Connecting genomic results for psychiatric disorders to human brain cell types and regions reveals convergence with functional connectivity.

Identifying cell types and brain regions critical for psychiatric disorders and brain traits is essential for targeted neurobiological research. By integrating genomic insights from genome-wide association studies with a comprehensive single-cell transcriptomic atlas of the adult human brain, we prioritized specific neuronal clusters significantly enriched for the SNP-heritabilities for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder along with intelligence, education, and neuroticism. Extrapolation of cell-type results to brain regions reveals the whole-brain impact of schizophrenia genetic risk, with subregions in the hippocampus and amygdala exhibiting the most significant enrichment of SNP-heritability.

Cultivated meat microbiological safety considerations and practices.

Cultivated meat, produced using cell culture technology, is an alternative to conventional meat production that avoids the risks from enteric pathogens associated with animal slaughter and processing. Cultivated meat therefore has significant theoretical microbiological safety advantages, though limited information is available to validate this. This review discusses sources and vectors of microbial contamination throughout cultivated meat production, introduces industry survey data to evaluate current industry practices for monitoring and mitigating these hazards, and highlights future research needs.

Dimensional Validation of the Italian Revised Version of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ-r) for Children and Adolescents with ASD.

Sleep problems are common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with potential repercussions on neurobehavioral functioning exacerbating socio-communicative impairments and aggressive behaviors. Parent reports are the most used method to assess sleep in pediatric populations and a modified 23-item of Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) for ASD has been proposed in the United States. The generalizability of the CSHQ for ASD has yet to be validated across countries, including Italy.

Tuft cells transdifferentiate to neural-like progenitor cells in the progression of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is partly initiated through the transdifferentiation of acinar cells to metaplasia, which progresses to neoplasia and cancer. Tuft cells (TCs) are chemosensory cells not found in the normal pancreas but arise in cancer precursor lesions and diminish during progression to carcinoma. These metaplastic TCs (mTCs) suppress tumor progression through communication with the tumor microenvironment, but their fate during progression is unknown.

Incorporating Singaporean habits and practices for cosmetics and personal care products into a global consumer aggregate exposure model.

Understanding consumer habits and practices of cosmetics and personal care products (PCP) is essential to generate realistic product exposure data for the safety assessment of ingredients such as fragrance materials. Product usages can vary across regions due to differences in cultural norms, seasonal and climate conditions, and the availability of different product forms, yet there is limited data published on cosmetics and PCP use outside of North America and Europe. This study reports the habits and practices of cosmetics and PCP (such as frequency and amount of use) in Singapore where participants (n = 494, aged 21-64 years) recorded their product usages and had their products weighed over a two-week period.

Differential Effect of TRPV1 Modulators on Neural and Behavioral Responses to Taste Stimuli.

In our diet, we ingest a variety of compounds that are TRPV1 modulators. It is important to understand if these compounds alter neural and behavioral responses to taste stimuli representing all taste qualities. Here, we will summarize the effects of capsaicin, resiniferatoxin, cetylpyridinium chloride, ethanol, nicotine, -geranyl cyclopropylcarboxamide, Kokumi taste peptides, pH, and temperature on neural and behavioral responses to taste stimuli in rodent models and on human taste perception.

Complex Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in a 4-Year-Old With Repaired Critical Congenital Heart Disease and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Background: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a risk factor for developmental delay and for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Outcome Collaborative has developed recommendations for ongoing monitoring of this at-risk population to be able to detect developmental, learning, and behavioral concerns, as they become apparent as a child ages.

Case Presentation: A 4-year-old boy with tetralogy of Fallot with a ventricular septal defect repaired in infancy was followed periodically in the cardiac neurodevelopmental follow-up clinic and diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as well as additional developmental and medical issues.

Interoception and gut-brain communication.

Interoception - the internal sensing of bodily states and their communication to the brain - has recently become a 'buzzword'. However, the scientific study of how the brain and the body communicate has a much longer and well-established history. In the 16 century, the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes (1596-1650) proposed that the mind and body are two fundamentally distinct entities, yet they interact with each other to regulate animal and human behaviors.

Pyrfume: A window to the world's olfactory data.

Advances in theoretical understanding are frequently unlocked by access to large, diverse experimental datasets. Our understanding of olfactory neuroscience and psychophysics remain years behind the other senses, in part because rich datasets linking olfactory stimuli with their corresponding percepts, behaviors, and neural pathways remain scarce. Here we present a concerted effort to unlock and unify dozens of stimulus-linked olfactory datasets across species and modalities under a unified framework called Pyrfume.

Hops bitter β-acids have antibacterial effects against sinonasal Staphylococcus aureus but also induce sinonasal cilia and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Background: Routine prescription of antibiotics to treat chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) exacerbations may contribute to the propagation of antibiotic resistance. Hops bitter β-acids lupulone and colupulone possess potent antibacterial activities and, as T2R1, T2R14, and/or T2R40 agonists, may improve the impaired mucociliary clearance described in CRS patients. We investigated these molecules as alternative treatments to antibiotics in CRS management based on their antibacterial and T2Rs agonists properties.

