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Integration of single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing data to identify liquid–liquid phase separation-related prognostic biomarkers in hepatocellular carcinoma
A collagenous extracellular matrix regulates germline gene expression in the sea star embryo
Mediterranean diet adherence and healthy diet indicator might decrease odds of endometriosis
Reconfiguration of brain-wide neural activity after early life adversity
Early life adversity (ELA) predisposes individuals to physical and mental disorders lifelong. How ELA affects brain functions, leading to these vulnerabilities, is a mystery. To understand ELA’s impacts, investigations into neural activity affected by ELA must go beyond localized areas toward simultaneous recordings from multiple widely distributed regions over time. Such studies will expose relative activity between regions and discover shifts in regional activity in response to different experiences. Here, we performed longitudinal manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) to measure degrees of brain-wide neural activity in ELA-exposed mice across a series of experiences in adulthood. To ascertain whether ELA resulted in atypical brain activity, results were compared to those of the standard mouse (Std). MEMRI captured activity in the freely moving home cage condition, and short- and long-term after exposure to TMT, a naturalistic predator threat. Images were normalized and aligned then analyzed with statistical mapping and automated segmentation. We found that neural activity in the home cage was greater in ELA compared to Std in multiple striatal-pallidal and hypothalamic regions. Upon acute threat, neural activity in Std increased in these regions to become more similar to that in ELA, while new hyperactive responses in ELA emerged in the midbrain and hindbrain. Nine days after acute threat, heightened neural activity in ELA persisted within locus coeruleus and increased within the posterior amygdala, ventral hippocampus, and dorsomedial and ventromedial hypothalamus. These results reveal functional imbalances that arise between multiple brain-systems after ELA, which are dependent upon context and cumulative experiences into adulthood.
Changes in the mucosal immunity induced by diets enriched with cocoa and hesperidin in intensively trained and exhausted rats
Disrupting mitochondrial β-oxidation by depletion of HADHA impairs primary ciliogenesis
Engineered 3D immuno-glial-neurovascular human miBrain model
Patient-specific, human-based cellular models integrating a biomimetic blood–brain barrier, immune, and myelinated neuron components are critically needed to enable accelerated, translationally relevant discovery of neurological disease mechanisms and interventions. To construct a human cell-based model that includes these features and all six major brain cell types needed to mimic disease and dissect pathological mechanisms, we have constructed, characterized, and utilized a multicellular integrated brain (miBrain) immuno-glial-neurovascular model by engineering a brain-inspired 3D hydrogel and identifying conditions to coculture these six brain cell types, all differentiated from patient induced pluripotent stem cells. miBrains recapitulate in vivo – like hallmarks inclusive of neuronal activity, functional connectivity, barrier function, myelin-producing oligodendrocyte engagement with neurons, multicellular interactions, and transcriptomic profiles. We implemented the model to study Alzheimer’s Disease pathologies associated with APOE4 genetic risk. APOE4 miBrains differentially exhibit amyloid aggregation, tau phosphorylation, and astrocytic glial fibrillary acidic protein. Unlike the coemergent fate specification of glia and neurons in other organoid approaches, miBrains integrate independently differentiated cell types, a feature we harnessed to identify that APOE4 in astrocytes promotes neuronal tau pathogenesis and dysregulation through crosstalk with microglia.
Exploring the impact mechanisms of EEG signals and emotional intelligence levels on language learning efficiency
Plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance among extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated from hospitalized patients, hospital environment and wastewaters in Cameroon
Bridging microscopic dynamics and rheology in the yielding of charged colloidal suspensions
The yielding of soft materials is critical to many natural and industrial processes, yet experimental insights into microscopic aspects of yielding are limited. This study combines angle X-ray scattering, X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, and in situ rheology (Rheo-SAXS-XPCS) with fast lubrication dynamics simulations to examine how interparticle interactions influence yielding in charged colloidal suspensions. By tuning attraction through salt addition, we compare repulsive and attractive systems under deformation. Repulsive suspensions yield uniformly with Andrade-like creep and minimal structural change. In contrast, attractive suspensions show complex behaviors, including shear banding, delayed yielding, and resolidification, governed by transient dynamics at shear band interfaces. These results directly link microscopic particle dynamics to macroscopic flow and demonstrate how interaction potentials control rheological behavior. This work offers a framework for designing soft materials with tailored properties for applications in coatings, food processing, drug delivery, and other technologies requiring precise mechanical control.
