The ameliorating effect of oroxylin A on scopolamine-induced memory impairment in mice

Oroxylin A is a flavonoid and was originally isolated from the root of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi., one of the most important medicinal herbs in traditional Chinese medicine. The aim of this study was to investigate the ameliorating effects of oroxylin A on memory impairment using the passive avoidance test, the Y-maze test, and the Morris water maze test in mice. Drug-induced amnesia was induced by administering scopolamine (1 mg/kg, i.p.) or diazepam (1 mg/kg, i.p.). Oroxylin A (5 mg/kg) significantly reversed cognitive impairments in mice by passive avoidance and the Y-maze testing (P<.05). Oroxylin A also improved escape latencies in training trials and increased swimming times and distances within the target zone of the Morris water maze (P<.05). Moreover, the ameliorating effects of oroxylin A were antagonized by both muscimol and diazepam (0.25 mg/kg, i.p., respectively), which are GABA(A) receptor agonists. Furthermore, oroxylin A (100 microM) was found to inhibit GABA-induced inward Cl(-) current in a single cortical neuron. These results suggest that oroxylin A may be useful for the treatment of cognitive impairments induced by cholinergic dysfunction via the GABAergic nervous system.     

攻击性儿童的P300事件相关电位研究

运用听觉P300任务对攻击性儿童(17人,其中16名男孩,1名女孩)与对照组的正常儿童( 人数与性别分布同攻击组)的事件相关电位(ERP)进行比较,发现攻击性儿童P30 0的潜伏期较长,波幅尤其是额部波幅较小,表明攻击性个体存在认知加工缺陷,特别是选择性注意与调控机能缺陷.研究结果同时表明P300可以作为鉴别攻击性个体的一个可靠指标.     

Two-Way Regularized Fuzzy Clustering of Multiple Correspondence Analysis

Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is a useful tool for investigating the interrelationships among dummy-coded categorical variables. MCA has been combined with clustering methods to examine whether there exist heterogeneous subclusters of a population, which exhibit cluster-level heterogeneity. These combined approaches aim to classify either observations only (one-way clustering of MCA) or both observations and variable categories (two-way clustering of MCA). The latter approach is favored because its solutions are easier to interpret by providing explicitly which subgroup of observations is associated with which subset of variable categories. Nonetheless, the two-way approach has been built on hard classification that assumes observations and/or variable categories to belong to only one cluster. To relax this assumption, we propose two-way fuzzy clustering of MCA. Specifically, we combine MCA with fuzzy k-means simultaneously to classify a subgroup of observations and a subset of variable categories into a common cluster, while allowing both observations and variable categories to belong partially to multiple clusters. Importantly, we adopt regularized fuzzy k-means, thereby enabling us to decide the degree of fuzziness in cluster memberships automatically. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach through the analysis of simulated and real data, in comparison with existing two-way clustering approaches.     

Why best cannot last: Cultural differences in predicting regression toward the mean

Four studies were conducted to investigate cultural differences in predicting and understanding regression toward the mean. We demonstrated, with tasks in such domains as athletic competition, health and weather, that Chinese are more likely than Canadians to make predictions that are consistent with regression toward the mean. In addition, Chinese are more likely than Canadians to choose a regression‐consistent explanation to account for regression toward the mean. The findings are consistent with cultural differences in lay theories about how people, objects and events develop over time.     

亲子关系对青少年冒险行为的影响:有调节的中介模型

为探讨亲子关系对青少年冒险行为的影响机制,采用亲子关系问卷、同伴群体特征问卷及冒险行为问卷对山东省日照市三所普通中学的1275名初一到高三学生进行调查。结果发现：（1）父母支持与亲子冲突、不良同伴交往及冒险行为均呈负相关,亲子冲突与不良同伴交往、冒险行为均呈正相关,不良同伴交往与冒险行为呈正相关;（2）父母支持显著负向预测冒险行为,亲子冲突显著正向预测冒险行为,且两者的预测作用都可以通过不良同伴交往的中介作用实现;（3）在亲子冲突影响冒险行为这一模型中,不良同伴交往起中介作用,且中介的后半路径受性别调节,具体表现为：与女生相比,男生结交不良同伴会参与更多冒险行为。结果提示,不良亲子关系和不良同伴交往都是青少年冒险行为的重要预测因素,且不良亲子关系可以通过影响同伴交往影响青少年冒险行为。此外,在这一过程中,存在性别差异,当亲子冲突较多时,尤其应当关注男孩的同伴交往情况。     

Is the Interdependent Self More Sensitive to Question Context Than the Independent Self? Self-Construal and the Observation of Conversational Norms

Question answering requires close attention to the common ground to determine what the questioner wants to know. Because attentiveness to others is more likely to be a self-defining goal when the self is thought of as interdependent with others rather than independent of others, we predicted that self-construal influences attentiveness to the common ground. In Experiment 1, participants' temporary self-construal was manipulated through a priming technique. As predicted, interdependence-primed participants were more likely than independence-primed participants to take the recipient's knowledge into account and avoided providing redundant information in a self-administered questionnaire. Drawing on chronic differences in self-construal, Experiment 2 replicated these findings with participants from independent (Germany) and interdependent (China) cultures. Throughout, participants' differential attentiveness to the common ground resulted in differential question order effects, raising important methodological issues for cross-cultural research.     

Mapping the structure of perceptual and visual–motor abilities in healthy young adults

The ability to quickly detect and respond to visual stimuli in the environment is critical to many human activities. While such perceptual and visual–motor skills are important in a myriad of contexts, considerable variability exists between individuals in these abilities. To better understand the sources of this variability, we assessed perceptual and visual–motor skills in a large sample of 230 healthy individuals via the Nike SPARQ Sensory Station, and compared variability in their behavioral performance to demographic, state, sleep and consumption characteristics. Dimension reduction and regression analyses indicated three underlying factors: Visual–Motor Control, Visual Sensitivity, and Eye Quickness, which accounted for roughly half of the overall population variance in performance on this battery. Inter-individual variability in Visual–Motor Control was correlated with gender and circadian patters such that performance on this factor was better for males and for those who had been awake for a longer period of time before assessment. The current findings indicate that abilities involving coordinated hand movements in response to stimuli are subject to greater individual variability, while visual sensitivity and occulomotor control are largely stable across individuals.     

Functional Parallel Factor Analysis for Functions of One- and Two-dimensional Arguments

Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) is a useful multivariate method for decomposing three-way data that consist of three different types of entities simultaneously. This method estimates trilinear components, each of which is a low-dimensional representation of a set of entities, often called a mode, to explain the maximum variance of the data. Functional PARAFAC permits the entities in different modes to be smooth functions or curves, varying over a continuum, rather than a collection of unconnected responses. The existing functional PARAFAC methods handle functions of a one-dimensional argument (e.g., time) only. In this paper, we propose a new extension of functional PARAFAC for handling three-way data whose responses are sequenced along both a two-dimensional domain (e.g., a plane with x- and y-axis coordinates) and a one-dimensional argument. Technically, the proposed method combines PARAFAC with basis function expansion approximations, using a set of piecewise quadratic finite element basis functions for estimating two-dimensional smooth functions and a set of one-dimensional basis functions for estimating one-dimensional smooth functions. In a simulation study, the proposed method appeared to outperform the conventional PARAFAC. We apply the method to EEG data to demonstrate its empirical usefulness.