The time course of planar and non-planar rotations in a letter rotation task.

Mental rotation (MR) of character letters requires participants to mentally rotate the letter in their minds' eyes through a process akin to the physical rotation of the stimulus. It has been suggested that different cognitive processes are engaged during such MR of both canonical and mirror-reversed letters. In addition to the planar rotation of the canonical letters, an additional "flip-over" process (non-planar rotation) has been assumed during the MR of mirror-reversed letters.

The rapid change in mental health among college students after introduction of on-campus quarantine during the 2022 Shanghai COVID-19 lockdown.

Objectives: Among the various impacts of disasters in terms of emotions, quarantine has been proven to result in significant increases in mental health problems. Studies of psychological resilience during outbreaks of epidemics tend to focus on long-term social quarantine. In contrast, insufficient studies have been conducted examining how rapidly negative mental health outcomes occur and how these outcomes change over time.

Primary headache disorders: From pathophysiology to neurostimulation therapies.

Primary headache disorders including migraine, cluster headache, and tension-type headache are among the most common disabling diseases worldwide. The unclear pathogenesis of primary headache disorders has led to high rates of misdiagnosis and limited available treatment options. In this review, we have summarized the pathophysiological factors for a better understanding of primary headache disorders.

Spatial transformation in mental rotation tasks in aphantasia.

Aphantasia refers to the inability to summon images to one's own mind's eye, resulting in selective deficits of voluntary object imagery. In the present study, we investigated whether M. X.

A natural marmoset model of genetic generalized epilepsy.

Epilepsy has been extensively studied as a common neurological disease. Efforts have been made on rodent and other animal models to reveal the pathogenic mechanisms of epilepsy and develop new drugs for treatment. However, the features of current epilepsy models cannot fully mimic different types of epilepsy in humans, hence non-human primate models of epilepsy are required.

Autistic traits and gender modulate emotion changes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show an enhanced response to stressors, and gender plays an important role in stress response. Thus, autistic traits (ATs) in the general population and gender may regulate the emotion changes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the present study, participants were divided into higher and lower ATs groups.

Different Modulatory Effects of Cognitive Training and Aerobic Exercise on Resting State Functional Connectivity of Entorhinal Cortex in Community-Dwelling Older Adults.

The entorhinal cortex (EC) plays an essential role in age-related cognitive decline. However, the effect of functional connectivity (FC) changes between EC and other cerebral cortices on cognitive function remains unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the modulation of two interventions (cognitive training and aerobic exercise) on EC-FC in community-dwelling older adults.

Behavioural and electrophysiological evidence for the effect of target-distractor separation in a tactile search task.

Evidence suggests that the N140cc component of event-related potentials (ERP) observed in tactile search tasks reflects the attentional selection of the target. Here, we investigated whether the target selection processes are affected by the separation between the target and an ipsilateral singleton distractor (singletons delivered to contiguous or non-contiguous fingers of the same hand). In addition, the external distance between search items was varied through posture (splayed or touching fingers).

Effects of multi-domain cognitive training on working memory retrieval in older adults: behavioral and ERP evidence from a Chinese community study.

Working memory (WM) is a fundamental cognitive function that typically declines with age. Previous studies have shown that targeted WM training has the potential to improve WM performance in older adults. In the present study, we investigated whether a multi-domain cognitive training program that was not designed to specifically target WM could improve the behavioral performance and affect the neural activity during WM retrieval in healthy older adults.

Age effects in mental rotation are due to the use of a different strategy.

Older participants are slower than younger individuals in rotating objects in their minds. One possible explanation for this age effect in mental rotation (MR) relies on the different strategies used. To explore this possiblity, in the present study, younger and older participants were assessed with two MR tasks with three- (Exp.

Age-associated delay in mental rotation.

Age-associated slowing in mental rotation (MR) process has been documented in the literature. Particularly, the intercept of the response times function of rotation angle has been consistently found to be larger in older than in younger adults. However, the intercept represents the speed of response in 2 distinct subprocesses of MR: the initial phase of stimulus encoding and the final phase of response selection and execution.

Which properties of the visual stimuli predict the type of representation used in mental rotation?

Two modes of internal representation, holistic and piecemeal transformation, have been reported as a means to perform mental rotation (MR) tasks. The stimulus complexity effect has been proposed as an indicator to disentangle between these two representation types. However, the complexity effect has not been fully confirmed owing to the fact that different performances could result from different types of stimuli.

Visual imagery vividness and mental rotation of characters: An event related potentials study.

Recent behavioural evidence suggests that differences in the vividness of visual imagery (VVI) affect the way in which mental rotation (MR) tasks are accomplished. However, the role of VVI in MR tasks is still debated. We explored it using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) which allow to track the time course of MR processes with high temporal resolution.

