Obesity and gender as status beliefs.

For over 30 years, researchers have examined social influence using status characteristics theory (Berger and Conner, 1974). While research has investigated beauty and attractiveness as status characteristics (e.g.

Introduction of a hydrogen bond between phylloquinone PhQ(A) and a threonine side-chain OH group in photosystem I.

The phylloquinone acceptor PhQ(A) in photosystem I binds to the protein through a single H-bond to the backbone nitrogen of PsaA-L722. Here, we investigate the effect of this H-bond on the electron transfer (ET) kinetics by substituting threonine for PsaA-L722. Room temperature spin-polarized transient EPR measurements show that in the PsaA-L722T mutant, the rate of PhQ(A)(-) to F(X) ET increases and the hyperfine coupling to the 2-methyl group of PhQ(A) is much larger than in the wild type.

Differentially tuned responses to restricted versus prolonged awareness of threat: a preliminary fMRI investigation.

Responses to threat occur via two known independent processing routes. We propose that early, reflexive processing is predominantly tuned to the detection of congruent combinations of facial cues that signal threat, whereas later, reflective processing is predominantly tuned to incongruent combinations of threat. To test this prediction, we examined responses to threat-gaze expression pairs (anger versus fear expression by direct versus averted gaze).

Structure propensities in mutated polyglutamine peptides.

Polyglutamine is a naturally occurring peptide found within several proteins in neuronal cells of the brain, and its aggregation has been implicated in several neurodegenerative diseases, including Huntington's disease. The resulting aggregates have been demonstrated to possess β-sheet structure, and experimental evidence has demonstrated that aggregation begins with a nucleus composed of a single peptide. In this paper, we computationally examined the structural tendencies of mutant polyglutamine peptides that were studied experimentally, and found to aggregate with varying efficiencies.

Procrustean rotation in concert with principal component analysis of molecular dynamics trajectories: Quantifying global and local differences between conformational samples.

Given the principal component analysis (PCA) of a molecular dynamics (MD) conformational trajectory for a model protein, we perform orthogonal Procrustean rotation to "best fit" the PCA squared-loading matrix to that of a target matrix computed for a related but different molecular system. The sum of squared deviations of the elements of the rotated matrix from those of the target, known as the error of fit (EOF), provides a quantitative measure of the dissimilarity between the two conformational samples. To estimate precision of the EOF, we perform bootstrap resampling of the molecular conformations within the trajectories, generating a distribution of EOF values for the system and target.

Cultural specificity in amygdala response to fear faces.

The human amygdala robustly activates to fear faces. Heightened response to fear faces is thought to reflect the amygdala's adaptive function as an early warning mechanism. Although culture shapes several facets of emotional and social experience, including how fear is perceived and expressed to others, very little is known about how culture influences neural responses to fear stimuli.

Water-mediated interactions in the CRP-cAMP-DNA complex: does water mediate sequence-specific binding at the DNA primary-kink site?

The cyclic AMP receptor protein (CRP) of Escherichia coli binds preferentially to DNA sequences possessing a T:A base pair at position 6 (at which the DNA becomes kinked), but with which it does not form any direct interactions. It has been proposed that indirect readout is involved in CRP-DNA binding, in which specificity for this base pair is primarily related to sequence effects on the energetic susceptibility of the DNA to kink formation. In the current study, the possibility of contributions to indirect readout by water-mediated hydrogen bonding of CRP with the T:A base pair was investigated.

Local-structural diversity and protein folding: application to all-beta off-lattice protein models.

Global measures of structural diversity within a distribution of biopolymers, such as the radius of gyration and percent native contacts, have proven useful in the analysis of simulation data for protein folding. In this paper we describe a statistical-based methodology to quantify the local structural variability of a distribution of biopolymers, applied to 46- and 69-"residue" off-lattice, three-color model proteins. Each folds into beta-barrel structures.

Functionally relevant protein motions: extracting basin-specific collective coordinates from molecular dynamics trajectories.

Functionally relevant motion of proteins has been associated with a number of atoms moving in a concerted fashion along so-called "collective coordinates." We present an approach to extract collective coordinates from conformations obtained from molecular dynamics simulations. The power of this technique for differentiating local structural fluctuations between classes of conformers obtained by clustering is illustrated by analyzing nanosecond-long trajectories for the response regulator protein Spo0F of Bacillus subtilis, generated both in vacuo and using an implicit-solvent representation.

Functional differences among those high and low on a trait measure of psychopathy.

Background: It has been established that individuals who score high on measures of psychopathy demonstrate difficulty when performing tasks requiring the interpretation of other's emotional states. The aim of this study was to elucidate the relation of emotion and cognition to individual differences on a standard psychopathy personality inventory (PPI) among a nonpsychiatric population.

Methods: Twenty participants completed the PPI.

An fMRI investigation of the impact of interracial contact on executive function.

We investigated whether individual differences in racial bias among white participants predict the recruitment, and potential depletion, of executive attentional resources during contact with black individuals. White individuals completed an unobtrusive measure of racial bias, then interacted with a black individual, and finally completed an ostensibly unrelated Stroop color-naming test. In a separate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session, subjects were presented with unfamiliar black male faces, and the activity of brain regions thought to be critical to executive control was assessed.

Neural correlates of thought suppression.

The present report used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural correlates of thought suppression. Subjects were imaged while alternately (i) attempting to suppress a particular thought, (ii) attempting to suppress all thoughts, or (iii) thinking freely about any thought. Suppression of a particular thought, when compared to the free-thought control condition, revealed greater activation in the anterior cingulate.