QTL mapping for pod quality and yield traits in snap bean ( L.).

Pod quality and yield traits in snap bean ( L.) influence consumer preferences, crop adoption by farmers, and the ability of the product to be commercially competitive locally and globally. The objective of the study was to identify the quantitative trait loci (QTL) for pod quality and yield traits in a snap × dry bean recombinant inbred line (RIL) population.

Loss of pod strings in common bean is associated with gene duplication, retrotransposon insertion and overexpression of PvIND.

Fruit development has been central in the evolution and domestication of flowering plants. In common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), the principal global grain legume staple, two main production categories are distinguished by fibre deposition in pods: dry beans, with fibrous, stringy pods; and stringless snap/green beans, with reduced fibre deposition, which frequently revert to the ancestral stringy state. Here, we identify genetic and developmental patterns associated with pod fibre deposition.

Morphological and morphometric changes in the Purkinje cells of patients with essential tremor.

Essential tremor (ET) is a progressive neurological syndrome characterised by involuntary tremors of the hands or arms, head, jaw and voice. The pathophysiology of ET is not clearly understood yet. However, previous studies have reported several changes in the brain of patients with ET.

Acute changes in cerebral blood flow after single-infusion ketamine in major depression: a pilot study.

Background: Ketamine provides rapid antidepressant response in those struggling with major depressive disorder (MDD). This study measured acute changes in brain activity over 24 hours after a single infusion of ketamine using arterial spin labeled (ASL) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in patients with MDD. ASL is a novel technique that provides quantitative values to measure cerebral blood flow (CBF).

Morphological alterations of the pyramidal and stellate cells of the visual cortex in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a severe brain disorder characterized by certain types of delusion, hallucination and thought disorder. Studies have revealed impaired synaptic plasticity and reduced gamma-aminobutyric acid levels of the visual cortex in patients with schizophrenia. While previous work established a critical role for interneurons and cortical connectivity in the generation of hallucinations, the present study set out to examine the morphology of pyramidal cells and interneurons from layers 3 and 4 in the primary visual cortex from schizophrenic brains and to identify any dendritic and spinal alterations in comparison to normal control brains.

Subcallosal Cingulate Structural Connectivity Differs in Responders and Nonresponders to Electroconvulsive Therapy.

Background: Subcallosal cingulate (SCC) activity is associated with treatment response in major depressive disorder (MDD). Using electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a treatment model in this exploratory study, we addressed whether pretreatment SCC structural connectivity with corticolimbic-striatal circuitry relates to therapeutic outcome and whether these connectivity patterns change with treatment.

Methods: Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired in 43 patients with MDD (mean [SD] age = 41 [13] years; men/women: 18/25) before and within 1 week of completing an ECT index series and in 31 healthy control subjects scanned twice (mean [SD] age = 38 [11] years; men/women: 17/18).

Neural Subtypes of Euthymic Bipolar I Disorder Characterized by Emotion Regulation Circuitry.

Background: Current diagnostic strategy for bipolar disorders relies on symptomological classification. Yet, responses to both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments vary widely, suggesting that underlying neuropathological differences are not well defined by current nosology. Classifying patients with bipolar disorder based on emotion regulation network (ERN) activation may account for some of the heterogeneity within the disorder.

Purkinje Cells Pathology in Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the main causes of dementia in senium and presenium. It is clinically characterized by memory impairment, deterioration of intellectual faculties, and loss of professional skills. The cerebellum is a critical part in the distributed neural circuits participating not only in motor function but also in autonomic, limbic, and cognitive behaviors.

"We are Muslims and these diseases don't happen to us": A qualitative study of the views of young Somali men and women concerning HPV immunization.

Background: Minnesota is home to the largest Somali immigrant population in the United States. Despite high rates of cervical cancer in this population, immunization rates for the human papillomavirus (HPV) are among the lowest in the nation. Targeting Somali young adults for catch-up vaccinations may be an important strategy for addressing these low rates.

Variations in Hippocampal White Matter Diffusivity Differentiate Response to Electroconvulsive Therapy in Major Depression.

Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for severe depression and is shown to increase hippocampal volume and modulate hippocampal functional connectivity. Whether variations in hippocampal structural connectivity occur with ECT and relate to clinical response is unknown.

Methods: Patients with major depression (n = 36, 20 women, age 41.

Inflammation and Improvement of Depression Following Electroconvulsive Therapy in Treatment-Resistant Depression.

Objective: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the most robust acute treatment for severe major depressive disorder, yet clinical response is variable. Inflammation is associated with depression, especially in women, and levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin (IL)-6 predict response to antidepressant medications. This study evaluated whether markers of inflammation predicted response to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in patients with treatment-resistant depression and to what extent this association differed between men and women.

Purkinje cells pathology in schizophrenia. A morphometric approach.

Objectives: Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects more than 21 million people worldwide. Ventricle enlargement and reduction in the volume of the temporal lobe overall and in medial temporal structures constitutes the main macroscopic findings, whilst synaptic and spinal changes as well as gliosis in the hippocampal formation, the prefrontal and the entorhinal cortex stand among cardinal microscopic findings in the schizophrenic brains. In recent years, accumulated evidence comes to light about the role of cerebellum in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

Short- and Long-term Cognitive Outcomes in Patients With Major Depression Treated With Electroconvulsive Therapy.

Objectives: The risk of cognitive impairment is a concern for patients with major depressive disorder receiving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Here, we evaluate the acute, short-term and long-term effects of ECT on tests of processing speed, executive function, memory, and attention.

