Effortless Attention as a Biomarker for Experienced Mindfulness Practitioners

Objective

The present study aimed at comparing frontal beta power between long-term (LTM) and first-time meditators (FTM), before, during and after a meditation session. We hypothesized that LTM would present lower beta power than FTM due to lower effort of attention and awareness.

Methods

Twenty one participants were recruited, eleven of whom were long-term meditators. The subjects were asked to rest for 4 minutes before and after open monitoring (OM) meditation (40 minutes).

Results

The two-way ANOVA revealed an interaction between the group and moment factors for the Fp1 (p<0.01), F7 (p = 0.01), F3 (p<0.01), Fz (p<0.01), F4 (p<0.01), F8 (p<0.01) electrodes.

Conclusion

We found low power frontal beta activity for LTM during the task and this may be associated with the fact that OM is related to bottom-up pathways that are not present in FTM.

Significance

We hypothesized that the frontal beta power pattern may be a biomarker for LTM. It may also be related to improving an attentive state and to the efficiency of cognitive functions, as well as to the long-term experience with meditation (i.e., life-time experience and frequency of practice).     

Diet of the gracile mouse opossum Gracilinanus agilis (Didelphimorphia: Didelphidae) in a neotropical savanna: intraspecific variation and resource selection

Investigation of the effect of endogenous and exogenous factors on the diet of animals is necessary for a better understanding of their feeding habits. This approach can provide relevant information on the autoecology of a species and its ecological interactions. We investigated the composition and intraspecific variation in the diet of the marsupial Gracilinanus agilis in areas of dry woodland forests (i.e., cerradão) in the Cerrado of Central Brazil, taking into consideration the availability of prey (arthropods) in the environment. We found insects, spiders, birds, and fruits in the scats of G. agilis. Insects (orders Hymenoptera, Isoptera, Hemiptera, and Coleoptera) and fruits were the most frequently consumed resources. Males fed more heavily on insects than females did, whereas during the warm–wet season (October to April), the reproductive females fed on insects more than the nonreproductive females did. On the other hand, the consumption of fruits and vertebrates did not vary between seasons, sexes, or according to female reproductive condition. Moreover, reproductive females fed more frequently on ants and beetles than nonreproductive females did. We also detected both positive (for Isoptera and Hemiptera) and negative (for Hymenoptera) selection of insects during the cool–dry season, whereas in the warm–wet season, these resources were consumed according to their availability in the environment. Our study revealed that G. agilis is an insectivore–omnivore species, but fruits also are a relevant part of its diet. This marsupial seemed to select their prey qualitatively according to its energy demands and nutritional requirements.     

Systematic comparison of bacterial feeding strains for increased yield of Caenorhabditis elegans males by RNA interference-induced non-disjunction

Rare Caenorhabditis elegans males arise when sex chromosome non-disjunction occurs during meiosis in self-fertilizing hermaphrodites. Non-disjunction is a relatively rare event, and males are typically observed at a frequency of less than one in five hundred wild-type animals. Males are required for genetic crosses and phenotypic analysis, yet current methods to generate large numbers of males can be cumbersome. Here, we identify RNAi reagents (dsRNA-expressing bacteria) with improved effectiveness for eliciting males. Specifically, we used RNAi to systematically reduce the expression of over two hundred genes with meiotic chromosome segregation functions, and we identified a set of RNAi reagents that robustly and reproducibly elicited male progeny.     

CD8CD25 T cells reduce atherosclerosis in apoE(−/−) mice

Background

It is increasingly evident that CD8⁺ T cells are involved in atherosclerosis but the specific subtypes have yet to be defined. CD8⁺CD25⁺ T cells exert suppressive effects on immune signaling and modulate experimental autoimmune disorders but their role in atherosclerosis remains to be determined. The phenotype and functional role of CD8⁺CD25⁺ T cells in experimental atherosclerosis were investigated in this study.

Methods and results

CD8⁺CD25⁺ T cells were observed in atherosclerotic plaques of apoE(−/−) mice fed hypercholesterolemic diet. Characterization by flow cytometric analysis and functional evaluation using a CFSE-based proliferation assays revealed a suppressive phenotype and function of splenic CD8⁺CD25⁺ T cells from apoE(−/−) mice. Depletion of CD8⁺CD25⁺ from total CD8⁺ T cells rendered higher cytolytic activity of the remaining CD8⁺CD25⁻ T cells. Adoptive transfer of CD8⁺CD25⁺ T cells into apoE(−/−) mice suppressed the proliferation of splenic CD4⁺ T cells and significantly reduced atherosclerosis in recipient mice.

