excitability

Perioperative neurocognitive disorder (PND) is a common complication in surgical patients. While many interventions to prevent PND have been studied, the availability of treatment methods is limited. Thus, it is crucial to delve into the mechanisms of PND, pinpoint therapeutic targets, and develop effective treatment approaches. In this study, reduced dorsal tenia tecta (DTT) neuronal activity was found to be associated with tibial fracture surgery-induced PND, indicating that a neuronal excitation-inhibition (E-I) imbalance could contribute to PND...

A thorough understanding of the internal conversion process between excited states is important for designing ideal multiple emissive materials. However, it is hard to experimentally measure both the energy barrier and energy gaps between the excited states of a compound. For a long time, it is dubious if what was measured is the energy gap or energy barrier between two excited states. In this paper, we designed 1-(pyren-2'-yl)-9,12-di(p-tolyl)-o-carborane (2), which shows dual emission in solution. Temperature-dependent fluorescence measurements show that the two emission bands in hexane are corresponding to two different excited states...

Nonlocal effects originating from interactions between neighboring meta-atoms introduce additional degrees of freedom for peculiar characteristics of metadevices, such as enhancement, selectivity, and spatial modulation. However, they are generally difficult to manipulate because of the collective responses of multiple meta-atoms. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the nonlocal metasurface to realize the spatial modulation of dark-field emission. Plasmonic asymmetric split rings (ASRs) are designed to simultaneously excite local dipole resonance and nonlocal quasi-bound states in the continuum and spatially extended modes...

The dispersive interaction between a qubit and a cavity is ubiquitous in circuit and cavity quantum electrodynamics. It describes the frequency shift of one quantum mode in response to excitations in the other and, in closed systems, is necessarily bidirectional, i.e., reciprocal. Here, we present an experimental study of a nonreciprocal dispersive-type interaction between a transmon qubit and a superconducting cavity, arising from a common coupling to dissipative intermediary modes with broken time reversal symmetry...

A change of orbital state alters the coupling between ions and their surroundings drastically. Orbital excitations are hence key to understand and control interaction of ions. Rare-earth elements with strong magneto-crystalline anisotropy (MCA) are important ingredients for magnetic devices. Thus, control of their localized 4 f magnetic moments and anisotropy is one major challenge in ultrafast spin physics. With time-resolved x-ray absorption and resonant inelastic scattering experiments, we show for Tb metal that 4 f -electronic excitations out of the ground-state multiplet occur after optical pumping...

Transactions in financial markets are not evenly spaced but can be concentrated within a short period of time. In this study, we investigated the factors that determine the transaction frequency in financial markets. Specifically, we employed the Hawkes process model to identify exogenous and endogenous forces governing transactions of individual stocks in the Tokyo Stock Exchange during the COVID-19 pandemic. To enhance the accuracy of our analysis, we introduced a novel EM algorithm for the estimation of exogenous and endogenous factors that specifically addresses the interdependence of the values of these factors over time...

The TWIK-related acid-sensitive K+ channel 3 (TASK3) belongs to the two-pore domain (K2P) potassium channel family, which regulates cell excitability by mediating a constitutive "leak" potassium efflux in the nervous system. Extracellular acidification inhibits TASK3 channel, but the molecular mechanism by which channel inactivation is coupled to pH decrease remains unclear. Here, we report the cryo-electron microscopy structures of human TASK3 at neutral and acidic pH. Structural comparison revealed selectivity filter (SF) rearrangements upon acidification, characteristic of C-type inactivation, but with a unique structural basis...

ZCCHC17 is a master regulator of synaptic gene expression and has recently been shown to play a role in splicing of neuronal mRNA. We previously showed that ZCCHC17 protein declines in Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain tissue before there is significant gliosis and neuronal loss, that ZCCHC17 loss partially replicates observed splicing abnormalities in AD brain tissue, and that maintenance of ZCCHC17 levels is predicted to support cognitive resilience in AD. Here, we assessed the functional consequences of reduced ZCCHC17 expression in primary cortical neuronal cultures using siRNA knockdown...

The B-mode ultrasound based computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) has demonstrated its effectiveness for diagnosis of Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH) in infants, which can conduct the Graf's method by detecting landmarks in hip ultrasound images. However, it is still necessary to explore more valuable information around these landmarks to enhance feature representation for improving detection performance in the detection model. To this end, a novel Involution Transformer based U-Net (IT-UNet) network is proposed for hip landmark detection...

In this paper, we propose a borophene-based grating structure (BBGS) to realize multi-band plasmon-induced absorption. The coupling of two resonance modes excited by upper borophene grating (UBG) and lower borophene grating (LBG) leads to plasmon-induced absorption. The coupled-mode theory (CMT) is utilized to fit the absorption spectrum. The simulated spectrum fits well with the calculated result. We found the absorption peaks exhibit a blue shift with an increase in the carrier density of borophene grating...