Methods: Forty-four patients with major depressive disorder receiving ECT (61% right unilateral, 39% mixed right unilateral-bitemporal, left unilateral, and/or bitemporal lead placement) underwent a cognitive battery prior to ECT (T1), after 2 sessions (T2), and at the end of the index (T3).

DATA-DRIVEN CLUSTER SELECTION FOR SUBCORTICAL SHAPE AND CORTICAL THICKNESS PREDICTS RECOVERY FROM DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS.

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) who do not achieve full symptomatic recovery after antidepressant treatment have a higher risk of relapse. Compared to pharmacotherapies, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) more rapidly produces a greater extent of response in severely depressed patients. However, prediction of which candidates are most likely to improve after ECT remains challenging.

Linking optic radiation volume to visual perception in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

People with schizophrenia typically show visual processing deficits on masking tasks and other performance-based measures, while people with bipolar disorder may have related deficits. The etiology of these deficits is not well understood. Most neuroscientific studies of perception in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have focused on visual processing areas in the cerebral cortex, but perception also depends on earlier components of the visual system that few studies have examined in these disorders.

Neurochemical correlates of rapid treatment response to electroconvulsive therapy in patients with major depression.

Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a highly effective brain stimulation treatment for severe depression. Identifying neurochemical changes linked with ECT may point to biomarkers and predictors of successful treatment response.

Methods: We used proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) to measure longitudinal changes in glutamate/glutamine (Glx), creatine (Cre), choline (Cho) and -acetylaspartate (NAA) in the dorsal (dACC) and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) and bilateral hippocampus in patients receiving ECT scanned at baseline, after the second ECT session and after the ECT treatment series.

Variations in myo-inositol in fronto-limbic regions and clinical response to electroconvulsive therapy in major depression.

Though electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an established treatment for severe depression, the neurobiological factors accounting for the clinical effects of ECT are largely unknown. Myo-inositol, a neurometabolite linked with glial activity, is reported as reduced in fronto-limbic regions in patients with depression. Whether changes in myo-inositol relate to the antidepressant effects of ECT is unknown.

Electroconvulsive therapy and structural neuroplasticity in neocortical, limbic and paralimbic cortex.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a highly effective and rapidly acting treatment for severe depression. To understand the biological bases of therapeutic response, we examined variations in cortical thickness from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data in 29 patients scanned at three time points during an ECT treatment index series and in 29 controls at two time points. Changes in thickness across time and with symptom improvement were evaluated at high spatial resolution across the cortex and within discrete cortical regions of interest.

Effect of Electroconvulsive Therapy on Striatal Morphometry in Major Depressive Disorder.

Patients with major depression show reductions in striatal and paleostriatal volumes. The functional integrity and connectivity of these regions are also shown to change with antidepressant response. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a robust and rapidly acting treatment for severe depression.

Structural connectivity and response to ketamine therapy in major depression: A preliminary study.

Background: Ketamine elicits an acute antidepressant effect in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Here, we used diffusion imaging to explore whether regional differences in white matter microstructure prior to treatment may predict clinical response 24h following ketamine infusion in 10 MDD patients.

Methods: FSL's Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) established voxel-level differences in fractional anisotropy (FA) between responders (patients showing >50% improvement in symptoms 24h post-infusion) and non-responders in major white matter pathways.

The effect of opioid dependence on conventional and novel biochemical parameters of bone metabolism.

Background: Opioids influence bone metabolism in several ways and osteoporosis associated with the long-term use of opioids is believed to be multifactorial.

Objectives: To investigate the effect of opioid dependence on conventional and novel biochemical parameters of bone metabolism. To evaluate whether the concomitant HCV infection affects these parameters.

Desynchronization and Plasticity of Striato-frontal Connectivity in Major Depressive Disorder.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with dysfunctional corticolimbic networks, making functional connectivity studies integral for understanding the mechanisms underlying MDD pathophysiology and treatment. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) studies analyze patterns of temporally coherent intrinsic brain activity in "resting-state networks" (RSNs). The default-mode network (DMN) has been of particular interest to depression research; however, a single RSN is unlikely to capture MDD pathophysiology in its entirety, and the DMN itself can be characterized by multiple RSNs.

Age-related dendritic and spinal alterations of pyramidal cells of the human visual cortex.

Introduction: Normal aging is characterized by deterioration of visual abilities, affecting mainly visual acuity, contrast and wavelength sensitivity. In the present study we attempted to describe the morphological and morphometric alterations of the dendrites and the dendritic spines of the pyramidal cells of the visual cortex during normal aging, in order to approach the visual impairment of aged individuals from a neuropathological point of view.

Material And Methods: We studied the visual cortex in 20 brains using the Golgi technique.

Dendritic and spinal alterations of neurons from Edinger-Westphal nucleus in Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorder, causing a progressive decline of intellectual faculties, impairment of behavior and social performance, and impairment of speech eloquence, associated with various neurological manifestations based on a variable neuropathological background. Edinger-Westphal nucleus is a selective target of Alzheimer pathology early in the course of the disease. We attempted to determine the morphological alterations of the dendrites and the dendritic spines in Edinger-Westphal nucleus of 7 cases that fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's disease.

Recent advances in the bioanalysis of modified nucleotides in epigenetic studies.

Epigenetic alterations, such as DNA methylation, are involved in the pathogenesis of various diseases, the toxicity of diverse agents, the process of aging, the development of stem cells and numerous other mechanisms. DNA methylation is one of the most well-studied epigenetic alterations in mammals. Nevertheless, the scientific interest is now focusing on novel modified nucleotides with potential regulatory roles, such as 5-hydroxymethylcytosine.