Temple Syndrome: Comprehensive Clinical Study in Genetically Confirmed 60 Japanese Patients.

Objective: Temple syndrome (TS14) is a rare 14q32.2-related imprinting disorder. Here, we report comprehensive clinical findings in TS14.

Ten-year trajectories of postpartum depression of Japanese mothers and fathers.

Background: Perinatal depression is a significant concern affecting both women and men during pregnancy and postpartum periods. While maternal postpartum depression has been extensively studied, paternal depression remains under-researched despite its prevalence and impact on family well-being. This study aimed to estimate the trajectories of perinatal and postpartum depression in Japanese parents over ten years and to determine the details of the symptoms of postpartum depression for each trajectory group, considering reciprocal effects between maternal and paternal depression.

A new perspective on binaural beats: Investigating the effects of spatially moving sounds on human mental states.

When individuals are exposed to two pure tones with close frequencies presented separately in each ear, they perceive a third sound known as binaural beats (BB), characterized by a frequency equal to the difference between the two tones. Previous research has suggested that BB may influence brain activity, potentially benefiting attention and relaxation. In this study, we hypothesized that the impact of BB on cognition and EEG is linked to the spatial characteristics of the sound.

Ectopic bile duct concomitant with gastric ulcer hemorrhage: report of a case.

Background: An ectopic bile duct opening into the stomach is a rare congenital anomaly of the biliary system, and thus, there are few case reports with gastric ulcer hemorrhage. Herein, we presented a case of ectopic bile duct concomitant with gastric ulcer hemorrhage.

Case Presentation: A 75-year-old woman was referred to our hospital because she repeatedly vomited blood and had melena.

Three-dimensional flow velocity determination using laser-induced fluorescence method with asymmetric optical vortex beams.

Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) Doppler spectroscopy using an optical vortex beam with an asymmetric intensity distribution, referred to as aOVLIF, is proposed as a new method to measure plasma flow velocity. LIF spectra were calculated numerically using typical laboratory low-temperature plasma parameters, and it was revealed that an ion flow across the beam produces a frequency shift of the spectra. This method also has the capability of temperature measurements.

Enhancement of Doppler spectroscopy to transverse direction by using optical vortex.

Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) is a valuable method for measuring particle flow velocities in plasma. However, conventional TDLAS using a plane-wave beam is sensitive only to the laser propagation direction. This limitation is particularly unfavorable for the observation of the particle transportation perpendicularly incident on the material in the plasma-material interaction.

Hearing elliptic movements reveals the imprint of action on prototypical geometries.

Within certain categories of geometric shapes, prototypical exemplars that best characterize the category have been evidenced. These geometric prototypes are classically identified through the visual and haptic perception or motor production and are usually characterized by their spatial dimension. However, whether prototypes can be recalled through the auditory channel has not been formally investigated.

Transcriptional control of cone photoreceptor diversity by a thyroid hormone receptor.

Cone photoreceptor diversity allows detection of wavelength information in light, the first step in color (chromatic) vision. In most mammals, cones express opsin photopigments for sensitivity to medium/long (M, "green") or short (S, "blue") wavelengths and are differentially arrayed over the retina. Cones appear early in retinal neurogenesis but little is understood of the subsequent control of diversity of these postmitotic neurons, because cone populations are sparse and, apart from opsins, poorly defined.

The impact of movement sonification on haptic perception changes with aging.

Combining multisensory sources is crucial to interact with our environment, especially for older people who are facing sensory declines. Here, we examined the influence of textured sounds on haptic exploration of artificial textures in healthy younger and older adults by combining a tactile device (ultrasonic display) with synthetized textured sounds. Participants had to discriminate simulated textures with their right index while they were distracted by three disturbing, more or less textured sounds.

Cellists' sound quality is shaped by their primary postural behavior.

During the last 20 years, the role of musicians' body movements has emerged as a central question in instrument practice: Why do musicians make so many postural movements, for instance, with their torsos and heads, while playing musical instruments? The musical significance of such ancillary gestures is still an enigma and therefore remains a major pedagogical challenge, since one does not know if these movements should be considered essential embodied skills that improve musical expressivity. Although previous studies established clear connections between musicians' body movements and musical structures (particularly for clarinet, piano or violin performances), no evidence of direct relationships between body movements and the quality of the produced timbre has ever been found. In this study, focusing on the area of bowed-string instruments, we address the problem by showing that cellists use a set of primary postural directions to develop fluid kinematic bow features (velocity, acceleration) that prevent the production of poor quality (i.

Exploring sound perception through vocal imitations.

Understanding how sounds are perceived and interpreted is an important challenge for researchers dealing with auditory perception. The ecological approach to perception suggests that the salient perceptual information that enables an auditor to recognize events through sounds is contained in specific structures called invariants. Identifying such invariants is of interest from a fundamental point of view to better understand auditory perception and it is also useful to include perceptual considerations to model and control sounds.

Chimpanzees use tree species with a resonant timbre for accumulative stone throwing.

Animals use tools for communication relatively rarely compared to tool use for extractive foraging. We investigated the tool-use behaviour accumulative stone throwing (AST) in wild chimpanzees, who regularly throw rocks at trees, producing impact sounds and resulting in the aggregations of rocks. The function of AST remains unknown but appears to be communication-related.

