Concomitant induction to few-layer and 1T-rich two-dimensional MoS by rigid segment-containing polysulfide as a sulfur source and in situ intercalator.

Few-layer and 1T-rich MoS is synthesized by a one-step solvothermal process using a rigid segment-containing polysulfide as a concomitant sulfur source and in situ intercalator. The prepared MoS displays superior hydrogen evolution reaction activity, providing a facile and mild approach for the development of high performing MoS and other two-dimensional lamellar materials.

N-doped carbon-coated ultrasmall NbO nanocomposite with excellent long cyclability for sodium storage.

Niobium pentoxide (NbO) has drawn significant interest as a promising anode for sodium ion batteries (SIBs) due to its large interplanar lattice spacing and relatively high diffusion efficiency. However, the intrinsic drawbacks of low electrical conductivity and substantial volume change greatly impede its practical applications in large-scale energy storage systems. In this work, ultrasmall NbO nanoparticles wrapped with nitrogen-doped carbon (denoted as NbO@NC) were delicately synthesized via a facile sol-gel method and subsequent heat treatment.

Fabrication of an N-doped mesoporous bio-carbon electrocatalyst efficient in Zn-air batteries by an in situ gas-foaming strategy.

A nitrogen doped bio-carbon catalyst with high specific surface area and a hierarchical interconnected porous structure was fabricated by an in situ gas-foaming strategy from sodium alginate and ammonium chloride. The optimized catalyst displays a fabulous ORR activity, providing a facile approach for the mass production of metal-free bio-carbon catalysts in fuel cells and metal-air batteries.

Abnormal auditory sensory gating-out in first-episode and never-medicated paranoid schizophrenia patients: an fMRI study.

Numerous electrophysiological studies have showed auditory sensory gating-out abnormalities in chronic schizophrenia with antipsychotic medication. Previous research has used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with excellent spatial resolution to identify the neural substrates of sensory gating-out deficits revealing increased hemodynamic response in the hippocampus, thalamus and prefrontal cortex. However, such results obtained from medicated patients may be confounded by antipsychotic medication.

Neural evidence for direct meaning access from orthography in Chinese word reading.

A fundamental issue in the study of reading is to understand the processes involved in determining word meaning from print. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and scanned participants performing lexical decision tasks to discriminate between real Chinese words and non-words, presented either visually or auditorily. For the visual task, two left inferior frontal cortical regions were significantly more activated for non-words than for words, one in BA (Brodmann's area) 44/45 implied in phonological processing, and one in BA47 implied in semantic processing.

Alterations in the processing of non-drug-related affective stimuli in abstinent heroin addicts.

Long-term exposure to drug may alter the neural system associated with affective processing, as evidenced by both clinical observations and behavioral data documenting dysfunctions in emotional experiences and processing in drug addicts. Although many imaging studies examined neural responses to drug or drug-related cues in addicts, there have been few studies explicitly designed to reveal their neural abnormalities in processing non-drug-related natural affective materials. The present study asked abstinent heroin addicts and normal controls to passively view standardized affective pictures of positive, negative, or neutral valence and compared their brain activities with functional MRI.

Sex-related differences in neural activity during emotion regulation.

The sex disparity in the development of depression has long been an important research topic, but the sex-related differences in neural activity during emotion regulation have been less thoroughly studied. It was hypothesized that, during the regulation of emotion, there would be more activation in the prefrontal regions implicated in cognitive processing for males, while there would be more activation in the prefrontal regions implicated in affective processing for females. This fMRI study recruited 12 females and 12 males who were required to view or to regulate the negative and positive emotion induced by some emotion-arousing pictures.

Neural correlates of regulation of positive and negative emotions: an fmri study.

Regulation of emotion is important for adaptive social functioning and mental well-being. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study identified neural correlates of regulation of positive or negative emotion. Twelve healthy female Chinese participants performed the experimental task that required them to simply view emotional pictures or to regulate their emotions induced by these pictures while their brain activities were monitored by a 1.

Involvement of left inferior frontal gyrus in sentence-level semantic integration.

Using event-related functional MRI, we examined the involvement of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) in semantic integration in reading Chinese sentences. During scanning, Chinese readers read individually presented sentences and judged whether or not a sentence was semantically acceptable. Behaviorally, those sentences with a small degree of semantic violation were found to be more difficult to reject relative to sentences with a large degree of semantic violation, indicating that more semantic integration occurred in the former than in the latter condition.

Verbal working memory deficits in abstinent heroin abusers.

Background: A prevailing belief is that opioids tend not to impair cognitive performance in opioid-dependent users. However, the impact of heroin abuse on verbal memory, especially on working memory, is not well studied and the results available are inconsistent.

Objective: This study was carried out to test the hypothesis that abstinent heroin abusers have intact working memory capacity.

Peripheral pulmonary nodules: relationship between multi-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging and tumor angiogenesis and VEGF expression.

Background: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between 16-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging and tumor angiogenesis and VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) expression in patients with benign and malignant pulmonary nodules, and differential diagnosis between benign and malignant pulmonary nodules.

