5,388 results match your criteria: "Beckman Institute[Affiliation]"

Cultivating emotional resilience in adolescent girls: Effects of a growth emotion mindset lesson.

Child Dev

October 2024

Department of Psychology, Affiliate Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA.

To address the widespread mental health crisis facing adolescent girls, this study examined whether a growth emotion mindset lesson can enhance emotional competence. During 2018-2022, adolescent girls (M = 15.68 years; 66.

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Oxidative stress as a potential mechanism linking gestational phthalates exposure to cognitive development in infancy.

Neurotoxicol Teratol

December 2024

Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Electronic address:

Article Synopsis
  • This study looked at how being exposed to certain chemicals called phthalates during pregnancy could affect a baby's memory when they are around 7.5 months old.
  • Phthalates are found in many products we use, and they might cause extra stress in the body, known as oxidative stress.
  • The researchers found that higher levels of certain phthalates in pregnant mothers were linked to more oxidative stress and could affect how well babies remember new things.
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Article Synopsis
  • - Muscular hydrostats, like octopus arms and elephant trunks, lack bones, granting them extraordinary flexibility and the ability to reshape themselves effectively.
  • - The arrangement of muscle fibers in these structures acts like a complex mechanical program that helps control intricate shapes and movements.
  • - Research combining imaging, biomechanics, and simulations led to the creation of an octopus-inspired arm with 200 muscle groups, showcasing innovative design and control principles relevant to robotics that allow for simple yet effective manipulation across various tasks.
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Tai Chi (TC) practice has been shown to improve both cognitive and physical function in older adults. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the benefits of TC remain unclear. Our primary aims are to explore whether distinct age-related and TC-practice-related relationships can be identified with respect to either temporal or spatial (within/between-network connectivity) differences.

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A recent paper reported that recognition discriminability was improved for faces that were familiarized prior to study, but only if that familiarization protocol included conceptual information, like a name (Akan & Benjamin, Journal of Memory and Language, 131, 104,433, 2023). In those experiments, familiarity with each facial identity was gained through exposures to the same facial image prior to study, and memory for each facial identity was tested using the same images across study and test. That design characteristic has a serious constraint on generality, since it is possible that prior conceptual information enhances memory for images (of faces), but not for the representation of the face itself.

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Given that adolescence is a critical period for socioemotional development, marked by shifting dynamics in the parent-child relationship, parent-adolescent dyadic regulation may serve as a key mechanism linking the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship to adolescent mental health. The current study investigated two dyadic regulatory processes during mother-adolescent conflictual interactions as interpersonal mechanisms underlying the link between adolescent-mother attachment security and adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms: (a) mutual engagement in positive affect (i.e.

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Dementia is a burgeoning global problem. Novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics beyond volumetry may bring new insight and aid clinical trial evaluation of interventions early in the Alzheimer's disease course to complement existing imaging and clinical metrics. To determine whether: (i) normalized regional sodium-MRI values (Na-SI) are better predictors of neurocognitive status than volumetry (ii) cerebral amyloid PET status improves modelling.

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Purpose: This study aimed to assess the incidence of adverse events (AE) in older adults participating in a year-long exercise intervention, investigating potential dose-response relationships between exercise intensity and AE frequency, and identifying demographic factors associated with AE risk.

Methods: A total of 648 older adults were randomized into one of three exercise groups: low-intensity stretching and toning (S&T), 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week (150Ex), or 225 minutes of aerobic exercise per week (225Ex). Adverse events were tracked during the intervention, with event rates calculated based on participant adherence and time in the study.

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The Promise and Practicality of Addressing Sex as a Biological Variable and the Ovarian Cycle in Preclinical Epilepsy Research.

Epilepsy Curr

July 2024

Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, Neuroscience Program, Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.

Seizures and epilepsy affect people of all sexes and genders. In the last several years, funding agency initiatives such as the U.S.

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Aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) that respond to mechanical force are increasingly used as force probes, memory devices, and advanced security systems. Most of the known mechanisms to modulate mechanoresponsive AIEgens have been based on changes in aggregation states, involving only physical alterations. Instances that employ covalent bond cleavage are still rare.

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The effects of emotion on memory are wide-ranging and powerful, but they are not uniform. Although there is agreement that emotion enhances memory for individual items, how it influences memory for the associated contextual details (relational memory, RM) remains debated. The prevalent view suggests that emotion impairs RM, but there is also evidence that emotion enhances RM.

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Extracellular vesicles (EVs) serve as crucial mediators of cell-to-cell communication in normal physiology as well as in diseased states; they have been largely studied in regard to their role in cancer progression. However, the mechanisms by which their biogenesis and secretion are regulated by metabolic or endocrine factors remain unknown. Here, we delineate a mechanism by which EV secretion is regulated by a cholesterol metabolite, 27-hydroxycholesterol (27HC), where treatment of myeloid immune cells (RAW 264.

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Materials with hierarchical architectures that combine soft and hard material domains with coalesced interfaces possess superior properties compared with their homogeneous counterparts. These architectures in synthetic materials have been achieved through deterministic manufacturing strategies such as 3D printing, which require an a priori design and active intervention throughout the process to achieve architectures spanning multiple length scales. Here we harness frontal polymerization spin mode dynamics to autonomously fabricate patterned crystalline domains in poly(cyclooctadiene) with multiscale organization.