Different representations and strategies in mental rotation.

It is still debated whether holistic or piecemeal transformation is applied to carry out mental rotation (MR) as an aspect of visual imagery. It has been recently argued that various mental representations could be flexibly generated to perform MR tasks. To test the hypothesis that imagery ability and types of stimuli interact to affect the format of representation and the choice of strategy in performing MR task, participants, grouped as good or poor imagers, were assessed using four MR tasks, comprising two sets of 'Standard' cube figures and two sets of 'non-Standard' ones, designed by withdrawing cubes from the Standard ones.

[Biological dressing with human hair keratin-collagen sponge-poly 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate composite promotes burn wound healing in SD rats].

Objective: To develop a composite material containing human hair keratin (HHK), collagen sponge (inner layer) and poly 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (PHEMA) film that allows sustained release of polydatin and test its effect as a biological dressing in promoting burn wound healing in SD rats.

Methods: Three HHK materials with fast, moderate, and low degradation rates were mixed at the ratio of 4:3:3 to prepare a reticular structure, which was processed into a composite material with bovine tendon-derived collagen sponge, and further complexed with HEMA film containing PD prepared by polymerization. Degree II burn wound was induced in SD rats by scalding and within postburn day 2-5, the wounds were cleansed and covered with the composite material or with glutaraldehyde-treated porcine skin (positive control).

Toxicity evaluation of chicken calamus keratin conduit as a tissue-engineering scaffold biomaterial.

Objective: To evaluate the toxicity of chicken calamus keratin (CCK) conduit as a tissue-engineered scaffold material.

Methods: The chemical composition of the leaching solution of CCK was determined by means of ultraviolet spectrometry, and the toxic effects of the solution was evaluated by skin sensitization test in rats, intracutaneous stimulation test in rabbits, acute systemic toxicity test in mice, and cytotoxicity test in L929 cells.

Results: The leaching solution of CCK consisted mainly of middle-molecular-weight peptides with a small quantity of macromolecular proteins.

Collagen gel coating or cyclosporine A for improving histocompatibility of chicken calamus keratin.

Objective: To improve the histocompatibility of chicken calamus keratin (CCK) graft by collagen-gel coating or using of cyclosporine A (CsA).

Methods: Thirty SD rats were equally randomized into 5 groups, and in 4 of them, CCK implantation into the bilateral erector spinae was performed on different treatment protocols. In group A, the rats received daily intraperitoneal injection of CsA (5 mg/kg) for two consecutive weeks after CCK implantation; in group B, CCK was soaked in CsA (2.

[From meridians and acupoints to self-supervision and control system: a hypothesis of the 10th functional system based on anatomical studies of digitized virtual human].

Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion has been widely accepted as a useful therapeutics all over the world, but its mechanism has not been fully defined. For this purpose, a reticular framework of whole-body fascia and connective tissues has been established by means of digitized virtual human technique. The virtual acupoints represented three-dimensionally were compared with the sites for stimulation in practice of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) acupuncture therapy.

[Preliminary study of chicken calamus conduit as a scaffold material for tissue engineering].

Objective: To observe the unique structural features of chicken calamus keratin (CCK) conduit as a candidate scaffold material for tissue engineering and its in vivo degradation and histocompatibility after its implantation into living tissues.

Methods: Chicken calami were taken from healthy chickens and treated through sequential, controllable physical and biochemical procedures for preparation of three types of CCK conduits, namely CCK-I (mildly treated), CCK-II (moderately treated) and CCK-III (intensely treated). Light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were performed for morphological observation.

Ooplasmic transfer: problems and prospects.

Cytoplasmic transfer between human oocytes, which represents a complete cytoplasmic exchange, has been performed recently as a means to improve the outcome of assisted reproduction and becomes a hotspot of researches. Many studies have indicated that mitochondria in the oocytoplasm obviously affect fertilization of the oocytes and early embryo development. However, ooplasmic transfer can lead to mitochondrial DNA heteroplasmy and the prospect of mitochondrial heteroplasmy and its potential problems necessitate further studies.

Preparation and bioactivity of human hair keratin-collagen sponge, a new type of dermal analogue.

Objective: To develop a three-dimensional porous film of human hair keratin (HHK)-collagen sponge complex for use as a dermal substitute.

Methods: The three components F, B, and Z derived from healthy human hair were weaved into a meshwork and integrated with purified soluble type I collagen extracted from bovine tendons to prepare a highly porous film with vacuum freeze-drying followed by secondary cross-linking with glutaraldehyde. The film was grafted beneath the dorsal skin in 21 SD rats (experimental group), with simple collagen sponge serving as the negative control.