Emotional speech markers of psychiatric disturbance in Huntington's disease.

Introduction: Psychiatric disorders and difficulties in emotional expression represent a major problem in the management of Huntington's Disease (HD). To improve patient follow-up, we propose to investigate the link between emotional expression and psychiatric symptoms, measured by the Problem Behaviors Assessment (PBA) scale. To this aim we developed the first emotional/psychiatric speech corpus, emoHD.

Curcumin Induces Homologous Recombination Deficiency by BRCA2 Degradation in Breast Cancer and Normal Cells.

: Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women worldwide. Much progress has been made to improve treatment options for patients suffering from the disease, including a novel therapy-Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor (PARPi) that specifically targets tumors with deficiencies in the Homologous Recombination (HR) DNA repair pathway. To benefit better from conventional therapy, many patients seek alternative supplementation, with 20-30% of cancer patients using herbal medication on top of their regular treatment.

MAIT cells exacerbate colonic inflammation in a genetically diverse murine model of spontaneous colitis.

IL-17-producing lymphocytes are involved in both tissue repair and the propagation of inflammation, with their effects highly context-dependent. Mucosal-Associated-Invariant-T-cells (MAIT), a subset of innate-like T cells with features of both Th1 and Th17 lineages, are increasingly recognized for their roles in mucosal immunity. Here, we identified the Collaborative-Cross CC011/Unc strain, which spontaneously develops chronic colitis, as being enriched for MAIT cells.

Learning via mechanosensitivity and activity in cytoskeletal networks.

In this work we show how a network inspired by a coarse-grained description of actomyosin cytoskeleton can learn - in a contrastive learning framework - from environmental perturbations if it is endowed with mechanosensitive proteins and motors. Our work is a proof of principle for how force-sensitive proteins and molecular motors can form the basis of a general strategy to learn in biological systems. Our work identifies a minimal biologically plausible learning mechanism and also explores its implications for commonly occuring phenomenolgy such as adaptation and homeostatis.

Sparse high-dimensional decomposition of non-primary auditory cortical receptive fields.

Characterizing neuronal responses to natural stimuli remains a central goal in sensory neuroscience. In auditory cortical neurons, the stimulus selectivity of elicited spiking activity is summarized by a spectrotemporal receptive field (STRF) that relates neuronal responses to the stimulus spectrogram. Though effective in characterizing primary auditory cortical responses, STRFs of non-primary auditory neurons can be quite intricate, reflecting their mixed selectivity.

Acoustic-pressure-driven ultrasonic activation of the mechanosensitive receptor RET and of cell proliferation in colonic tissue.

Ultrasound generates both compressive and shear mechanical forces in soft tissues. However, the specific mechanisms by which these forces activate cellular processes remain unclear. Here we show that low-intensity focused ultrasound can activate the mechanosensitive RET signalling pathway.

Automatic detection and classification of beluga whale calls in the St. Lawrence estuary.

The endangered beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) of the St. Lawrence Estuary (SLEB) faces threats from a variety of anthropogenic factors. Since belugas are a highly social and vocal species, passive acoustic monitoring has the potential to deliver, in a non-invasive and continuous way, real-time information on SLEB spatiotemporal habitat use, which is crucial for their monitoring and conservation.

ERBB2 Comprehensive Profiling and Prognostication in Stage III Colon Cancer: Findings From PETACC8 and IDEA-France Cohorts.

Background & Aims: ERBB2 pathway activation, through amplification or activating mutations, represents a new target for colon cancer (CC) treatment. Molecular methods were compared with the gold standard for assessing ERBB2 status, and the prognostic value of ERBB2 amplification, mutations, and expression was determined using data from 2 phase 3 trials involving nearly 3000 patients with stage III CC.

Methods: In the PETACC8 trial, immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridization, DNA, and RNA analysis were performed on 1813, 1719, and 1733 samples, respectively.

Melodic contour supersedes short-term statistical learning in expressive accentuation.

Sensory systems are permanently bombarded with complex stimuli. Cognitive processing of such complex stimuli may be facilitated by accentuation of important elements. In the case of music listening, alteration of some surface features -such as volume and duration- may facilitate the cognitive processing of otherwise high-level information, such as melody and harmony.

A longitudinal investigation of the acoustic properties of infant-directed speech from 6 to 18 months.

Caregivers often modulate their speech when interacting with infants, adapting a register that has been suggested to have attentional, affective and didactic purposes. The present preregistered study examined the longitudinal trajectories of a diverse range of acoustic features of infant-directed speech (IDS) and compared these with adult-directed speech (ADS), in Norwegian parents of 6- to 18-month-old infants. Sixty-nine families participated.

Computational detection of antigen-specific B cell receptors following immunization.

B cell receptors (BCRs) play a crucial role in recognizing and fighting foreign antigens. High-throughput sequencing enables in-depth sampling of the BCRs repertoire after immunization. However, only a minor fraction of BCRs actively participate in any given infection.

