. Using the amygdala as a seed region, time frequency representations (TFR) and functional connectivity (FC) were calculated. Pearson correlation analyses measured the relationship between TFR and FC values with clinical symptoms.
Results
During implicit processing, MDD patients exhibited left amygdala activation in the gamma power (60–70 Hz) before 250 ms in response to sad facial stimuli compared to HCs. In the implicit mode, there were increased FC between the right amygdala and several brain regions in the occipitoparietal lobes, as well as higher FC between the left amygdala and putamen in MDD patients. Additionally, the right amygdala was positively correlated with the severity of depression and anxiety during implicit processing.
Conclusions
MDD patients had lateralized amygdala activation in response to sad facial expressions during unconscious emotional recognition of facial stimuli. Our study provided valuable insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of facial emotional recognition associated with depressive and anxiety-related cognitive bias during implicit and explicit processing.
This paper presents the first reported design of a balanced nonreciprocal bandpass filter with both common-mode (CM) and differential-mode (DM) reflectionless characteristics. The nonreciprocal behavior is achieved using a time-modulated resonator, which isolates in-band backward interference signals, thereby protecting preceding circuits from their negative effects. To solve the negative effects of reflected waves of the reflection-based CM noise suppression and reflection-based DM stopband attenuation, CM and DM reflectionless structures are integrated at both the input and output ports, ensuring reflectionless operation for both CM and DM signals. Meanwhile, the implementation of DM reflectionless characteristics effectively addresses the issue of reflection zero degradation typically observed in time-modulated resonator-based nonreciprocal filters. The proposed filter exclusively transmits differential forward signals, which will greatly improve the anti-interference ability and stability of the balanced RF circuits. To validate the concept experimentally, a 1.5-GHz microstrip prototype is designed, simulated, fabricated, and characterized.
This study aimed to explore clinical characteristics and treatment efficacy in patients with posterior canal benign paroxysmal positional vertigo and different sleep qualities.
Methods
Patients with posterior canal benign paroxysmal positional vertigo were divided into high and low sleep quality groups based on Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores.
Results
No significant baseline differences existed between low (n = 53) and high (n = 39) sleep quality groups. However, the proportion of cupulolithiasis was higher in the low sleep quality group (60.38 per cent vs. 35.90 per cent; p < 0.05). Additionally, the low sleep quality group had a longer median duration of upbeat nystagmus during the Dix-Hallpike test (63.50 seconds vs. 26.80 seconds; p < 0.05) and a lower cured rate in initial repositioning (9.43 per cent vs. 56.41 per cent) compared to high sleep quality group. Repositioning therapy significantly improved depressive and anxiety symptoms in all patients with posterior canal benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, with a more pronounced improvement in depressive symptoms in the low sleep quality group.
Conclusion
Poor sleep quality is associated with higher cupulolithiasis prevalence and treatment resistance, with residual symptoms mainly affecting social functioning.
Studies highlight the thalamus as a key region distinguishing early- from late-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). While structural thalamic correlates with OCD onset age are well-studied, resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) remains largely unexplored. This study examines thalamic subregional rsFC to elucidate pathophysiological differences in OCD based on different onset times.
Methods
The study comprised 85 early-onset OCD (EO-OCD) patients, 94 late-onset OCD (LO-OCD) patients, and 94 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HCs). rsFC analysis was conducted to assess thalamic connectivity across seven subdivisions among the groups.
Results
Both EO-OCD and LO-OCD patients exhibited increased rsFC between the primary motor thalamus and the posterior central gyrus and between the thalamic premotor and the supplementary motor areas. EO-OCD patients showed significantly stronger rsFC between the prefrontal thalamus (Ptha) and the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) compared to both LO-OCD patients and HCs. In contrast, LO-OCD patients demonstrated reduced rsFC between the Ptha and the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) compared to EO-OCD patients and HCs. Additionally, the rsFC between the Ptha and both the MFG and IPL was negatively correlated with age of onset, with earlier onset linked to stronger connectivity.
