•We examine how financial development and remittances interact with each other to alleviate poverty.•Financial development and remittances help ameliorate poverty in developing countries, ...respectively.•Remittances substitute for financial development in the poverty-alleviating process.•Developing countries should leverage their domestic or external financial sources for poverty reduction strategies.
We empirically analyze the interaction effects of financial development and remittances on poverty conditions in developing countries. By applying the generalized method of moments to panel data from 120 developing countries during 1980–2013, we find that financial development and remittance inflows help ameliorate poverty conditions in developing countries. In addition, we find that remittances substitute for financial development in the poverty-alleviating process. Therefore, developing countries should leverage either the domestic or external financial sources for their poverty reduction strategies, depending on their respective situations.
Despite being considered primarily a mood disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by cognitive and decision making deficits. Recent research has employed computational models of ...reinforcement learning (RL) to address these deficits. The computational approach has the advantage in making explicit predictions about learning and behavior, specifying the process parameters of RL, differentiating between model-free and model-based RL, and the computational model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography. With these merits there has been an emerging field of computational psychiatry and here we review specific studies that focused on MDD. Considerable evidence suggests that MDD is associated with impaired brain signals of reward prediction error and expected value ('wanting'), decreased reward sensitivity ('liking') and/or learning (be it model-free or model-based), etc., although the causality remains unclear. These parameters may serve as valuable intermediate phenotypes of MDD, linking general clinical symptoms to underlying molecular dysfunctions. We believe future computational research at clinical, systems, and cellular/molecular/genetic levels will propel us toward a better understanding of the disease.
Germinal center (GC) B cells cycle between two states, the light zone (LZ) and the dark zone (DZ), and in the latter they proliferate and hypermutate their immunoglobulin genes. How this functional ...transition takes place is still controversial. In this study, we demonstrate that ablation of Foxo1 after GC development led to the loss of the DZ GC B cells and disruption of the GC architecture, which is consistent with recent studies. Mechanistically, even upon provision of adequate T cell help, Foxo1-deficient GC B cells showed less proliferative expansion than controls. Moreover, we found that the transcription factor BATF was transiently induced in LZ GC B cells in a Foxo1-dependent manner and that deletion of BATF similarly led to GC disruption. Thus, our results are consistent with a model where the switch from the LZ to the DZ is triggered after receipt of T cell help, and suggest that Foxo1-mediated BATF up-regulation is at least partly involved in this switch.
Remote work was widely promoted in 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the effects of remote work on psychological and physical stress responses and presenteeism of workers remain ...unclear. This research aims to provide empirical evidence of the implications for people and organizations of this new scenario of working from home.
A two-wave panel survey of before and after the pandemic was performed to investigate the effects of remote work on these aspects among office workers. A total of 3,123 office workers from 23 tertiary industries responded to a questionnaire. Participants were surveyed about their job stress conditions and sleep practices in both 2019 and 2020, who had not done remote work as of 2019 were included in the study. The effects of remote work on psychological and physical stress responses and presenteeism were analyzed by multivariate analysis, with the adjustment of age, gender, overtime, job stressors, social support, and sleep status.
The multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that remote work was associated with the reduction of psychological and physical stress responses independently of changes of job stressors, social support, sleep disturbance, and total sleep time on workdays. On the other hand, remote work of 5 days a week (full-remote) was associated with the reduction of work productivity.
Promoting remote work can reduce psychological and physical stress responses, however, full-remote work has the risk of worsening presenteeism. From the viewpoint of mental health, the review of working styles is expected to have positive effects, even after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the most common pediatric liver malignancy; however, hereditary predisposition and acquired molecular aberrations related to HB clinicopathological diversity are not well ...understood. Here, we perform an integrative genomic profiling of 163 pediatric liver tumors (154 HBs and nine hepatocellular carcinomas) based on the data acquired from a cohort study (JPLT-2). The total number of somatic mutations is precious low (0.52/Mb on exonic regions) but correlated with age at diagnosis. Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutations are prevalent in the tween HBs, selective in the transitional liver cell tumor (TLCT, > 8 years old). DNA methylation profiling reveals that classical HBs are characterized by the specific hypomethylated enhancers, which are enriched with binding sites for ASCL2, a regulatory transcription factor for definitive endoderm in Wnt-pathway. Prolonged upregulation of ASCL2, as well as fetal-liver-like methylation patterns of IGF2 promoters, suggests their "cell of origin" derived from the premature hepatoblast, similar to intestinal epithelial cells, which are highly proliferative. Systematic molecular profiling of HB is a promising approach for understanding the epigenetic drivers of hepatoblast carcinogenesis and deriving clues for risk stratification.
Protection against pathogen re-infection is mediated, in large part, by two humoral cellular compartments, namely, long-lived plasma cells and memory B cells. Recent data have reinforced the ...importance of memory B cells, particularly in response to re-infection of different viral subtypes or in response with viral escape mutants. In regard to memory B cell generation, considerable advancements have been made in recent years in elucidating its basic mechanism, which seems to well explain why the memory B cells pool can deal with variant viruses. Despite such progress, efforts to develop vaccines that induce broadly protective memory B cells to fight against rapidly mutating pathogens such as influenza virus and HIV have not yet been successful. Here, we discuss recent advances regarding the key signals and factors regulating germinal center-derived memory B cell development and activation and highlight the challenges for successful vaccine development.
