'Should we laugh?' Acoustic features of (in)voluntary laughters in spontaneous conversations.

Laughter is one of the most common non-verbal features; however, contrary to the previous assumptions, it may also act as signals of bonding, affection, emotional regulation agreement or empathy (Scott et al. Trends Cogn Sci 18:618-620, 2014). Although previous research agrees that laughter does not form a uniform group in many respects, different types of laughter have been defined differently by individual research.

Cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CBR) inhibits hypothalamic leptin signaling via β-arrestin1 in complex with TC-PTP and STAT3.

Molecular interactions between anorexigenic leptin and orexigenic endocannabinoids, although of great metabolic significance, are not well understood. We report here that hypothalamic STAT3 signaling in mice, initiated by physiological elevations of leptin, is diminished by agonists of the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CBR). Measurement of STAT3 activation by semi-automated confocal microscopy in cultured neurons revealed that this CBR-mediated inhibition requires both T cell protein tyrosine phosphatase (TC-PTP) and β-arrestin1 but is independent of changes in cAMP.

Optimization of the Heterologous Expression of the Cannabinoid Type-1 (CB) Receptor.

The G protein-coupled type 1 cannabinoid receptor (CBR) mediates virtually all classic cannabinoid effects, and both its agonists and antagonists hold major therapeutic potential. Heterologous expression of receptors is vital for pharmacological research, however, overexpression of these proteins may fundamentally alter their localization pattern, change the signalling partner preference and may also spark artificial clustering. Additionally, recombinant CBRs are prone to intense proteasomal degradation, which may necessitate substantial modifications, such as N-terminal truncation or signal sequence insertion, for acceptable cell surface expression.

One-step fabrication of fiber optic SERS sensors via spark ablation.

Spark ablation, a versatile, gas-phase physical nanoparticle synthesis method was employed to fabricate fiber-optic surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors in a simple single-step process. We demonstrate that spark-generated silver nanoparticles can be simply deposited onto a fiber tip by means of a modified low-pressure inertial impactor, thus providing significant surface enhancement for fiber-based Raman measurements. The surface morphology of the produced sensors was characterized along with the estimation of the enhancement factor and the inter- and intra-experimental variation of the measured Raman spectrum as well as the investigation of the concentration dependence of the SERS signal.

Speech processing in children with functional articulation disorders.

This study explored auditory speech processing and comprehension abilities in 5-8-year-old monolingual Hungarian children with functional articulation disorders (FADs) and their typically developing peers. Our main hypothesis was that children with FAD would show co-existing auditory speech processing disorders, with different levels of these skills depending on the nature of the receptive processes. The tasks included (i) sentence and non-word repetitions, (ii) non-word discrimination and (iii) sentence and story comprehension.

Effect of soy- and whey protein-isolate supplemented diet on the redox parameters of trained mice.

Background: A number of clinical trials have successfully been performed using whey and/or soy proteins in the treatment of many diseases. They both have antioxidant properties, which appears to be a factor in aerobic physical performance as well. In addition, these are the most often used supplements that sportsmen take to increase their performance.