Methods: Sixty-four patients with benign and malignant pulmonary nodules underwent 16-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging. The CT perfusion imaging was analyzed for TDC (time density curve), perfusion parametric maps, and the respective perfusion parameters.

An electrophysiological signature for proactive interference resolution in working memory.

We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to study the temporal dynamics of proactive interference in working memory. Participants performed a Sternberg item-recognition task to determine whether a probe was in a target memory set. Familiar negative probes were found to be more difficult to reject than less familiar ones.

Neural activities for negative priming with affective stimuli: an fMRI study.

Negative priming refers to the slowing down in reaction time to a stimulus that is either the same as, or related to, a distracting stimulus that has been ignored by people in an immediately preceding trial. It can be used as an index to examine the extent to which people are able to disengage attention or even ignore a distracting stimulus. In this fMRI study, with healthy Mandarin-speaking Chinese participants, we replicated the basic negative priming effect with affectively neutral words.

Broca's area plays a role in syntactic processing during Chinese reading comprehension.

Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (ER-fMRI) was adopted to examine brain activation of syntactic processing in reading logographic Chinese. While fMRI data were obtained, 15 readers of Chinese read individually presented sentences and performed semantic congruency judgments on three kinds of sentences: Congruous sentences (CON), sentences with a semantic violation (SEM), and sentences with both semantic and syntactic violations (SEM+SYN). The two types of incongruous sentences were matched in the degree of semantic plausibility.

Neural systems and time course of proactive interference in working memory.

The storage of information in working memory suffers as a function of proactive interference. Many works using neuroimaging technique have been done to reveal the brain mechanism of interference resolution. However, less is yet known about the time course of this process.

Similar brain activation patterns for writing logographic and phonetic symbols in Chinese.

This event-related functional MRI study examined the neural correlates for Chinese writing, by comparing the writing of logographic characters and that of pinyin, a phonetic notation system for Chinese characters. The temporal profile of the activations indicated that the middle frontal gyrus, superior parietal lobule, and posterior inferior temporal gyrus reflected more central processes for writing. Although pinyin writing elicited greater activity overall than character writing, the critical finding is that the two types of symbols recruited essentially the same brain regions.

Auditory evoked potentials recorded in monkeys with hallucinatory-like behaviors induced by bromocriptine.

Objective Bromocriptine and other dopamine D2 receptor agonists can affect a range of behaviors in nonhuman primates, particularly those behaviors associated with motor and mental function, such as suppressant behaviors and hallucinatory-like behaviors in monkeys. Besides bromocriptine, the dysfunction of the rapid eye movement sleep (REM) mechanism may also contribute to hallucinations. Dissociation of wakefulness, REM, and non-REM (NREM) can cause a series of psychotic symptoms.

Peripheral lung cancer: relationship between multi-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging and tumor angiogenesis and cyclin D1 expression.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between 16-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging and tumor angiogenesis and cyclin D1 expression in patients with peripheral lung cancer. Fifty-eight patients with peripheral lung cancer underwent 16-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging. The CT perfusion imaging was analyzed for time density curve (TDC), perfusion parametric maps, and the respective perfusion parameters.

Changes of dopamine transporter function in striatum during acute morphine addiction and its abstinence in rhesus monkey.

Background: Although dopamine transporter (DAT) is essential for addiction, the effect of additive drugs on DAT function is still controversial, especially for opiates. We investigated the functional changes of dopamine transporter in striatum of rhesus monkeys during acute morphine injection and its abstinence.

Methods: Four rhesus monkeys, 6 to 9 years old, two male and two female, were examined for 12 days.

Thirsty heroin addicts show different fMRI activations when exposed to water-related and drug-related cues.

Relapse to drug use is frequently preceded or caused by craving, an intense desire for drug. Advances in functional brain imaging techniques make it possible to directly investigate this special mental state in vivo and non-invasively. Extant imaging studies on craving have been mostly on cocaine which is the dominant drug abused in the U.

Differential activity in left inferior frontal gyrus for pseudowords and real words: an event-related fMRI study on auditory lexical decision.

After Newman and Twieg and others, we used a fast event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design and contrasted the lexical processing of pseudowords and real words. Participants carried out an auditory lexical decision task on a list of randomly intermixed real and pseudo Chinese two-character (or two-syllable) words. The pseudowords were constructed by recombining constituent characters of the real words to control for sublexical code properties.

Continuous representation of human portraits and natural scenery in human ventral temporal cortex: evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Background: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become a powerful tool for tracking human brain activity in vivo. This technique is mainly based on blood oxygenation level dependence (BOLD) contrast. In the present study, we employed this newly developed technique to characterize the neural representations of human portraits and natural sceneries in the human brain.

[CT-guided percutaneous needle biopsy and intra-articular injection of sacroiliac joint].

Objective: To investigate the clinical value of CT-guided percutaneous needle biopsy and intra-articular injection of sacroiliac joint.

Methods: CT-guided percutaneous puncture was conducted to the bilateral sacroiliac joints of 3 specimens of adult pelvis, 18 patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and 10 patients with undifferentiated spondyloarthropathy (uSpA) suspected as early AS clinically. All 28 patients had taken non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents without adequate control of symptoms or with serious side effects.