It is well known that formation of new episodic memories depends on hippocampus, but in real-life settings (e.g., conversation), hippocampal amnesics can utilize information from several minutes earlier. What neural systems outside hippocampus might support this minutes-long retention? In this study, subjects viewed an audiovisual movie continuously for 25 min; another group viewed the movie in 2 parts separated by a 1-day delay. Understanding Part 2 depended on retrieving information from Part 1, and thus hippocampus was required in the day-delay condition. But is hippocampus equally recruited to access the same information from minutes earlier? We show that accessing memories from a few minutes prior elicited less interaction between hippocampus and default mode network (DMN) cortical regions than accessing day-old memories of identical events, suggesting that recent information was available with less reliance on hippocampal retrieval. Moreover, the 2 groups evinced
reliable but distinct DMN activity timecourses, reflecting differences in information carried in these regions when Part 1 was recent versus distant. The timecourses converged after 4 min, suggesting a time frame over which the continuous-viewing group may have relied less on hippocampal retrieval. We propose that cortical default mode regions can intrinsically retain real-life episodic information for several minutes.
Link, A. James; Carson, Drew V.; So, Larry; Cheung-Lee, Wai Ling
Abstract:
This entry encompasses the raw NMR spectra used to determine the structure of the lasso peptide achromonodin-1. Within one file are included the five following spectra: COSY, TOCSY, NOESY (150 ms mixing time), NOESY (700 ms mixing time), and C,H HSQC. The file requires Mestrenova software to read. These spectra were used to develop the 3D structure models of achromonodin-1 that are deposited at the protein data bank (PDB) as entry 8SVB.
China is the world's largest carbon emitter and suffers from severe air pollution. About one million deaths in China were attributable to air pollution in 2017. Alternative energy vehicles (AEVs), e.g. electric, hydrogen fuel cell, and natural gas vehicles, can help achieve both carbon emission mitigation and air quality improvement. However, climate, air quality and health co-benefit of AEVs powered by deeply decarbonized electricity generation remain poorly quantified. Here, we conduct a quantitative integrated assessment of the air quality, health, carbon emission mitigation and economic benefits of AEV deployment as the electricity grid decarbonizes in China. We find population-weighted annual PM2.5 and summer O3 concentration can decrease as large as 5.7μgm−3 and 4.9ppb. Annual avoided premature mortalities and years of life lost resulting from improved ambient air pollution can be as large as ~329,000 persons and ~1,611,000 years. We thus show that maximizing climate, air quality and health benefits of AEV deployment in China requires rapid decarbonization of the power system.
Small changes in word choice can lead to dramatically different interpretations of narratives. How does the brain accumulate and integrate such local changes to construct unique neural representations for different stories? In this study we created two distinct narratives by changing only a few words in each sentence (e.g. “he” to “she” or “sobbing” to “laughing”) while preserving the grammatical structure across stories. We then measured changes in neural responses between the two stories. We found that the differences in neural responses between the two stories gradually increased along the hierarchy of processing timescales. For areas with short integration windows, such as early auditory cortex, the differences in neural responses between the two stories were relatively small. In contrast, in areas with the longest integration windows at the top of the hierarchy, such as the precuneus, temporal parietal junction, and medial frontal cortices, there were large differences in neural responses between stories. Furthermore, this gradual increase in neural difference between the stories was highly correlated with an area’s ability to integrate information over time. Amplification of neural differences did not occur when changes in words did not alter the interpretation of the story (e.g. “sobbing” to “crying”). Our results demonstrate how subtle differences in words are gradually accumulated and amplified along the cortical hierarchy as the brain constructs a narrative over time.