Publications by authors named "GuanYa Li"

Viruses normally reprogram the host cell metabolic pathways as well as metabolic sensors to facilitate their persistence. The serine-threonine liver kinase B1 (LKB1) is a master upstream kinase of 5'-AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) that senses the energy status and therefore regulates the intracellular metabolic homeostasis. Previous studies showed that AMPK restricts Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) lytic replication in endothelial cells during primary infection and promotes primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) cell survival.

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BACKGROUNDA polymorphism in the fat mass and obesity-associated gene (FTO) is linked to enhanced neural sensitivity to food cues and attenuated ghrelin suppression. Risk allele carriers regain more weight than noncarriers after bariatric surgery. It remains unclear how FTO variation affects brain function and ghrelin following surgery.

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Time-on-task effect is a common consequence of long-term cognitive demand work, which reflects reduced behavioral performance and increases the risk of accidents. Neurofeedback is a neuromodulation method that can guide individuals to regulate their brain activity and manifest as changes in related symptoms and cognitive behaviors. This study aimed to examine the effects of functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based neurofeedback training on time-on-task effects and sustained cognitive performance.

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  • - The study explores how low birth weight in preterm infants is linked to ongoing neurological and cognitive issues, emphasizing changes in endocrine and metabolic processes that could affect brain health as children develop.
  • - Analyzing data from 3,571 preterm and full-term children, the research found that lower birth weight is connected to poorer cognitive performance and smaller brain volumes, especially in key brain regions.
  • - Results indicate that factors like early onset of adrenarche and specific brain volume measurements can help explain the cognitive deficits seen in preterm kids, suggesting that these insights could inform future prevention and treatment strategies.
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  • Children with ADHD exhibit abnormal brain structures, indicated by neuroimaging studies, which suggest potential improvements with stimulant medications.
  • This study analyzed a large sample of children aged 9-11, comparing those with low ADHD symptoms on medication, those with high ADHD symptoms off medications, and typically developing controls.
  • Results indicated that children with high ADHD symptoms had lower cortical thickness and subcortical volume, while those on stimulants showed improvements in both symptoms and brain structure compared to typically developing peers.
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  • Obesity is associated with changes in brain function, particularly in white matter fibers connecting the corpus callosum to the frontal cortex, which is important for communication in the brain.
  • A study compared 72 obese individuals with 60 normal-weight participants using advanced brain imaging techniques to investigate these changes in connectivity.
  • Results indicated that obese participants had increased connectivity between the corpus callosum and the orbitofrontal cortex, linked to higher body mass index and disinhibited eating, but reduced connectivity with the prefrontal cortex, which related to cravings for unhealthy foods.
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Purpose: Cancer cells are characterized as the uncontrolled proliferation, which demands high levels of nucleotides that are building blocks for DNA synthesis and replication. CAD (carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 2, aspartate transcarbamylase and dihydroorotase) is a trifunctional enzyme that initiates the de novo pyrimidine synthesis, which is normally enhanced in cancer cells to preserve the pyrimidine pool for cell division. Glioma, representing most brain cancer, is highly addicted to nucleotides like pyrimidine to sustain the abnormal growth and proliferation of cells.

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Iron is an essential trace element for both the host and resident microbes in the gut. In this study, iron was administered orally and parenterally to anemic piglets to investigate the role of iron in host-microbiota interaction and its effects on intestinal mucosal growth and immune plasticity. We found that oral iron administration easily increased the abundance of Proteobacteria and Escherichia-Shigella, and decreased the abundance of Lactobacillus in the ileum.

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Pediatric overweight/obesity can lead to sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), abnormal neurological and cognitive development, and psychiatric problems, but the associations and interactions between these factors have not been fully explored. Therefore, we investigated the associations between body mass index (BMI), SDB, psychiatric and cognitive measures, and brain morphometry in 8484 children 9-11 years old using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset. BMI was positively associated with SDB, and both were negatively correlated with cortical thickness in lingual gyrus and lateral orbitofrontal cortex, and cortical volumes in postcentral gyrus, precentral gyrus, precuneus, superior parietal lobule, and insula.

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Background: Neuroimaging studies have revealed alterations in habenular (Hb) structure and functional connectivity (FC) in psychiatric conditions. The Hb plays a particularly critical role in regulating negative emotions, which trigger excessive food intake and obesity. However, obesity and weight loss intervention (i.

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Background: Preterm birth is a global health problem and associated with increased risk of long-term developmental impairments, but findings on the adverse outcomes of prematurity have been inconsistent.

Methods: Data were obtained from the baseline session of the ongoing longitudinal Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. We identified 1706 preterm children and 1865 matched individuals as Control group and compared brain structure (MRI data), cognitive function and mental health symptoms.

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Objective: The goal of this study was to investigate laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG)-induced changes in choice impulsivity and the neural correlates in individuals with obesity (OB).

