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Although long-term depression (LTD) is generally considered as one of the underlying mechanisms of learning and memory, the induction of it in vivo seems difficult. Evidence demonstrates that the total synaptic weight is associated with circadian rhythm, with up-regulation in wakefulness and down-regulation during sleep, suggesting that the induction of LTD may also be affected by it. In this study, we found that in two well-established rat models, low-frequency stimuli (LFS) induced LTD upon daytime anesthesia, but not at night. Upon further study, we found that the induction of LTD could not be blocked at night if we deprived sleep of the rats during the daytime. These results indicate that the induction of LTD is facilitated by daytime or sleep deprivation. Since rats both in the daytime and after sleep deprivation share the same character of high sleep pressure, our results suggest that LTD is actually facilitated by high sleep pressure. Our study also provides a possible explanation why some labs can induce LTD in vivo while others cannot. Sleep pressure should be taken into account as one of the key factors on the induction of LTD in vivo.

With the increasing applications of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO(2) NPs) in industry and daily life, an increasing number of studies showed that TiO(2) NPs may have negative effects on the respiratory or metabolic circle systems of organisms, while very few studies focused on the brain central nervous system (CNS). Synaptic plasticity in hippocampus is believed to be associated with certain high functions of CNS, such as learning and memory. Thus, in this study, we investigated the effects of developmental exposure to TiO(2) NPs on synaptic plasticity in rats' hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) area using in vivo electrophysiological recordings. The input/output (I/O) functions, paired-pulse reaction (PPR), field excitatory postsynaptic potential, and population spike amplitude were measured. The results showed that the I/O functions, PPR, and long-term potentiation were all attenuated in lactation TiO(2) NPs-exposed offspring rats compared with those in the control group. However, in the pregnancy TiO(2) NPs exposure group, only PPR was attenuated significantly. These findings suggest that developmental exposure to TiO(2) NPs could affect synaptic plasticity in offspring's hippocampal DG area in vivo, which indicates that developmental brains, especially in lactation, are susceptible to TiO(2) NPs exposure. This study reveals the potential toxicity of TiO(2) NPs in CNS. It may give some hints on the security of TiO(2) NPs production and application and shed light on its future toxicological studies.

Our previous study showed that placebo expectations can develop in a transferable manner; for example, a placebo expectation developed within an analgesic experience may lead to reduced anxiety. Considering that activities in such emotion-responsive areas as the amygdala and insula can be detected through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we used fMRI to further study the transferable placebo anxiolytic effect. A main-effect analysis showed that activity in the amygdala and insula was reduced in the placebo condition, whereas an interaction analysis showed activity in the two regions was selectively attenuated in the placebo condition when unpleasant pictures were viewed. We also observed greater activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex under placebo conditions when either emotionally negative or neutral pictures were viewed. These data suggest that the anxiety-relieving placebo effect arose from a reward-related response underpinned by the participants' expectations.

The complete coding sequences of three of sheep genes SLC25A4, SLC25A5 and SLC25A6 were firstly amplified using the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) according to the conserved sequence information of the cattle or other mammals and known highly homologous sheep ESTs. Sheep SLC25A4, SLC25A5 and SLC25A6 genes encode three corresponding proteins of 298 amino acids which contain the identically conserved putative mitochondrial carrier protein domain. Sheep SLC25A4 protein has high homology with the SLC25A4 proteins of six species-cattle (99%), human (95%), rat (95%), mouse (94%), dog (94%) and chicken (89%). Sheep SLC25A5 protein has high identity with the SLC25A5 proteins of five species-cattle (100%), dog (99%), mouse (98%), rat (98%) and human (98%). Sheep SLC25A6 protein also has high homology with the SLC25A6 proteins of four species-cattle (99%), human (97%), pig (97%) and chicken (93%). The phylogenetic tree analysis demonstrated that sheep SLC25A4, SLC25A5 and SLC25A6 proteins share a common ancestor. Moreover, SLC25A4, SLC25A5 and SLC25A6 proteins present stronger interaction each other. The tissue expression analysis indicated that sheep SLC25A4, SLC25A5 and SLC25A6 genes were expressed in a range of tissues including leg muscle, kidney, skin, longissimus dorsi muscle, spleen, heart and liver. Our experiment is the first to provide the primary foundation for further insight into these three sheep genes.

