bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in the community by nucleic acid amplification testing of saliva
Authors: Fronza Filippo , Groff Nelli , Martinelli Angela , Passerini Beatrice Zita , Rensi Nicolò , Cortelletti Irene , Vivori Nicolò , Adami Valentina , Helander Anna , Bridi Simone , Pancher Michael , Greco Valentina , Garritano Sonia Iolanda , Piffer Elena , Stefani Lara , De Sanctis Veronica , Bertorelli Roberto , Pancheri Serena , Collini Lucia , Quattrone Alessandro , Capobianchi Maria Rosaria , Icardi Giancarlo , Poli Guido , Caciagli Patrizio , Ferro Antonio , Pizzato Massimo 
Published: September 2021

AbstractEfficient wide-scale testing for SARS-CoV-2 is crucial for monitoring the incidence of the infection in the community. The gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis is the molecular analysis of epithelial secretions from the upper respiratory system captured by nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs, which requires the intervention of trained personnel. Given the ease of collection, saliva has been proposed as a possible substitute to support testing at the population level. Here we describe the set-up of a laboratory, in an academic context, for the high-throughput screening of SARS-CoV-2 in the saliva from the community. A novel saliva collection device was designed to favour the safe and correct acquisition of the sample as well as the processivity of the downstream molecular analysis. To test the performance of the system,1025 paired saliva and nasopharyngeal samples were collected from individuals recruited at a public drive through testing facility and analysed in parallel. An overall moderate concordance (68%) between the two tests was found, with evidence that neither test can diagnose the infection in 100% of the cases. While the two tests performed equally well in symptomatic individuals, their discordance was mainly restricted to samples from convalescent individuals. The saliva test was at least as effective as NP swabs in asymptomatic individuals recruited for contact tracing. Our study, therefore, indicates that saliva testing can be a reliable tool for wide-scale COVID-19 screening in the community.
Correlates of COVID-19 vaccination status among college students
Authors: Nicolo Michele , Kawaguchi Eric , Ghanem-Uzqueda Angie , Kim Andre E. , Soto Daniel , Deva Sohini , Shanker Kush , Rogers Christopher , Lee Ryan , Gilliland Frank , Klausner Jeffery , Kovacs Andrea , Conti David , Hu Howard , Unger Jennifer B. 
Published: September 2021

AbstractObjectivesDespite the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, vaccine hesitancy remains high among certain groups. This study examined the correlates of being unvaccinated among a sample of university students (N=2900) during the spring and summer of 2021, when the campus had been closed for over a year and students were preparing to return to in-person learning.MethodsStudents responded to an email invitation and completed electronic surveys. Results. In multivariable logistic regression analyses, students were more likely to be unvaccinated if they were African American, identified with any political affiliation other than Democrat, were undergraduates or international students, had not traveled outside the Los Angeles during the pandemic, and/or had previously been ill with COVID-19.ConclusionFindings indicate that culturally resonant educational interventions, and possibly vaccine requirements, are needed to promote vaccination among university students.
Lifelong musical activity is associated with multi-domain cognitive and brain benefits in older adults
Authors: Böttcher Adriana , Zarucha Alexis , Köbe Theresa , Gaubert Malo , Höppner Angela , Fabel Klaus , Altenstein Slawek , Bartels Claudia , Buerger Katharina , Dechent Peter , Dobisch Laura , Ewers Michael , Fliessbach Klaus , Freiesleben Silka Dawn , Frommann Ingo , Haynes John Dylan , Janowitz Daniel , Kilimann Ingo , Kleineidam Luca , Laske Christoph , Maier Franziska , Metzger Coraline , Munk Matthias , Perneczky Robert , Peters Oliver , Priller Josef , Rauchmann Boris-Stephan , Roy Nina , Scheffler Klaus , Schneider Anja , Spottke Annika , Teipel Stefan J. , Wiltfang Jens , Wolfsgruber Steffen , Yakupov Renat , Duzel Emrah , Jessen Frank , Röske Sandra , Wagner Michael , Kempermann Gerd , Wirth Miranka ,   for the DELCODE study group
Published: September 2021

