Altered hippocampal effective connectivity predicts BMI and food approach behavior in children with obesity.

Objective: The vicious circle model of obesity proposes that the hippocampus plays a crucial role in food reward processing and obesity. However, few studies focused on whether and how pediatric obesity influences the potential direction of information exchange between the hippocampus and key regions, as well as whether these alterations in neural interaction could predict future BMI and eating behaviors.

Methods: In this longitudinal study, a total of 39 children with excess weight (overweight/obesity) and 51 children with normal weight, aged 8 to 12, underwent resting-state fMRI.

SPIRIT-DEFINE explanation and elaboration: recommendations for enhancing quality and impact of early phase dose-finding clinical trials protocols.

Unlabelled: Transparent and accurate reporting in early phase dose-finding (EPDF) clinical trials is crucial for informing subsequent larger trials. The SPIRIT statement, designed for trial protocol content, does not adequately cover the distinctive features of EPDF trials. Recent findings indicate that the protocol contents in past EPDF trials frequently lacked completeness and clarity.

CONSORT-DEFINE explanation and elaboration: recommendations for enhancing reporting quality and impact of early phase dose-finding clinical trials.

Unlabelled: Early phase dose-finding (EPDF) trials are key in the development of novel therapies, with their findings directly informing subsequent clinical development phases and providing valuable insights for reverse translation. Comprehensive and transparent reporting of these studies is critical for their accurate and critical interpretation, which may improve and expedite therapeutic development. However, quality of reporting of design characteristics and results from EPDF trials is often variable and incomplete.

Over 100-kW peak power picosecond pulse generation at 2924 nm via efficient single-pass optical parametric generation with broadband tunability.

We report a high peak power mid-infrared (MIR) source via efficient optical parametric generation (OPG) in a piece of 50-mm-long MgO: PPLN crystal pumped by using a near-infrared (NIR) narrow-band picosecond laser source. The highest peak power of the idler pulse can reach ∼109.86 kW with a duration of ∼7.

Microbial synthesis of m-tyrosine via whole-cell biocatalysis.

Meta-tyrosine (m-tyrosine), a nonproteinogenic amino acid, has shown significant potential for applications as an herbicide in agriculture and for various medical uses. However, the natural abundance of m-tyrosine is very low, limiting its widespread use. In this study, we successfully achieved microbial production of m-tyrosine by establishing the in vivo enzyme activity of phenylalanine 3-hydroxylase (PacX from Streptomyces coeruleoribudus) in E.