Exploring the Xylariaceae and its relatives.

The Xylariaceae and its relatives rank as one of the best-known members of the Ascomycota. They are now well recognized for their diversity, global distribution, ecological activities and their outstanding novel metabolites with wide ranging bioactivity.

Prevalence of pain flashbacks in posttraumatic stress disorder arising from exposure to multiple traumas or childhood traumatization.

Background: Flashbacks are a form of multisensory memory that are experienced with a "happening in the present" quality. Pain flashbacks are a re-experiencing of pain felt at the time of a traumatic event. It is unclear how common pain flashbacks are.

Suggestions to Reduce Clinical Fibromyalgia Pain and Experimentally Induced Pain Produce Parallel Effects on Perceived Pain but Divergent Functional MRI-Based Brain Activity.

Objective: Hypnotic suggestion is an empirically validated form of pain control; however, the underlying mechanism remains unclear.

Methods: Thirteen fibromyalgia patients received suggestions to alter their clinical pain, and 15 healthy controls received suggestions to alter experimental heat pain. Suggestions were delivered before and after hypnotic induction with blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity measured concurrently.

LSD enhances suggestibility in healthy volunteers.

Rationale: Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has a history of use as a psychotherapeutic aid in the treatment of mood disorders and addiction, and it was also explored as an enhancer of mind control.

Objectives: The present study sought to test the effect of LSD on suggestibility in a modern research study.

Methods: Ten healthy volunteers were administered with intravenous (i.

Ascus apical apparatus and ascospore characters in Xylariaceae.

Members of Xylariaceae (Ascomycota) are recognized and classified mainly on the morphological features of their sexual state. In a number of genera high morphological variation of stromatal characters has made confident recognition of generic and specific boundaries difficult. There are, however, a range of microscopical characteristics which can in most cases make distinctions, especially at generic level, even in the absence of molecular data.

An fMRI investigation of posttraumatic flashbacks.

Flashbacks are a defining feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but there have been few studies of their neural basis. We tested predictions from a dual representation model of PTSD that, compared with ordinary episodic memories of the same traumatic event, flashbacks would be associated with activity in dorsal visual stream and related areas rather than in the medial temporal lobe. Participants with PTSD, with depression but not PTSD, and healthy controls were scanned during a recognition task with personally relevant stimuli.

Source memory errors associated with reports of posttraumatic flashbacks: a proof of concept study.

Flashbacks are involuntary, emotion-laden images experienced by individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The qualities of flashbacks could under certain circumstances lead to source memory errors. Participants with PTSD wrote a trauma narrative and reported the experience of flashbacks.

Autobiographical memory in depression: an fMRI study.

Depression is associated with three distinct alterations in memory functioning: mood-congruent recall, over-generality, and intrusive memories. These concern the autobiographical memory system, yet no previous studies have examined the neural correlates of autobiographical memory function in depression. In the present study we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess depressed and control participants during an autobiographical memory task.

Xylariaceae on the fringe.

The Xylariaceae is one of the best-known pyrenomycete families (Ascomycota) and is distributed throughout the world. The majority are wood inhabitants and are prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions. Halorosellinia oceanicum is the most widely distributed in mangroves and can be regarded as truly manglicolous being frequently recorded as the dominant member of the family in such environments in S.

Association between flashbacks and structural brain abnormalities in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is reliably associated with reduced brain volume relative to healthy controls, in areas similar to those found in depression. We investigated whether in a PTSD sample brain volumes in these areas were related to reporting specific symptoms of PTSD or to overall symptom severity.

Method: Structural MRI scans were obtained from 28 participants diagnosed with PTSD according to DSM-IV-TR.

Structural brain abnormalities common to posttraumatic stress disorder and depression.

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression are reliably associated with reductions in brain volume in markedly similar areas. To our knowledge, no volumetric studies have directly contrasted these conditions. We investigated which, if any, grey matter reductions would be uniquely associated with each disorder.

Enhancement of suggestibility and imaginative ability with nitrous oxide.

Rationale: Imaginative suggestibility, a trait closely related to hypnotic suggestibility, is modifiable under some circumstances. Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) is commonly used for sedation in dentistry and is reported to be more effective when combined with appropriate suggestions.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether nitrous oxide inhalation alters imaginative suggestibility and imagery vividness.

Fibromyalgia pain and its modulation by hypnotic and non-hypnotic suggestion: an fMRI analysis.

The neuropsychological status of pain conditions such as fibromyalgia, commonly categorized as 'psychosomatic' or 'functional' disorders, remains controversial. Activation of brain structures dependent upon subjective alterations of fibromyalgia pain experience could provide an insight into the underlying neuropsychological processes. Suggestion following a hypnotic induction can readily modulate the subjective experience of pain.

Incidental retrieval of emotional contexts in post-traumatic stress disorder and depression: an fMRI study.