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a widespread organic micro-pollutant, found in most environments, including alpine and Arctic regions, and several matrices such as waters and aerosols. Polar regions are characterized by periods of intense irradiation with no sunset due to the continuous sunlight, while alpine areas, despite following the day-night cycle of mid-latitudes, also undergo strong irradiation. For such conditions, it is possible that a fraction of the BPA present in snow may degrade through direct photolysis, producing other unknown species with different environmental mobility and possible ecotoxic effects...

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain the presence of catatonia in cases of pediatric postoperative cerebellar mutism syndrome (PPCMS). METHOD: A systematic review of PPCMS case reports of patients aged 0-17 years with sufficient clinical information to extract catatonic phenomena was undertaken following PRISMA guidelines. Standardized catatonia rating scales were applied to selected cases retrospectively to ascertain whether diagnostic criteria for catatonia were met. A case known to the authors is also presented...

The exploitation of exciting features of plastics for diverse applications has resulted in significant plastic waste generation, which negatively impacts environmental compartments, metabolic processes, and the well-being of aquatic ecosystems biota. A shotgun metagenomic approach was deployed to investigate the microbial consortia, degradation pathways, and enzyme systems involved in the degradation of plastics in a tropical lentic pond sediment (APS). Functional annotation of the APS proteome (ORFs) using the PlasticDB database revealed annotation of 1015 proteins of enzymes such as depolymerase, esterase, lipase, hydrolase, nitrobenzylesterase, chitinase, carboxylesterase, polyesterase, oxidoreductase, polyamidase, PETase, MHETase, laccase, alkane monooxygenase, among others involved in the depolymerization of the plastic polymers...

The construction of C(sp3)-N bonds via direct N-centered radical addition with olefins under benign conditions is a desirable but challenging strategy. Herein, we describe an organo-photocatalytic approach to achieve anti-Markovnikov alkene hydroamidation with sulfonyl azides in a highly efficient manner under transition-metal-free and mild conditions. A broad range of substrates, including both activated and unactivated alkenes, are suitable for this protocol, providing a convenient and practical method to construct sulfonylamide derivatives...

Internal conversion (IC) is a common radiationless transition in polyatomic molecules. Theory predicts that molecular vibrations assist IC between excited states, and ultrafast experiments can provide insight into their structure-function relationship. Here we elucidate the dynamics of the vibrational modes driving the IC process within the Q band of a functionalized porphyrin molecule. Through a combination of ultrafast multidimensional spectroscopies and theoretical modeling, we observe a 60 fs Q y -Q x IC and demonstrate that it is driven by the interplay among multiple high-frequency modes...

Precise monitoring and quantification of H2 O2 is highly urgent and of great significance for biomedicine, food safety, environmental monitoring, etc . Herein, we proposed a facile near-infrared (NIR) excited fluorescent probe composed of upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) and non-metallic plasmonic WO3- x for ultrasensitive quantitative H2 O2 detection. Plasmonic WO3- x with oxygen vacancy-induced LSPR achieved over 680-fold enhancement of upconversion fluorescence at 520 nm, and also acts as the sensitive recognition site for H2 O2 ...

We present an all-optical method to measure and compensate for residual magnetic fields present in a cloud of ultracold atoms trapped in an optical dipole trap. Our approach leverages the increased loss from the trapped atomic sample through electromagnetically induced absorption. Modulating the excitation laser provides coherent sidebands, resulting in a Λ-type pump-probe scheme. Scanning an additional magnetic offset field leads to pairs of sub-natural linewidth resonances, whose positions encode the magnetic field in all three spatial directions...

Subharmonic aided pressure estimation (SHAPE) is a noninvasive pressure measurement technique based on the pressure dependent subharmonic signal from contrast microbubbles. Here, SonoVue microbubble with a sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) core, was investigated for use in SHAPE. The study uses excitations of 25-700 kPa peak negative pressure (PNP) and 3 MHz frequency over eight pressurization cycles between atmospheric pressure and overpressures, ranging from 0 to 25 kPa (0 to 186 mm Hg)...

MnO(001) thin films were grown on commercial MgO(001) substrates at 520 °C by reactive molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using Mn vapor and O2-seeded supersonic molecular beams (SMBs) both with and without radio frequency (RF) plasma excitation. For comparison, MnO(001) films were grown by reactive MBE using O2 from a leak valve. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed the Mn2+ oxidation state and 10%-15% excess oxygen near the growth surface. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction and x-ray diffraction evidenced that the films were rock salt cubic MnO with very strong (001) orientation...

Small molecule photoswitches capable of toggling between two distinct molecular states in response to light are versatile tools to monitor biological processes, control photochemistry, and design smart materials. In this work, six novel dicyanorhodanine-based pyrrole-containing photoswitches are reported. The molecular design avails both the Z and E isomers from synthesis, where each can be isolated using chromatographic techniques. Inter- and intramolecular hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) interactions available to the E and Z isomers, respectively, uniquely impart thermal stability to each isomer over long time periods...