1AbstractRegular musical activity as a highly-stimulating lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This study investigated associations between lifelong regular musical instrument playing, late-life cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults. We show that musical activity over the life course is associated with better global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities accounting for reserve proxies. Playing music is not significantly associated with gray matter volume in regions most affected by aging and AD. Selectively in the musically active participants, multi-domain cognitive abilities were enhanced with preserved gray matter volume in frontal and temporal regions. Our correlational findings suggest that playing a musical instrument may improve the recruitment of existing brain resources to facilitate late-life cognitive capacities. We propose that engaging in regular musical activity could serve as a low-threshold multimodal enrichment strategy that may promote cognitive resilience in advanced age.
Pre-copulatory reproductive behaviours are preserved in Drosophila melanogaster infected with bacteria
Authors: Rose Saloni , Beckwith Esteban J. , Burmester Charlotte , May Robin C. , Dionne Marc S. , Rezaval Carolina 
Published: September 2021

AbstractReproduction and immunity are crucial traits that determine an animal’s fitness. Terminal investment hypothesis predicts that reproductive investment should increase in the face of a mortality risk caused by infection. However, due to competitive allocation of energetic resources, individuals fighting infections are expected to decrease reproductive efforts. While there is evidence for both hypotheses, the factors that determine the choice between these strategies are poorly understood. Here, we assess the impact of bacterial infection on pre-copulatory behaviours in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. We found that male flies infected with six different bacteria, including pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains, show no significant differences in courtship intensity and mating success. Similarly, bacterial infections did not affect sexual receptivity in female flies. Our data suggest that pre-copulatory reproductive behaviours remain preserved in infected animals, despite the huge metabolic cost of infection.
Origin, specification and differentiation of a rare supporting-like lineage in the developing mouse gonad
Authors: Mayère Chloé , Regard Violaine , Perea-Gomez Aitana , Bunce Corey , Neirijnck Yasmine , Djari Cyril , Sararols Pauline , Reeves Richard , Greenaway Simon , Simon Michelle , Siggers Pam , Condrea Diana , Kühne Françoise , Gantar Ivana , Tang Furong , Stévant Isabelle , Batti Laura , Ghyselinck Norbert B. , Wilhelm Dagmar , Greenfield Andy , Capel Blanche , Chaboissier Marie-Christine , Nef Serge 
Published: September 2021

AbstractGonadal sex determination represents a unique model for studying cell fate decisions. However, a complete understanding of the different cell lineages forming the developing testis and ovary remains elusive. Here, we investigated the origin, specification and subsequent sex-specific differentiation of a previously uncharacterized population of supporting-like cells (SLC) in the developing mouse gonads. The SLC lineage is closely related to the coelomic epithelium and specified as early as E10.5, making it the first somatic lineage to be specified in the bipotential gonad. SLC progenitors are localized within the genital ridge at the interface with the mesonephros and initially co-expressWnt4andSox9. SLCs become sexually dimorphic around E12.5, progressively acquire a Sertoli- or granulosa-like identity and contribute to the formation of the rete testis and rete ovarii. Finally, we found that WNT4 is a crucial regulator of the SLC lineage and is required for the formation of the rete testis.TeaserDescription of an uncharacterized multipotent gonadal cell lineage involved in testis and ovary development
High-order functional interactions in ageing explained via alterations in the connectome in a whole-brain model
Authors: Gatica Marilyn , Rosas Fernando E. , Mediano Pedro A.M. , Diez Ibai , Swinnen Stephan P. , Orio Patricio , Cofré Rodrigo , Cortes Jesus M. 
Published: September 2021