A lightweight network for brain MRI segmentation
Abstract Brain MRI segmentation plays a crucial role in medical imaging, aiding in the identification and monitoring of brain diseases. This research presents a novel deep learning-based framework designed to achieve high segmentation accuracy while maintaining a lightweight architecture suitable for real-world deployment. The proposed method utilizes EfficientNet B0 as an encoder, which ensures rich multi-scale feature extraction with significantly reduced model complexity. To enhance global context modeling without increasing the computational burden, the framework incorporates Visual State-Space blocks. These blocks leverage patch merging and state-space modeling to capture long-range spatial dependencies efficiently. Additionally, a multi-scale attention mechanism inspired by the Mamba architecture is introduced to refine feature representations across different scales, improving the network’s ability to segment complex anatomical structures and lesions. The decoder follows a U-Net-inspired design, integrating skip connections to preserve spatial details and enable high-resolution segmentation map reconstruction. The training process is optimized using a hybrid loss function, combining Active Contour Loss for precise boundary delineation and Focal Loss mitigates class imbalance, ensuring robust segmentation performance. By effectively balancing segmentation accuracy with a lightweight model design, the proposed approach provides visually superior segmentation results compared to other state-of-the-art.
Linked color imaging improves polyp miss rates in total colonoscopy in a multicenter randomized back to back trial
Abstract Linked color imaging (LCI) was developed to detect gastrointestinal neoplasms. The current study aimed to determine whether the use of LCI, compared with white-light imaging (WLI), can improve the miss rates of colorectal polyp. A multicenter, randomized back-to-back study was conducted in 16 Japanese endoscopy units. Patients were randomized according to examination: tandem colonoscopy with WLI followed by LCI (WLI-LCI group) and with LCI followed by WLI (LCI-WLI group). The detected polyps were evaluated according to location, size, morphology, and histopathological diagnosis. The primary outcome was polyp miss rate per patient (PMR-PP) in total colonoscopy. The secondary outcome was adenoma detection rate (ADR) during the first assessment in each group. The full analysis set comprised 327 participants, and 320 were included in either two groups. The PMR-PPs were 9.3% and 20.6% in the LCI-WLI and WLI-LCI groups, respectively. Regarding location, the PMR-PP of LCI was significantly lower than that of WLI in the transverse and descending colons and rectum. In terms of diminutive adenomas (< 5 mm), the ADR of LCI (38.2%) was significantly higher than that of WLI (29.1%). LCI was superior to WLI in terms of polyp miss rate particularly in the transverse and descending colons and rectum.
Forest recovery after deforestation is fueled by mineral weathering at the expense of ecosystem buffering capacity
The pace and trajectory of ecosystem development are governed by the availability and cycling of limiting nutrients, and anthropogenic disturbances such as acid rain and deforestation alter these trajectories by removing substantial quantities of nutrients via titration or harvest. Here, we use six decades of continuous chemical and hydrologic data from three adjacent headwater catchments in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire—one deforested (W5), one CaSiO 3 -enriched (W1), and one reference (W6)—to quantify long-term nutrient and mineral fluxes. Acid deposition since 1900 drove pronounced depletion and export of base cations, particularly calcium, across all watersheds. Experimental deforestation of W5 intensified loss of biomass and nutrient cations and triggered sustained increases in streamwater pH, Ca 2+ , and SiO 2 exports over nearly four decades, greatly exceeding the effects of direct CaSiO 3 enrichment in both duration and magnitude. We detect no long-term changes in water yield or water flow paths in the experimental watersheds, and we attribute this multidecadal increase in weathering rates following deforestation to biological responses to severe nutrient limitation. Our evidence suggests that in the regrowing forest, plants are investing photosynthate into belowground processes that amplify mineral weathering to access phosphorus and micronutrients, consequently elevating the export of less limiting elements present in silicate parent material. Throughout decades of forest regrowth, enhanced biotic weathering has continued to deplete the acid buffering capacity of the terrestrial ecosystem while the export of weathering products has elevated the pH of the receiving stream.
