Aberrant neural correlates of multisensory processing of audiovisual social cues related to social anxiety: An electrophysiological study.

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by abnormal fear to social cues. Although unisensory processing to social stimuli associated with social anxiety (SA) has been well described, how multisensory processing relates to SA is still open to clarification. Using electroencephalography (EEG) measurement, we investigated the neural correlates of multisensory processing and related temporal dynamics in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Methods: Twenty-five SAD participants and 23 healthy control (HC) participants were presented with angry and neutral faces, voices and their combinations with congruent emotions and they completed an emotional categorization task. Results: We found that face-voice combinations facilitated auditory processing in multiple stages indicated by the acceleration of auditory N1 latency, attenuation of auditory N1 and P250 amplitudes, and decrease of theta power. In addition, bimodal inputs elicited cross-modal integrative activity which is indicated by the enhancement of visual P1, N170, and P3/LPP amplitudes and superadditive response of P1 and P3/LPP. More importantly, excessively greater integrative activity (at P3/LPP amplitude) was found in SAD participants, and this abnormal integrative activity in both early and late temporal stages was related to the larger interpretation bias of miscategorizing neutral face-voice combinations as angry. Conclusion: The study revealed that neural correlates of multisensory processing was aberrant in SAD and it was related to the interpretation bias to multimodal social cues in multiple processing stages. Our findings suggest that deficit in multisensory processing might be an important factor in the psychopathology of SA.

The emotion regulation effect of cognitive control is related to depressive state through the mediation of rumination: An ERP study.

Deficits in cognitive control have been found in depression, but how they contribute to depressive symptoms remains unknown. The present study investigated whether the regulatory efficacy of cognitive control on negative emotion varies with depression level and whether the regulatory efficacy affects depressive symptoms via the mediation of rumination. Fifty participants screened by the Zung Self-Rating Depressive Scale (SDS) with high and low depression levels were selected. They were instructed to controlled-process different semantic representations of aversive pictures, and the amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP) evoked by the pictures was used as the measure of electrocortical response. We found that controlled-processing neutral representations of aversive pictures significantly decreased the amplitude of LPP relative to that under controlled-processing unpleasant ones in an early window in the low depression group and that this regulatory effect was impaired in the high depression group. Furthermore, a mediation analyses indicated that the regulatory efficacy of controlled-processing different semantic representations was associated with SDS score via the mediation of rumination. These findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying the association between the function of cognitive control in emotion generation and depressive symptoms and indicated a pathway from the regulatory efficacy of cognitive control to depression via rumination.

High working memory load impairs the effect of cognitive reappraisal on emotional response: Evidence from an event-related potential study.

This study investigates how the working memory (WM) load influenced the efficacy of cognitive reappraisal, a frequently used strategy for emotion regulation. In a dual-task paradigm, the participants were required to perform a high-load or a low-load memory task and simultaneously reappraise aversive pictures with a negative or a neutral meaning. In the low-load condition, we found that the amplitude of emotion-enhanced late positive potential (LPP) was significantly decreased by neutral reappraisal compared to negative reappraisal. In the high-load condition, this regulatory effect of reappraisal disappeared. These results suggest that successful reappraisal relies on cognitive resources and WM processes. If the necessary resources involved in reappraisal are over-depleted by a concurrent memory task, the reappraisal effect will be impaired. Moreover, we found that emotion-enhanced LPP was significant in both of the high-load and low-load tasks, which suggests that emotional electrocortical response may not be susceptible to the available resources.

Mechanisms of Host-Pathogen Protein Complex Formation and Bacterial Immune Evasion of Streptococcus suis Protein Fhb.

Streptococcus suis serotype 2 (S. suis 2)-induced sepsis and meningitis are often accompanied by bacteremia. The evasion of polymorphonuclear leukocyte-mediated phagocytic clearance is central to the establishment of bacteremia caused by S. suis 2 and is facilitated by the ability of factor H (FH)-binding protein (Fhb) to bind FH on the bacterial surface, thereby impeding alternative pathway complement activation and phagocytic clearance. Here, C3b/C3d was found to bind to Fhb, along with FH, forming a large immune complex. The formation of this immune complex was mediated by domain II of Fhb via electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions, which, to our knowledge, is a new type of interaction. Interestingly, Fhb was found to be associated with the cell envelope and also present in the culture supernatant, where secreted Fhb inhibited complement activation via interactions with domain II, thereby enhancing antiphagocytic clearance by polymorphonuclear leukocytes. Thus, Fhb is a multifunctional bacterial protein, which binds host complement component C3 as well as FH and interferes with innate immune recognition in a secret protein manner. S. suis 2 therefore appears to have developed a new strategy to combat host innate immunity and enhance survival in host blood.

Detection of low-level DNA mutation by ARMS-blocker-Tm PCR.