AbstractThe human brain generates a rich repertoire of spatio-temporal activity patterns, which support a wide variety of motor and cognitive functions. These patterns of activity change with age in a multi-factorial manner. One of these factors is the variations in the brain’s connectomics that occurs along the lifespan. However, the precise relationship between high-order functional interactions and connnectomics, as well as their variations with age are largely unknown, in part due to the absence of mechanistic models that can efficiently map brain connnectomics to functional connectivity in aging. To investigate this issue, we have built a neurobiologically-realistic whole-brain computational model using both anatomical and functional MRI data from 161 participants ranging from 10 to 80 years old. We show that the age differences in high-order functional interactions can be largely explained by variations in the connectome. Based on this finding, we propose a simple neurodegeneration model that is representative of normal physiological aging. As such, when applied to connectomes of young participant it reproduces the age-variations that occur in the high-order structure of the functional data. Overall, these results begin to disentangle the mechanisms by which structural changes in the connectome lead to functional differences in the ageing brain. Our model can also serve as a starting point for modelling more complex forms of pathological ageing or cognitive deficits.Author summaryModern neuroimaging techniques allow us to study how the human brain’s anatomical architecture (a.k.a. structural connectome) changes under different conditions or interventions. Recently, using functional neuroimaging data, we have shown that complex patterns of interactions between brain areas change along the lifespan, exhibiting increased redundant interactions in the older population. However, the mechanisms that underlie these functional differences are still unclear. Here, we extended this work and hypothesized that the variations of functional patterns can be explained by the dynamics of the brain’s anatomical networks, which are known to degenerate as we age. To test this hypothesis, we implemented a whole-brain model of neuronal activity, where different brain regions are anatomically wired using real connectomes from 161 participants with ages ranging from 10 to 80 years old. Analyzing different functional aspects of brain activity when varying the empirical connectomes, we show that the increased redundancy found in the older group can indeed be explained by precise rules affecting anatomical connectivity, thus emphasizing the critical role that the brain connectome plays for shaping complex functional interactions and the efficiency in the global communication of the human brain.
Modelling potential range expansion of an underutilised food security crop in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Koch O. , Mengesha W.A. , Pironon S. , Pagella T. , Ondo I. , Rosa I. , Wilkin P. , Borrell J.S. 
Published: September 2021

AbstractDespite substantial growth in global agricultural production, food and nutritional insecurity is rising in Sub-Saharan Africa. Identification of underutilised indigenous crops with useful food security traits may provide part of the solution. Enset (Ensete ventricosum) is a perennial banana relative with cultivation restricted to southwestern Ethiopia, where high productivity and harvest flexibility enables it to provide a starch staple for ~20 million people. An extensive wild distribution suggests that a much larger region may be climatically suitable for cultivation. Here we use ensemble ecological niche modelling to predict the potential range for enset cultivation within southern and eastern Africa. We find contemporary bioclimatic suitability for a 12-fold range expansion, equating to 21.9% of crop land and 28.4% of the population in the region. Integration of crop wild relative diversity, which has broader climate tolerance, could enable a 19-fold expansion, particularly to dryer and warmer regions. Whilst climate change may cause a 37% – 52% reduction in potential range by 2070, large centres of suitability remain in the Ethiopian Highlands, Lake Victoria region and the Drakensberg Range. We combine our bioclimatic assessment with socioeconomic data to identify priority areas with high population density, seasonal food deficits and predominantly small-scale subsistence agriculture, where integrating enset may be particularly feasible and deliver climate resilience. When incorporating the genetic potential of wild populations, enset cultivation might prove feasible for an additional 87.2 - 111.5 million people, 27.7 – 33 million of which are in Ethiopia outside of enset’s current cultivation range. Finally, we consider explanations why enset cultivation has not expanded historically, and ethical implications of expanding previously underutilised species.
Hippocampus maintains a flexible and coherent map under reward flavor-landmark cue conflict
Authors: Nair Indrajith R. , Roy Dipanjan 
Published: September 2021