Conclusions

Our study has identified an athero-protective role for CD8⁺CD25⁺ T cells in experimental atherosclerosis.     

Unusual incidence of chronic pneumonia associated with cholesterol deposits in stranded and bycaught franciscanas Pontoporia blainvillei

Franciscanas Pontoporia blainvillei are small dolphins endemic to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. During routine pathologic examinations, chronic pneumonia associated with cholesterol deposits was found in 16.7% of stranded and incidentally bycaught franciscanas (n = 60), and was more frequent in dolphins from the Brazilian state of S?o Paulo (Franciscana Management Area II) and frequently accompanied by splenic lymphoid hyperplasia. It is unclear why these otherwise uncommon lesions were relatively frequent in the studied dolphins, and further research is advised.     

Establishment and characterization of human bladder cancer cell lines BexBra1, BexBra2, and BexBra4

Bladder cancer (BC) is the fourth most common cancer in the USA. In Brazil, BC represents 3% of the total existing carcinomas in the population and represents the second highest incidence among urological tumors. The majority of bladder cancer cell lines available were derived from Caucasians and established in the seventies or eighties. Thus, neoplasia development in these cells likely occurred in environment conditions vastly different than today. In the present study, we report the establishment and characterization of three Brazilian bladder cancer cell lines (BexBra1, BexBra2, and BexBra4). These cell lines may be helpful for dissecting the genetic and epigenetic aspects that trigger the progression of BC. Moreover, the development of a Brazilian representative of the disease will allow us to investigate the potential inter-racial differences of malignancy-associated phenotypes in bladder cancer.     

Polymorphism of Microsatellite Markers in Papaya (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Carica papaya</Emphasis> L.)

A set of 81 new microsatellite markers for Carica papaya L. previously identified by data mining using freely available sequence information from Genbank were tested for polymorphism using 30 germplasm accessions from the Papaya Germplasm Bank (PGM) at Embrapa Mandioca e Fruticultura Tropical (CNPMF) and 18 landraces. The data were used to estimate pairwise genetic distances between the genotypes. A neighbor-joining based dendrogram was used to define clusters and infer possible genetic structuring of the collection. Most microsatellites were polymorphic (73%), with an observed number of alleles per locus ranging from one to eleven. The levels of observed and expected heterozygosity for 51 polymorphic loci varied from 0.00 to 0.85 and from 0.08 to 0.82, averaging 0.19 and 0.59, respectively. Forty-four percent of microsatellites showed polymorphism information content (PIC) higher than 0.50. The compound microsatellites seem to be more informative than dinucleotide and trinucleotide repeats in average alleles per locus and PIC. Among dinucleotides, AG/TC or GA/CT repeat motifs exhibited more informativeness than TA/AT, GT/CA and TG/AC repeat motifs. The neighbor-joining analysis based on shared allele distance could differentiate all the papaya accessions and landraces as well as differences in their genetic structure. This set of markers will be useful for examining parentage, inbreeding and population structure in papaya.     

Can intensively farmed arable land be favourable for birds during migration? The case of the Eurasian golden plover Pluvialis apricaria

Today's intensive farming practices are known to have affected farmland biodiversity negatively in many different ways. As far as birds are concerned, they are known to have suffered during both summer and winter. Relatively little is known about the effects on birds during migration. We studied the stopover ecology of the Eurasian golden plover Pluvialis apricaria, a species listed in EU Birds Directive, in intensively farmed arable land in southernmost Sweden in the autumns of 2003–2007. We used key ecological variables (length of stay, fat deposition and moult) as fitness proxies to evaluate how the birds manage in this habitat. Eurasian golden plovers were present in large numbers mainly on arable fields from early August to November and radio‐tagged birds were found to stay in the area for up to three months. Adult birds carried out a substantial part of their flight feather moult during their stay. Body mass increased only somewhat during moult, but from the last stages of moult and onwards fuel loads corresponding to 24% above lean body mass (LBM) were accumulated at a rate of 0.5% of LBM per day, before the birds departed. Juveniles arrived later, from mid Sep., and had a similar pattern of fuel deposition. The fact that the birds choose to stay for long periods, moult in the area, and manage to store substantial fuel loads strongly suggests that Eurasian golden plovers do well in this intensively farmed arable land.