Event-related alpha power in early stage of facial expression processing in social anxiety: Influence of language context.

Accurate interpretation of the emotional information conveyed by others' facial expressions is crucial for social interactions. Event-related alpha power, measured by time-frequency analysis, is a frequently used EEG index of emotional information processing. However, it is still unclear how event-related alpha power varies in emotional information processing in social anxiety groups. In the present study, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants from the social anxiety and healthy control groups viewed facial expressions (angry, happy, neutral) preceded by contextual sentences conveying either a positive or negative evaluation of the subject. The impact of context on facial expression processing in both groups of participants was explored by assessing behavioral ratings and event-related alpha power (0-200 ms after expression presentation). In comparison to the healthy control group, the social anxiety group exhibited significantly lower occipital alpha power in response to angry facial expressions in negative contexts and neutral facial expressions in positive contexts. The influence of language context on facial expression processing in individuals with social anxiety may occur at an early stage of processing.

Integrative Metabolome and Transcriptome Analyses Provide Insights into Carotenoid Variation in Different-Colored Peppers.

Carotenoids are important pigments in pepper fruits. The colors of each pepper are mainly determined by the composition and content of carotenoid. The 'ZY' variety, which has yellow fruit, is a natural mutant derived from a branch mutant of 'ZR' with different colors. ZY and ZR exhibit obvious differences in fruit color, but no other obvious differences in other traits. To investigate the main reasons for the formation of different colored pepper fruits, transcriptome and metabolome analyses were performed in three developmental stages (S1-S3) in two cultivars. The results revealed that these structural genes (PSY1, CRTISO, CCD1, CYP97C1, VDE1, CCS, NCED1 and NCED2) related to carotenoid biosynthesis were expressed differentially in the two cultivars. Capsanthin and capsorubin mainly accumulated in ZR and were almost non-existent in ZY. S2 is the fruit color-changing stage; this may be a critical period for the development of different color formation of ZY and ZR. A combination of transcriptome and metabolome analyses indicated that CCS, NCED2, AAO4, VDE1 and CYP97C1 genes were key to the differences in the total carotenoid content. These new insights into pepper fruit coloration may help to improve fruit breeding strategies.

Altered brain spontaneous activity in patients with cerebral small vessel disease using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation of different frequency bands.

Background: Previous studies showed that cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) is a leading cause of cognitive decline in elderly people and the development of Alzheimer's disease. Although brain structural changes of cSVD have been documented well, it remains unclear about the properties of brain intrinsic spontaneous activity in patients with cSVD. Methods: We collected resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) and T1-weighted 3D high-resolution brain structural images from 41 cSVD patients and 32 healthy controls (HC). By estimating the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) under three different frequency bands (typical band: 0.01-0.1 Hz; slow-4: 0.027-0.073 Hz; and slow-5: 0.01-0.027 Hz) in the whole-brain, we analyzed band-specific ALFF differences between the cSVD patients and controls. Results: The cSVD patients showed uniformly lower ALFF than the healthy controls in the typical and slow-4 bands (pFWE < 0.05). In the typical band, cSVD patients showed lower ALFF involving voxels of the fusiform, hippocampus, inferior occipital cortex, middle occipital cortex, insula, inferior frontal cortex, rolandic operculum, and cerebellum compared with the controls. In the slow-4 band, cSVD patients showed lower ALFF involving voxels of the cerebellum, hippocampus, occipital, and fusiform compared with the controls. However, there is no significant between-group difference of ALFF in the slow-5 band. Moreover, we found significant "group × frequency" interactions in the left precuneus. Conclusion: Our results suggested that brain intrinsic spontaneous activity of cSVD patients was abnormal and showed a frequency-specific characteristic. The ALFF in the slow-4 band may be more sensitive to detecting a malfunction in cSVD patients.

Disrupted multi-scale topological organization of directed functional brain networks in patients with disorders of consciousness.

