NPH

We sought to describe the cognitive profile of patients with Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (iNPH) using a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Based on age and education correlated norms, we aimed to compare performance in each measured cognitive domain: executive functions (EFs), verbal memory (VM), non-verbal memory (nVM), visuoconstructional abilities (VA) and attention/psychomotor speed (A/PS). Patients diagnosed with iNPH underwent comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation before shunting...

Seminal roots play a critical role in water and nutrient absorption, particularly in the early developmental stages of wheat. However, the genes responsible for controlling SRN in wheat remain largely unknown. Genetic mapping and functional analyses identified a candidate gene (TraesCS3D01G137200, TaSRN-3D) encoding a Ser/Thr kinase glycogen synthase kinase 3 (STKc_GSK3) that regulated SRN in wheat. Additionally, experiments involving hormone treatment, nitrate absorption and protein interaction were conducted to explore the regulatory mechanism of TaSRN-3D...

SIGNIFICANCE: Advances in genetically encoded sensors and two-photon imaging have unlocked functional imaging at the level of single dendritic spines. Synaptic activity can be measured in real time in awake animals. However, tools are needed to facilitate the analysis of the large datasets acquired by the approach. Commonly available software suites for imaging calcium transients in cell bodies are ill-suited for spine imaging as dendritic spines have structural characteristics distinct from those of the cell bodies...

BACKGROUND: Although secondary normal pressure hydrocephalus (sNPH) can occur in various central nervous system diseases, there are no reports of sNPH caused by pituitary lesions. Herein, we present a unique case of sNPH caused by pituitary apoplexy. CASE DESCRIPTION: A 70-year-old man was transferred to our hospital because of a sudden onset of headache and loss of consciousness. The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) test showed slightly elevated cell counts and protein levels but a negative CSF culture test...

Metabolic flux analysis (MFA) is a valuable tool for quantifying cellular phenotypes and to guide plant metabolic engineering. By introducing stable isotopic tracers and employing mathematical models, MFA can quantify the rates of metabolic reactions through biochemical pathways. Recent applications of isotopically nonstationary MFA (INST-MFA) to plants have elucidated nonintuitive metabolism in leaves under optimal and stress conditions, described coupled fluxes for fast-growing algae, and produced a synergistic multi-organ flux map that is a first in MFA for any biological system...

Prof. Na Ji (UC Berkeley) discusses her pioneering work and motivation in adaptive optics, microscopy, and beyond, in an interview with former trainee Anderson Chen (Prisma Therapeutics, Inc.).

Leaf venation is a pivotal trait in the success of vascular plants. Whereas gymnosperms have single or sparsely branched parallel veins, angiosperms developed a hierarchical structure of veins that form a complex reticulum. Its physiological consequences are considered to have enabled angiosperms to dominate terrestrial ecosystems in the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic. Although a hierarchical-reticulate venation also occurs in some groups of extinct seed plants, it is unclear whether these are stem relatives of angiosperms or have evolved these traits in parallel...

AIM: To investigate changes in the clinical characteristics of patients who abused benzodiazepine receptor agonists (BZRA) or over-the-counter (OTC) drugs before and after COVID-19 based on the 2018 and 2022 data of the "Nationwide Psychiatric Hospital (NPH) Survey on Drug-related Psychiatric Disorders." METHOD: A total of 446 and 155 cases, and 435 and 273 cases, who mainly abused BZRAs or OTC drugs, respectively, were extracted from the database of the two NPH Surveys...

Boron (B) is crucial for plant growth and development. B deficiency can impair numerous physiological and metabolic processes, particularly in root development and pollen germination, seriously impeding crop growth and yield. However, the molecular mechanism underlying boron signal perception and signal transduction is rather limited. In this study, we discovered that CPK10, a calcium-dependent protein kinase in the CPK family, has the strongest interaction with the boron transporter BOR1. Mutations in CPK10 led to growth and root development defects under B-deficiency conditions, while constitutively active CPK10 enhanced plant tolerance to B deficiency...