Excited-State Proton Transfer of 5,8-Dicyano-2-naphthol in High-Temperature and High-Pressure Methanol: Effect of Solvent Polarity and Hydrogen Bonding Ability.

Excited-state proton transfer (ESPT) of 5,8-dicyano-2-naphthol (DCN2) in methanol at 30 MPa isobar between 294 and 543 K was studied using time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. From room temperature up to 513 K, a fluorescence band from an anionic form (RO*, a proton dissociated form of DCN2) was observed, which indicates that the ESPT occurred under these thermal conditions. The time profiles of fluorescence intensity of the normal form of DCN2 (ROH*) (proton-associated form of DCN2) and RO* were analyzed, considering the diffusion process of the contact ion pair RO*···H in the Coulomb field based on the Debye-Smoluchowski theory.

Clinical Evaluation of the Immunochromatographic System Using Silver Amplification for the Rapid Detection of Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection is conventionally diagnosed using serum antibody testing, microbial culture, and genetic testing. Recently, immunochromatography-based rapid mycoplasma antigen test kits have been developed and commercialised for rapid diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infection.

Association between Excessive Alcohol Use and Alcohol-Related Injuries in College Students: A Multi-Center Cross-Sectional Study in Japan.

Alcohol-related injuries in college students are a major public health problem worldwide. We clarified the association between excessive drinking and alcohol-related injuries in Japanese college students. This was a cross-sectional study with a self-administered questionnaire.

Retinoid-Related Orphan Receptor β and Transcriptional Control of Neuronal Differentiation.

The ability to generate neuronal diversity is central to the function of the nervous system. Here we discuss the key neurodevelopmental roles of retinoid-related orphan receptor β (RORβ) encoded by the Rorb (Nr1f2) gene. Recent studies have reported loss of function of the human RORB gene in cases of familial epilepsy and intellectual disability.

Association of impaired neuronal migration with cognitive deficits in extremely preterm infants.

Many extremely preterm infants (born before 28 gestational weeks [GWs]) develop cognitive impairment in later life, although the underlying pathogenesis is not yet completely understood. Our examinations of the developing human neocortex confirmed that neuronal migration continues beyond 23 GWs, the gestational week at which extremely preterm infants have live births. We observed larger numbers of ectopic neurons in the white matter of the neocortex in human extremely preterm infants with brain injury and hypothesized that altered neuronal migration may be associated with cognitive impairment in later life.

Exploring the perceived harshness of cello sounds by morphing and synthesis techniques.

Cello bowing requires a very fine control of the musicians' gestures to ensure the quality of the perceived sound. When the interaction between the bow hair and the string is optimal, the sound is perceived as broad and round. On the other hand, when the gestural control becomes more approximate, the sound quality deteriorates and often becomes harsh, shrill, and quavering.

Seeing Circles and Drawing Ellipses: When Sound Biases Reproduction of Visual Motion.

The perception and production of biological movements is characterized by the 1/3 power law, a relation linking the curvature and the velocity of an intended action. In particular, motions are perceived and reproduced distorted when their kinematics deviate from this biological law. Whereas most studies dealing with this perceptual-motor relation focused on visual or kinaesthetic modalities in a unimodal context, in this paper we show that auditory dynamics strikingly biases visuomotor processes.

Mutually repressive interaction between Brn1/2 and Rorb contributes to the establishment of neocortical layer 2/3 and layer 4.

Although several molecules have been shown to play important roles in subtype specification of neocortical neurons, the entire mechanism involved in the specification, in particular, of upper cortical plate (UCP) neurons still remains unclear. The UCP, which is responsible for intracortical connections in the neocortex, comprises histologically, functionally, and molecularly different layer 2/3 (L2/3) and L4. Here, we report the essential interactions between two types of transcription factors, Rorb (RAR-related orphan receptor beta) and Brn1/2 (Brain-1/Brain-2), for UCP specification.

Identity of neocortical layer 4 neurons is specified through correct positioning into the cortex.

Many cell-intrinsic mechanisms have been shown to regulate neuronal subtype specification in the mammalian neocortex. However, how much cell environment is crucial for subtype determination still remained unclear. Here, we show that knockdown of Protocadherin20 (Pcdh20), which is expressed in post-migratory neurons of layer 4 (L4) lineage, caused the cells to localize in L2/3.

Neuronal Heterotopias Affect the Activities of Distant Brain Areas and Lead to Behavioral Deficits.

Neuronal heterotopia refers to brain malformations resulting from deficits of neuronal migration. Individuals with heterotopias show a high incidence of neurological deficits, such as epilepsy. More recently, it has come to be recognized that focal heterotopias may also show a range of psychiatric problems, including cognitive and behavioral impairments.

The COUP-TFII/Neuropilin-2 is a molecular switch steering diencephalon-derived GABAergic neurons in the developing mouse brain.

The preoptic area (POa) of the rostral diencephalon supplies the neocortex and the amygdala with GABAergic neurons in the developing mouse brain. However, the molecular mechanisms that determine the pathway and destinations of POa-derived neurons have not yet been identified. Here we show that Chicken ovalbumin upstream promoter transcription factor II (COUP-TFII)-induced expression of Neuropilin-2 (Nrp2) and its down-regulation control the destination of POa-derived GABAergic neurons.