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Hippocampal neurogenesis plays an important role in the onset and treatment of depressive disorders. Previous studies suggest that paeoniflorin could be used as an antidepressant for treating rats subjected to chronic unpredictable stress. In this study, the effects of paeoniflorin on neurogenesis in the hippocampus dentate gyrus and potential mechanism of action are further investigated in chronic unpredictable stress-induced rat. Results suggest that paeoniflorin markedly increased both sucrose consumption and the number of 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine-positive cells in the dentate gyrus of chronic unpredictable stress-induced rats, and the ratio of co-expressed 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine and glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive cells, but exerted no significant effect on the ratio of co-expressed 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine and neuronal nuclei-positive cells. Compared with the vehicle group, a significant increase was detected in the number of brain-derived neurotrophic factor-positive cells and the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor mRNA in the hippocampus of the paeoniflorin-treated group. According to the results, paeoniflorin promoted neural stem cell proliferation, their differentiation into astrocytes, and neurogenesis in the hippocampal dentate gyrus of chronic unpredictable stress-induced rats. Apart from enhancing the protein expression and gene transcription of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, it also activated the expression of tropomyosin receptor kinase B (a high-affinity receptor of brain-derived neurotrophic factor). This suggests that paeoniflorin might promote neurogenesis in the hippocampus dentate gyrus of chronic unpredictable stress-induced rats and act as an antidepressant by regulating the brain-derived neurotrophic factor-tropomyosin receptor kinase B signaling pathway.

Focuses on visible electroluminescence from semitransparent gold film/extra thin silicon-rich silicon oxide (SiO) film/p-Si diodes at room temperature. Use of the magnetron sputtering technique; Types of luminescence centers in the SiO films; Visible light emitted by electron-hole pairs.

Numerosity perception is a process involving several stages of visual processing. This study investigated whether distinct mechanisms exist in numerosity adaptation under different awareness conditions to characterize how numerosity perception occurs at each stage. The status of awareness was controlled by masking conditions, in which monoptic and dichoptic masking were proposed to influence different levels of processing. Numerosity adaptation showed significant aftereffects when the participants were aware (monoptic masking) and unaware (dichoptic masking) of adaptors. The interocular transfer for numerosity adaptation was distinct under the different awareness conditions. Adaptation was primarily binocular when participants were aware of stimuli and was purely monocular when participants were unaware of adaptors. Moreover, numerosity adaptation was significantly reduced when the adaptor dots were clustered into chunks with awareness, whereas clustering had no effect on unaware adaptation. These results show that distinct mechanisms exist in numerosity processing under different awareness conditions. It is suggested that awareness is crucial to numerosity cognition. With awareness, grouping (by clustering) influences numerosity coding through altered object representations, which involves higher-level cognitive processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important imaging method for long-range satellite targets, inverse synthetic aperture ladar (ISAL) has the characteristics of high-resolution imaging and competitive detectability. Since the working wavelength of the ISAL is comparable to the micro-vibrations generated by mechanical moving components of satellites, which will cause image defocusing, motion compensation is of great significance. In this paper, an autofocus algorithm is proposed for estimating and compensating the phase error relating to both translational and rotational micro-vibrations. Comparing with non-parametric algorithms like phase gradient autofocus and parametric algorithms like contrast-based autofocus and entropy-based autofocus, the proposed one, which is based on two prominent points, is especially effective for the rotational phase error oscillating numbers of cycles. Simulations and experiments are conducted to validate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.