Conclusion
These findings reveal both shared and distinct thalamic connectivity patterns in EO-OCD and LO-OCD patients. Sensory-motor networks exhibiting thalamic hyperconnectivity are critical for the manifestation of OCD, regardless of age of onset. The frontal–parietal network and thalamic hyperconnectivity may present a compensatory mechanism in EO-OCD patients, while hypoconnectivity with the frontoparietal network may reflect a neural mechanism underlying LO-OCD.
Neuroimaging studies provide compelling evidence that major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with widespread gray matter morphological abnormalities. However, significant interindividual variability complicates the interpretation of group-level findings, highlighting the need for investigating potential MDD subtypes.
Methods
In this study, we aimed to identify subtypes of MDD based on individualized deviations from normative gray matter volumes (GMVs), as estimated using a normative model derived from healthy controls (HCs). We leveraged a large, multi-site dataset of high-resolution structural MRI scans, comprising 1,276 MDD patients and 1,104 matched HCs. To explore the transcriptional and molecular mechanisms underlying the observed structural abnormalities, we examined the relationships between GMV deviations, transcriptomic similarities (as measured by the correlated gene expression [CGE] connectome), and the distribution of neurotransmitter receptors/transporters.
Results
Our results revealed two reproducible MDD subtypes, each exhibiting distinct patterns of GMV abnormalities across study sites. Subtype 1 displayed increased GMVs in cerebral regions and decreased GMVs in cerebellar regions, whereas subtype 2 showed the opposite pattern, with decreased GMVs in cerebral regions and increased GMVs in cerebellar areas. The identified GMV abnormalities were differentially associated with neurotransmitter receptor/transporter distributions. Furthermore, these abnormalities were linked to transcriptionally connected gene networks, suggesting genetic underpinnings for both subtypes. Notably, the two subtypes exhibited distinct CGE-informed disease epicenters.
Conclusions
This study identifies two robust MDD subtypes, providing new insights into the neurobiological and genetic bases of MDD and offering a potential advancement in the nosology of the disorder.
It was found that a significant number of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) did not respond to the treatment, leading to high ongoing costs and disease burden. The main objective of this study was to find neurobiological indicators that can predict the effectiveness of antidepressant treatment using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). A group of 103 patients who were experiencing their first episode of MDD were included in the study. After 2 weeks of SSRI treatment, the group of patients was split into two categories: ineffectiveand effective. The FMRIB Software Library (FSL) was used for diffusion data preprocessing to obtain tensor-based parameters such as FA, MD, AD, and RD. Tract-Based Spatial Statistical (TBSS) voxel-wise statistical analysis of the tensor-based parameters was carried out using the TBSS procedure in FSL. We conducted an investigation to determine if there were notable variations in neuroimaging attributes among the three groups. Compared to HC, the effective group showed significantly higher AD and MD values in the left CgH. Correlating neuroimaging characteristics and clinical manifestations revealed a significant positive correlation between CgH-l FA and clinical 2-week HAMD-17 total scores and a significant positive correlation between CgH-r FA and clinical 2-week HAMD-17 total scores. Functional damage to the cingulum bundle in the hippocampal region may predispose patients to MDD and predict antidepressant treatment outcomes. More extensive multicenter investigations are necessary to validate these MRI findings that indicate treatment effectiveness and assess their potential significance in practical therapeutic decision-making.
Assessing fit in common factor models solely through the lens of mean and covariance structures, as is commonly done with conventional goodness-of-fit (GOF) assessments, may overlook critical aspects of misfit, potentially leading to misleading conclusions. To achieve more flexible fit assessment, we extend the theory of generalized residuals (Haberman & Sinharay, 2013), originally developed for models with categorical data, to encompass more general measurement models. Within this extended framework, we propose several fit test statistics designed to evaluate various parametric assumptions involved in common factor models. The examples include assessing the distributional assumptions of latent variables and the functional form assumptions of individual manifest variables. The performance of the proposed statistics is examined through simulation studies and an empirical data analysis. Our findings suggest that generalized residuals are promising tools for detecting misfit in measurement models, often masked when assessed by conventional GOF testing methods.