Unicellular organisms are known to exert tight control over their cell size. In the case of diatoms, abundant eukaryotic microalgae, two opposing notions are widely accepted. On the one hand, the rigid silica cell wall that forms inside the parental cell is thought to enforce geometrical reduction of the cell size. On the other hand, numerous exceptions cast doubt on the generality of this model. Here, we monitored clonal cultures of the diatom Stephanopyxis turris for up to 2 yr, recording the sizes of thousands of cells, in order to follow the distribution of cell sizes in the population...

Plant pollen is rich in protein, sterols and lipids, providing crucial nutrition for many pollinators. However, we know very little about the quantity, quality and timing of pollen availability in real landscapes, limiting our ability to improve food supply for pollinators. We quantify the floral longevity and pollen production of a whole plant community for the first time, enabling us to calculate daily pollen availability. We combine these data with floral abundance and nectar measures from UK farmland to quantify pollen and nectar production at the landscape scale throughout the year...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Plant cell death is regulated in plant-pathogen interactions. While some aspartic proteases (APs) participate in regulating programmed cell death or defense responses, the defense functions of most APs remain largely unknown. Here, we report on a virulence factor, PlPeL8, which is a pectate lyase found in the hemibiotrophic pathogen Peronophythora litchii. Through in vivo and in vitro assays, we confirmed the interaction between PlPeL8 and LcAP1 from litchi, and identified LcAP1 as a positive regulator of plant immunity...

Climate change-induced drought is a major threat to agriculture. C4 crops have a higher water use efficiency (WUE) and better adaptability to drought than C3 crops due to their smaller stomatal morphology and faster response. However, our understanding of stomatal behaviours in both C3 and C4 Poaceae crops is limited by knowledge gaps in physical traits of guard cell (GC) and subsidiary cell (SC). We employed infrared gas exchange analysis and a stomatal assay to explore the relationship between GC/SC sizes and stomatal kinetics across diverse drought conditions in two C3 (wheat and barley) and three C4 (maize, sorghum and foxtail millet) upland Poaceae crops...

AIM: The aim of this study was to identify preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings that can predict the shunt responsiveness in idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) patients and to investigate postoperative outcome and complications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 192 patients with iNPH who underwent shunt at our hospital between 2000 and 2021 were included to investigate complications. Of these, after exclusion, 127 (1-month postoperative follow-up) and 77 (1-year postoperative follow-up) patients were evaluated...

The intricate nature of the brain necessitates the application of advanced probing techniques to comprehensively study and understand its working mechanisms. Neurophotonics offers minimally invasive methods to probe the brain using optics at cellular and even molecular levels. However, multiple challenges persist, especially concerning imaging depth, field of view, speed, and biocompatibility. A major hindrance to solving these challenges in optics is the scattering nature of the brain. This perspective highlights the potential of complex media optics, a specialized area of study focused on light propagation in materials with intricate heterogeneous optical properties, in advancing and improving neuronal readouts for structural imaging and optical recordings of neuronal activity...

This work is focused on the application of lanthanide-free perovskite Ba1-x Srx TiO3 (0 < x < 1) in valorization of toxic pollutants as 4-nitrophenol (4-NPh). The series of perovskites were fabricated by facile, one-step solid-state preparation method and characterized via various techniques: elemental analysis (Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry, ICP-OES), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and dielectric properties (impedance spectroscopy, IS)...

OBJECTIVE: Patients diagnosed with idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (iNPH) typically experience symptom improvements after undergoing a cerebrospinal fluid-tap test (CSF-TT), These improvements are recognized as indicative of potential improvements following surgical intervention. As gait disturbance is the most common iNPH symptom, gait improvements are of predominant interest. The purpose of this study was to examine if clinically important changes in gait and balance from CSF-TT predict meaningful changes following surgery...

Sialic acids are a family of monosaccharides that share a nine-carbon backbone and a carboxyl group. A recent derivatization method based on 3-nitrophenylhydrazine (3-NPH) provides a mild chemical labeling technique for biomolecules containing carbonyl or carboxyl groups. In this study, we utilized 3-NPH to label sialic acids via a two-step derivatization process. The derivatized species can produce a common reporter ion corresponding to C1-C3 with two labels, and a fragment differentiating between Neu5Ac, Neu5Gc, and KDN...