This study assessed the effectiveness of cognitive and emotional brain training and transfer effects to wellbeing and depression and anxiety symptoms. 352 healthy adult twins were randomised to a training group where they were asked to play brain training games over a 30-day period, or a waitlist control group. This study focused on the impact of the brain training on explicit and implicit emotional cognition, and analysed effects using both Intention-To-Treat (ITT) and Per-Protocol (PP) approaches. Both analyses revealed significant training effects for improvement in the explicit identification of fear expressions (ITT p less then 0.001, d = 0.33; PP training 3 h+ p less then 0.001, d = 0.55), and a reduction in implicit bias for anger expressions amongst males (ITT p less then 0.001, d = 0.94; PP training 3 h+ p = 0.04, d = 0.90). Female participants also showed improvements in implicit bias for happy expressions (ITT p = 0.003, d = 0.34; PP training 3 h+ p = 0.03, d = 0.47). Improvements resulting from training in emotional cognition did not directly improve wellbeing, depression or anxiety symptoms. Regression modelling also suggested training improvements in emotional cognition yielded no indirect transfer effects for the mental health and wellbeing measures. The results suggest brain training in healthy populations has potential for improving emotional cognition, but the subsequent impact on improving wellbeing and mental health symptoms is still equivocal.
  To examine which characteristics predict the time to a first mood recurrence at three years in Bipolar Disorder type I (BD-I) and type II (BD-II).
 
  Individuals with BD were followed up to 3 years. Turbull's extension of the Kaplan-Meier analysis for interval-censored data was used to estimate the cumulative probability of recurrence over time. Separate models were performed according to BD subtype to determine which baseline factors were predictive of recurrences and were adjusted for age, gender and educational level.
 
  We included 630 individuals with BD-I and 505 with BD-II. The first recurrence of any polarity occurred earlier in BD-II (p = 0.03). The first depressive recurrence occurred earlier in BD-II (p < 0.0001), whereas the first (hypo)manic recurrence occurred earlier in BD-I (p = 0.0003). In BD-I, the clinical variables that were associated to the time to a first mood recurrence were depressive symptoms, lifetime rapid cycling, global activation and the number of psychotropic medications at level of prediction of recurrences in BD.The advent of combined antiretroviral treatment (cART) as a treatment for HIV-1 infection has not only resulted in a dramatic decrease in the peripheral viral load but has also led to increased life expectancy of the infected individuals. Paradoxically, increased lifespan is accompanied with higher prevalence of age-related comorbidities, including HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). Present study was aimed at exploring the role of HIV TAT protein in mediating microglial mitochondrial oxidative stress, ultimately resulting in neuroinflammation and microglial senescence. Our findings demonstrated that exposure of mouse primary microglial cells (mPMs) to HIV TAT protein resulted in a senescence-like phenotype, that was characterized by elevated expression of both p16 and p21 proteins, increased numbers of senescence-associated-β-galactosidase positive cells, augmented cell-cycle arrest, increased release of proinflammatory cytokines and decreased telomerase activity. Additionally, exposure of mPMs to HIV TAT also resulted downregulation of SIRT3 with a concomitant increase in mitochondrial oxidative stress. Dual luciferase reporter assay identified miR-505 as a novel target of SIRT3, which was upregulated in mPMs exposed to HIV TAT. Furthermore, transient transfection of mPMs with either the SIRT3 plasmid or miRNA-505 inhibitor upregulated the expression of SIRT3 and mitochondrial antioxidant enzymes, with a concomitant decrease in microglial senescence. These in vitro findings were also validated in the prefrontal cortices and striatum of HIV transgenic rats as well as cART-treated HIV-infected individuals. In summary, this study underscores a yet undiscovered novel mechanism(s) underlying HIV TAT-mediated induction of senescence phenotype in microglia, involving the miR-505-SIRT3 axis-mediated induction of mitochondrial oxidative stress.The high cost of carbon source limits the heterotrophic culture of Chlorella. In this study, broken rice was hydrolyzed into glucose. Then, the broken rice hydrolysate (BRH) was utilized for heterotrophic cultivation of C. vulgaris instead of glucose. Results showed that algal cells released H+ when they consumed NH4+, leading to a sharp decrease in pH. Growth inhibition by acid could be avoided by using a pH buffer. Adding alkaline reagents intermittently during culture could not only reduce the amount of pH stabilizer but also obtain increased biomass production. When using Tris as pH stabilizer, the biomass productivity of C.  https://www.selleckchem.com/erk.html  vulgaris in BRH was the largest (1.01 g/L/d), followed by NaOH (1.00 g/L/d), and Na2CO3 (0.95 g/L/d). Using BRH instead of glucose for heterotrophic cultivation of C. vulgaris could save 89.58% of the cost of culture medium. This study developed a novel strategy for cultivating C. vulgaris heterotrophically using BRH.The effect of biochar addition on the microbial community and methane (CH4) production during anaerobic digestion was experimentally investigated, focusing on the role of minerals in biochar. The biochar was prepared from pine sawdust by pyrolysis at 650 °C and 900 °C, respectively, and a subsample was leached with citric acid. The cultures with the addition of biochar, leached biochar, Fe, and leached biochar combined with Fe, respectively, were placed in bench-scale bioreactors for anaerobic digestion. Daily biogas production was measured by volume displacement method and analysed for CH4 concentration, which allowed the cumulative CH4 yield (YM) and daily CH4 production rate (RM) to be determined. Culture samples were also taken daily for volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and microbial community analysis. Compared to the control without biochar addition, the addition of raw biochar significantly increased YM by 46.9% and RM by 43.0%, while leached biochar only increased the YM by 33.2% and RM by 18.2%, respectively.