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Increasing evidence has shown that the resting state brain connectivity of default mode network (DMN) which are important for social cognition are disrupted in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, previous neuroimaging studies did not present consistent results. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis of resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) studies of DMN in the individuals with ASD and healthy controls (HCs) to provide a new perspective for investigating the pathophysiology of ASD. We carried out a search using the terms: ("ASD" OR "Autism") AND ("resting state" OR "rest") AND ("DMN" OR "default mode network") in PubMed, Web of Science and Embase to identify the researches published before January 2020. Ten resting state datasets including 203 patients and 208 HCs were included. Anisotropic Effect Size version of Signed Differential Mapping (AES-SDM) method was applied to identify group differences. In comparison with the HCs, the patients with ASD showed increased connectivity in cerebellum, right middle temporal gyrus, superior occipital gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus, supplementary motor area and putamen. Decreased connectivity was discovered in some nodes of DMN, such as medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and angular gyrus. These results may help us to further clarify the neurobiological mechanisms in patients with ASD.

Using behavioral measures and ERP technique, researchers discovered at least two factors could influence the final perception of depth in Panum’s limiting case, which are the vertical disparity gradient and the degree of cue conflict between two- and three-dimensional shapes. Although certain event-related potential components have been proved to be sensitive to the different levels of these two factors, some methodological limitations existed in this technique. In this study, we proposed that the omega complexity of EEG signal may serve as an important supplement of the traditional event-related potential technique. We found that the trials with lower vertical gradient disparity have lower omega complexity (i.e., higher global functional connectivity) of the occipital region, especially that of the right-occipital hemisphere. Moreover, for occipital omega complexity, the trials with low-cue conflict have significantly larger omega complexity than those with medium- and high-cue conflict. It is also found that the electrodes located in the middle line of the occipital region (i.e., POz and Oz) are more crucial to the impact of different levels of cue conflict on omega complexity than the other electrodes located in the left- and right-occipital hemispheres. These evidences demonstrated that the EEG omega complexity could reflect distinct neural activities evoked by Panum’s limiting case configurations, with different levels of vertical disparity gradient and cue conflict. Besides, the influence of vertical disparity gradient and cue conflict on omega complexity may be regional dependent. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The EEG omega complexity could reflect distinct neural activities evoked by Panum’s limiting case configurations with different levels of vertical disparity gradient and cue conflict. The influence of vertical disparity gradient and cue conflict on omega complexity is regional dependent. The omega complexity of EEG signal can serve as an important supplement of the traditional ERP technique.

We characterized the Ammopiptanthus nanus transcriptome, identified a large number of orthologs and predicted the divergence time between A. nanus and A. mongolicus, the only two species in genus Ammopiptanthus. Plants in the genus Ammopiptanthus are relic trees of the Tertiary period that have survived dramatic climate change in the Central Asia dryland. Currently, the only two remaining Ammopiptanthus species, A. nanus and A. mongolicus, are distributed in distinct arid regions. Comparative analysis between the two species will facilitate our understanding of speciation and their different adaptation mechanisms. However, lack of nucleotide sequence data hindered the functional genomics research on A. nanus and comparative transcriptome analysis between the two Ammopiptanthus species. Here, we utilized RNA-Seq to characterize the A. nanus transcriptome and then performed a comparative transcriptome analysis between the two species. A total of 69,990 transcripts were assembled from 93 million clean reads of A. nanus, and more than 78% of these transcripts were annotated. A batch of miRNA precursors was predicted and thousands of potential simple sequence repeats were identified. A total of 6606 pairs of putative orthologs with full-length coding sequences were obtained using reciprocal blast. Based on the rates of nonsynonymous (Ka) to synonymous (Ks) substitutions, the divergence time between A. nanus and A. mongolicus was calculated to be approximately 0.70 ± 0.62 Mya. We identified 15 rapidly evolved genes that likely experienced positive selection; these genes are mainly involved in plant defense, epigenetic regulation, and plant development. Our results provide a comprehensive transcriptomic dataset for A. nanus and advance understanding on the evolutionary adaptation of the two species to their individual arid habitats.

Although Panum's limiting case has been extensively researched, only recently has it been discovered that in addition to horizontal disparity, the final perception of depth is influenced by (i) the vertical disparity gradient and (ii) the degree of cue conflict between 2D and 3D shapes. The present study examines the neural correlates of the two factors, using EEG while observers viewed several versions of stereoscopic stimuli, which depicted Panum's limiting case. In these patterns the vertical disparity gradient was varied from 0.1 to 0.6, while the degree of cue conflict was manipulated from low to high. The ERP data showed that the amplitude of the N170 component (exogenous) was modulated by the vertical disparity gradient and cue conflict. In contrast, the N270 component (endogenous) was modulated by cue conflict only. Such findings demonstrate that both factors affect the perception of depth in Panum's limiting case, but at different stages: the vertical disparity gradient at an early stage of processing (N170) and cue conflict at two stages (N170 and N270). Hence, vertical disparity gradient is related to low-level visual stimulus parameters and can modulate exogenous component, while cue conflict is related to both exogenous and endogenous components.