AbstractAnimals predominantly use salient visual cues (landmarks) for efficient navigation over other sensory modalities. When the relative position of the visual cues is altered, the hippocampal population exhibits heterogeneous responses and constructs context-specific spatial maps. Another critical factor that can strongly modulate spatial representation is the presence of reward. Reward features can drive behavior and are known to bias spatial attention. However, it is unclear whether reward flavors are used for spatial reference in the presence of distal cues and how the hippocampus population dynamics changes when the association between reward flavors and distal cues is altered. We investigated these questions by recording place cells from the CA1 while the rats ran in an environment with the conflicting association between reward flavors and distal cues. We report that the hippocampal place cells coherently and dynamically bind to reward flavors or distal cues across sessions, but not simultaneously suggesting the use of a single spatial map. We found that place cells maintained their spatial offset in the cue conflict conditions, thus showing a robust spatial coupling featuring an attractor-like property in the CA1. When the textures were added on the track, the coherency of the CA1 is degraded, as the hippocampus showed a heterogeneous response and weak spatial coupling of co-recorded cells suggesting a break away from the attractor network. These results indicate that reward flavors alone may be used for spatial reference but may not cause sufficient input difference to create context-specific spatial maps in the CA1.
Adipocyte-specific modulation of KLF14 expression in mice leads to sex-dependent impacts in adiposity and lipid metabolism
Authors: Yang Qianyi , Hinkle Jameson , Reed Jordan N. , Aherrahrou Redouane , Xu Zhiwen , Harris Thurl E. , Stephenson Erin J. , Musunuru Kiran , Keller Susanna R. , Civelek Mete 
Published: September 2021

ABSTRACTGenome-wide association studies identified single nucleotide polymorphisms on chromosome 7 upstream of KLF14 to be associated with metabolic syndrome traits and increased risk for Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). The associations were more significant in women than in men. The risk allele carriers expressed lower levels of the transcription factor KLF14 in adipose tissues than non-risk allele carriers. To investigate how adipocyte KLF14 regulates metabolic traits in a sex-dependent manner, we characterized high-fat diet fed male and female mice with adipocyte-specific Klf14 deletion or overexpression. Klf14 deletion resulted in increased fat mass in female mice and decreased fat mass in male mice. Female Klf14-deficient mice had overall smaller adipocytes in subcutaneous fat depots but larger adipocytes in parametrial depots, indicating a shift in lipid storage from subcutaneous to visceral fat depots. They had reduced metabolic rates and increased respiratory exchange ratios consistent with increased utilization of carbohydrates as an energy source. Fasting and isoproterenol-induced adipocyte lipolysis was defective in female Klf14-deficient mice and concomitantly adipocyte triglycerides lipase mRNA levels were downregulated. Female Klf14-deficient mice cleared blood triglyceride and NEFA less efficiently than wild type. Finally, adipocyte-specific overexpression of Klf14 resulted in lower total body fat in female but not male mice. Taken together, consistent with human studies, adipocyte KLF14 deficiency in female but not in male mice causes increased adiposity and redistribution of lipid storage from subcutaneous to visceral adipose tissues. Increasing KLF14 abundance in adipocytes of females with obesity and T2D may provide a novel treatment option to alleviate metabolic abnormalities.
Long-term Motor Learning in the Wild with High Volume Video Game Data
Authors: Listman Jennifer B. , Tsay Jonathan S. , Kim Hyosub E. , Mackey Wayne E. , Heeger David J. 
Published: September 2021

