Investigación de mindfulness en neurociencia cognitiva / Mindfulness Research in Cognitive Neuroscience

Mindfulness es un término que ha pasado a formar parte del vocabulario en nuestra sociedad, y su práctica se ha instalado en el contexto educativo, terapéutico, clínico y como herramienta de bienestar o crecimiento personal. En este artículo hacemos un repaso de los trabajos de investigación más relevantes en neurociencia cognitiva del mindfulness clasificándolos en tres grandes áreas: a) cambios diferenciales en la actividad de la red por defecto debidas a la práctica del mindfulness; b) cambios funcionales o estructurales de la red atencional, y c) cambios funcionales o estructurales de la red frontolímbica y la amígdala, relacionados con la regulación emocional. Hay suficiente bibliografía para afirmar el efecto cerebral que conlleva la práctica de mindfulness, pero todavía necesitamos generar mejores diseños experimentales que nos permitan encontrar los mecanismos de acción de prácticas específicas.(AU)

Mindfulness is a term that has become part of our society’s vocabulary and its practice has become firmly established in educational, therapeutic and clinical contexts and as a tool for fostering well-being and personal growth. In this article we review the most relevant research conducted on mindfulness in cognitive neuroscience, classifying it in three broad areas: a) differential changes in default network activity due to the practice of mindfulness; b) functional or structural changes in the attentional network, and c) functional or structural changes in the frontal limbic network and the amygdala, related to emotion regulation. There is enough evidence in the literature to affirm the effect of mindfulness practice on the brain, but we still need to produce better experimental designs that allow us to find the mechanisms of action underlying specific practices.(AU)

[Investigacion de mindfulness en neurociencia cognitiva]. / Investigación de mindfulness en neurociencia cognitiva.

Mindfulness is a term that has become part of our society's vocabulary and its practice has become firmly established in educational, therapeutic and clinical contexts and as a tool for fostering well-being and personal growth. In this article we review the most relevant research conducted on mindfulness in cognitive neuroscience, classifying it in three broad areas: a) differential changes in default network activity due to the practice of mindfulness; b) functional or structural changes in the attentional network, and c) functional or structural changes in the frontal limbic network and the amygdala, related to emotion regulation. There is enough evidence in the literature to affirm the effect of mindfulness practice on the brain, but we still need to produce better experimental designs that allow us to find the mechanisms of action underlying specific practices.

TITLE: Investigación de mindfulness en neurociencia cognitiva.Mindfulness es un término que ha pasado a formar parte del vocabulario en nuestra sociedad, y su práctica se ha instalado en el contexto educativo, terapéutico, clínico y como herramienta de bienestar o crecimiento personal. En este artículo hacemos un repaso de los trabajos de investigación más relevantes en neurociencia cognitiva del mindfulness clasificándolos en tres grandes áreas: a) cambios diferenciales en la actividad de la red por defecto debidas a la práctica del mindfulness; b) cambios funcionales o estructurales de la red atencional, y c) cambios funcionales o estructurales de la red frontolímbica y la amígdala, relacionados con la regulación emocional. Hay suficiente bibliografía para afirmar el efecto cerebral que conlleva la práctica de mindfulness, pero todavía necesitamos generar mejores diseños experimentales que nos permitan encontrar los mecanismos de acción de prácticas específicas.

The Fitness and Economic Benefits of Rearing the Parasitoid Telenomus podisi Under Fluctuating Temperature Regime.

Successful biological control requires detailed knowledge about the mass rearing conditions of the control agents in order to ensure higher quality of field-released insects. Thus, we investigated whether rearing fluctuating thermal condition would affect the fitness and costs of the parasitoid wasp Telenomus podisi Ashmead (a biocontrol agent used for controlling the Neotropical brown stink bug Euschistus heros (Fabricius)) when compared with parasitoid reared at constant temperature condition, which is commonly used in insect facilities. Parasitoids were reared under either constant (continuous exposure at 25 ± 2°C) or fluctuating temperature conditions (i.e., 30 ± 2°C during day and 20 ± 2°C at night) during four consecutive generations. Our results indicated that tested fluctuating temperature is more suitable for rearing of T. podisi as such temperature condition not only resulted in fitness benefits (e.g., shorter developmental time, longer female longevity, higher fecundity/fertility) but also reduced (approximately 23.5%) the estimated costs for producing the parasitoids. Furthermore, rearing T. podisi under fluctuating temperatures improved tolerance to low constant temperatures (i.e., 20°C) without changing the tolerance to constant high temperatures (30°C) in the fourth generation. Surprisingly, even parasitoids that developed under fluctuating thermal conditions performed better than those reared at constant temperature of 25°C. Collectively, our findings suggest that T. podisi reared under fluctuating thermal condition can tolerate better fluctuating temperatures that normally occur both during long periods of transport and in agricultural ecosystems, which will increase the quality and productivity of mass-reared T. podisi for inundative releases.