Methods: The study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging with a delay discounting task in 29 OB tested before and 1 month after LSG. Thirty participants with normal weight matched to OB with gender and age were recruited as the control group and underwent an identical functional magnetic resonance imaging scan.

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Obesity has tripled over the past 40 years to become a major public health issue, as it is linked with increased mortality and elevated risk for various physical and neuropsychiatric illnesses. Accumulating evidence from neuroimaging studies suggests that obesity negatively affects brain function and structure, especially within fronto-mesolimbic circuitry. Obese individuals show abnormal neural responses to food cues, taste and smell, resting-state activity and functional connectivity, and cognitive tasks including decision-making, inhibitory-control, learning/memory, and attention.

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  • The study explores how higher body mass index (BMI) in children is linked to poorer working memory performance, using MRI techniques on a large group of participants.
  • Children with overweight or obesity (OW/OB) demonstrated lower working memory accuracy and exhibited smaller gray matter volumes in key brain areas related to memory.
  • The research found that OW/OB children had reduced activation in specific brain regions during memory tasks, and abnormalities in the caudate region could explain the connection between high BMI and lower working memory performance.
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  • Childhood obesity is linked to notable brain structure differences, with research indicating reduced gray matter (GM) volume over time in affected children compared to normal weight peers.
  • Significant decreases in GM volume were found in critical areas of the brain like the prefrontal lobe and caudate across a two-year period among obese children.
  • The study also highlighted correlations between body mass index (BMI), brain volume, and cognitive abilities, suggesting that obesity impacts brain development and cognitive functions related to decision-making and reward processing.
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Objective: Brain imaging studies have shown insula-related functional and structural abnormalities in patients with obesity. Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is currently an effective procedure for treating obesity, which promotes acute recovery of brain functional and structural abnormalities in obese patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the long-term impact of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy on insula-related structural and functional connectivity.

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  • The study investigated resting-state networks (RSNs) and functional connectivity (FC) differences between patients with functional constipation (FCon) and healthy controls using fMRI.
  • Results showed that FCon patients exhibited altered FC among various brain networks, with changes corresponding to the severity of their constipation symptoms and emotional state.
  • These findings imply a neural mechanism underlying FCon, linking abnormal brain connectivity to both physical and emotional aspects of the condition.
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Obesity is related to overconsumption of high-calorie (HiCal) food, which is modulated by brain reward and inhibitory control circuitries. The basal ganglia (BG) are a key set of nuclei within the reward circuitry, but obesity-associated functional and structural abnormalities of BG have not been well studied. Resting-state functional MRI with independent component analysis (ICA) and probabilistic tractography were employed to investigate differences in BG-related functional-(FC) and structural connectivity (SC) between 32 patients with obesity (OB) and 35 normal-weight (NW) participants.

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The mTOR is a master regulator of cell growth that controls cell homeostasis in response to nutrients, growth factors, and other environmental cues. Recent studies have emphasized the importance of lysosomes as a hub for nutrient sensing, especially amino acid sensing by mTORC1. This review highlights recent advances in understanding the amino acid-mTORC1 signaling axis and the role of mTORC1 in cancer.

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Habenular (Hb) processes negative emotions that may drive compulsive food-intake. Its functional changes were reported following laparoscopic-sleeve-gastrectomy (LSG). However, structural connectivity (SC) of Hb-homeostatic/hedonic circuits after LSG remains unclear.

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Functional constipation (FCon) is one of the common functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID). Previous studies reported alterations in cortical morphometry as well as changes in white matter (WM) fiber tracts and thalamo-limbic/parietal structural connectivity (SC). However, whether patients with FCon are implicated in changes in gray matter (GM) volume and associated SC remains unclear.

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The present study aimed to assess the efficacy of Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) real-time neurofeedback (NF) vs. atomoxetine (AT) in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A parallel-group study was conducted to enroll children with ADHD between 8 and 12 years of age.

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Accumulating evidence implicates that offspring are susceptible to paternal alterations in numerous fetal disorders, such as growth and metabolic defects. However, less study has been conducted to define the relationship between paternal zinc deficiency (ZnD) and energy metabolism of offspring. In the present study, we used a paternal ZnD exposure (Zn at 0.

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Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG)-induced changes in connectivity between regions involved with reward/antireward and cognitive control and the extent to which these changes persist after surgery and predict sustainable weight loss.

Methods: Whole-brain local functional connectivity density (lFCD) was studied in 25 participants with obesity who underwent resting-state functional MRI before (PreLSG), 1 month after (PostLSG ), and 12 months after (PostLSG ) LSG and compared with 25 normal-weight controls. Regions with significant time effects of LSG on functional connectivity density were identified for subsequent seed-based connectivity analyses and to examine associations with behavior.

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Individuals with obesity (OB) prefer immediate rewards of food intake over the delayed reward of healthy well-being achieved through diet management and physical activity, compared with normal-weight controls (NW). This may reflect heightened impulsivity, an important factor contributing to the development and maintenance of obesity. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the greater impulsivity in OB remain unclear.

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