American silk moth, Antheraea polyphemus Cramer 1775 (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae), native to North America, has potential significance in sericulture for food consumption and silk production. To date, the phylogenetic relationship and divergence time of A. polyphemus with its Asian relatives remain unknown. To end these issues, two mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) of A. polyphemus from the USA and Canada respectively were determined. The mitogenomes of A. polyphemus from the USA and Canada were 15,346 and 15,345 bp in size, respectively, with only two transitions and five indels. The two mitogenomes both encoded typical mitochondrial 37 genes. No tandem repeat elements were identified in the A+T-rich region of A. polyphemus. The mitogenome-based phylogenetic analyses supported the placement of A. polyphemus within the genus Antheraea, and revealed the presence of two clades for eight Antheraea species used: one included A. polyphemus, A. assamensis Helfer, A. formosana Sonan and the other contained A. mylitta Drury, A. frithi Bouvier, A. yamamai Guérin-Méneville, A. proylei Jolly, and A. pernyi Guérin-Méneville. Mitogenome-based divergence time estimation further suggested that the dispersal of A. polyphemus from Asia into North America might have occurred during the Miocene Epoch (18.18 million years ago) across the Berling land bridge. This study reports the mitogenome of A. polyphemus that provides new insights into the phylogenetic relationship among Antheraea species and the origin of A. polyphemus.
Data-driven neural word embeddings (NWEs), grounded in distributional semantics, can capture various ranges of linguistic regularities, which can be further enriched by incorporating structured knowledge resources. This work proposes a novel post-processing approach for injecting semantic relationships into the vector space of both static and contextualized NWEs. Current solutions to retrofitting (RF) word embeddings often oversimplify the integration of semantic knowledge, neglecting the nuanced differences between relationships, which may result in suboptimal performance. Instead of applying multi-thresholding to distance boundaries in metric learning, we compute taxonomic similarity to dynamically adjust these boundaries during the semantic specialization of word embeddings. Benchmark evaluations on both static and contextualized word embeddings demonstrate that our dynamic-fitting (DF) approach produces SOTA correlation results of 0.78 and 0.76 on SimLex-999 and SimVerb-3500, respectively, highlighting the effectiveness of incorporating multiple semantic relationships in refining vector semantics. Our approach also outperforms existing RF methods in both supervised and unsupervised semantic relationships recognition tasks. It achieves top accuracy scores for hypernymy detection on the BLESS, WBLESS, and BIBLESS datasets (0.97, 0.89, and 0.83, respectively) and an F1 score of over 0.60 on four types of semantic relationship classification in the shared Subtask-2 of CogALex-V, surpassing all participant systems. In the analogy reasoning task of the Bigger Analogy Test Set, our approach outperforms existing RF methods on inferring relational similarity. These consistent improvements across various lexical semantics tasks suggest that our DF approach can effectively integrate distributional semantics with symbolic knowledge resources, thereby enhancing the representation capacity of word embeddings in downstream applications.
Nutrition intervention is an effective way to improve flesh qualities of fish. The effect of feed supplementation with glutamate (Glu) on flesh quality of gibel carp (Carassius gibelio) was investigated. In trial 1, the fish (initial weight: 37.49 ± 0.08 g) were fed two practical diets with 0 and 2% Glu supplementation. In trial 2, the fish (37.26 ± 0.04 g) were fed two purified diets with 0 and 3% Glu supplementation. The results after feeding trials showed that dietary Glu supplementation increased the hardness and springiness of muscle, whether using practical or purified diets. Glu-supplemented diets increased the thickness and density of myofibres and collagen content between myofibres. Furthermore, Glu promoted muscle protein deposition by regulating the IGF-1-AKT-mTOR signalling pathway, and enhanced the myofibre hypertrophy by upregulating genes related to myofibre growth and development (mef2a, mef2d, myod, myf5, mlc, tpi and pax7α). The protein deposition and myofibre hypertrophy in turn improved the flesh texture. In addition, IMP content in flesh increased when supplementing Glu whether to practical or to purified diet. Metabolomics confirmed that Glu promoted the deposition of muscle-flavoured substances and purine metabolic pathway most functioned, echoed by the upregulation of key genes (ampd, ppat and adsl) in purine metabolism. The sensory test also clarified that dietary Glu improved the flesh quality by enhancing the muscle texture and flavour. Conclusively, dietary Glu supplementation can improve the flesh quality in this fish, which can further support evidence from other studies more generally that improve flesh quality of cultured fish.