Simultaneous recording of electrical activity and the underlying ionic currents in NG108-15 cells cultured on gold substrate.

This paper shows the simultaneous recording of electrical activity and the underlying ionic currents by using a gold substrate to culture NG108-15 cells. Cells grown on two different substrates (plastic Petri dishes and gold substrates) were characterized quantitatively through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as well as qualitatively by optical and atomic force microscopy (AFM). No significant differences were observed between the surface area of cells cultured on gold substrates and Petri dishes, as indicated by measurements performed on SEM images. We also evaluated the electrophysiological compatibility of the cells through standard patch-clamp experiments by analyzing features such as the resting potential, membrane resistance, ionic currents, etc. Cells grown on both substrates showed no significant differences in their dependency on voltage, as well as in the magnitude of the Na+ and K+ current density; however, cells cultured on the gold substrate showed a lower membrane capacitance when compared to those grown on Petri dishes. By using two separate patch-clamp amplifiers, we were able to record the membrane current with the conventional patch-clamp technique and through the gold substrate simultaneously. Furthermore, the proposed technique allowed us to obtain simultaneous recordings of the electrical activity (such as action potentials firing) and the underlying membrane ionic currents. The excellent conductivity of gold makes it possible to overcome important difficulties found in conventional electrophysiological experiments such as those presented by the resistance of the electrolytic bath solution. We conclude that the technique here presented constitutes a solution to the problem of the simultaneous recording of electrical activity and the underlying ionic currents, which for decades, had been solved only partially.

The SOS Chromotest applied for screening plant antigenotoxic agents against ultraviolet radiation.

In this work, we investigated the usefulness of the SOS Chromotest for screening plant antigenotoxic agents against ultraviolet radiation (UV). Fifty Colombian plant extracts obtained by supercritical fluid (CO2) extraction, twelve plant extract constituents (apigenin, carvacrol, ß-caryophyllene, 1,8-cineole, citral, p-cymene, geraniol, naringenin, pinocembrin, quercetin, squalene, and thymol) and five standard antioxidant and/or photoprotective agents (curcumin, epigallocatechin gallate, resveratrol, α-tocopherol, and Trolox®) were evaluated for their genotoxicity and antigenotoxicity against UV using the SOS Chromotest. None of the plant extracts, constituents or agents were genotoxic in the SOS Chromotest at tested concentrations. Based on the minimal extract concentration that significantly inhibited UV-genotoxicity (CIG), five plant extracts were antigenotoxic against UV as follows: Baccharis nítida (16 µg mL-1) = Solanum crotonifolium (16 µg mL-1) > Hyptis suaveolens (31 µg mL-1) = Persea caerulea (31 µg mL-1) > Lippia origanoides (62 µg mL-1). Based on CIG values, the flavonoid compounds showed the highest antigenotoxic potential as follows: apigenin (7 µM) > pinocembrin (15 µM) > quercetin (26 µM) > naringenin (38 µM) > epigallocatechin gallate (108 µM) > resveratrol (642 µM). UV-genotoxicity inhibition with epigallocatechin gallate, naringenin and resveratrol was related to its capability for inhibiting protein synthesis. A correlation analysis between compound antigenotoxicity estimates and antioxidant activity evaluated by the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay showed that these activities were not related. The usefulness of the SOS Chromotest for bioprospecting of plant antigenotoxic agents against UV was discussed.

Determinación del patrón de conectividad cerebral a partir de EEG en presencia de artefactos / Determining brain-connectivity patterns in presence of artefacts using EEG

Los diferentes estados del cerebro provocan la formacióntemporal de circuitos corticales cuya discriminación experimentalabre el camino al estudio y caracterización de respuestasde comportamiento. En este trabajo recogemos eilustramos en ejemplos los pasos necesarios para la determinaciónde patrones de conectividad funcional entre zonascorticales a partir de los registros EEG. El primer paso, lasupresión de artefactos de diferentes tipos, se realizamediante el análisis de componentes independientes quepermite reconstruir la actividad neuronal subyacente alartefacto e indica en qué grado está presente el artefactosobre cada electrodo. En el segundo paso determinamos laconectividad funcional a partir de registros preprocesados.Empleamos métodos estadísticos: la Coherencia EspectralParcial y dDTF (direct Directed Transfer Function) que proporcionanun patrón de conectividad teniendo en cuenta elnivel de sincronización entre señales de los electrodos.Demostramos y cuantificamos las diferencias el la topologíade la red cortical utilizando como ejemplo dos estados del sujeto: ojos abiertos y cerrados. Para no cerrarnos a la ideade que dos estructuras interactúan solo cuando están sincronizadas,también consideramos las señales registradasen un contexto determinista. Demostramos que la dinámicalocal en el estado de ojos abiertos es más compleja, debidoa que el patrón de conectividad es más denso

