Lavender improves sleep through olfactory perception and GABAergic neurons of the central amygdala.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: The use of lavender as sleep aid or hypnotic agent can be traced back as early as ancient Romans and Greeks. Yet, objective experimental data on whether and how lavender enhances sleep duration or/and sleep quality remain lacking.

Aim Of The Study: We aimed to characterize the sleep-wake regulating effects of lavender in the mouse and to demonstrate the brain targets and neural circuits involved.

Generation of Anti-Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-2 (HER2) Immunoliposomes Using Microbial Transglutaminase (mTG)-Mediated Site-Specific Conjugated Antibodies.

Nanocarriers have found their interests in many fields including drug delivery and labeling of cells with the aim to target and eradicate tumor cells. One of the approaches to specifically address nanocarriers, such as liposomes, to their target is to attach antibodies of interest to their surface. To date, the development of immunoliposomes has been widely explored but has mainly involved chemical and unspecific reactions that could impair antibody stability, integrity, and orientation, thus reducing optimized immunoliposomes generation.

Serotype independent protection induced by a vaccine based on the IgM protease of Streptococcus suis and proposal for a new immunity-based classification system.

The IgM protease (Ide gene; Gene ID 8153996) of Streptococcus suis is a putative virulence factor that has been shown to be a protective vaccine antigen for pigs (Seele et al. Vaccine 33:2207-12, 2015). To assess its potential as a cross-protective antigen, the amino acid variability among prevalent clinical isolates in various regions and among various serotypes was investigated.

A status report on human odorant receptors and their allocated agonists.

Olfactory perception begins when odorous substances interact with specialized receptors located on the surface of dedicated sensory neurons. The recognition of smells depends on a complex mechanism involving a combination of interactions between an odorant and a set of odorant receptors (ORs), where molecules are recognized according to a combinatorial activation code of ORs. Although these interactions have been studied for decades, the rules governing this ligand recognition remain poorly understood, and the complete combinatorial code is only known for a handful of odorants.

Development of auditory cognition in 5- to 10-year-old children: Focus on speech-in-babble-noise perception.

Speech-in-noise perception is consistently reported to be impaired in learning disorders, which stresses the importance of documenting its developmental course in young children. In this cross-sectional study, ninety children (41 females, 5.5-11.

Air Pollution and the Prevalence of Keratoconus: Is There a Connection?

Purpose: Keratoconus is a progressive, asymmetrical corneal ectasia with multifactorial origin. Three identified risk factors for keratoconus include exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays, eye rubbing, and atopy. Other factors like pollution would play a role in the physiopathology of keratoconus.

Charting cortical-layer specific area boundaries using Gibbs' ringing attenuated T1w/T2w-FLAIR myelin MRI.

Cortical areas have traditionally been defined by their distinctive layer cyto- and/or myelo- architecture using postmortem histology. Recent studies have delineated many areas by measuring overall cortical myelin content and its spatial gradients using the T1w/T2w ratio MRI in living primates, including humans. While T1w/T2w studies of areal transitions might benefit from using the layer profile of this myelin-related contrast, a significant confound is Gibbs' ringing artefact, which produces signal fluctuations resembling cortical layers.

Early-life adversity predicting the incidence of multisite chronic pain in the general population.

Introduction: Adverse childhood events (ACEs) have been linked to widespread chronic pain (CP) in various cross-sectional studies, mainly in clinical populations. However, the independent role of different ACEs on the development of different types of CP remains elusive. Accordingly, we aimed to prospectively assess the associations between specific types of ACEs with the development of multisite CP in a large population-based cohort.