Does vitamin D supplementation impact serotonin levels? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background And Aims: Vitamin D deficiency impacts a significant proportion of the world's population, and this deficiency has been linked to various conditions characterized by imbalanced serotonin regulation. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on serum serotonin levels.

Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search of PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Central for Randomized Clinical Trials, and Web of Science up to September 2022, without any language restrictions.

Gaussian field-based 3D-QSAR and molecular simulation studies to design potent pyrimidine-sulfonamide hybrids as selective BRAF inhibitors.

The "RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK" pathway is an important signaling pathway in melanoma. BRAF (70-90%) is the most common mutation in this pathway. BRAF inhibitors have four types of conformers: type I (αC-IN/DFG-IN), type II (αC-IN/DFG-OUT), type I (αC-OUT/DFG-IN), and type I/II (αC-OUT/DFG-OUT).

Vitamin D and COVID-19 in an immunocompromised patient with multiple comorbidities-A Case Report.

Routine 25-OH-Vitamin D3 measurement in COVID-19 patients could be of great importance, either for clinical course estimation or deciding on supplementation.

Implementation of the Program for Early Detection of Cervical Cancer in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Introduction: There are many cervical cancer screening programs in the world. Germany, as well as a number of other countries in the world, carry out its national cervical cancer screening program.

Aim: In order to improve screening results, new guidelines for cervical cancer screening are in force in Germany.

PilY1 Promotes Infection of Human Lung Tissue Explants and Contributes to Bacterial Adhesion, Host Cell Invasion, and Twitching Motility.

Legionnaires' disease is an acute fibrinopurulent pneumonia. During infection adheres to the alveolar lining and replicates intracellularly within recruited macrophages. Here we provide a sequence and domain composition analysis of the PilY1 protein, which has a high homology to PilY1 of .

The lack of association between angiotensin-converting enzyme gene insertion/deletion polymorphism and nicotine dependence in multiple sclerosis.

Objective: Blood-borne angiotensin II is generated from angiotensinogen via cleavage by renin and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), an enzymatic cascade known as the renin-angiotensin system (RAS). Several lines of evidence indicate that ACE, beyond its classical role of mediating blood pressure regulation, might contribute to the etiology of substance addictions by influencing dopaminergic signaling. A functional insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the ACE gene was associated with risk for being a smoker among individuals with depression and with smoking severity in studies comprising patients with depression and healthy controls.

Concurrent Dynamics of Category Learning and Metacognitive Judgments.

In two experiments, we examined the correspondence between the dynamics of metacognitive judgments and classification accuracy when participants were asked to learn category structures of different levels of complexity, i.e., to learn tasks of types I, II, and III according to Shepard et al.

F. novicida-Infected A. castellanii Does Not Enhance Bacterial Virulence in Mice.

Francisella tularensis is a facultative intracellular bacterium that causes tularemia in humans and animals. Epidemiology of tularemia worldwide is often associated with water-borne transmission, which includes mosquitoes and amoebae as the potential host reservoirs of the bacteria in water environment. In vitro studies showed intracellular replication of F.

Resonant Dynamics of Grounded Cognition: Explanation of Behavioral and Neuroimaging Data Using the ART Neural Network.

Research on grounded cognition suggests that the processing of a word or concept reactivates the perceptual representations that are associated with the referent object. The objective of this work is to demonstrate how behavioral and functional neuroimaging data on grounded cognition can be understood as different manifestations of the same cortical circuit designed to achieve stable category learning, as proposed by the adaptive resonance theory (ART). We showed that the ART neural network provides a mechanistic explanation of why reaction times in behavioral studies depend on the expectation or attentional priming created by the word meaning (Richter and Zwaan, 2009).

Lay Definitions of Happiness across Nations: The Primacy of Inner Harmony and Relational Connectedness.