The different brain states incite in the generation of temporalcortical circuits, whose experimental discriminationallows the study and characterization of behavioral responses.In this work, we summarize and illustrate in examplesthe needed steps for the determination of functional connectivitypatterns among cortical areas from EEG recordings.The firts step, different types of artifacts removal, istreated by means of independent component analysis thatallows the recovering of neural activity under the artifactand show the presence degree of the artifact over eachelectrode position. In the second steps we determine thefunctional connectivity from the preprocessed recordings.We employ statistical methods: Partial Spectral Coherenceand dDTF (direct Directed Transfer Function), that providethe connectivity patterns taking into account the synchronizationlevel among the signal. We demostrate and quantifythe differences in the cortical network topology usingas an example two subject states: open and close eyes. Tobe opened to the idea that two structures interact only when they are synchronized, we also consider the signal ina deterministic framework. We demostrate that the localdynamic in open eye state is more complex, due to theconnectivity pattern is more dense

Síndrome de Möebius-Poland / Möebius-Poland syndrome

No disponible

[Ventricular arrhythmias induced by appropriate antibradycardia pacing in patients with implantable defibrillators]. / Inducción de arritmias ventriculares por estimulación antibradicardia apropiada en pacientes portadores de desfibrilador automático.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: The induction of ventricular arrhythmias by appropriate antibradycardia ventricular pacing in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators has been reported in only a few cases. The aim of this study was to assess the incidence, characteristics and management of these episodes. METHODS: The follow-up records of 180 patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators with intracardiac electrogram storage were reviewed. Pacing induced episodes were defined as those occurring immediately after an appropriate paced stimulus in a patient with sporadic paced beats. We assessed the number and type of episodes, mode of onset, therapy administered and the efficacy of different prevention measures. RESULTS: Pacing induced episodes were found in 9 patients (5%). Seven received device administered therapy which was effective in all cases. One to 95 episodes were observed per patient, of which 138 were monomorphic ventricular tachycardias and 20 polymorphic ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation episodes. All were induced by a paced ventricular beat after a post-extrasystolic pause or after long RR intervals during atrial fibrillation. Pacing induced arrhythmias were prevented by changing the pacing rate or hysteresis in 3 out of 6 patients and by decreasing the stimulus energy in 3 out of 3. Antibradycardia pacing function was disabled in 4 patients. CONCLUSIONS: Ventricular arrhythmias induced by appropriate antibradycardia ventricular pacing are relatively common in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators. Effective prevention can be achieved in most cases by changing the pacing rate or the pacing stimulus energy, however in selected cases the antibradycardia function may be disabled.

[Study of intestinal microflora in children with acute and persistent diarrhea]. / Estudio de la microflora intestinal en niños con diarrea aguda y persistente.

The etiology and pathogenesis of persistent diarrhoea is usually multifactorial and sometimes can not be identified. It is necessary to define if an alteration of the enteric microflora is a risk factor that influence the duration of the diarrhoea. 30 infants with acute diarrhoea and 30 with persistent diarrhoea were studied. A sample of duodenal content was taken by a double-lumen tube and processed microbiologically in search for enteric microorganisms, anaerobic and Candida. These results were correlated with the nutritional status, the previous use of Metronidazole and the results of the stool culture. The presence of bacterial overgrowth and the identification of the duodenal microflora is an important factor for the persistence of the diarrhoea. There was a quantitative and qualitative alteration of the duodenal flora in both groups of patients.

[Intestinal microflora in children with acute and persistent diarrhea]. / Estudio de la microflora intestinal en niños con diarrea aguda y persistente.

The etiology and pathogenesis of persistent diarrhoea is usually multifactorial and sometimes can not be identified. It is necessary to define if an alteration of the enteric microflora is a risk factor that influence the duration of the diarrhoea. 30 infants with acute diarrhoea and 30 with persistent diarrhoea were studied. A sample of duodenal content was taken by a doble-lumen tube and processed microbiologically in search for enteric microorganisms, anaerobic and Candida. These result were correlated with nutritional status, the previous use of Metroonidazol and the results of the stool culture. The presence of bacterial overgrowth and the identification of the duodenal microflora is an important factor for the persistence of the diarrhoea. There was a quantitative and qualitative alteration of the duodenal flora in both groups of patients.