Salivary α-amylase levels as a biomarker of experienced fear.

We recently reported data related to emotions collected in conjunction with a museum exhibit on emotion (Goose Bumps!-The Science of Fear).1 In this addendum, we present additional data collected as part of that study. We collected two commonly measured indices of emotional arousal, salivary cortisol and α-amylase, before and after participants had gone through a realistic fear challenge course as part of the exhibit.

Associations between feeling and judging the emotions of happiness and fear: findings from a large-scale field experiment.

Background: How do we recognize emotions from other people? One possibility is that our own emotional experiences guide us in the online recognition of emotion in others. A distinct but related possibility is that emotion experience helps us to learn how to recognize emotions in childhood.

Methodology/principal Findings: We explored these ideas in a large sample of people (N = 4,608) ranging from 5 to over 50 years old.

A 5' splice region G-->C mutation in exon 3 of the human beta-spectrin gene leads to decreased levels of beta-spectrin mRNA and is responsible for dominant hereditary spherocytosis (spectrin Guemene-Penfao).

We studied a family with autosomal dominant hereditary spherocytosis (HS) associated with a mild spectrin deficiency. Linkage analysis using two microsatellite markers (D14S63 and D14S271) very close to the beta-spectrin gene (SPTB) showed that HS co-segregated with alleles of these microsatellite markers and the linkage between the marker and HS was statistically significant. The presence of a beta-spectrin protein polymorphism (beta-spectrin Vay; A1880V) in trans of the HS allele was not itself deleterious, but allowed the detection of decreased membrane expression of the spherocytic beta-spectrin allele in two HS-affected subjects.

Search for the candidate genes in dominant hereditary spherocytosis using linkage analysis.

Hereditary spherocytosis (HS) is an inherited hemolytic anemia characterized by the presence of dense spherocytic red cells. In HS patients, red cell membrane protein gel electrophoresis has identified different subsets of abnormalities: isolated spectrin deficiency, combined spectrin and ankyrin deficiency, band 3 deficiency. To direct the search for the molecular defect in 9 families with dominant HS, we developed microsatellite markers specific for the membrane protein encoding genes possibly involved in HS (alpha- and beta-spectrin, ankyrin and band 3 genes) and genotyped each family.