In well-being research the term happiness is often used as synonymous with life satisfaction. However, little is known about lay people's understanding of happiness. Building on the available literature, this study explored lay definitions of happiness across nations and cultural dimensions, analyzing their components and relationship with participants' demographic features.

Inflammatory Gene Expression Upon TGF-β1-Induced p38 Activation in Primary Dupuytren's Disease Fibroblasts.

Objectives: Inflammation is an underlying mechanism behind fibrotic processes and differentiation of cells into myofibroblasts. Presented study therefore provides new data on activation of autoimmune and inflammatory immune response genes that accompany activation of p38 and cell differentiation in primary cells derived from Dupuytren's disease (DD) patients.

Methods: Primary non-Dupuytren's disease cells (ND) were isolated from macroscopically unaffected palmar fascia adjacent to diseased tissue obtained from patients diagnosed with the last stage of DD and cultured in vitro.

A Neurocomputational account of the role of contour facilitation in brightness perception.

A new filling-in model is proposed in order to account for challenging brightness illusions, where inducing background elements are spatially separated from the gray target such as dungeon, cube and grating illusions, bullseye display and ring patterns. This model implements the simple idea that neural response to low-contrast contour is enhanced (facilitated) by the presence of collinear or parallel high-contrast contours in its wider neighborhood. Contour facilitation is achieved via dendritic inhibition, which enables the computation of maximum function among inputs to the node.

Cell-type specific mechanisms of D-serine uptake and release in the brain.

Accumulating evidence during the last decade established that D-serine is a key signaling molecule utilized by neurons and astroglia in the mammalian central nervous system. D-serine is increasingly appreciated as the main physiological endogenous coagonist for synaptic NMDA receptors at central excitatory synapses; it is mandatory for long-term changes in synaptic strength, memory, learning, and social interactions. Alterations in the extracellular levels of D-serine leading to disrupted cell-cell signaling are a trademark of many chronic or acute neurological (i.

Is crying a self-soothing behavior?

This contribution describes the current state-of-the-art of the scientific literature regarding the self-soothing effects of crying. Starting from the general hypothesis that crying is a self-soothing behavior, we consider different mechanisms through which these effects may appear. In the first section, we briefly explain the main functions of human crying.

Caenorhabditis elegans glia modulate neuronal activity and behavior.

Glial cells of Caenorhabditis elegans can modulate neuronal activity and behavior, which is the focus of this review. Initially, we provide an overview of neuroglial evolution, making a comparison between C. elegans glia and their genealogical counterparts.

Beginning of modern meteorological measurements in Fiume (Rijeka).

When reporting on extreme weather conditions in the city of Rijeka (former Fiume), it is often specified " ...

Microelectrode arrays in combination with in vitro models of spinal cord injury as tools to investigate pathological changes in network activity: facts and promises.

Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) represent an important tool to study the basic characteristics of spinal networks that control locomotion in physiological conditions. Fundamental properties of this neuronal rhythmicity like burst origin, propagation, coordination, and resilience can, thus, be investigated at multiple sites within a certain spinal topography and neighboring circuits. A novel challenge will be to apply this technology to unveil the mechanisms underlying pathological processes evoked by spinal cord injury (SCI).

Intra-Vacuolar Proliferation of F. Novicida within H. Vermiformis.

Francisella tularensis is a gram negative facultative intracellular bacterium that causes the zoonotic disease tularemia. Free-living amebae, such as Acanthamoeba and Hartmannella, are environmental hosts of several intracellular pathogens. Epidemiology of F.

Manipulation of NKG2D ligands by cytomegaloviruses: impact on innate and adaptive immune response.

NKG2D is a potent activating receptor expressed on NK cells, NKT cells, γδ T cells, and CD8 T cells. NKG2D recognizes cell surface molecules structurally related to MHC class I proteins induced by infection or other type of cellular stress. The engagement of NKG2D leads to NK cell cytotoxicity and cytokine secretion or to a co-stimulation of CD8 T cells.