If S is a finite set of points in the plane and no conic contains all points of S, then S determines a conic which contains exactly five points of S.

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and is characterized by a substantial reduction of neuroplasticity. Our previous work demonstrated that neurons involved in memory function may lose plasticity because of decreased protein levels of polysialylated neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA-NCAM) in the entorhinal cortex (EC) of the human AD brain, but the cause of this decrease is unclear. Objective: To investigate genes involved in PSA-NCAM regulation which may underlie its decrease in the AD EC. Methods: We subjected neurologically normal and AD human EC sections to multiplexed fluorescent in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry to investigate genes involved in PSA-NCAM regulation. Gene expression changes were sought to be validated in both human tissue and a mouse model of AD. Results: In the AD EC, a cell population expressing a high level of CALB2 mRNA and a cell population expressing a high level of PST mRNA were both decreased. CALB2 mRNA and protein were not decreased globally, indicating that the decrease in CALB2 was specific to a sub-population of cells. A significant decrease in PST mRNA expression was observed with single-plex in situ hybridization in middle temporal gyrus tissue microarray cores from AD patients, which negatively correlated with tau pathology, hinting at global loss in PST expression across the AD brain. No significant differences in PSA-NCAM or PST protein expression were observed in the MAPT P301S mouse brain at 9 months of age. Conclusion: We conclude that PSA-NCAM dysregulation may cause subsequent loss of structural plasticity in AD, and this may result from a loss of PST mRNA expression. Due PSTs involvement in structural plasticity, intervention for AD may be possible by targeting this disrupted plasticity pathway.

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W HEN THEOLOGIANS of the late 20th century reflect on the nature of their discipline and on the way it differs from the theology of the past, they frequently refer to contemporary theology's need to be in dialogue, not only with philosophy but with many other branches of learning. 1 Perhaps few would disagree with the general validity of that suggestion, but one might still legitimately ask just how such dialogue could prove valuable in particular cases. One of the main purposes of this article is to show how insights from contemporary psychiatry and psychology can help elucidate a phenomenon which theologians and ecclesiastics of the past tended to find at best puzzling, at worst heretical.The phenomenon in question is the tendency of many mystical writers to use language that sounds pantheistic or, more properly speaking, autotheistic, i.e. language that bespeaks a strict identification of oneself with God. Throughout the history of the three great monotheistic religions that began in the Near East-Judaism, Christianity, and Islamsuch language has at times been a source of much tension and debate among the constituted religious authorities and the mystics. This identification of oneself with God has been relatively rare in Judaism, with its strong affirmation of the divine transcendence, but even here the phenomenon is not unknown. Abraham Abulafia (b. 1240), the outstanding representative of ecstatic kabbalism, once wrote that anyone who has truly felt the divine touch and perceived its nature "is no longer separated from his Master, and behold he is his Master and his Master is he; for he is so intimately adhering to Him that he cannot by any means be separated from Him, for he is He." 2 In Islam such claims have been more frequent, especially among the Sufis. The martyrdom of al-Hallaj in the tenth century was occasioned by his insistence that ultimately he and God were one. The tradition 1 See, e.g., Karl Rahner, "Theology: II. History," in Sacramentum mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970) 6:244; Walter Principe, C.S.B., Thomas Aquinas' Spirituality (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984) 8. 2 Abraham Abulafia, The Knowledge of the Messiah and the Meaning of the Redeemer, Ms. Munich 285, quoted by Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1954) 140. 230 at PRINCETON UNIV LIBRARY on July 13, 2015 tsj.sagepub.com Downloaded from AUTOTHEISTIC SAYINGS OF MYSTICS about his life includes the well-known account of his return to Baghdad after a year's stay in Mecca. On approaching the home of his former master, knocking at his door, and hearing from within the question "Who is there?", Hallaj is said to have uttered the sentence that has becomethe most famous of all Sufi claims: "I am the Absolute Truth," or, as it later came to be translated, "I am God." 3 So, too, in his poetry he wrote such lines as the following: I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I; We are two souls dwelling in one body. If thou seest me, thou seest Him...