For most organisms, sensitive recognition of even slight changes in environmental temperature is essential for adjusting their behavioral strategies to ensure homeostasis and survival. However, much ...remains to be understood about the molecular and cellular processes that regulate thermosensation and the corresponding behavioral responses. Planarians display clear thermotaxis, although they have a relatively simple brain. Here, we devised a quantitative thermotaxis assay and unraveled a neural pathway involved in planarian thermotaxis by combinatory behavioral assays and RNAi analysis. We found that thermosensory neurons that expressed a planarian Dugesia japonica homolog of the Transient Receptor Potential Melastatin family a (DjTRPMa) gene were required for the thermotaxis. Interestingly, although these thermosensory neurons are distributed throughout their body, planarians with a dysfunctional brain due to regeneration-dependent conditional gene knockdown (Readyknock) of the synaptotagmin gene completely lost their thermotactic behavior. These results suggest that brain function is required as a central processor for the thermosensory response. Therefore, we investigated the type(s) of brain neurons involved in processing the thermal signals by gene knockdown of limiting enzymes for neurotransmitter biosynthesis in the brain. We found that serotonergic neurons with dendrites that were elongated toward DjTRPMa-expressing thermosensory neurons might be required for the processing of signals from thermosensory neurons that results in thermotaxis. These results suggest that serotonergic neurons in the brain may interact with thermosensory neurons activated by TRPM ion channels to produce thermotaxis in planarians.
Quantification of planarian behaviors Inoue, Takeshi; Agata, Kiyokazu
Development, growth & differentiation,
January 2022, Letnik:
64, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Research on individual behaviors can help to reveal the processes and mechanisms that mediate an animal's habits and interactions with the environment. Importantly, individual behaviors arise as ...outcomes of genetic programs, morphogenesis, physiological processes, and neural functions; thus, behavioral analyses can be used to detect disorders in these processes. Planarians belong to an early branching bilateral group of organisms that possess a simple central nervous system. Furthermore, planarians display various behavioral responses to the environment via their nervous system. Planarians also have remarkable regenerative abilities, including whole‐brain regeneration. Therefore, the combination of planarians’ phylogenetic position, behavioral properties, regenerative ability, and genetic accessibility provides a unique opportunity to understand the basic mechanisms underlying the anatomical properties of neural morphogenesis and the dynamic physiological processes and neural function. Here, we describe a step‐by‐step protocol for conducting simple behavioral analyses in planarians with the aim of helping to introduce researchers to the utility of performing behavioral analyses in planarians. Since the conditions of planarians impact experimental results and reproducibility, this protocol begins with a method for maintaining planarians. Next, we introduce the behavioral tests as well as the methods for quantifying them using minimal and cost‐effective equipment and materials. Finally, we present a unique RNAi technique that enables conditional silencing of neural activity in the brain of planarians.
Spatiotemporal measurement of individual behaviors offers opportunities to understand complex neural machinery and regeneration of the nervous system in planarians. We describe our step‐by‐step protocol for simple behavioral analyses in planarians, including maintaining animals, setting up the behavioral tests, quantification of test results, and genetic manipulation, with the aim of helping researchers to start to perform behavioral analysis in planarians.
Childhood parental bonding and cognitive complaints (CCs) affect a worker's mental health (MH), and CCs affect presenteeism. However, the impact of childhood parental bonding on presenteeism and the ...mediating effect of CCs with respect to the association among childhood parental bonding and presenteeism remain poorly understood.
We aimed to investigate the mediating role of CCs on the relationship between childhood parental bonding and presenteeism to better understand the influence of childhood parental bonding on adulthood presenteeism.
A total of 440 Japanese adult workers recruited using convenience sampling were evaluated.
The Parental Bonding Instrument, Cognitive Complaints in Bipolar Disorder Rating Assessment and Work Limitations Questionnaire 8 were used to assess childhood parental bonding, CCs, and presenteeism, respectively. We performed Spearman's correlation analysis and path analysis to investigate the relationship among the variables.
Path analysis revealed that childhood parental bonding and CCs significantly affected presenteeism. More specifically, CCs fully and partially mediated the effect of paternal and maternal care on presenteeism, respectively. Moreover, CCs partially mediated the effects of both paternal and maternal overprotection on presenteeism.
The mediating role of CCs on the relationship between childhood parental bonding and presenteeism was shown in this study. In occupational MH, evaluating the mediating effect of CCs may be useful for addressing adulthood presenteeism associated with childhood parental bonding.
Major depression, because of its recurring and life-threatening nature, is one of the top 10 diseases for global disease burden. Major depression is still diagnosed on the basis of clinical symptoms ...in patients. The search for specific biological markers is of great importance to advance the method of diagnosis for depression. We examined the methylation profile of 2 CpG islands (I and IV) at the promoters of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene, which is well known to be involved in the pathophysiology of depression. We analyzed genomic DNA from peripheral blood of 20 Japanese patients with major depression and 18 healthy controls to identify an appropriate epigenetic biomarker to aid in the establishment of an objective system for the diagnosis of depression. Methylation rates at each CpG unit was measured using a MassArray® system (SEQUENOM), and 2-dimensional hierarchical clustering analyses were undertaken to determine the validity of these methylation profiles as a diagnostic biomarker. Analyses of the dendrogram from methylation profiles of CpG I, but not IV, demonstrated that classification of healthy controls and patients at the first branch completely matched the clinical diagnosis. Despite the small number of subjects, our results indicate that classification based on the DNA methylation profiles of CpG I of the BDNF gene may be a valuable diagnostic biomarker for major depression.
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