Automatic precision herbicide application offers significant potential for reducing herbicide use in turfgrass weed management. However, developing accurate and reliable neural network models is crucial for achieving optimal precision weed control. The reported neural network models in previous research have been limited by specific geographic regions, weed species, and turfgrass management practices, restricting their broader applicability. The objective of this research was to evaluate the feasibility of deploying a single, robust model for weed classification across a diverse range of weed species, considering variations in species, ecotypes, densities, and growth stages in bermudagrass turfgrass systems across different regions in both China and the United States. Among the models tested, ResNeXt152 emerged as the top performer, demonstrating strong weed detection capabilities across 24 geographic locations and effectively identifying 14 weed species under varied conditions. Notably, the ResNeXt152 model achieved an F1 score and recall exceeding 0.99 across multiple testing scenarios, with a Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) value surpassing 0.98, indicating its high effectiveness and reliability. These findings suggest that a single neural network model can reliably detect a wide range of weed species in diverse turf regimes, significantly reducing the costs associated with model training and confirming the feasibility of using one model for precision weed control across different turf settings and broad geographic regions.
Manganese (Mn) is a crucial trace element that actively participates in a diverse array of physiological processes. Mn is maintained at appropriate levels in the body by absorption and excretion by the body. Dysregulation of Mn homeostasis can lead to a variety of diseases, especially the accumulation of Mn in the brain, resulting in toxic side effects. We reviewed the metabolism and distribution of Mn at multiple levels, including organ, cellular and sub-cell levels. Mitochondria are the main sites of Mn metabolism and energy conversion in cells. Enhanced Mn superoxide dismutase activity reduces mitochondrial oxidative stress and inhibits cancer development. In addition, Mn enhances anti-cancer immune responses through the cGAS–STING pathway. We introduced various delivery vectors for Mn delivery to cancer sites for Mn supplementation and anti-cancer immunity. This review aims to provide new research perspectives for the application of Mn in the prevention and treatment of human diseases, especially by enhancing anti-cancer immune responses to inhibit cancer progression.
Multimorbidity, especially physical–mental multimorbidity, is an emerging global health challenge. However, the characteristics and patterns of physical–mental multimorbidity based on the diagnosis of mental disorders in Chinese adults remain unclear.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2004 to April 2005 among 13,358 adults (ages 18–65years) residing in Liaoning Province, China, to evaluate the occurrence of physical–mental multimorbidity. Mental disorders were assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (version 1.0) with reference to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd Edition Revised), while physical diseases were self-reported. Physical–mental multimorbidity was assessed based on a list of 16 physical and mental morbidities with prevalence ≥1% and was defined as the presence of one mental disorder and one physical disease. The chi-square test was used to calculate differences in the prevalence and comorbidity of different diseases between the sexes. A matrix heat map was generated of the absolute number of comorbidities for each disease. To identify complex associations and potential disease clustering patterns, a network analysis was performed, constructing a network to explore the relationships within and between various mental disorders and physical diseases.
Results
Physical–mental multimorbidity was confirmed in 3.7% (498) of the participants, with a higher prevalence among women (4.2%, 282) than men (3.3%, 216). The top three diseases with the highest comorbidity rate and average number of comorbidities were dysphoric mood (86.3%; 2.86), social anxiety disorder (77.8%; 2.78) and major depressive disorder (77.1%; 2.53). A physical–mental multimorbidity network was visually divided into mental and physical domains. Additionally, four distinct multimorbidity patterns were identified: ‘Affective-addiction’, ‘Anxiety’, ‘Cardiometabolic’ and ‘Gastro-musculoskeletal-respiratory’, with the digestive-respiratory-musculoskeletal pattern being the most common among the total sample. The affective-addiction pattern was more prevalent in men and rural populations. The cardiometabolic pattern was more common in urban populations.
