Heritability of Stroop and flanker performance in 12-year old children

Background  

There is great interest in appropriate phenotypes that serve as indicator of genetically transmitted frontal (dys)function, such as ADHD. Here we investigate the ability to deal with response conflict, and we ask to what extent performance variation on response interference tasks is caused by genetic variation. We tested a large sample of 12-year old monozygotic and dizygotic twins on two well-known and closely related response interference tasks; the color Stroop task and the Eriksen flanker task. Using structural equation modelling we assessed the heritability of several performance indices derived from those tasks.     

The contribution of high frequencies to human brain activity underlying horizontal localization of natural spatial sounds

Background  

In the field of auditory neuroscience, much research has focused on the neural processes underlying human sound localization. A recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) study investigated localization-related brain activity by measuring the N1m event-related response originating in the auditory cortex. It was found that the dynamic range of the right-hemispheric N1m response, defined as the mean difference in response magnitude between contralateral and ipsilateral stimulation, reflects cortical activity related to the discrimination of horizontal sound direction. Interestingly, the results also suggested that the presence of realistic spectral information within horizontally located spatial sounds resulted in a larger right-hemispheric N1m dynamic range. Spectral cues being predominant at high frequencies, the present study further investigated the issue by removing frequencies from the spatial stimuli with low-pass filtering. This resulted in a stepwise elimination of direction-specific spectral information. Interaural time and level differences were kept constant. The original, unfiltered stimuli were broadband noise signals presented from five frontal horizontal directions and binaurally recorded for eight human subjects with miniature microphones placed in each subject's ear canals. Stimuli were presented to the subjects during MEG registration and in a behavioral listening experiment.     

Eine Reagensflasche

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Advances towards using finger/toenail dosimetry to triage a large population after potential exposure to ionizing radiation

Rapid and accurate retrospective dosimetry is of critical importance and strategic value for the emergency medical response to a large-scale radiological/nuclear event. One technique that has the potential for rapid and accurate dosimetry measurements is electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy of relatively stable radiation-induced signals (RIS) in fingernails and toenails. Two approaches are being developed for EPR nail dosimetry. In the approach using ex vivo measurements on nail clippings, accurate estimation of the dose-dependent amplitude of the RIS is complicated by the presence of mechanically-induced signals (MIS) that are generated during the nail clipping. Recent developments in ex vivo nail dosimetry, including a thorough characterization of the MIS and an appreciation of the role of hydration and the development of effective analytic techniques, have led to improvements in the accuracy and precision of this approach. An in vivo nail dosimetry approach is also very promising, as it eliminates the problems of MIS from the clipping and it has the potential to be an effective and efficient approach for field deployment. Two types of EPR resonators are being developed for in vivo measurements of fingernails and toenails.     

Relationship between electrochemical potentials and substitution reaction rates of ferrocene-containing β-diketonato rhodium(I) complexes; cytotoxicity of [Rh(FcCOCHCOPh)(cod)

A series of ferrocene-containing rhodium complexes of the type [Rh(FcCOCHCOR)(cod)] (cod = 1,5-cyclooctadiene) with R = CF(3), 1, (E(pa)(Rh) = 269; E(o)'(Fc) = 329 mV vs. Fc/Fc(+)), CCl(3), 2, (E(pa) = 256; E(o)' = 312 mV), CH(3), 3, (E(pa) = 177; E(o)' = 232 mV), Ph = C(6)H(5), 4, (E(pa) = 184; E(o)' = 237 mV), and Fc = ferrocenyl = (C(5)H(5))Fe(C(5)H(4)), 5, (E(pa) = 135; E(o)'(Fc1) = 203; E(o)'(Fc2) = 312 mV), have been studied electrochemically in CH(3)CN. Results indicated that the rhodium(I) centre is irreversibly oxidised to Rh(III) in a two-electron transfer process before the ferrocenyl fragment is reversibly oxidized in a one-electron transfer process. The peak anodic (oxidation) potential, E(pa), (in V vs. Fc/Fc(+)) of the rhodium core in 1-5 relates to k(2), the second-order rate constant for the substitution of (FcCOCHCOR)(-) with 1,10-phenanthroline in [Rh(FcCOCHCOR)(cod)] to form [Rh(phen)(cod)](+) in methanol at 25 °C with the equation lnk(2) = 39.5 E(pa)(Rh) - 3.69, while the formal oxidation potential of the ferrocenyl groups in 1-5 relates to k(2) by lnk(2) = 40.8 E(o)'(Fc)-6.34. Complex 4 (IC(50) = 28.2 μmol dm(-3)) was twice as cytotoxic as the free FcCOCH(2)COPh ligand having IC(50) = 54.2 μmol dm(-3), but approximately one order of magnitude less toxic to human HeLa neoplastic cells than cisplatin (IC(50) = 2.3 μmol dm(-3)).