An afternoon nap facilitates analogical transfer in creative problem solving.

In analogical problem solving, the solution to a previously experienced problem (source) is used to solve a new but structurally similar problem (target). Yet, analogical transfer is seldom successful, as structural commonalities between source and target problems can be difficult to recognise. Theoretically, memory consolidation processes during REM sleep may help to identify and strengthen connections between weakly related memories, improving the ability to use analogical transfer.

Conditionally activated affibody-based prodrug targeting EGFR demonstrates improved tumour selectivity.

Safety and efficacy of cancer-targeting treatments can be improved by conditional activation enabled by the distinct milieu of the tumour microenvironment. Proteases are intricately involved in tumourigenesis and commonly dysregulated with elevated expression and activity. Design of prodrug molecules with protease-dependent activation has the potential to increase tumour-selective targeting while decreasing exposure to healthy tissues, thus improving the safety profile for patients.

Blackouts and hangover experiences among Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White college students.

Blackouts and hangovers may negatively impact college students' health and productivity. However, few studies have considered the impact of cultural differences on students' individual experiences with blackouts and hangovers. To address this issue, the current study explored the potential relationships of shame and resilience with Hispanic ( = 381) and non-Hispanic White (NHW,  = 332) students' self-reported blackouts and hangover experiences.

Mendelian gene identification through mouse embryo viability screening.

Background: The diagnostic rate of Mendelian disorders in sequencing studies continues to increase, along with the pace of novel disease gene discovery. However, variant interpretation in novel genes not currently associated with disease is particularly challenging and strategies combining gene functional evidence with approaches that evaluate the phenotypic similarities between patients and model organisms have proven successful. A full spectrum of intolerance to loss-of-function variation has been previously described, providing evidence that gene essentiality should not be considered as a simple and fixed binary property.

A brief nap during an acute stressor improves negative affect.

Overnight sleep can reduce perceived stress, and improve associated cognitive disruptions and negative affect after an acute stressor. Whether a brief nap can also bestow these benefits in a non-sleep-restricted population is currently unknown. In this study that used a between-subjects design, stress was triggered by administering a modified Trier Social Stress Test to two groups of participants (nap [n = 29], wake [n = 41]).

Proximity Extension Assay in Combination with Next-Generation Sequencing for High-throughput Proteome-wide Analysis.

Understanding the dynamics of the human proteome is crucial for developing biomarkers to be used as measurable indicators for disease severity and progression, patient stratification, and drug development. The Proximity Extension Assay (PEA) is a technology that translates protein information into actionable knowledge by linking protein-specific antibodies to DNA-encoded tags. In this report we demonstrate how we have combined the unique PEA technology with an innovative and automated sample preparation and high-throughput sequencing readout enabling parallel measurement of nearly 1500 proteins in 96 samples generating close to 150,000 data points per run.

Distinct plasma biomarkers confirm the diagnosis of mastocytosis and identify increased risk of anaphylaxis.

Background: Mastocytosis encompasses a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by accumulation of clonal mast cells (MCs) in the skin and/or internal organs. Patients typically present with a broad variety of recurrent mediator-related clinical symptoms, including severe anaphylaxis. However, not all patients with mastocytosis experience anaphylactic reactions.

Sleep-dependent reductions in reality-monitoring errors arise from more conservative decision criteria.

Reality-monitoring errors occur when internally generated thoughts are remembered as external occurrences. We hypothesized that sleep-dependent memory consolidation could reduce them by strengthening connections between items and their contexts during an afternoon nap. Participants viewed words and imagined their referents.

Vocabulary learning benefits from REM after slow-wave sleep.

Memory reactivation during slow-wave sleep (SWS) influences the consolidation of recently acquired knowledge. This reactivation occurs spontaneously during sleep but can also be triggered by presenting learning-related cues, a technique known as targeted memory reactivation (TMR). Here we examined whether TMR can improve vocabulary learning.

Memory improvement via slow-oscillatory stimulation during sleep in older adults.

We examined the intriguing but controversial idea that disrupted sleep-dependent consolidation contributes to age-related memory decline. Slow-wave activity during sleep may help strengthen neural connections and provide memories with long-term stability, in which case decreased slow-wave activity in older adults could contribute to their weaker memories. One prediction from this account is that age-related memory deficits should be reduced by artificially enhancing slow-wave activity.

Regulation of mast cell survival and apoptosis.

One key characteristic of certain mast cell populations is their longevity. Mast cell survival can also be promoted by Fc-receptor activation. Regulation of cell survival and apoptosis is regulated by the Bcl-2 family that consists of pro- and anti-apoptotic proteins.

Response to Algarabel et al., 2012 "Recognition memory deficits in mild cognitive impairment". Reconsidering claims of familiarity disruptions in mild cognitive impairment.

There is some debate over the relative impairment of recollection and familiarity in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A recent publication by Algarabel et al. (2012, Recognition memory deficits in mild cognitive impairment, Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 19, 608-619) claims to undermine previous studies reporting preserved familiarity in patients with MCI.

