How the Visual Cortex Handles Stimulus Noise: Insights from Amblyopia

Adding noise to a visual image makes object recognition more effortful and has a widespread effect on human electrophysiological responses. However, visual cortical processes directly involved in handling the stimulus noise have yet to be identified and dissociated from the modulation of the neural responses due to the deteriorated structural information and increased stimulus uncertainty in the case of noisy images. Here we show that the impairment of face gender categorization performance in the case of noisy images in amblyopic patients correlates with amblyopic deficits measured in the noise-induced modulation of the P1/P2 components of single-trial event-related potentials (ERP). On the other hand, the N170 ERP component is similarly affected by the presence of noise in the two eyes and its modulation does not predict the behavioral deficit. These results have revealed that the efficient processing of noisy images depends on the engagement of additional processing resources both at the early, feature-specific as well as later, object-level stages of visual cortical processing reflected in the P1 and P2 ERP components, respectively. Our findings also suggest that noise-induced modulation of the N170 component might reflect diminished face-selective neuronal responses to face images with deteriorated structural information.     

Disturbed lipid metabolism in diabetic coronary vessels

The aim of this study was to clarify whether or not arachidonic acid metabolic disorders are caused by a substrate inavailability and whether such disorders might contribute to circulatory disturbances in the diabetic myocardium. Norepinephrine induced a decrease in the conductivity of both coronary arterial bed and myocardial microcirculation in alloxan-diabetic dogs. It was markedly (p < 0.05) attenuated both by indomethacin and acetylsalicylic acid pretreatments indicating an imbalance among the vasoactive prostanoids in diabetes. TXA₂ release from the diabetic coronary rings was found to be elevated and could be normalized after the blockade of vascular adrenoceptors by phentolamine (p < 0.05). PGIZ synthesis was also enhanced by adrenergic blockade in the diabetic arterial rings. After pretreatment with ^l4C arachidonic acid, in order to measure substrate availability, the arachidonic acid metabolic rate was less in the diabetic coronary arteries than in healthy vessels (p < 0.05). Ten µmol/1 norepinephrine decreased arachidonic acid metabolism in the presence of prelabelled substrate in the diabetic animals, compared to an increase observed in metabolically healthy dogs. Therefore diabetes appears to diminish arachidonic acid metabolism and uptake independent of adrenoceptors and to induce an imbalance between vasoconstrictor and vasodilator cyclooxygenase products, resulting in elevated TXA₂ release controlled by adrenergic mechanisms which may contribute to an impairment in myocardial microcirculation.Abbreviations 6-oxo-PGF₁ 6-oxo prostaglandin F₁ - HPLC High Pressure Liquid Chromatograph - LAD Left Anterior Descending (coronary artery) - PGI₂ Prostacyclin - TXA₂ Thromboxane     

Reversed-phase HPLC enantioseparation of pantoprazole using a teicoplanin aglycone stationary phase—Determination of the enantiomer elution order using HPLC-CD analyses

A direct HPLC method was developed for the enantioseparation of pantoprazole using macrocyclic glycopeptide-based chiral stationary phases, along with various methods to determine the elution order without isolation of the individual enantiomers. In the preliminary screening, four macrocyclic glycopeptide-based chiral stationary phases containing vancomycin (Chirobiotic V), ristocetin A (Chirobiotic R), teicoplanin (Chirobiotic T), and teicoplanin-aglycone (Chirobiotic TAG) were screened in polar organic and reversed-phase mode. Best results were achieved by using Chirobiotic TAG column and a methanol-water mixture as mobile phase. Further method optimization was performed using a face-centered central composite design to achieve the highest chiral resolution. Optimized parameters, offering baseline separation (resolution = 1.91 ± 0.03) were as follows: Chirobiotic TAG stationary phase, thermostated at 10°C, mobile phase consisting of methanol/20mM ammonium acetate 60:40 v/v, and 0.6 mL/min flow rate. Enantiomer elution order was determined using HPLC hyphenated with circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy detection. The online CD signals of the separated pantoprazole enantiomers at selected wavelengths were compared with the structurally analogous esomeprazole enantiomer. For further verification, the inline rapid, multiscan CD signals were compared with the quantum chemically calculated CD spectra. Furthermore, docking calculations were used to investigate the enantiorecognition at molecular level. The molecular docking shows that the R-enantiomer binds stronger to the chiral selector than its antipode, which is in accordance with the determined elution order on the column—S- followed by the R-isomer. Thus, combined methods, HPLC-CD and theoretical calculations, are highly efficient in predicting the elution order of enantiomers.