Dietary Glycotoxins Impair Hepatic Lipidemic Profile in Diet-Induced Obese Rats Causing Hepatic Oxidative Stress and Insulin Resistance.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is caused by excessive liver lipid accumulation, but insulin resistance is specifically associated with impaired lipid saturation, oxidation, and storage (esterification), besides increased de novo lipogenesis. We hypothesized that dietary glycotoxins could impair hepatic lipid metabolism in obesity contributing to lipotoxicity-driven insulin resistance and thus to the onset of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). In diet-induced obese rats with methylglyoxal-induced glycation, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and gas chromatography were used to assess liver composition in fatty acyl chains and phospholipids. High-fat diet-induced obesity increased liver lipid fraction and suppressed de novo lipogenesis but did not change fatty acid esterification and saturation or insulin sensitivity. Despite a similar increase in total lipid fraction when supplementing the high-fat diet with dietary glycotoxins, impairment in the suppression of de novo lipogenesis and decreased fatty acid unsaturation and esterification were observed. Moreover, glycotoxins also decreased polyunsaturated cardiolipins and caused oxidative stress, portal inflammation, and insulin resistance in high-fat diet-induced obese rats. Dietary glycated products do not change total lipid levels in the liver of obese rats but dramatically modify the lipidemic profile, leading to oxidative stress, hepatic lipotoxicity, and insulin resistance in obesity and thus contribute to the onset of NASH.

Software code complexity assessment using EEG features.

This paper provides a study using Electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the brain activity during code comprehension tasks. Three different code complexity levels according to five complexity metrics were considered. The use of EEG for this purpose is relevant, since the existing studies were mostly focused on neuroimaging techniques. Using Leave-One-Subject-Out cross-validation procedure for 30 subjects, it was found that the features related with the Gamma activity were the most common in all the folds. Regarding the brain regions, right parietal was the most frequent region contributing with more features. A Linear Discriminant Analysis Classifier for task classification, obtained a F-Measure of 92.71% for Code complexity easy, 52.25% for Code complexity intermediate and 53.13% for Code complexity advanced, revealing an evidence of mental effort saturation with the code complexity degree. This suggests that current code complexity metrics do not capture cognitive load and might not be the best approach to assess bug risk.

Cortical control of vertical and horizontal saccades in progressive supranuclear palsy: An exploratory fMRI study.

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a neurodegenerative disorder showing predominant brainstem involvement, characterized by marked slowing of rapid eye movements (saccades), particularly along the vertical plane. While the contribution of the brainstem damage for the saccadic disturbance in PSP has been extensively studied, much less is known about its cortical and subcortical pathomechanisms. We measured reflexive (prosaccades) and voluntary (antisaccades) saccades in the vertical and horizontal plane in PSP patients (n=8) and controls (n=10) in an eye tracking study, followed by the measurement of blood oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) activation (PSP, n=6; controls, n=10) during similar saccade paradigms. Behaviorally, PSP patients evidenced slower and lower amplitude prosaccades (horizontal and vertical) and lower amplitude antisaccades (vertical) than controls. Functionally, patients showed decreased frontostriatal BOLD activation during prosaccades (horizontal and vertical) and antisaccades (vertical), relative to controls. Additionally, PSP patients showed less default mode network (DMN) deactivation than controls for all types of saccades. Within groups, controls showed no BOLD differences between horizontal and vertical prosaccades while PSP patients demonstrated greater DMN deactivation during vertical prosaccades. Both groups evidenced greater DMN deactivation during vertical antisaccades when compared to their horizontal counterpart and patients further showed relative frontostriatal BOLD hypoactivity during vertical antisaccades. We found fMRI evidence of frontostriatal hypoactivity in PSP patients relative to controls, especially during vertical saccades. These new findings highlight the impact of cortical impairment in saccadic disturbance of PSP.

Distinct functional properties of the vertical and horizontal saccadic network in Health and Parkinson's disease: An eye-tracking and fMRI study.

Saccadic behaviour ranges from reflexive (e.g., prosaccade) to goal oriented voluntary movements (e.g., antisaccade). Behavioural asymmetries between vertical and horizontal saccades have been described both in normal individuals (greater delay of vertical prosaccades) and in disease states such as Parkinson's disease (PD) (prosaccades are short and antisaccades are delayed, especially in the vertical plane, possibly due to a frontostriatal deficit). Importantly, the cortical mechanisms for the generation of vertical saccades are largely unknown, both in health and disease, when compared with their horizontal counterpart. Moreover, studies exploring saccadic neural correlates and putative compensatory mechanisms at a functional level in PD are scarce. We investigated horizontal and vertical prosaccades and antisaccades in an eye tracking paradigm in 19 PD patients off medication and 22 healthy controls, followed by a block-design functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study, consisting of two runs (prosaccade, antisaccade) of 6 blocks each (3 vertical, 3 horizontal). While saccade metrics were not significantly different between groups, PD showed left frontal underactivation during horizontal prosaccades and right parietal overactivation during horizontal and vertical prosaccades and horizontal antisaccades. Moreover, controls showed greater deactivation of the default-mode network (DMN) during antisaccades. Vertical prosaccades were associated with greater right frontal and cerebellar activity in controls, and cuneus hypoactivity in PD. Vertical antisaccades were associated with greater DMN deactivation in both groups and left frontal hypoactivity in PD. Putative functional compensatory changes in the right parietal cortex in PD patients may help to keep saccadic behaviour at the same level as the healthy controls. We provide first time evidence showing that functional cortical asymmetries between vertical and horizontal saccades occur distinctively in PD patients and healthy controls.