Similar effects of substance P on learning and memory function between hippocampus and striatal marginal division

Substance P is an endogenous neurokinin that is present in the central and peripheral nervous systems. The neuropeptide substance P and its high-affinity receptor neurokinin 1 receptor are known to play an important role in the central nervous system in inflammation, blood pressure, motor behavior and anxiety. The effects of substance P in the hippocampus and the marginal di- vision of the striatum on memory remain poorly understood. Compared with the hippocampus as a control, immunofluorescence showed high expression of the substance P receptor, neuro- kinin 1, in the marginal division of the striatum of normal rats. Unilateral or bilateral injection of an antisense oligonucleotide against neurokinin 1 receptor mRNA in the rat hippocampus or marginal division of the striatum effectively reduced neurokinin 1 receptor expression. Indepen- dent of injection site, rats that received this antisense oligonucleotide showed obviously increased footshock times in a Y-maze test. These results indicate that the marginal division of the striatum plays a similar function in learning and memory to the hippocampus, which is a valuable addi- tion to our mechanistic understanding of the learning and memory functions of the marginal division of the striatum.

Ultrasensitive determination of mercury by ICP-OES coupled with a vapor generation approach based on solution cathode glow discharge

We herein proposed a sample introduction technique based on solution cathode glow discharge(SCGD)of a portable design for inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry(ICP-OES)and its ap-plication in sensitive determination of mercury.The products from SCGD containing mercury vapor,were transported by an Ar flow to ICP spectrometer for detection.A gas liquid separator(GLS)and a dryer were used to condense and remove most of the accompanying moisture,which greatly improved both the stability and sensitivity of the signal.The detection limit(DL)acquired by this developed method was 0.22μg/L(194.1 nm),which was nearly 82 times lower than that obtained by pneumatic nebuliza-tion(PN).The relative standard deviation(RSD)was 1.4%(n=14)for a 50μg/L standard.Blank solution(HNO_(3),pH 1)can effectively elute mercury residue.Its accuracy and practicality were also demonstrated by the determination of GBW10029(fish)certified reference material,shrimp,crawfish,soil and human hair samples.The results showed good consistency with the certified values and the values obtained us-ing inductively coupled plasma−mass spectrometry.

Fiber Bragg Grating Sensor Array System Based on Digital Phase Generated Carrier Demodulation and Reference Compensation Method

A novel fiber Bragg grating （FBG） sensor array system based on digital phase generated carrier （PGC） demodulation and reference compensation method is proposed and set up. Experimental results confirm that the digital PGC demodulation can be used for wavelength-division-multiplexed FBG sensor array and the reference compensation method can reduce the environmental interference by approximately 40 dB in the frequency range from 20 Hz to 2 kHz. The minimum detectable wavelength-shift of the sensor system is 1 × 10^-3 pm/Hz^1/2.

Cell search algorithms for the 3G long-term evolution

This article presents downlink initial synchronization and cell identification algorithms for long term evolution （LTE） of third-generation （3G） mobile communication systems, which are based on synchronization channel （SCH） and cell specific pilot symbols, respectively. The key features of the proposed scheme are： it can improve performance of the frequency synchronization through oversampling of the SCH, it can support a large number of target cells by modulating a cell-specific pilot sequence over two symbols within a subframe, and it can guarantee cell identification performance by maximally ratio combining the frequency domain differential cross-correlation. Simulations show that the proposed scheme has a potential use in 3G LTE.