ZA-II-05, a novel NMDA-receptor antagonist reverses vanadium-induced neurotoxicity in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans).

Introduction: Vanadium is a widely used transition metal in industrial applications, but it also poses significant neurotoxic and environmental risks. Previous studies have shown that exposure to vanadium may lead to neurodegenerative diseases and neuropathic pain, raising concerns about its impact on human health and the ecosystem. To address vanadium neurotoxicity, through targeting NMDA glutamate and dopamine signaling, both involved in neurodegenerative disorders, shows promise.

The evolution of a tropical biodiversity hotspot.

The tropics are the source of most biodiversity yet inadequate sampling obscures answers to fundamental questions about how this diversity evolves. We leveraged samples assembled over decades of fieldwork to study diversification of the largest tropical bird radiation, the suboscine passerines. Our phylogeny, estimated using data from 2389 genomic regions in 1940 individuals of 1283 species, reveals that peak suboscine species diversity in the Neotropics is not associated with high recent speciation rates but rather with the gradual accumulation of species over time.

Phylogenomics of manakins (Aves: Pipridae) using alternative locus filtering strategies based on informativeness.

Target capture sequencing effectively generates molecular marker arrays useful for molecular systematics. These extensive data sets are advantageous where previous studies using a few loci have failed to resolve relationships confidently. Moreover, target capture is well-suited to fragmented source DNA, allowing data collection from species that lack fresh tissues.

Why is Amazonia a 'source' of biodiversity? Climate-mediated dispersal and synchronous speciation across the Andes in an avian group (Tityrinae).

Amazonia is a 'source' of biodiversity for other Neotropical ecosystems, but which conditions trigger in situ speciation and emigration is contentious. Three hypotheses for how communities have assembled include (1) a stochastic model wherein chance dispersal events lead to gradual emigration and species accumulation, (2) diversity-dependence wherein successful dispersal events decline through time due to ecological limits, and (3) barrier displacement wherein environmental change facilitates dispersal to other biomes via transient habitat corridors. We sequenced thousands of molecular markers for the Neotropical Tityrinae (Aves) and applied a novel filtering protocol to identify loci with high utility for dated phylogenomics.

Quantitative in vivo neurochemical profiling in humans: where are we now?

Proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of biofluids has become one of the key techniques for metabolic profiling and phenotyping. This technique has been widely used in a number of epidemiological studies and in a variety of health disorders. However, its utilization in brain disorders is limited due to the blood-brain barrier, which not only protects the brain from unwanted substances in the blood, but also substantially limits the potential of finding biomarkers for neurological disorders in serum.

Improved receiver arrays and optimized parallel imaging accelerations applied to time-resolved 3D fluoroscopically tracked peripheral runoff CE-MRA.

Objectives: Three-station stepping-table time-resolved 3D contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography has conflicting demands in the need to limit acquisition time in proximal stations to match the speed of the advancing contrast bolus and in the distal-most station to avoid venous contamination while still providing clinically useful spatial resolution. This work describes improved receiver coil arrays which address this issue by allowing increased acceleration factors, providing increased spatial resolution per unit time.

Materials And Methods: Receiver coil arrays were constructed for each station (pelvis, thigh, calf) and then integrated into a 48-element array for three-station peripheral CE-MRA.