Recent studies have implicated the hormone leptin in synaptic plasticity associated with neuronal development and learning and memory. Indeed, leptin facilitates hippocampal long-term potentiation and leptin-insensitive rodents display impaired hippocampal synaptic plasticity suggesting a role for endogenous leptin. Structural changes are also thought to underlie activity-dependent synaptic pla...

Tissue cryo-sectioning combined with atomic force microscopy imaging reveals that the nanoscale morphology of dermal collagen fibrils, quantified using the metric of D-periodic spacing, changes under the condition of estrogen depletion. Specifically, a new subpopulation of fibrils with D-spacings in the region between 56 and 59 nm is present 2 years following ovariectomy in ovine dermal samples...

Malfunction of NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase or complex I (CI), the first and largest complex of the mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation system, has been implicated in a wide variety of human disorders. To demonstrate a quantitative relationship between CI amount and activity and mitochondrial shape and cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, we recently combined native electrophore...

BACKGROUND Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a common disease that leads to daytime sleepiness and cognitive impairment. Attempts to investigate changes in brain morphology that may underlie these impairments have led to conflicting conclusions. This study was undertaken to aim to resolve this confusion, and determine whether OSA is associated with changes in brain morphology in a large group o...

Natural materials have shown their ability to adapt their geometry in response to mechanical stress. In examining their shape and structure, it becomes apparent that the major strategic function of structural materials and systems involves mechanical support under changing load. This comparison study examines how the morphology of four biological materials (bone, wood, plant stems, and blood ve...

The aim of the current work is to create tools' for the automatic recognition of the Estonian stem changing rules'. The main problem consists in bringing together the ,fi)rmal classification,features available to the computer and classification based on human knowledge. This paper introduces two algorithms. First, in STLearn the supervised inductive learning technique is used to find out the su...

The fossil ATD6-69 from Atapuerca, Spain, dated to ca. 900 ka (thousands of years ago) has been suggested to mark the earliest appearance of modern human facial features. However, this specimen is a subadult and the interpretation of its morphology remains controversial, because it is unclear how developmental shape changes would affect the features that link ATD6-69 to modern humans. Here we a...

OBJECTIVE To verify changes in placental morphology of small for gestational age newborns, considering that the occurrence of placental alterations is more frequent in small for gestational age (SGA) infants than in appropriate for gestational age (AGA) infants. METHODS Fifty SGA newborns were included in a cross-sectional study, which involved gross anatomy and light microscopy of placenta, ...

BACKGROUND We have previously documented significant differences in orthogonal P wave morphology between patients with and without paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). However, there exists little data concerning normal P wave morphology. This study was aimed at exploring orthogonal P wave morphology and its variations in healthy subjects. METHODS 120 healthy volunteers were included, evenly...

Pleasant cool and unpleasant cold sensations are thought to be mediated by distinct groups of peripheral thermoreceptor neurons that start spiking at different temperatures. The cold-sensitive transient receptor potential channel TRPM8 is present in these neurons, but if and how this channel alone can produce disparate thermal thresholds is not clear. This week, Madrid et al. suggest that slowl...