BACKGROUND: Low-level DNA mutations play important roles in cancer prognosis and treatment. However, most existing methods for the detection of low-level DNA mutations are insufficient for clinical applications because of the high background of wild-type DNA. DESIGN AND METHOD: In this study, a novel assay based on Tm-dependent inhibition of wild type template amplification was developed. The defining characteristic of this assay is an additional annealing step was introduced into the ARMS-blocker PCR. The temperature of this additional annealing step is equal to the Tm of the blocker. Due to this additional annealing step, the blocker can preferentially and specifically bind the wild-type DNA. Thus, the inhibition of wild type template is realized and the mutant DNA is enriched. RESULTS: The sensitivity of this assay was between 10(-4) and 10(-5), which is approximately 5 to 10 times greater than the sensitivity of the assay without the additional annealing step. To evaluate the performance of this assay in detecting K-ras mutation, we analyzed 100 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens from colorectal cancer patients using this new assay and Sanger sequencing. Of the clinical samples, 27 samples were positive for K-ras mutation by both methods. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicated that this new assay is a highly selective, convenient, and economical method for detecting rare mutations in the presence of higher concentrations of wild-type DNA.

The electrocortical modulation effects of different emotion regulation strategies.

The current event-related potential study investigated the modulation effects of different emotion regulation strategies on electrocortical responses. When watching negative or neutral pictures, participants were instructed to perform three tasks: cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression and passive viewing. We found that negative pictures elicited a larger late positive potential (LPP) than neutral pictures. Moreover, processes involved in strategy also had an effect on LPP amplitude, which was indicated by a larger LPP in reappraisal compared with suppression and viewing tasks when neutral pictures were presented. After the influence of processes on LPP was excluded, results showed that reappraisal effectively decreased the emotion-enhanced LPP than suppression and viewing. The difference in regulatory effect may be determined by the underlying processing mechanism. A larger frontal-central component, N2, was observed in suppression than reappraisal and viewing, which suggested that it involved the processes focusing on behavioral response. While the larger LPP found in reappraisal implicated that it recruited cognitive processes focusing on the picture meaning.

[Construction and activities of suilysin mutants].

AIM: To construct the suilysin mutant without hemolytic activity and evaluate its functions. METHODS: The proline in 353 site of suilysin was site-directed mutated to alanine, leucine and valine, respectively. The recombinant mutants were renaturated and purified by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography, and the purified proteins were evaluated in the hemolytic activity and immunogenicity. RESULTS: We obtained three mutants, SLY(P353A), SLY(P353L) and SLY(P353V). The SLY(P353V) mutant had non-hemolytic activity. Western blotting and animal experiments showed that SLY(P353V) mutant still had immunogenicity. CONCLUSION: Suilysin mutant SLY(P353V) has no hemolytic activity but remains immunogenicity.

Fhb, a novel factor H-binding surface protein, contributes to the antiphagocytic ability and virulence of Streptococcus suis.

Streptococcus suis serotype 2 is a Gram-positive bacterium that causes sepsis and meningitis in piglets and humans. The mechanisms of S. suis serotype 2 invasive disease are not well understood. The surface proteins of pathogens usually play important roles in infection and bacterium-host interactions. Here, we identified a novel surface protein that contributed significantly to the virulence of S. suis serotype 2 in a piglet infection model. This protein showed little similarity to other reported proteins and exhibited strong binding activity to human factor H (hFH). It was designated Fhb (factor H-binding protein). The fhb genes found in S. suis serotypes 1, 2, 4, 7, and 9 exhibited molecular polymorphism. Fhb possessed two proline-rich repeat sequences and XPZ domains, and one repeat sequence exhibited a high homology to Bac, an IgA-binding protein of Streptococcus agalactiae. Evidence strongly indicated that fhb-deficient mutants had diminished phagocytosis resistance in bactericidal assays. In addition, Fhb plays important roles in complement-mediated immunity by interacting with hFH. These findings indicated that Fhb is a crucial surface protein contributing to the virulence of S. suis, with important functions in evading innate immune defenses by interaction with host complement regulatory factor hFH.

The contribution of sound intensity in vocal emotion perception: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence.

Although its role is frequently stressed in acoustic profile for vocal emotion, sound intensity is frequently regarded as a control parameter in neurocognitive studies of vocal emotion, leaving its role and neural underpinnings unclear. To investigate these issues, we asked participants to rate the angry level of neutral and angry prosodies before and after sound intensity modification in Experiment 1, and recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) for mismatching emotional prosodies with and without sound intensity modification and for matching emotional prosodies while participants performed emotional feature or sound intensity congruity judgment in Experiment 2. It was found that sound intensity modification had significant effect on the rating of angry level for angry prosodies, but not for neutral ones. Moreover, mismatching emotional prosodies, relative to matching ones, induced enhanced N2/P3 complex and theta band synchronization irrespective of sound intensity modification and task demands. However, mismatching emotional prosodies with reduced sound intensity showed prolonged peak latency and decreased amplitude in N2/P3 complex and smaller theta band synchronization. These findings suggest that though it cannot categorically affect emotionality conveyed in emotional prosodies, sound intensity contributes to emotional significance quantitatively, implying that sound intensity should not simply be taken as a control parameter and its unique role needs to be specified in vocal emotion studies.