In the present study, we used fMRI to assess patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression, and trauma-exposed controls, during an episodic memory retrieval task that included non-trauma-related emotional information. In the study phase of the task neutral pictures were presented in emotional or neutral contexts. Participants were scanned during the test phase, when they were presented with old and new neutral images in a yes/no recognition memory task.

Pain flashbacks following the July 7th 2005 London bombings.

Flashbacks in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are commonly experienced as visual, auditory, olfactory or tactile re-livings of a previously experienced traumatic event. We present the case report of one survivor of the July 7th 2005 London underground bombings who was diagnosed with PTSD and who experienced painful flashbacks. We present retrospective multidimensional measures of his pain using standardised instruments.

The impact of an alien plant on a native plant-pollinator network: an experimental approach.

Studies of pairwise interactions have shown that an alien plant can affect the pollination of a native plant, this effect being mediated by shared pollinators. Here we use a manipulative field experiment, to investigate the impact of the alien plant Impatiens glandulifera on an entire community of coflowering native plants. Visitation and pollen transport networks were constructed to compare replicated I.

Mental health following terrorist attacks.

We review the current literature relating to mental health following terrorist attacks. Studies assessing symptoms of stress in the general population and those assessing the mental health of direct victims are considered. Use of mental health services following an attack is reviewed and recommendations are offered.

Ion trap mass spectrometry on a comet nucleus: the Ptolemy instrument and the Rosetta space mission.

In May 2014, the Rosetta spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous with the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko ('67P'). One of the instruments on board the 'Lander' which will descend on to the surface of the comet is a miniaturised GC/MS system that incorporates an ion trap mass spectrometer, specially developed for isotope ratio analysis. This article describes the development and optimisation of the ion trap for this unique application, and presents a summary of the range of pre-programmed experiments that will contribute to the characterisation of the solid and volatile cometary materials.

Report of the equine herpesvirus-1 Havermeyer Workshop, San Gimignano, Tuscany, June 2004.

Amongst the infectious diseases that threaten equine health, herpesviral infections remain a world wide cause of serious morbidity and mortality. Equine herpesvirus-1 infection is the most important pathogen, causing an array of disorders including epidemic respiratory disease abortion, neonatal foal death, myeloencephalopathy and chorioretinopathy. Despite intense scientific investigation, extensive use of vaccination, and established codes of practice for control of disease outbreaks, infection and disease remain common.

Cerebral activation during hypnotically induced and imagined pain.

The continuing absence of an identifiable physical cause for disorders such as chronic low back pain, atypical facial pain, or fibromyalgia, is a source of ongoing controversy and frustration among pain physicians and researchers. Aberrant cerebral activity is widely believed to be involved in such disorders, but formal demonstration of the brain independently generating painful experiences is lacking. Here we identify brain areas directly involved in the generation of pain using hypnotic suggestion to create an experience of pain in the absence of any noxious stimulus.

A three-dimensional animation of the classical pathway of the complement cascade.

This paper describes the creation of a three-dimensional animation showing the classical pathway of the complement cascade, made in Studio Strata Pro Blitz (v1.75+) on the Macintosh computer. An analysis of two dimensional depictions of the process from the chapters of current textbooks of immunology revealed inconsistencies; animation was used to demonstrate how these difficulties can be overcome.

Time-of-flight Laue fiber diffraction studies of perdeuterated DNA.

The diffractometer SXD at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory ISIS pulsed neutron source has been used to record high resolution time-of-flight Laue fiber diffraction data from DNA. These experiments, which are the first of their kind, were undertaken using fibers of DNA in the A conformation and prepared using deuterated DNA in order to minimise incoherent background scattering. These studies complement previous experiments on instrument D19 at the Institut Laue Langevin using monochromatic neutrons.

Identification and comparative sequence analysis of a gene in equine herpesvirus 1 with homology to the herpes simplex virus glycoprotein D gene.

A homologue of the herpes simplex virus (HSV) glycoprotein D gene has been identified in the genome of equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1, equine abortion virus). An open reading frame in the middle of the short unique (US) region is capable of encoding a polypeptide of 402 amino acids that has 26% and 20% of its residues matching pseudorabies virus (PRV) gp50 and HSV-1 gD, respectively. Despite this low level of similarity, the positional identity of six cysteine residues and certain motifs, and the location of the EHV-1 gene, clearly define the EHV-1 polypeptide as one of a family of "gD-like" proteins.

X-Y Exchange and the Coevolution of the X and Y Rdna Arrays in Drosophila melanogaster.

The nucleolus organizers on the X and Y chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster are the sites of 200-250 tandemly repeated genes for ribosomal RNA. As there is no meiotic crossing over in male Drosophila, the X and Y chromosomal rDNA arrays should be evolutionarily independent, and therefore divergent. The rRNAs produced by X and Y are, however, very similar, if not identical.