LaSrFeO Perovskite Oxide Nanoparticles for Low-Temperature Aerobic Oxidation of Isobutane to -Butyl Alcohol.

The development of reusable solid catalysts based on naturally abundant metal elements for the liquid-phase selective oxidation of light alkanes under mild conditions to obtain desired oxygenated products, such as alcohols and carbonyl compounds, remains a challenge. In this study, various perovskite oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by a sol-gel method using aspartic acid, and the effects of A- and B-site metal cations on the liquid-phase oxidation of isobutane to -butyl alcohol with molecular oxygen as the sole oxidant were investigated. Iron-based perovskite oxides containing Fe such as BaFeO, SrFeO, and LaSrFeO exhibited catalytic performance superior to those of other Fe- and Fe-based iron oxides and Mn-, Ni-, and Co-based perovskite oxides.

Synthesis and catalytic application of nanostructured metal oxides and phosphates.

The design and development of new high-performance catalysts is one of the most important and challenging issues to achieve sustainable chemical and energy production. This Feature Article describes the synthesis of nanostructured metal oxides and phosphates mainly based on earth-abundant metals and their thermocatalytic application to selective oxidation and acid-base reactions. A simple and versatile methodology for the control of nanostructures based on crystalline complex oxides and phosphates with diverse structures and compositions is proposed as another approach to catalyst design.

Modification of temporal pattern sensitivity for inputs from medial entorhinal cortex by lateral inputs in hippocampal granule cells.

The medial dendrites (MDs) of granule cells (GCs) receive spatial information through the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) from the entorhinal cortex in the rat hippocampus while the distal dendrites (DDs) of GCs receive non-spatial information (sensory inputs) through the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC). However, it is unclear how information processing through the two pathways is managed in GCs. In this study, we investigated associative information processing between two independent inputs to MDs and DDs.

Nanosized Ti-Based Perovskite Oxides as Acid-Base Bifunctional Catalysts for Cyanosilylation of Carbonyl Compounds.

The development of effective solid acid-base bifunctional catalysts remains a challenge because of the difficulty associated with designing and controlling their active sites. In the present study, highly pure perovskite oxide nanoparticles with -transition-metal cations such as Ti, Zr, and Nb as -site elements were successfully synthesized by a sol-gel method using dicarboxylic acids. Moreover, the specific surface area of SrTiO was increased to 46 m g by a simple procedure of changing the atmosphere from N to air during calcination of an amorphous precursor.

The dependence of acetylcholine on dynamic changes in the membrane potential and an action potential during spike timing-dependent plasticity induction in the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is an important area for memory encoding and retrieval and is the location of spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), a basic phenomenon of learning and memory. STDP is facilitated if acetylcholine (ACh) is released from cholinergic neurons during attentional processes. However, it is unclear how ACh influences postsynaptic changes during STDP induction and determines the STDP magnitude.

Multimodal cortico-cortical associations induced by fear and sensory conditioning in the guinea pig.

Sensory cortices are defined by responses to physical stimulation in specific modalities. Recently, additional associatively induced responses have been reported for stimuli other than the main specific modality for each cortex in the human and mammalian brain. In this study, to investigate a type of consolidation, associative responses in the guinea pig cortices (auditory, visual, and somatosensory) were simultaneously measured using optical imaging after first- or second-order conditioning comprising foot shock as an aversive stimulus and tone and light as sensory stimuli.

Base-Assisted Aerobic C-H Oxidation of Alkylarenes with a Murdochite-Type Oxide MgMnO Nanoparticle Catalyst.

Heterogeneously catalyzed aerobic oxidative C-H functionalization under mild conditions is a chemical process to obtain desired oxygenated products directly. Nanosized murdochite-type oxide MgMnO (MgMnO-MA) was successfully synthesized by the sol-gel method using malic acid. The specific surface area reached up to 104 m g, which is about 7 times higher than those (2-15 m g) of MgMnO synthesized by previously reported methods.

Physiological properties of Cantor coding-like iterated function system in the hippocampal CA1 network.

Cantor coding provides an information coding scheme for temporal sequences of events. In the hippocampal CA3-CA1 network, Cantor coding-like mechanism was observed in pyramidal neurons and the relationship between input pattern and recorded responses could be described as an iterated function system. However, detailed physiological properties of the system in CA1 remain unclear.