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Efforts to enhance reproducibility in a human performance research project.

F1000Res

September 2024

Biosciences and Biotechnology Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, 94550, USA.

Ensuring the validity of results from funded programs is a critical concern for agencies that sponsor biological research. In recent years, the open science movement has sought to promote reproducibility by encouraging sharing not only of finished manuscripts but also of data and code supporting their findings. While these innovations have lent support to third-party efforts to replicate calculations underlying key results in the scientific literature, fields of inquiry where privacy considerations or other sensitivities preclude the broad distribution of raw data or analysis may require a more targeted approach to promote the quality of research output.

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Imaging body-mind crosstalk in young adults.

Int J Clin Health Psychol

September 2024

Faculty of Health Sciences and Sports, Macao Polytechnic University, 999078, Macao, China.

Objective: There is evidence that complex relationships exist between motor functions, brain structure, and cognitive functions, particularly in the aging population. However, whether such relationships observed in older adults could extend to other age groups (e.g.

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Epilepsy is a prevalent and serious neurological condition which impacts millions of people worldwide. Stereoelectroencephalography (sEEG) is used in cases of drug resistant epilepsy to aid in surgical resection planning due to its high spatial resolution and ability to visualize seizure onset zones. For accurate localization of the seizure focus, sEEG studies combine pre-implantation magnetic resonance imaging, post-implant computed tomography to visualize electrodes, and temporally recorded sEEG electrophysiological data.

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Statistical Mechanical Theories of Membrane Permeability.

J Phys Chem B

September 2024

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, 5735 S Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States.

A popular theoretical framework to compute the permeability coefficient of a molecule is provided by the classic Smoluchowski-Kramers treatment of the steady-state diffusive flux across a free-energy barrier. Within this framework, commonly termed "inhomogeneous solubility-diffusion" (ISD), the permeability, , is expressed in closed form in terms of the potential of mean force and position-dependent diffusivity of the molecule of interest along the membrane normal. In principle, both quantities can be calculated from all-atom MD simulations.

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Skin Carotenoids Are Related to Cognitive Abilities among Toddlers.

J Nutr

November 2024

Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, Unites States; Department of Health and Kinesiology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, Unites States; Division of Nutritional Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, Unites States; Beckman Institute for the Advancement of Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, Unites States. Electronic address:

Background: Carotenoids are antioxidant pigments that deposit in human tissues (e.g., skin, macula, and brain) upon dietary consumption.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explored the use of magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) as a non-invasive way to detect and measure liver fibrosis in a cancer model using Oncopigs.
  • Seven Oncopigs were subjected to alcoholic liver fibrosis induction and underwent MRE imaging along with liver biopsies over three months to assess liver stiffness and fibrosis grading.
  • Although MRE showed potential for detecting liver stiffness, histological analysis from biopsies was more effective in accurately identifying liver fibrosis, highlighting the need for further research in this area.
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Background: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have been linked to adverse health outcomes and prenatal exposure is known to impact infant and child development. However, few studies have assessed early developmental consequences of prenatal exposure to two common phenolic compounds, benzophenone-3 (BP-3) and triclosan (TCS).

Objective: We evaluated the relationship of prenatal exposure to BP-3 and TCS with infant cognition at 7.

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Higher cardiorespiratory fitness has been associated with improved cognitive control in preadolescent children, with various studies highlighting related brain health benefits. This cross-sectional study aimed to provide novel insights into the fitness-cognition relationship by investigating task-related changes in effective connectivity within two brain networks involved in cognitive control: the cingulo-opercular and fronto-parietal networks. Twenty-four higher-fit and twenty-four lower-fit preadolescent children completed a modified flanker task that modulated inhibitory control demand while their EEG and task performance were concurrently recorded.

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A liver-on-a-chip model is an advanced complex model (CIVM) that incorporates different cell types and extracellular matrix to mimic the microenvironment of the human liver in a laboratory setting. Given the heterogenous and complex nature of liver-on-a-chip models, brightfield and fluorescence-based imaging techniques are widely utilized for assessing the changes occurring in these models with different treatment and environmental conditions. However, the utilization of optical microscopy techniques for structural and functional evaluation of the liver CIVMs have been limited by the reduced light penetration depth and lack of 3D information obtained using these imaging techniques.

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The internal arrangement of a muscle's fibers with respect to its mechanical line of action (muscle architecture) is a major determinant of muscle function. Muscle architecture can be quantified using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging-based tractography, which propagates streamlines from a set of seed points by integrating vectors that represent the direction of greatest water diffusion (and by inference, the local fiber orientation). Previous work has demonstrated that tractography outcomes are sensitive to the method for defining seed points, but this sensitivity has not been fully examined.

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Cation-induced intramolecular coil-to-globule transition in poly(ADP-ribose).

Nat Commun

September 2024

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA.

Poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR), a non-canonical nucleic acid, is essential for DNA/RNA metabolism and protein condensation, and its dysregulation is linked to cancer and neurodegeneration. However, key structural insights into PAR's functions remain largely uncharacterized, hindered by the challenges in synthesizing and characterizing PAR, which are attributed to its length heterogeneity. A central issue is how PAR, comprised solely of ADP-ribose units, attains specificity in its binding and condensing proteins based on chain length.

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