AbstractMotor learning occurs over long periods of practice during which motor acuity – the ability to execute actions more accurately, precisely, and within a shorter amount of time – improves. Laboratory-based motor learning studies are typically limited to a small number of participants and a time frame of minutes to several hours per participant. Thus, there is a need to assess the generalizability of theories and findings from lab-based motor learning studies on much larger samples across longer time scales. In addition, laboratory-based studies of motor learning use relatively simple motor tasks which participants are unlikely to be intrinsically motivated to learn, limiting the interpretation of their findings in more ecologically valid settings. We studied the acquisition and longitudinal refinement of a complex sensorimotor skill embodied in a first-person shooter video game scenario, with a large sample size (N = 7174 participants, 682,564 repeats of the 60 sec game) over a period of months. Participants voluntarily practiced the gaming scenario for as much as several hours per day up to 100 days. We found improvement in performance accuracy (quantified as hit rate) was modest over time but motor acuity (quantified as hits per second) improved considerably, with 40-60% retention from one day to the next. We observed steady improvements in motor acuity across multiple days of video game practice, unlike most motor learning tasks studied in the lab that hit a performance ceiling rather quickly. Learning rate was a nonlinear function of baseline performance level, amount of daily practice, and to a lesser extent, number of days between practice sessions. In addition, we found that the benefit of additional practice on any given day was non-monotonic; the greatest improvements in motor acuity were evident with about an hour of practice and 90% of the learning benefit was achieved by practicing 30 minutes per day. Taken together, these results provide a proof-of-concept in studying motor skill acquisition outside the confines of the traditional laboratory and provide new insights into how a complex motor skill is acquired in an ecologically valid setting and refined across much longer time scales than typically explored.
Particle foraging strategies promote microbial diversity in marine environments
Authors: Ebrahimi Ali , Goyal Akshit , Cordero Otto X. 
Published: September 2021

AbstractMicrobial foraging in patchy environments, where resources are fragmented into particles or pockets embedded in a large matrix, plays a key role in natural environments. In the oceans and freshwater systems, particle-associated bacteria can interact with particle surfaces in different ways: some colonize only during short transients, while others form long-lived, stable colonies. We do not yet understand the ecological mechanisms by which both short-term and long-term colonizers can coexist. Here, we address this problem with a mathematical model that explains how marine populations with different detachment rates from particles can stably coexist. In our model, populations grow only while on particles, but also face the increased risk of mortality by predation and sinking. Key to coexistence is the idea that detachment from particles modulates both net growth and mortality, but in opposite directions, creating a trade-off between them. While slow-detaching populations show the highest growth return (i.e., produce more net offspring), they are more susceptible to suffer higher rates of mortality than fast-detaching populations. Surprisingly, fluctuating environments, manifesting as blooms of particles (favoring growth) and predators (favoring mortality) significantly expand the likelihood that populations with different detachment rates can coexist. Our study shows how the spatial ecology of microbes in the ocean can lead to a predictable diversification of foraging strategies and the coexistence of multiple taxa on a single growth-limiting resource.
Spatiotemporal components of sustained functional hyperemia are differentially modulated by locomotion and silenced with vascular chemogenetics
Authors: Peringod Govind , Yu Linhui , Murari Kartikeya , Gordon Grant R 
Published: September 2021

ABSTRACTNeural activity underlying sensation, movement or cognition drives regional blood flow enhancement – termed functional hyperemia – to increase the oxygen supply to respiring cells for as long as needed to meet energy demands. However, functional hyperemia is often studied under anesthesia which typically yields response profiles that appear temporally and spatially homogenous. We have insufficient understanding of the underlying kinetics of oxygen delivery in awake animals, especially during specific behaviours that may influence neurally-driven enhancements in cerebral blood flow. Using widefield intrinsic optical signal imaging in awake, head-fixed but active mice, we demonstrated distinct early and late components to changes in intravascular oxygenation in response to sustained (30s) whisker stimulation. We found that the late component (20-30s), but not the early component (1-5s), was strongly influenced by level of whisking/locomotion in the region of highest response and in surrounding regions. Optical flow analyses revealed complex yet stereotyped spatial properties of the early and late components that were related to location within the optical window and the initial state of the cerebral vasculature. In attempt to control these complex response characteristics, we drove a canonical microvasculature constriction pathway using mural cell Gq-chemogenetic mice. A low-dose of systemic C21 strongly limited both the magnitude and spatial extent of the sensory-evoked hemodynamic response, showing that functional hyperemia can be severely limited by direct mural cell activation. These data provide new insights into the cerebral microcirculation in the awake state and may have implications for interpreting functional imaging data.