Conclusions
The physical–mental multimorbidity network structure and the four patterns identified in this study align with previous research, though we observed notable differences in the proportion of these patterns. These variations highlight the importance of tailored interventions that address specific multimorbidity patterns while maintaining broader applicability to diverse populations.
Recent studies have increasingly utilized gradient metrics to investigate the spatial transitions of brain organization, enabling the conversion of macroscale brain features into low-dimensional manifold representations. However, it remains unclear whether alterations exist in the cortical morphometric similarity (MS) network gradient in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ). This study aims to examine potential differences in the principal MS gradient between individuals with SCZ and healthy controls and to explore how these differences relate to transcriptional profiles and clinical phenomenology.
Methods
MS network was constructed in this study, and its gradient of the network was computed in 203 patients with SCZ and 201 healthy controls, who shared the same demographics in terms of age and gender. To examine irregularities in the MS network gradient, between-group comparisons were carried out, and partial least squares regression analysis was used to study the relationships between the MS network gradient-based variations in SCZ, and gene expression patterns and clinical phenotype.
Results
In contrast to healthy controls, the principal MS gradient of patients with SCZ was primarily significantly lower in sensorimotor areas, and higher in more areas. In addition, the aberrant gradient pattern was spatially linked with the genes enriched for neurobiologically significant pathways and preferential expression in various brain regions and cortical layers. Furthermore, there were strong positive connections between the principal MS gradient and the symptomatologic score in SCZ.
Conclusions
These findings showed changes in the principal MS network gradient in SCZ and offered potential molecular explanations for the structural changes underpinning SCZ.
This case study provides a comprehensive analysis of the intricate political risks faced by TikTok, the Chinese social media giant, within the complex US political landscape. Beginning with an exploration of the security concerns articulated by the US government, the discussion centers on TikTok’s data collection practices and their perceived impact on US national security. The narrative unfolds by elucidating the multifaceted strategies employed by TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, to address these challenges, including litigation, endeavors toward Americanization, and technological adaptations. It also examines the evolution in the US government’s stance as well as TikTok’s adaptive strategies aimed at sustaining and expanding its presence in the US market. The study depicts the responses of the Chinese government to US policies, unraveling the broader implications of these developments on the global political-economic landscape, exploring the dynamics involved in US-China relations, and providing a deeper understanding of the complexities inherent in such interactions. Finally, this case study invites readers to engage in contemplation on the broader themes of political risks faced by multinational corporations, the challenges inherent in navigating global legal frontiers, and the intricate nature of US-China relations.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous condition characterized by significant intersubject variability in clinical presentations. Recent neuroimaging studies have indicated that MDD involves altered brain connectivity across widespread regions. However, the variability in abnormal connectivity among MDD patients remains understudied.
Methods
Utilizing a large, multi-site dataset comprising 1,276 patients with MDD and 1,104 matched healthy controls, this study aimed to investigate the intersubject variability of structural covariance (IVSC) and functional connectivity (IVFC) in MDD.
Results
Patients with MDD demonstrated higher IVSC in the precuneus and lingual gyrus, but lower IVSC in the medial frontal gyrus, calcarine, cuneus, and cerebellum anterior lobe. Conversely, they exhibited an overall increase in IVFC across almost the entire brain, including the middle frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, insula, striatum, and precuneus. Correlation and mediation analyses revealed that abnormal IVSC was positively correlated with gray matter atrophy and mediated the relationship between abnormal IVFC and gray matter atrophy. As the disease progressed, IVFC increased in the left striatum, insula, right lingual gyrus, posterior cingulate, and left calcarine. Pharmacotherapy significantly reduced IVFC in the right insula, superior temporal gyrus, and inferior parietal lobule. Furthermore, we found significant but distinct correlations between abnormal IVSC and IVFC and the distribution of neurotransmitter receptors, suggesting potential molecular underpinnings. Further analysis confirmed that abnormal patterns of IVSC and IVFC were reproducible and MDD specificity.
