Frontoparietal, Cerebellum Network Codes for Accurate Intention Prediction in Altered Perceptual Conditions.

Integrating and predicting the intentions and actions of others are critical components of social interactions, but the behavioral and neural bases of such mechanisms under altered perceptual conditions are poorly understood. In the present study, we recruited expert violinists and age-matched controls with no musical training and asked them to evaluate simplified dynamic stimuli of violinists playing in a piano or forte communicative intent while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. We show that expertise is needed to successfully understand and evaluate communicative intentions in spatially and temporally altered visual representations of musical performance. Frontoparietal regions-such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the inferior parietal lobule and sulcus-and various subregions of the cerebellum-such as cerebellar lobules I-IV, V, VI, VIIb, VIIIa, X-a re recruited in the process. Functional connectivity between these brain areas reveals widespread organization, particularly in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal sulcus, and in the cerebellum. This network may be essential to successfully assess communicative intent in ambiguous or complex visual scenes.

A solution NMR study of the selectively 13C, 15N-labeled peptaibol chrysospermin C in methanol.

The conformation of the 19-residue peptaibol chrysospermin C in methanol has been investigated by NMR spectroscopy using selective 15N and 13C labeling of the alpha-aminoisobutyric acid (Aib) residues. Complete 1H and 13C sequential assignments, including stereospecific assignments for the heavily overlapped resonances from the two Cbeta methyl groups of the eight Aib residues, are reported for a peptaibol for the first time. An Aib residue followed by a Pro is an exception to previous suggestions regarding stereospecific assignment of the two Cbeta methyl groups of Aib residues. Local nuclear Overhauser effects and 3J(HNC') and 3J(HNCbeta) scalar couplings indicate that the phi angles of the Aib residues are restricted sterically to local conformations consistent with right-handed helices. Despite these constraints on the eight Aib residues, the NMR data for chrysospermin C in methanol are generally most consistent with an ensemble of transient conformations, including backbone conformations inconsistent with helical structures. Initial NMR measurements for chrysospermin C bound to micelles suggest structural and dynamic differences relative to alamethicin bound to micelles which may be related to differences in gating voltages for formation of ion channels.

Isolation and rapid sequence characterization of two novel bovine beta-lactoglobulins I and J.

Two novel bovine beta-lactoglobulins I and J have been isolated from bovine milk and characterized by isoelectric focusing. Their primary structure was determined by a very rapid method consisting of a combination of Edman sequencing, mass analysis, and ladder sequencing by mass spectrometry. We found that both new beta-lactoglobulins are of the bovine beta-lactoglobulin B-variant type. beta-lactoglobulin I shows Gly instead of Glu at position 108, whereas beta-lactoglobulin J shows a Pro-to-Leu exchange at position 126.