Plants are sessile organisms and are, consequently, exposed to a wide variety of environmental stresses, both abiotic and biotic, exerted by their surroundings. The most common of these is temperature. Within the range of temperatures tolerable to plants, the response to low temperature, particularly near-freezing temperature, is well understood. Plants have evolved a number of adaptive mechanisms to meet the challenge of low temperature. In Arabidopsis, flowering is accelerated by prolonged exposure to cold, a process called vernalization. The epigenetic silencing of the FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) (Michaels and Amasino 1999;Sheldon et al. 1999) is central to the vernalization process (Sung and Amasino 2005), and this silencing has been attributed to the activities of the VERNALIZATION1 (VRN1), VERNAL-IZATION2 (VRN2), and VERNALIZATION INSENSI-TIVE3 (VIN3) genes (Gendall et al. 2001;Levy et al. 2002;Sung and Amasino 2004). Cold acclimation is another well-characterized response to low temperature (Guy 1990). Plants become tolerant to freezing temperatures by being previously exposed to short periods of low but nonfreezing temperatures. Analyses of mutant plants have identified C-Repeat-binding factor (CBF)-dependent and CBF-independent signaling pathways in cold acclimation (Sharma et al. 2005), suggesting that plants use distinct mechanisms to respond to low temperature.There is increasing concern about the potential impact of global temperature changes, which significantly affect ambient temperature, on plant development. Several lines of evidence suggest that the recently observed alterations in the flowering times of many plant species and the increase in plant respiration rates are closely associated with these changes in ambient temperature (Fitter and Fitter 2002;Atkin and Tjoelker 2003). Although a great deal of progress has been made in our understanding of the regulation of plant development by low temperature, less is currently known about the molecular mechanisms underlying the responses of plants to changes in ambient temperature (Coupland and Prat Monguio 2005;Samach and Wigge 2005). Here, we show that the SHORT VEGETATIVE PHASE (SVP) gene mediates ambient temperature signaling in Arabidopsis and that the SVP-mediated control of FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) expression is one of the molecular mechanisms evolved by plants to modulate the timing of the developmental transition to flowering phase in response to changes in the ambient temperature. Results and DiscussionAs a first step to determining the mechanism underlying the perception and transduction of ambient temperature signaling in plants, we assessed mutants in known flowering time genes for their insensitivity to changes in ambient growth temperature. Of the flowering time mutants tested, one with a lesion in svp was indeed insensitive to such changes. The flowering of the majority of these flowering time mutants was noticeably delayed at 16°C, with flowering time ratios (16°C/23°C) ranging from 1.1 to 2.0 (Fig. 1A), the exception being ld-1. However,...
Early intervention using dietary supplements may be effective in alleviating cognitive impairment among individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This study investigated the efficacy and safety of Lactobacillus plantarum C29-fermented soybean (DW2009) as a nutritional supplement for cognitive enhancement. One hundred individuals with MCI were randomly assigned to take DW2009 (800 mg/day, n = 50) or placebo (800 mg/day, n = 50) for 12 weeks. The primary outcome measure was change in the composite score of cognitive functions related to memory and attention, measured by computerized neurocognitive function tests. Associations between changes in serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels and cognitive performance for each treatment group were evaluated. Compared to the placebo group, the DW2009 group showed greater improvements in the combined cognitive functions (z = 2.36, p for interaction = 0.02), especially in the attention domain (z = 2.34, p for interaction = 0.02). Cognitive improvement was associated with increased serum BDNF levels after consumption of DW2009 (t = 2.83, p = 0.007). The results of this clinical trial suggest that DW2009 can be safely administered to enhance cognitive function in individuals with MCI. Increased serum BDNF levels after administering DW2009 may provide preliminary insight into the underlying effects of cognitive improvement, which suggests the importance of the gut-brain axis in ameliorating cognitive deficits in MCI.
Despite the importance of valuing another person's welfare for prosocial behavior, currently we have only a limited understanding of how these values are represented in the brain and, more importantly, how they give rise to individual variability in prosociality. In the present study, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a prosocial learning task in which they could choose to benefit themselves and/or another person. Choice behavior indicated that participants valued the welfare of another person, although less so than they valued their own welfare. Neural data revealed a spatial gradient in activity within the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), such that ventral parts predominantly represented self-regarding values and dorsal parts predominantly represented other-regarding values. Importantly, compared with selfish individuals, prosocial individuals showed a more gradual transition from selfregarding to other-regarding value signals in the MPFC and stronger MPFC-striatum coupling when they made choices for another person rather than for themselves. The present study provides evidence of neural markers reflecting individual differences in human prosociality.R anging from small acts of kindness in daily life to self-sacrificing altruism under life-threatening situations, we often observe large individual differences in how humans value another person's welfare. This differential valuation process seems to be the key to understanding various human prosocial behaviors, which are fundamental to the sustainability of human society (1). The underlying neural mechanisms and their relationship to individual differences in prosociality remain unclear, however.Perhaps the most powerful way of assessing how an outcome is valued is to use an instrumental learning paradigm that examines whether the occurrence of a response increases when it is followed by that outcome (2). The mechanisms underlying this type of learning have been described more formally with a computational model, known as the advantage learning model (3-5), which has been used successfully to reveal the neuroanatomical substrates of subjective valuation (3,4,6). Previous research has further refined the neurobiological model of reinforcement learning by emphasizing the specific roles played by the medial frontal cortex and the striatum; the medial frontal cortex computes the value of the chosen action, whereas the striatum processes reward prediction errors during reinforcement learning (4, 6-10).Unlike our current understanding of the valuation process for self-regarding choices (3, 6-12), it is much less clear whether learning also can be driven by other-regarding values, and whether this other-regarding valuation relies on the same mechanisms of reinforcement learning as those used for self. Moreover, despite the rapidly accumulating research on reward processing in social domains (13-19), the question remains of how neural representation of self-regarding vs. other-regarding values is related to individual differen...
BackgroundThe purpose of present study was to examine biological and psychological characteristics of people according to the Sasang typology, which is popular in Korea. We evaluated the Sasang Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) as a measure of temperament, and Body Mass Index (BMI) as a measure of the somatic properties of each Sasang type.MethodsSubjects were 2506 (877 males, 1629 females) outpatients between the ages of 20 through 70 who requested traditional medical assessment and treatment in Korea. The structural validity of the SPQ was examined and its correlation with BMI was analyzed. The SPQ and BMI measures of each Sasang type across age and gender were presented and their differences were analyzed with Analysis of Variance.ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis and path analysis identified an acceptable three-factor structure of the SPQ measuring differences in individual’s behavior, emotion, and cognition. SPQ scores (29.71 ± 1.00, 28.29 ± 0.19 and 26.14 ± 0.22) and BMI scores (22.92 ± 0.09, 25.56 ± 0.10 and 21.44 ± 0.10) were significantly (p < 0.001) different among So-Yang, Tae-Eum and So-Eum Sasang types, respectively.ConclusionsThe results showed that the SPQ and BMI is a reliable measure for quantifying the biopsychological characteristics of each types, and useful for guiding personalized and type-specific treatment with medical herbs and acupuncture.
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