Past studies indicate that the placebo expectation established by analgesic treatment significantly relieves pain perception, while ataractic treatment significantly alleviates unpleasant arousal evoked by negative picture processing. But it is unclear whether the placebo effect can be transferred from one domain to the other, namely from pain to emotion. In this study we led participants to believe in the analgesic effect of magnetic treatment equipment (the placebo) by secretly reducing the intensity of pain stimulus. Then, we examined if this placebo could significantly alter participants' negative affect evoked by watching unpleasant pictures. Our results indicated a significant transferable placebo effect that alleviated negative feelings. EEG recordings showed the transferable placebo treatment induced decreased P2 amplitude and increased N2 amplitude, with source location near the posterior cingulate.

The effect of extraordinary degradation of phenol organics on the SnO 2 -Sb 2 O 3 /Ti electrode is investigated through experimental research and theoretical analysis. The phenol organics contained 4-chloro-phenol, 4-bromo-phenol, and 2-iodo-phenol. At a current density of 4 mA cm -2 and an electrolysis time of 12 h, the degradation efficiency of the phenols was over 98% with a relatively short degradation time, whereas the degradation time of the PbO 2 /Ti electrode surpassed 40 h while delivering 100% disposal efficiency. Therefore, the effectiveness of electrochemical (EC) oxidation by the SnO 2 -Sb 2 O 3 /Ti was superior to that of the PbO 2 /Ti electrode. At the same time, the SnO 2 -Sb 2 O 3 /Ti had higher oxygen generation potential and lower electron consumption than the other electrodes. This was mainly due to the effect of the middle Sb 2 O 3 layer, which due to its high porosity and good catalytic effect, contributed to a better catalysis than the SnO 2 part.

Insight is a salient psychotherapeutic progress but has rarely been measured in a controlled experimental setting. This study aimed to assess whether textual micro-counseling dialogue could validly evoke insight and to explore the characteristics of insight. The guessing riddle of cognitive psychology was used as a reference of the experimental paradigm. Specifically, textual micro-counseling dialogues applying cognitive restructuring techniques were presented. The participant first read a description of a psychological distress ("problem") and then an explanation ("solution"). Zero-, low-, and high-restructuring solutions were randomly matched to the problems and it was expected that they would trigger different levels of insight experiences. Experts and students evaluated the adaptability and emotional valence of problems, and the insightfulness, novelty, adaptability, and emotional valence of solutions. For both experts and students, different intensities of insightfulness were produced across high-, low- and zero-restructuring solutions. Novelty significantly discriminated the high-restructuring solutions from the other two solution types. Adaptability and emotional valence could discriminate the high- and low-restructuring solutions types from the zero-restructuring solution. Insightfulness had high correlations with novelty and adaptability. These results indicated that textual micro-counseling dialogues with a high-restructuring solution could validly produce the greatest insightfulness and the features of high-restructuring solutions may have reference meaning for improving psychotherapeutic effect.

The present study compared learning-based placebo effect and cognition-based reappraisal, to reveal the common and unique neural mechanisms between the two emotion regulations. First, the anxiety-relieving effect was tested by conducting a behavioral experiment Next, the participants with the highest placebo or reappraisal effect were selected for the functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments. The results indicated that: (1) they both attenuated activity in the right amygdala and right insula, and (2) placebo effect activated the left subgenual cingulate whereas reappraisal activated the right dorsal prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the left inferior PFC. Our results show that learning-based placebo effect and cognition-based reappraisal have common anxiety-relieving effects. The placebo effect mainly depends on direct pathway subgenual cingulate-amygdala to regulate emotions, whereas the reappraisal may rely on both indirect pathways, such as the dorsal PFC-subgenual cingulate-amygdala, and direct pathways, such as the ventral lateral PFC-amygdala to regulate emotions. (c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Placebo analgesia is one of the most robust and best-studied placebo effects. Recent researches suggest that placebo analgesia activated the µ-opioid receptor signalling in the human brain. However, whether other opioid receptors are involved in the placebo analgesia remains unclear. We have previously evoked placebo responses in mice (Guo et al.2010, 2011) and these mice may serve as a model for investigating placebo analgesia. In the present study, we tried to explore the site of action and types of opioid receptors involved in placebo response. Male Sprague–Dawley rats were trained with 10 mg/kg morphine for 4 d to establish the placebo analgesia model. This placebo analgesia can be blocked by injection of 5 mg/kg dose naloxone or by microinjection with naloxone (1, 3 or 10 µg/rat) into rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC). Then, animals were tested after intra-rACC microinjection of d-Phe-Cys-Tyr-d-Trp-Orn-Thr-Pen-Thr-NH2 (CTOP, a selective µ-opioid receptor antagonist) or naltrindole (NTI, a highly selective δ-opioid receptor antagonist) or nor-binaltorphimine (nor-BNI, a highly selective κ-opioid receptor antagonist). Our results showed that CTOP, but not NTI or nor-BNI, could reduce the pain threshold in placebo analgesia rats. It may be concluded that rACC is the key brain region involved in placebo analgesia and the opioid placebo analgesia is mediated exclusively through µ-opioid receptor in rat.