Conclusions
These results elucidate the heterogeneity of abnormal connectivity in MDD, underscoring the importance of addressing this heterogeneity in future research.
The previous study indicated that ubiquitination is involved in the freezing tolerance of hydrated seeds. Parthenolide (PN), inducing the ubiquitination of MDM2, an E3 ring-finger ubiquitin ligase, adversely affects the freezing tolerance of hydrated lettuce seeds. Therefore, a proteomics analysis was conducted to identify PN's targets in hydrated seeds exposed to cooling conditions. Several pathways, including oxidative phosphorylation (KEGG00190), amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism (KEGG00520), and biosynthesis of nucleotide sugars (KEGG01250), were enriched in the PN treatment under slow-cooling conditions (3°C h−1, P < 0.05). Among the proteins in oxidative phosphorylation, the expression of NADH dehydrogenases and ATP synthases (ATPsyn) decreased in PN treatment. In contrast, uncoupling proteins increased after PN treatment, which led to the dissociation of the electron transport chain from ATP synthesis. Treatments with rotenone, dicoumarol, and oligomycin (i.e., oxidative phosphorylation inhibitors) decreased the survival rate of hydrated seeds under freezing conditions, which indicated that energy metabolism was related to the freezing tolerance of hydrated seeds. The predicted interactions between PN and MDM2-like proteins of Lactuca indicated that LsMDM2-5 forms two potential hydrogen bonds with PN. Furthermore, based on AlphaFold predictions and yeast 2-hybrid results, MDM2-5 might interact directly with NADH2. The knockdown of MDM2-5 by RNAi caused a higher level of NADH2 and ATPsyn and a higher freezing tolerance of hydrated seeds. This indicated that MDM2 played negative roles in regulating ATP synthesis and freezing tolerance of hydrated seeds.
The collapse of an initially spherical cavitation bubble near a free surface leads to the formation of two jets: a downward jet into the liquid, and an upward jet penetrating the free surface. In this study, we examine the surprising interaction of a bubble trapped in a stable cavitating vortex ring approaching a free surface. As a result, a single fast and tall liquid jet forms. We find that this jet is observed only above critical Froude numbers ($Fr$) and Weber numbers ($We$) when ${Fr}^2 (1.6-2.73/{We}) > 1$, illustrating the importance of inertia, gravity and surface tension in accelerating this novel jet and thereby reaching heights several hundred times the radius of the vortex ring. Our experimental results are supported by numerical simulations, revealing that the underlying mechanism driving the vortex ring acceleration is the disruption of the equilibrium of high-pressure regions at the front and rear of the vortex ring caused by the free surface. Quantitative analysis based on the energy relationships elucidates that the velocity ratio between the maximum velocity of the free-surface jet and the translational velocity of the vortex ring is relatively stable yet is attenuated by surface tension when the jet is mild.
Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis is an important step in establishing the validity of measurements. Most traditional methods for DIF analysis use an item-by-item strategy via anchor items that are assumed DIF-free. If anchor items are flawed, these methods will yield misleading results due to biased scales. In this article, based on the fact that the item’s relative change of difficulty difference (RCD) does not depend on the mean ability of individual groups, a new DIF detection method (RCD-DIF) is proposed by comparing the observed differences against those with simulated data that are known DIF-free. The RCD-DIF method consists of a D-QQ (quantile quantile) plot that permits the identification of internal references points (similar to anchor items), a RCD-QQ plot that facilitates visual examination of DIF, and a RCD graphical test that synchronizes DIF analysis at the test level with that at the item level via confidence intervals on individual items. The RCD procedure visually reveals the overall pattern of DIF in the test and the size of DIF for each item and is expected to work properly even when the majority of the items possess DIF and the DIF pattern is unbalanced. Results of two simulation studies indicate that the RCD graphical test has Type I error rate comparable to those of existing methods but with greater power.