Common Cold Coronavirus 229E Induces Higher Interferon Stimulating Gene Responses in Human Nasal Epithelial Cells from Patients with Chronic Rhinosinusitis with Polyposis.

Background: Viral infections have long been implicated in the development of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP). Given widespread exposure to the common cold coronavirus 229E (HCoV229E), we sought to investigate how HCoV-229E is cleared and stimulates interferon pathways in air-liquid interface (ALI) cultures from patients with CRSwNP.

Objective: The objective of this study was to identify whether viral clearance and ISG expression is different in ALI cultures from donors with CRSwNP compared with controls.

Hepatic vagal afferents convey clock-dependent signals to regulate circadian food intake.

Circadian desynchrony induced by shiftwork or jet lag is detrimental to metabolic health, but how synchronous or desynchronous signals are transmitted among tissues is unknown. We report that liver molecular clock dysfunction is signaled to the brain through the hepatic vagal afferent nerve (HVAN), leading to altered food intake patterns that are corrected by ablation of the HVAN. Hepatic branch vagotomy also prevents food intake disruptions induced by high-fat diet feeding and reduces body weight gain.

Distinct functions for beta and alpha bursts in gating of human working memory.

Multiple neural mechanisms underlying gating to working memory have been proposed with divergent results obtained in human and animal studies. Previous findings from non-human primates suggest prefrontal beta frequency bursts as a correlate of transient inhibition during selective encoding. Human studies instead suggest a similar role for sensory alpha power fluctuations.

The human olfactory bulb communicates perceived odor valence to the piriform cortex in the gamma band and receives a refined representation back in the beta band.

A core function of the olfactory system is to determine the valence of odors. In humans, central processing of odor valence perception has been shown to take form already within the olfactory bulb (OB), but the neural mechanisms by which this important information is communicated to, and from, the olfactory cortex (piriform cortex, PC) are not known. To assess communication between the 2 nodes, we simultaneously measured odor-dependent neural activity in the OB and PC from human participants while obtaining trial-by-trial valence ratings.

Assessing nanotoxicity of food-relevant particles: A comparative analysis of cellular responses in cell monolayers versus 3D gut epithelial cultures.

Engineered nanoparticles (NPs) are extensively used in the food industry, yet safety concerns remain. The lack of validated methodologies is a bottleneck towards resolving this uncertainty. Hence, the current study aims to compare two cell models by examining the toxicological impacts of two food-relevant NPs (SiO and Ag) on intestinal epithelia using monolayer Caco-2 cells and full-thickness 3D tissue models of human small intestines (EpiIntestinal™).

MrgprA3 neurons drive cutaneous immunity against helminths through selective control of myeloid-derived IL-33.

Skin uses interdependent cellular networks for barrier integrity and host immunity, but most underlying mechanisms remain obscure. Herein, we demonstrate that the human parasitic helminth Schistosoma mansoni inhibited pruritus evoked by itch-sensing afferents bearing the Mas-related G-protein-coupled receptor A3 (MrgprA3) in mice. MrgprA3 neurons controlled interleukin (IL)-17 γδ T cell expansion, epidermal hyperplasia and host resistance against S.

Amino Acid Bitterness: Characterization and Suppression.

Amino acids are necessary for life, and many must be consumed because they cannot be endogenously synthesized. Typically, we eat them as proteins and peptides, which have little taste. However, we also directly ingest free amino acids, several of which are aversive because they elicit bitterness.

Mitragynine and morphine produce dose-dependent bimodal action on food but not water intake in rats.

Kratom (), containing the primary alkaloid mitragynine, has emerged as an alternative self-treatment for opioid use disorder. Mitragynine binds numerous receptor types, including opioid receptors, which are known to modulate food consumption. However, the ability of acute mitragynine to modulate food consumption remains unknown.

Psychometric validity of the sum score of the Sniffin' Sticks-Extended Test.

A common tool to measure olfactory function is the Sniffin' Sticks Test extended version (SSET). The SSET evaluates olfactory ability by summing the scores of three subtests: Threshold, Discrimination, and Identification. Recent meta-scientific literature revealed that many psychometric instruments currently in use have not been adequately validated, leading to a measurement crisis that raises concerns about the validity of the conclusions drawn with these instruments.

The role of GABA in modulation of taste signaling within the taste bud.

Taste buds contain 2 types of GABA-producing cells: sour-responsive Type III cells and glial-like Type I cells. The physiological role of GABA, released by Type III cells is not fully understood. Here, we investigated the role of GABA released from Type III cells using transgenic mice lacking the expression of GAD67 in taste bud cells (Gad67-cKO mice).

Olfactory training: perspective from people who were disturbed by their smell problems.

Purpose: Olfactory training (OT) is an effective and affordable option in the treatment of olfactory dysfunction. Despite significant progress in the field in recent years, some factors influencing OT participation remain unclear.

Methods: Based on an anonymous online survey orchestrated by AbScent.