This study investigates the effects of operational stress and emotional stress on the cardiovascular response. Eighteen female college students completed two stress tasks: a mirror-tracing task (which represented operational stress) and a speech-preparation task (which represented emotional stress). The intensity of the stress tasks was evaluated. The heart rate and blood pressure of the subjects were also recorded. The results indicated that the stress intensity was not significantly different between two tasks. However, in the mirror-tracing task, high frequency (HF) component of heart rate variability (HRV) and the R-R interval were significantly decreased in comparison to in the baseline. In the speech-preparation task, the R-R interval showed significant reduction and the low frequency LF/HF ratio, as well as the systolic and diastolic blood pressure, was significantly increased, in comparison to in the baseline. These results suggested that different changes of the autonomic nerve tone were induced by two stress tasks with the same subjective intensity. Furthermore, the results indicate that sympathetic and parasympathetic activities do not simply work in an antagonistic manner.

Previous studies have reported that individual differences in reappraisal use are associated with particular patterns of neural activity. We hypothesized that if ‘high reappraisers’ (individuals who use reappraisal well in a behavioral experiment) completed two training sessions, they would exhibit more reliable patterns of neural activity related to cognitive reappraisal. In the present study, 13 high reappraisers were selected from 27 healthy volunteers through an initial behavioral experiment (first training) followed by a functional MRI experiment (second training). Emotional images selected from the International Affective Picture System were used for both the behavioral and functional MRI sessions of the experiment. The behavioral results revealed that reappraisal reduced subjective unpleasantness. The functional MRI results revealed that the cognitive reappraisal used by high reappraisers decreased the activation of emotion-responsive regions, including the amygdala, insula, and cingulate gyrus, and increased the activation of regulation-related regions, including the inferior prefrontal cortex, orbital prefrontal cortex, and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest the involvement of inferior orbital and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex in constructing reappraisal strategies that modulate activity in emotion-processing systems.

Normally long-term depression (LTD) is difficult to be induced in naive adult rats in vivo, but it can be induced in the juvenile females and acute-stressed adult males. Using these rats as LTD models, we find in our previous study that LTD induction by the classical low-frequency stimuli (LFS) may be associated with sleep. During sleep, endogenous field potential oscillations presented in the neocortical and hippocampal circuits play important roles in synaptic downscaling as well as memory consolidations. Generally, LTD can be considered as a special synaptic downscaling and the classical LFS is very similar to such endogenous oscillations. Thus, we speculate whether we can design a new LFS which is more similar to such oscillations and whether LTD can be induced by it in naive adult rats? In this study, we found that in the naive adult rats anesthetized in sleep stage, the classical LFS could not induce LTD, however, a low-intensity LFS, an endogenous oscillation-like one, could induce LTD. Furthermore, in the rats anesthetized in wakefulness stage, neither the classical nor the low-intensity LFS could induce LTD. Our study showed that in the naive adult rats, LTD could be induced by the oscillation-like LFS in the sleep stage anesthesia, suggesting that LTD may physiologically occur during sleep and be inhibited in wakefulness stage. Our study suggested that in the hippocampus LTD may be a potential long-term synaptic plasticity underlying sleep-dependent memory consolidations.