The RNA Helicase Ded1 from Yeast Is Associated with the Signal Recognition Particle and Is Regulated by SRP21.

The DEAD-box RNA helicase Ded1 is an essential yeast protein involved in translation initiation that belongs to the DDX3 subfamily. The purified Ded1 protein is an ATP-dependent RNA-binding protein and an RNA-dependent ATPase, but it was previously found to lack substrate specificity and enzymatic regulation. Here we demonstrate through yeast genetics, yeast extract pull-down experiments, in situ localization, and in vitro biochemical approaches that Ded1 is associated with, and regulated by, the signal recognition particle (SRP), which is a universally conserved ribonucleoprotein complex required for the co-translational translocation of polypeptides into the endoplasmic reticulum lumen and membrane.

Prebiotic chemical reactivity in solution with quantum accuracy and microsecond sampling using neural network potentials.

While RNA appears as a good candidate for the first autocatalytic systems preceding the emergence of modern life, the synthesis of RNA oligonucleotides without enzymes remains challenging. Because the uncatalyzed reaction is extremely slow, experimental studies bring limited and indirect information on the reaction mechanism, the nature of which remains debated. Here, we develop neural network potentials (NNPs) to study the phosphoester bond formation in water.

Single neurons in the thalamus and subthalamic nucleus process cardiac and respiratory signals in humans.

Visceral signals are constantly processed by our central nervous system, enable homeostatic regulation, and influence perception, emotion, and cognition. While visceral processes at the cortical level have been extensively studied using non-invasive imaging techniques, very few studies have investigated how this information is processed at the single neuron level, both in humans and animals. Subcortical regions, relaying signals from peripheral interoceptors to cortical structures, are particularly understudied and how visceral information is processed in thalamic and subthalamic structures remains largely unknown.

Reappraisal of prognostic factors used in the European Pediatric Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group RMS 2005 study for localized rhabdomyosarcoma to optimize risk stratification and generate a prognostic nomogram.

Background: The objective of this study was to investigate the role of clinical factors together with FOXO1 fusion status in patients with nonmetastatic rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) to develop a predictive model for event-free survival and provide a rationale for risk stratification in future trials.

Methods: The authors used data from patients enrolled in the European Pediatric Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group (EpSSG) RMS 2005 study (EpSSG RMS 2005; EudraCT number 2005-000217-35). The following baseline variables were considered for the multivariable model: age at diagnosis, sex, histology, primary tumor site, Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Studies group, tumor size, nodal status, and FOXO1 fusion status.

A reliable benchmark of the last 640,000 years millennial climate variability.

How often have past climates undergone abrupt transitions? While our understanding of millennial variability during the past 130,000 years is well established, with precise dates available, such information on previous climate cycles is limited. To address this question, we identified 196 abrupt transitions in the δO record of the well-dated Chinese composite speleothem for the last 640,000 years. These results correspond to abrupt changes in the strength of the East Asian Monsoon, which align with the Greenland stadials and interstadials observed in the North Atlantic region during the last 130,000 years before present.

A conserved transcriptional program for MAIT cells across mammalian evolution.

Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells harbor evolutionarily conserved TCRs, suggesting important functions. As human and mouse MAIT functional programs appear distinct, the evolutionarily conserved MAIT functional features remain unidentified. Using species-specific tetramers coupled to single-cell RNA sequencing, we characterized MAIT cell development in six species spanning 110 million years of evolution.

Emergence of bedaquiline-resistant tuberculosis and of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains with rpoB Ile491Phe mutation not detected by Xpert MTB/RIF in Mozambique: a retrospective observational study.

Background: In 2021, an estimated 4800 people developed rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis in Mozambique, 75% of which went undiagnosed. Detailed molecular data on rifampicin-resistant and multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis are not available. Here, we aimed at gaining precise data on the determinants of rifampicin-resistant and MDR tuberculosis in Mozambique.

A Somatosensory Computation That Unifies Limbs and Tools.

It is often claimed that tools are embodied by their user, but whether the brain actually repurposes its body-based computations to perform similar tasks with tools is not known. A fundamental computation for localizing touch on the body is trilateration. Here, the location of touch on a limb is computed by integrating estimates of the distance between sensory input and its boundaries (e.

Indeterminate pulmonary nodules in non-rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue sarcoma: A study of the European paediatric Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group.

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the clinical impact of indeterminate pulmonary nodules (no more than four pulmonary nodules of less than 5 mm or one nodule measuring between 5 and less than 10 mm by computed tomography [CT]) in children and adolescents with adult-type non-rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue sarcoma (NRSTS) at diagnosis.

Methods: Patients with NRSTS treated in 11 centers as part of the European paediatric Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group (EpSSG) were retrospectively assessed. Local radiologists, blinded to clinical information except for patients' age and tumor histotype, reviewed the chest CT at diagnosis and filled out a case report form.