Dynamics of a Mutual Inhibition Circuit between Pyramidal Neurons Compared to Human Perceptual Competition.

Neural competition plays an essential role in active selection processes of noisy and ambiguous input signals, and it is assumed to underlie emergent properties of brain functioning, such as perceptual organization and decision-making. Despite ample theoretical research on neural competition, experimental tools to allow neurophysiological investigation of competing neurons have not been available. We developed a "hybrid" system where real-life neurons and a computer-simulated neural circuit interacted.

Highly active and durable WO/AlO catalysts for gas-phase dehydration of polyols.

Gas-phase glycerol dehydration over WO/AlO catalysts was investigated. WO loading on γ-AlO significantly affected the yield of acrolein and the catalyst with 20 wt% WO loading showed the highest activity. The WO/AlO catalyst with 20 wt% WO loading showed higher activity and durability than the other supported WO catalysts and zeolites.

Development and characterization of a new rice cultivar, 'Chikushi-kona 85', derived from a starch-branching enzyme IIb-deficient mutant line.

A new super-hard rice cultivar, 'Chikushi-kona 85', which was derived from a cross between 'Fukei 2032' and 'EM129', was developed via bulk method breeding. 'Chikushi-kona 85' showed a higher content of resistant starch than the normal non-glutinous rice cultivar, 'Nishihomare', and a higher grain yield than the first super-hard rice cultivar, 'EM10'. The amylopectin chain length of 'Chikushi-kona 85' and its progenitor line 'EM129' was longer than that of 'Nishihomare', and was similar to that of 'EM10'.

Activation of Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor Subtype 4 Is Essential for Cholinergic Stimulation of Gastric Acid Secretion: Relation to D Cell/Somatostatin.

Background/aim: Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors exist in five subtypes (M1∼M5), and they are widely expressed in various tissues to mediate diverse autonomic functions, including gastric secretion. In the present study, we demonstrated, using M1∼M5 KO mice, the importance of M4 receptors in carbachol (CCh) stimulation of acid secretion and investigated how the secretion is modulated by the activation of M4 receptors.

Methods: C57BL/6J mice of wild-type (WT) and M1-M5 KO were used.

The effect of coactivation of muscarinic and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on LTD in the hippocampal CA1 network.

The neuromodulator acetylcholine (ACh) is considered to have a crucial effect on sensory inputs in the process of learning and memory, and ACh activates muscarinic (mAChR) and nicotinic (nAChR) acetylcholine receptors. Meanwhile in a hippocampal CA1 network including inhibitory connections, long-term potentiation (LTP) or long-term depression (LTD) is induced by the application of positive timing of the spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) protocol, while LTD is induced by negative timing protocol. In the previous study, the influence of ACh on LTD induced by the negative timing protocol application in the interneuron-blocked CA1 network was reported.

Role of postsynaptic inositol 1, 4, 5-trisphosphate receptors in depotentiation in guinea pig hippocampal CA1 neurons.

The long-term potentiation (LTP) in the field excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) induced at hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neuron synapses by delivery of high frequency stimulation (HFS), a tetanus of 100 pulses at 100Hz, is decreased (depotentiation) by a train of low frequency stimulation (LFS) of 1000 pulses at 2Hz applied 30min later. Inositol 1, 4, 5-trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs) activated both during the HFS and after the LFS are involved in this depotentiation, the former triggering, and the latter modifying, LTP induction (decreasing the amplitude of the LTP established by the priming HFS). Furthermore, the decrease in the LTP at CA1 synapses requires activation of IP3Rs during LFS and activation of calcineurin after LFS.

Spatial information enhanced by non-spatial information in hippocampal granule cells.

The hippocampus organizes sequential memory composed of non-spatial information (such as objects and odors) and spatial information (places). The dentate gyrus (DG) in the hippocampus receives two types of information from the lateral and medial entorhinal cortices. Non-spatial and spatial information is delivered respectively to distal and medial dendrites (MDs) of granule cells (GCs) within the molecular layer in the DG.

Mathematical modeling of subthreshold resonant properties in pyloric dilator neurons.

Various types of neurons exhibit subthreshold resonance oscillation (preferred frequency response) to fluctuating sinusoidal input currents. This phenomenon is well known to influence the synaptic plasticity and frequency of neural network oscillation. This study evaluates the resonant properties of pacemaker pyloric dilator (PD) neurons in the central pattern generator network through mathematical modeling.