Disorders of consciousness are impaired states of consciousness caused by severe brain injuries. Previous resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have reported abnormal brain network properties at different topological scales in patients with disorders of consciousness by using graph theoretical analysis. However, it is still unclear how inter-regional directed propagation activities affect the topological organization of functional brain networks in patients with disorders of consciousness. To reveal the altered topological organization in patients with disorders of consciousness, we constructed whole-brain directed functional networks by combining functional connectivity analysis and time delay estimation. Then we performed graph theoretical analysis based on the directed functional brain networks at three topological scales, from the nodal scale, the resting-state network scale to the global scale. Finally, the canonical correlation analysis was used to determine the correlations between altered topological properties and clinical scores in patients with disorders of consciousness. At the nodal scale, we observed decreased in-degree and increased out-degree in the precuneus in patients with disorders of consciousness. At the resting-state network scale, the patients with disorders of consciousness showed reorganized motif patterns within the default mode network and between the default mode network and other resting-state networks. At the global scale, we found a lower global clustering coefficient in the patients with disorders of consciousness than in the controls. The results of the canonical correlation analysis showed that the abnormal degree and the disrupted motif were significantly correlated with the clinical scores of the patients with disorders of consciousness. Our findings showed that consciousness impairment can be revealed by abnormal directed connection patterns at multiple topological scales in the whole brain, and the disrupted directed connection patterns may serve as clinical biomarkers to assess the dysfunction of patients with disorders of consciousness.

Influence of affective verbal context on emotional facial expression perception of social anxiety.

Previous studies have shown that the perception of ambiguous facial expressions for individuals with social anxiety was influenced by the affective verbal context. However, it is still unknown how emotional facial expressions are perceived by individuals with social anxiety in the context of the verbal context. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) technology to examine how individuals with social anxiety perceive emotional facial expressions in positive and negative contexts. The results showed that: (1) Within the negative verbal contexts, the amplitude of P1 induced by facial expressions in the social anxiety group was significantly higher than that induced by the healthy control group; The N170 amplitude induced by facial expressions in social anxiety group was less negative than that in the healthy control group, and was not affected by the context. (2) The social anxiety group had significantly higher LPP in negative contexts elicited by angry expressions than by happy expressions. This study proved that the perception of emotional facial expressions was influenced by top-down information in the early and late stages of visual perception for individuals with social anxiety.

Positive attention bias in high socially anxious individuals: Evidence from an ERP study.

The Bivalent Fear of Evaluation (BFEO) model posits that the fear of positive evaluation (FPE) is a core feature of social anxiety. As such, high socially anxious individuals may show attention bias when faced with positive stimuli. However, most of the previous studies focused on the negative attention bias of social anxiety, and less on the attention bias of positive stimuli. Meanwhile, the effect of stimulus presentation time on the attention bias pattern was unclear. In order to investigate this question, we used a dot-probe paradigm with facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, neutral) presented for 100 ms and 500 ms. The ERP results showed: (1) For high socially anxious group, happy faces elicited a larger N1 for valid than for invalid cued probes, whereas for healthy control group, angry faces elicited a larger N1 for valid than for invalid cued probes. (2) When valid cues following happy faces presented for 500 ms, the N1 amplitude was larger than that of invalid cues. However, when valid cues following angry and fear faces presented for 100 ms, the N1 amplitude was larger than that of invalid cues. The results showed difficulty in attention disengagement of high socially anxious individuals from positive stimuli, as reflected by N1, illustrating the positive attention bias in social anxiety. These results prove that FPE may contribute to maintaining social anxiety.

The Disentangled Sub-Processes Involved in Implied Motion Contributing to Food Freshness: The Neural Evidence from ERPs.

