Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure from rewarding or enjoyable activities and is a core symptom of depression in humans. Here, we describe a protocol for the measurement of anhedonia in mice, in which anhedonia is measured by a sucrose preference test (SPT) based on a two-bottle choice paradigm. A reduction in the sucrose preference ratio in experimental relative to control mice is indicative of anhedonia. To date, inconsistent and variable results have been reported following the use of the SPT by different groups, probably due to the use of different protocols and equipment. In this protocol, we describe how to set up a clearly defined apparatus for SPT and provide a detailed protocol to ensure greater consistency when carrying out SPT. This optimized protocol is highly sensitive, reliable, and adaptable for evaluation of chronic stress-related anhedonia, as well as morphine-induced dependence. The whole SPT, including adaptation, baseline measurement, and testing, takes 8 d.

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The {001} facet of α-Fe2O3 offered excellent activity and stability for the oxidative dehydrogenation of lactic acid to pyruvic acid due to the lower adsorption energy on its surface compared to others.

In this study, a series of Fe3+ modified Amberlyst-15 resins (Fe/AR) were prepared and used as environmentally friendly bifunctional catalysts for the conversion of glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF).

Unreactive C–N bond activation of anilines was achieved by photoinduced aerobic borylation. A diverse range of tertiary and secondary anilines were converted to aryl boronate esters in moderate to good yields with wide functional group tolerance under simple and ambient photochemical conditions. This transformation achieved the direct and facile C–N bond activation of unreactive anilines, providing a convenient and practical route transforming widely available anilines into useful aryl boronate esters.

Propionic acid obtained from fermentation-derived lactic acid has been appreciated since propionic acid is mainly used as a food preservative, satisfying a natural food idea. Vapor-phase deoxygenation of lactic acid to biopropionic acid over dispersant-dispersed molybdenum oxides was investigated in this work. It was found that different dispersants displayed different performances, and the N element in dispersants had a positive effect. MoO3 was soon reduced to MoO2 under the in situ hydrogen atmosphere, and the latter played an important role in catalytic conversion of lactic acid to propionic acid. The discriminating experiments revealed that propionic acid was formed mainly through direct deoxygenation of lactic acid (main path) and not hydrogenation of acrylic acid as an intermediate (minor path). Furthermore, only in situ hydrogen was efficient, and external hydrogen was hardly efficient during catalytic reaction. Under the base-free conditions, catalyst offered excellent activity and durability and efficiently reduced the acid-treatment section in product separation.

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