Multiphoton microscopy and tissue clearing for 3D characterization of the vasculature and fibrosis remodeling in rat dystrophic skeletal muscle
An objective method to detect sighs during cardio-pulmonary exercise testing
Anomalous grain dynamics and grain locomotion of odd crystals
Crystalline or polycrystalline systems governed by odd elastic responses are known to exhibit complex dynamical behaviors involving self-propelled dynamics of topological defects with spontaneous self-rotation of chiral crystallites. Unveiling and controlling the underlying mechanisms require studies across multiple scales. We develop such a type of approach that bridges between microscopic and mesoscopic scales, in the form of a phase field crystal model incorporating transverse interactions. This continuum density field theory features two-dimensional parity symmetry breaking and odd elasticity, and generates a variety of interesting phenomena that agree well with recent experiments and particle-based simulations of active and living chiral crystals, including self-rotating crystallites, dislocation self-propulsion and proliferation, and fragmentation in polycrystals. We identify a distinct type of surface cusp instability induced by self-generated surface odd stress that results in self-fission of single-crystalline grains. This mechanism is pivotal for the occurrence of various anomalous grain dynamics for odd crystals, particularly the predictions of a transition from normal to reverse Ostwald ripening for self-rotating odd grains, and a transition from grain coarsening to grain self-fragmentation in the dynamical polycrystalline state with an increase of transverse interaction strength. We also demonstrate that the single-grain dynamics can be maneuvered through the variation of interparticle transverse interactions. This allows to steer the desired pathway of grain locomotion and to control the transition between grain self-rotation, self-rolling, and self-translation. Our results provide insights for the design and control of structural and dynamical properties of active odd elastic materials.
Representation learning enables robust single cell phenotyping in whole slide liquid biopsy imaging
Abstract Tumor-associated cells in liquid biopsy are promising biomarkers for cancer detection, diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring. Yet, their rarity, heterogeneity, and plasticity pose challenges for accurate identification and characterization. Enrichment-free whole slide imaging of all circulating cells offers a comprehensive, unbiased approach to capture this phenotypic diversity. However, current analysis methods often rely on engineered features and manual expert review, making them prone to technical variability and subjective bias. To address this, we present a deep contrastive learning framework for feature extraction from whole slide immunofluorescence microscopy images, enabling robust identification and stratification of single circulating cells. Our learned features achieve 92.64% accuracy in classifying diverse cell phenotypes and improve downstream tasks such as outlier detection and clustering. Additionally, our model enables automated identification and enumeration of rare phenotypes, reaching an average F1-score of 0.93 on contrived samples mimicking circulating tumor and endothelial cells, and 0.858 across circulating tumor cell phenotypes in clinical samples. This workflow provides a scalable, reproducible solution for analyzing tumor-associated cellular biomarkers, with strong potential to enhance clinical prognosis and guide personalized treatment strategies.
Exploitation of combining ability and heterotic potential of okra under the sub-mountain region of Himalayan
The persistence of cross-cutting discussion in a politicized public sphere
Although studies of Americans’ general discussant networks have been repeated over time, research that assesses change in the nature of Americans’ political discussion networks has yet to be conducted in nationally representative probability surveys. In this study I answer two questions about the quality of the American public sphere that have generated widespread speculation, but little evidence to date. First, how have Americans’ political discussion networks changed over the past 25 y? Second, are the consequences of these changes what one would expect based on previous theory linking Americans’ interpersonal information environments to political tolerance and political participation? I resolve competing claims suggesting that people feel less free to discuss politics, with claims suggesting instead that political discussion now permeates everyday life to a greater extent than in the past. Findings suggest widespread increases in political discussion, changes driven almost entirely by increases in like-minded political discussion partners. Surprisingly, Americans are no more or less likely to engage in conversations across lines of political difference. The predicted consequences of these fluctuations confirm an intrinsic tension between characteristics valued in democratic citizens. Political tolerance has declined significantly, along with decreased awareness of rationales for others’ relative to one’s own views. Political participation is significantly higher on average than 25 y ago. Few people reported engaging with online political discussants, despite efforts to make sure they were included in network measures.