Implied motion can enhance the consumer's judgment of food freshness. However, this enhancing effect has only been investigated for a few products. Furthermore, researchers have not conclusively determined whether the effects of the low-level visual sensory processing and high-level conceptual processing on food evaluation differ. In Experiment 1, using different fruits in static water (fruit_IS), fruit with implied moving water (fruit_IM), or only fruits as stimuli, we initially generalized the effect of implied motion on the broader category of fruit, and implied motion improved the perceived freshness of the fruit. In Experiment 2, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) and measured the temporal processes involved in the mechanism by which implied motion improved perceived fruit freshness. The behavioral results further supported the findings from Experiment 1. The ERP data revealed a pronounced positive difference between fruit_IM and fruit-only conditions recorded from posterior electrodes at approximately 200-300 ms (P2). This difference reflected the low-level visual implied motion sensory processing involved in the effect of implied motion on improving food freshness. Additionally, an early frontocentral negativity difference of approximately 300-500 ms between fruit_IM and fruit-only conditions was recorded, which reflected the high-level visual conceptual processing involved in the effect of implied motion on improving food freshness. These results strengthen and extend previous behavioral findings indicating that implied motion enhances the consumer's judgment of food freshness across various food categories, and improves our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in the mechanism by which implied motion influences food judgments.

Heavy genetic load associated with the subspecific differentiation of japonica rice (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica L.).

Genetic load in the genome of the model species, rice, was genetically dissected by mapping quantitative trait loci (QTLs) affecting the radiosensitivity of 226 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) to gamma-ray- and spaceflight-induced radiation. The parents and RILs varied considerably in their radiosensitivity to gamma-ray irradiation. A total of 28 QTLs affecting the two index traits, seedling height (SH) and seed fertility (SF), of radiosensitivity were identified. The japonica parent, Lemont, was much more sensitive to gamma-ray irradiation than the indica parent, Teqing, and its alleles at almost all QTLs were associated with increased radiosensitivity, suggesting a much higher genetic load in the japonica genome of rice. Six QTLs (QSh2a, QSh2b, QSh5a, QSh7, QSf3b, and QSf10b) were located in the genomic regions particularly sensitive to radiation and thus might represent possible 'mutation hot spots' in the japonica genome. Detailed characterization of these genomic regions may shed light on the evolution and subspecific differentiation of rice.

[Extraction of coumarins from Angelica dahurica by supercritical extraction and GC-MS analysis].

OBJECTIVE: To extract coumarins from Angelica Dahurica by supercritical CO2. METHOD: Six-factor and three-level orthogonal experimental design was used to optimize the SFE conditions as guided by the content of total coumarins in the extract. Constituents of the coumarins were analyzed by GC-MS, and their relative contents were determined by normalization method of areas. RESULT: Total 15 coumarins were separated, the relative contents of oxyimperatorin, imperatorin and isoimperatorin being up to 42.40%, 22.14% and 12.12% respectively. Optimum extraction process was established: 21 MPa as extraction pressure, 50 degrees C as extraction temperature, 3 h as time for extraction, 20 mesh as pulverized degree, 6.5 MPa as separation pressure and 30 degrees C as separation temperature. CONCLUSION: Changes in extraction pressure, temperature, time, pulverized degree and separation pressure affect the extracting results remarkably.

[Studies of inheritance and application in rice breeding of the large grain mutant induced in space environment].

The inheritance and utilization of a stable large-grain mutant,selected from the induced generation derived from japonica Nongkeng 58 after space treatment carried by recoverable satellite, were analyzed. The results indicated that the grain volume of the large-grain mutant was quantitative trait controlled by multiple genes. The large-grain mutant had characteristics of slender grain,favorable scent, high apparent grain quality and good compatibility with japonica,and can be used as a valuable resource for improving grain quality. When high yield japonica variety with bad looking quality was used as a recurrent parent to cross with the mutant and a procedure of a limited backcross combined with identification of brown rice quality in segregation generations was applied,some japonica lines with good looking quality were developed. The utility of the limited backcross method for improvement of quantitative traits was discussed.