Input integration around the dendritic branches in hippocampal dentate granule cells.

Recent studies have shown that the dendrites of several neurons are not simple translators but are crucial facilitators of excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) propagation and summation of synaptic inputs to compensate for inherent voltage attenuation. Granule cells (GCs)are located at the gateway for valuable information arriving at the hippocampus from the entorhinal cortex. However, the underlying mechanisms of information integration along the dendrites of GCs in the hippocampus are still unclear.

Immediate return preference emerged from a synaptic learning rule for return maximization.

Animals including human often prefer immediate returns to larger delayed returns. It holds true in the human communications. Standard interpretation of the immediate return preference is that an animal might subjectively discount the value of a delayed reward, and that might choose the larger valued one.

Fear conditioning induces guinea pig auditory cortex activation by foot shock alone.

The present study used an optical imaging paradigm to investigate plastic changes in the auditory cortex induced by fear conditioning, in which a sound (conditioned stimulus, CS) was paired with an electric foot-shock (unconditioned stimulus, US). We report that, after conditioning, auditory information could be retrieved on the basis of an electric foot-shock alone. Before conditioning, the auditory cortex showed no response to a foot-shock presented in the absence of sound.

Context and the renewal of conditioned taste aversion: the role of rat dorsal hippocampus examined by electrolytic lesion.

An extinguished conditioned response can sometimes be restored. Previous research has shown that this renewal effect depends on the context in which conditioning versus extinction takes place. Here we provide evidence that the dorsal hippocampus is critically involved in the representation of context that underscores the renewal effect.

Modulation of synaptic plasticity by the coactivation of spatially distinct synaptic inputs in rat hippocampal CA1 apical dendrites.

The phenomenon whereby the relative timing between presynaptic and postsynaptic spiking determines the direction and extent of synaptic changes in a critical temporal window is known as spike timing-dependent synaptic plasticity (STDP). We have previously reported that STDP profiles can be classified into two types depending on their layer-specific location along CA1 pyramidal neuron dendrites in the rat hippocampus, suggesting that there are differences in information processing between the proximal dendrite (PD) and distal dendrite (DD). However, how the different types of information processing interact at different dendritic locations remains unclear.

Optical imaging of plastic changes induced by fear conditioning in the auditory cortex.

The plastic changes in the auditory cortex induced by a fear conditioning, through pairing a sound (CS) with an electric foot-shock (US), were investigated using an optical recording method with voltage sensitive dye, RH795. In order to investigate the effects of association learning, optical signals in the auditory cortex in response to CS (12 kHz pure tone) and non-CS (4, 8, 16 kHz pure tone) were recorded before and after normal and sham conditioning. As a result, the response area to CS enlarged only in the conditioning group after the conditioning.

Spatiotemporal characteristics of synaptic EPSP summation on the dendritic trees of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons as revealed by laser uncaging stimulation.

Synaptic strength is modified by the temporal coincidence of synaptic inputs without back-propagating action potentials (BPAPs) in CA1 pyramidal neurons. In order to clarify the interactive mechanisms of associative long-term potentiation (LTP) without BPAPs, local paired stimuli were applied to the dendrites using high-speed laser uncaging stimulation equipment. When the spatial distance between the paired stimuli was <10 micrometer, nonlinear amplification in excitatory postsynaptic potential summation was observed.

Suppressive effect of preconditioning low-frequency stimulation on subsequent induction of long-term potentiation by high frequency stimulation in hippocampal CA3 neurons.

We investigated the role of inositol 1, 4, 5-trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs), activated during preconditioning low-frequency afferent stimulation (LFS), in the subsequent induction of long-term potentiation (LTP) in CA3 neurons in hippocampal slices from mature guinea pigs. Induction of LTP in the field excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) by the delivery of high-frequency stimulation (HFS, a tetanus of two trains of 100 pulses at 100Hz with a 10s interval) to mossy fiber-CA3 neuron synapses was suppressed when CA3 synapses were preconditioned by the LFS of 1000 pulses at 2Hz and this effect was inhibited when the LFS preconditioning was performed in the presence of an IP3R antagonist or a protein phosphatase inhibitor. Furthermore, activation of group 1 metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) during HFS canceled the effects of an IP3R antagonist given during preconditioning LFS on the subsequent LTP induction at mossy fiber-CA3 synapses.