Although the regulatory role of cognitive reappraisal in negative emotional responses is widely recognized, this reappraisal's effect on acute saliva secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), as well as the relationships among affective, immunological, and event-related potential (ERP) changes, remains unclear. In this study, we selected only people with low positive coping scores (PCSs) as measured by the Trait Coping Style Questionnaire to avoid confounding by intrinsic coping styles. First, we found that the acute stress of viewing unpleasant pictures consistently decreased SIgA concentration and secretion rate, increased perceptions of unpleasantness and amplitude of late positive potentials (LPPs) between 200-300 ms and 400-1000 ms. After participants used cognitive reappraisal, their SIgA concentration and secretion rate significantly increased and their unpleasantness and LPP amplitudes significantly decreased compared with a control condition. Second, we found a significantly positive correlation between the increases in SIgA and the decreases in unpleasantness and a significantly negative correlation between the increases in SIgA and the increases in LPP across the two groups. This study is the first to demonstrate that cognitive reappraisal reverses the decrease of SIgA. In addition, it revealed strong correlations among affective, SIgA and electrophysiological changes with convergent multilevel evidence.

Our previous study showed that placebo expectations can develop in a transferable manner; for example, a placebo expectation developed within an analgesic experience may lead to reduced anxiety. Considering that activities in such emotion-responsive areas as the amygdala and insula can be detected through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we used fMRI to further study the transferable placebo anxiolytic effect. A main-effect analysis showed that activity in the amygdala and insula was reduced in the placebo condition, whereas an interaction analysis showed activity in the two regions was selectively attenuated in the placebo condition when unpleasant pictures were viewed. We also observed greater activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex under placebo conditions when either emotionally negative or neutral pictures were viewed. These data suggest that the anxiety-relieving placebo effect arose from a reward-related response underpinned by the participants' expectations.

Associations between “lipid-related” candidate genes, blood lipid concentrations and coronary artery disease (CHD) risk are not clear. We aimed to investigate the effect of three newly identified lipids loci from genome-wide association studies on CHD and blood lipid levels in Chinese Han population. The genotypes of SNPs at three newly identified lipid loci and blood lipids concentrations were examined in 1360 CHD patients and 1360 age- and sex-frequency matched controls from an unrelated Chinese Han population. Allele T of rs16996148 occurred less frequently in CHD patients with the odds ratio (OR) being 0.64 (95% CI 0.50 to 0.81), after adjusting for conventional risk factors and was associated with a 33% decreased CHD risk (P

The placebo effect is a fascinating yet puzzling phenomenon, which has challenged investigators over the past 50 years. In previous studies, the investigators only focused on the placebo effect obtained within a single domain, and pain is the field in which most of the placebo research has been performed. However, recent research by our laboratory (Zhang and Luo in Psychophysiology 46:626-634, 2009; Zhang et al. 2011) showed that, in human subjects, the placebo effect can be transferred from one domain to the other, namely from pain to emotion.The scope of this study was to investigate whether placebo analgesia could affect the depressive behavior in mice.Female C57/BL6 mice were trained to associate the context cue with elevated pain tolerance via a set of procedures. Then the forced swim test and tail suspension test were used to measure the depressive-like behaviors on the test day. Plasma concentrations of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and corticosterone were also detected.Our results showed that the placebo analgesia, which was established by a set of procedures in mice, was transferable and could produce a significant antidepressant effect on depressive test. Plasma levels of corticosterone and ACTH further proved that the placebo analgesia that was established from pain-reducing training not only induced a significant placebo effect on pain, but also decreased significantly the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) response to stress and produced a stress-alleviating effect.These data show that placebo analgesia affects the behavioral despair tests and hormonal secretions in mice.