Assessing the result of conceptual change (i.e., whether an individual has come to correctly understand a science concept) is important in science education, however traditional assessment methods lack objectivity. In this study, permutation entropy (PE) based complexity, a kind of entropy used to quantify the complexity describing the uncertainty of time series, was explored by the functional near-infrared spectroscopy to seek an objective neurobiological indicator for this assessment. Two groups of participants, engineering students (classified as "experts") and humanities students (classified as "novices"), were tested on their conceptions to discriminate the speed of cars according to the animation, while the hemodynamic response was recorded over their inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The activation analysis, PE based complexity analysis, and k-means clustering analysis were conducted. The results indicated that experts performed the task better than novices in behavioral performances, and PE values in the IFG were smaller for experts, especially in the right IFG. Furthermore, the k-means clustering analysis showed that the PE could be a feature to classify the students into two groups. It is concluded that the PE is a promising neurobiological indicator for assessment of this kind.

Panum's limiting case is one of the most basic configurations in monocular occlusions. The previous studies have shown that the disparity-sign processing affected the depth perception in other configurations of monocular occlusions, e.g., da Vinci stereopsis. However, there is no study to examine the condition in Panum's limiting case. Moreover, although the previous researches have investigated the neural correlation of vertical disparity gradient and cue conflict in Panum's stimuli, no study have considered if there is difference among different stimulus types. The current study aimed to determine the relationship between the two determinants (stimulus type, disparity-sign processing) and perceptual learning in monocular occlusions. The reaction times and duration of double fusion was measured when twenty-six participants viewed different Panum's stimuli. The stimulus type was manipulated for Frisby, Gillam and Wang configurations. The disparity-sign processing was changed for crossed and uncrossed disparity. The results revealed that for each level of the two factors, the reaction times of double fusion decreased and the duration of double fusion increased with training. Moreover, the main effect of stimulus type was significant, while the main effect of disparity-sign processing was not significant. The interaction effect of the two factors was significant. These results suggest that that there is perceptual learning for disparity-sign processing and stimulus type in Panum's limiting case.

Background Ammopiptanthus nanus is a rare broad-leaved shrub that is found in the desert and arid regions of Central Asia. This plant species exhibits extremely high tolerance to drought and freezing and has been used in abiotic tolerance research in plants. As a relic of the tertiary period, A. nanus is of great significance to plant biogeographic research in the ancient Mediterranean region. Here, we report a draft genome assembly using the Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) platform and gene annotation for A. nanus. Findings A total of 64.72 Gb of raw PacBio sequel reads were generated from four 20-kb libraries. After filtering, 64.53 Gb of clean reads were obtained, giving 72.59× coverage depth. Assembly using Canu gave an assembly length of 823.74 Mb, with a contig N50 of 2.76 Mb. The final size of the assembled A. nanus genome was close to the 889 Mb estimated by k-mer analysis. The gene annotation completeness was evaluated using Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs; 1,327 of the 1,440 conserved genes (92.15%) could be found in the A. nanus assembly. Genome annotation revealed that 74.08% of the A. nanus genome is composed of repetitive elements and 53.44% is composed of long terminal repeat elements. We predicted 37,188 protein-coding genes, of which 96.53% were functionally annotated. Conclusions The genomic sequences of A. nanus could be a valuable source for comparative genomic analysis in the legume family and will be useful for understanding the phylogenetic relationships of the Thermopsideae and the evolutionary response of plant species to the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau uplift.

The forced-choice response in the experiment is very common in cognitive psychology. This study provided in informal introduction to a method (generalized linear mixed models) for analysis a case about categorical data in binocular vison. The results showed that the two important factors (vertical disparity gradient and cue conflict) in binocular vision has significant influence in depth perception. Moreover, the results also revealed that the two factors have a positive effect on double fusion, but a negative effect on no fusion or single fusion. Additionally, the subjects' random effects should be involved in the model to estimate probability. These findings systematically suggested the relationship between the two factors and different depth perceptions, which corroborated and extended the previous researches.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate target gene expression to modulate plant growth, development, and biotic and abiotic stress response at the post-transcriptional level. Ammopiptanthus mongolicus, an ecologically important desert plant, is increasingly used as a model for studying stress tolerance in plants. The miRNA-mediated gene regulatory network might remarkably contribute to the high stress tolerance of A. mongolicus. However, a genome-wide identification of miRNAs and their targets is still lacking in A. mongolicus. In this study, 170 conserved and 156 non-conserved miRNAs were identified in A. mongolicus. We experimentally identified 298 miRNA-target pairs from the degradome data. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analyses identified 28 drought-responsive miRNAs in leaves and 15 in roots. Some characteristics of the miRNA-mediated regulatory network were found in A. mongolicus. Multiple miRNAs, including 2 newly identified non-conserved miRNAs, miR-P11 and miR-P14, generated from the precursors of miR169, were found to be involved in drought stress response. Further, miR2118 and miR858 participated in drought stress response by up-regulating OZF1 gene and certain MYB genes that were involved in the regulation of flavonol biosynthesis in A. mongolicus. The findings of this study might provide new insights for understanding the functions of miRNA in stress response in plants.