Distinct medial temporal contributions to different forms of recognition in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

The simplest expression of episodic memory is the experience of familiarity, the isolated recognition that something has been encountered previously. Brain structures of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) make essential contributions to episodic memory, but the distinct contributions from each MTL structure to familiarity are debatable. Here we used specialized tests to assess recognition impairments and their relationship to MTL integrity in people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI, n=19), people with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD; n=10), and age-matched individuals without any neurological disorder (n=20).

Proteasome inhibition upregulates Bim and induces caspase-3-dependent apoptosis in human mast cells expressing the Kit D816V mutation.

The majority of patients with systemic mastocytosis exhibit a D816V mutation in the activating loop of the Kit receptor expressed on mast cells. The Kit ligand regulates mast cell survival by transcriptional repression of the proapoptotic BH3-only protein Bim and by promoting Bim phosphorylation that makes it vulnerable for proteasomal-dependent degradation. We investigated here whether prevention of Bim degradation by a proteasomal inhibitor, MG132, would induce apoptosis in mast cells with the D816V mutation.

Differentiation of mast cell subpopulations from mouse embryonic stem cells.

Mast cells can generally be divided into two major groups, connective tissue mast cells and mucosal mast cells. We and others have previously shown that these mast cell populations can be developed in vitro from mouse bone marrow stem cells using a combination of specific growth factors and cytokines. Mast cell differentiation from mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells is an important alternative method when developing mast cells from an embryonic lethal genetic deficiency or to reduce the use and handling of experimental animals.

Concurrent impairments in sleep and memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

Whereas patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) experience difficulties forming and retrieving memories, their memory impairments may also partially reflect an unrecognized dysfunction in sleep-dependent consolidation that normally stabilizes declarative memory storage across cortical areas. Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) exhibit circumscribed declarative memory deficits, and many eventually progress to an AD diagnosis. Whether sleep is disrupted in aMCI and whether sleep disruptions contribute to memory impairment is unknown.

Neural correlates of contextual cueing are modulated by explicit learning.

Contextual cueing refers to the facilitated ability to locate a particular visual element in a scene due to prior exposure to the same scene. This facilitation is thought to reflect implicit learning, as it typically occurs without the observer's knowledge that scenes repeat. Unlike most other implicit learning effects, contextual cueing can be impaired following damage to the medial temporal lobe.

Medial temporal contributions to successful face-name learning.

The brain mechanisms that enable us to form durable associations between different types of information are not completely understood. Although the hippocampus is widely thought to play a substantial role in forming associations, the role of surrounding cortical regions in the medial temporal lobe, including perirhinal and parahippocampal cortex, is controversial. Using anatomically constrained functional magnetic resonance imaging, we assessed medial temporal contributions to learning arbitrary associations between faces and names.

Sleep influences the severity of memory disruption in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: results from sleep self-assessment and continuous activity monitoring.

Sleep is important for declarative memory consolidation in healthy adults. Sleep disruptions are typical in Alzheimer disease, but whether they contribute to memory impairment is unknown. Sleep has not been formally examined in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), which is characterized by declarative-memory deficits without dementia and can signify prodromal Alzheimer disease.

Strengthening individual memories by reactivating them during sleep.

While asleep, people heard sounds that had earlier been associated with objects at specific spatial locations. Upon waking, they recalled these locations more accurately than other locations for which no reminder cues were provided. Consolidation thus operates during sleep with high specificity and is subject to systematic influences through simple auditory stimulation.

Investigating the Awareness of Remembering.

There is a marked lack of consensus concerning the best way to learn how conscious experiences arise. In this article, we advocate for scientific approaches that attempt to bring together four types of phenomena and their corresponding theoretical accounts: behavioral acts, cognitive events, neural events, and subjective experience. We propose that the key challenge is to comprehensively specify the relationships among these four facets of the problem of understanding consciousness without excluding any facet.

In vitro whole-organ imaging: 4D quantification of growing mouse limb buds.

Quantitative mapping of the normal tissue dynamics of an entire developing mammalian organ has not been achieved so far but is essential to understand developmental processes and to provide quantitative data for computational modeling. We developed a four-dimensional (4D) imaging technique that can be used to quantitatively image tissue movements and dynamic GFP expression domains in a growing transgenic mouse limb by time-lapse optical projection tomography (OPT).

Test-item sequence affects false memory formation: an event-related potential study.

False memories arise when people 'remember' experiences that have never occurred. Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, researchers have demonstrated that participants tend to falsely recognize non-studied words (lures) that are associated to previously studied words. Several questions, however, remain regarding the neurocognitive basis of false memory formation.

When memory does not fail: familiarity-based recognition in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

Recognition can be guided by familiarity, a restricted form of retrieval devoid of contextual recall, or by recollection, which occurs when retrieval is sufficient to support the full experience of remembering an episode. Recollection and familiarity were disentangled by testing recognition memory using silhouette object drawings, high target-foil resemblance, and both yes-no and forced-choice procedures. Theoretically, forced-choice recognition could be mediated by familiarity alone.