To investigate the clinical effect of the acetabular tridimensional memory alloy-fixation system (ATMFS) in treatment of posterior wall acetabular fractures with posterior dislocation of hip.From January 2004 to February 2006, 15 cases of posterior wall acetabular fracture with posterior dislocation of hip were treated. There were 11 males and 4 females, aged 21-68 years old with an average of 43.5 years old. Injury was caused by traffic accident in 8 cases, by falling from height in 5 cases and others in 2 cases. The locations were the left hip in 9 cases and the right hip in 6 cases. According to Thompson-Epstein' fracture classification, there were 6 cases of type II, 5 cases of type III, 2 cases of type IV and 2 cases of type V. Imaging showed the acetabular articular surface displacement of 2-5 mm (mean 3 mm). The time from injury to hospitalization was 6 hours to 2 weeks(mean 1.5 days). Skeletal traction on femoral condyle was given, manual reduction was performed in 12 patients and intra-operative reduction in 3 cases. ATMFS was used after 2-7 days of hospitalization, and 4 cases received autologous free ilium because of bone defect.The operative time was 90-390 minutes with an average of 210 minutes. Intraoperative blood loss was 350-2 500 mL with an average of 360 mL. The hospitalization days of the patients ranged from 7 to 21 days(mean 10 days). Epidermal infection occurred and was cured after symptomatic management in 1 case. Other incisions healed by first intention. No deep infections, pulmonary embolism, deep venous thrombosis and other complications occurred. The patients were followed up 1 to 3 years with an average of 1.6 years. Ischemic necrosis of femoral head occurred in 1 case. Heterotopic ossification in grade II occurred in 1 case. The hip function was still good without special treatment. According to Matta's X-ray fracture reduction assessment, the results were excellent in 7 cases, good in 5 cases, fair in 2 cases, and poor in 1 case, the excellent and good rate was 80%. According to d'Aubigné clinical efficacy evaluation, the results were excellent in 8 cases, good in 5 cases, fair in 1 case, and poor in 1 case, the excellent and good rate was 86.7% at last followup.ATMFS can be used for the treatment of posterior wall acetabular fracture with posterior dislocation of hip, which can improve the anatomy corresponding rate of the femoral head and reduce the incidence of complications and restore the function of the hip.

The vast majority of decision-making research is performed under the assumption of the value maximizing principle. This principle implies that when making decisions, individuals try to optimize outcomes on the basis of cold mathematical equations. However, decisions are emotion-laden rather than cool and analytic when they tap into life-threatening considerations. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying vital loss decisions. Participants were asked to make a forced choice between two losses across three conditions: both losses are trivial (trivial-trivial), both losses are vital (vital-vital), or one loss is trivial and the other is vital (vital-trivial). Our results revealed that the amygdala was more active and correlated positively with self-reported negative emotion associated with choice during vital-vital loss decisions, when compared to trivial-trivial loss decisions. The rostral anterior cingulate cortex was also more active and correlated positively with self-reported difficulty of choice during vital-vital loss decisions. Compared to the activity observed during trivial-trivial loss decisions, the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum were more active and correlated positively with self-reported positive emotion of choice during vital-trivial loss decisions. Our findings suggest that vital loss decisions involve emotions and cannot be adequately captured by cold computation of minimizing losses. This research will shed light on how people make vital loss decisions.

This volume contains written contributions from some of the key actors involved on both the Chinese and the World Bank sides in the past four decades of partnership. It is clear that the World Bank from the very beginning provided honest and evidence-based advice to China, but China was always in the driver’s seat in structuring the relationship and in determining what to do (and what not to do). Periodically, the World Bank engaged in national policy debates, during the Bashan Boat Conference, at Dalian, then with the China 2020 and China 2030 reports, and the subsequent series of flagships produced jointly with the Development Research Center under the State Council. For much of the time, however, World Bank’s impact was at the local level through demonstration projects and reform pilots that China studied, adapted, and later scaled. Finally, an increasingly important theme of the partnership in the last decade concerns World Bank’s cooperation with China globally, through International Development Association (IDA), South-South learning, and ongoing discussions over good practices in international development finance. As China’s global economic and financial heft continues to grow, this theme is likely to become increasingly important and require further adaptation on both sides. The first part contains the contributions of World Bank Country Directors in chronological order by decade: Caio Koch-Weser, Edwin Lim for the 1980s; Javed Burki, Pieter Bottelier, and Nick Hope for the 1990s; Yukon Huang and David Dollar for the 2000s; and Klaus Rohland and Bert Hofman for the 2010s. The second part contains the contributions of the Chinese authors, which are organized by themes. The third essay speaks to the shift in World Bank’s program to support China’s climate action following the Paris Agreement, with lessons that are highly relevant for the future evolution of the partnership. The fourth contribution is from Yang Yingming, former Executive Director for China at the World Bank, and now back with the Ministry of Finance, and reflects on the interaction between World Bank’s knowledge and financial cooperation with China, drawing lessons for other countries and for the future of the partnership.