We used the combined technique of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to observe changes that occur in adult brains after the practice of stringed musical instruments. We carried out fMRI on eight volunteers (aged 20-22 years): five novices and three individuals who had discontinued practice for more than 5 years. The motor paradigm contained a repetitive lift-abduction/fall-adduction movement of the left/right little finger, carried out with maximum efforts without pacing. The sensory paradigm was to stimulate the same little finger using a string. In parallel to the fMRI acquisition, TMS motor maps for the little finger were obtained using a frameless stereotactic neuronavigation system. After the baseline study, each participant began to learn a stringed instrument. Newly developed fMRI activations for the left little finger were observed 6 months after practice at multiple brain regions including inferior parietal lobule, premotor area (PMA), left precuneus, right anterior superior temporal gyrus, and posterior middle temporal gyrus. In contrast, new activations were rarely observed for the right little finger. The TMS study revealed new motor representation sites for the left little finger in the PMA or supplementary motor area (SMA). Unexpectedly, TMS motor maps for the right little finger were reduced significantly. Among new fMRI activations for sensory stimuli of the left little finger, the cluster of highest activation was located in the SMA. Collectively, these data provide insight into orchestrated reorganization of the sensorimotor and temporal association cortices contributing to the skillful fingering and musical processing after the practice of playing stringed instruments.
IntroductionRecent pronounced global warming has attracted keen interest in solar cells due to their renewable feature exploiting tremendous solar energy (89 PW) during sun's lifetime of ~5 billion years. 1 Of the solar cells invented so far, inorganic solar cells are now in market but they have a demerit such as high fabrication cost and hard characteristics of inorganic materials which restrict the spreading of solar cells. 2 In this regard organic solar cells have been studied as a contingency because of their potential for cheaper manufacturing cost and variety of applications owing to flexible and semitransparent features. 3,4 To date, the most widely used polymer as a light-absorbing material is regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) which does also act as an electron-donating (i.e., holeaccepting) component in a bulk heterojunction layer inside corresponding solar cell geometry. 5-8 Here we note that the bulk heterojunction film is, broadly speaking, a mixture of electron-donating and electron-accepting materials, whilst in more specific terms it has integrated and randomly distributed p-n junctions in the bulk polymeric film. 2 As an electron-accepting material, soluble fullerenes such as 1-(3-methoxycarbonyl)-propyl-1-phenyl-(6,6)C 61 (PCBM) are widely used.Considering the principle of electron flows in the bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells, it is not necessary to insert a low work function metal in between the bulk heterojunction layer and the electron-collecting electrode, which has been proven in our previous report. 5 However, the direct hole collection from the bulk heterojunction layer to transparent conducting oxide, mostly indium tin-oxide (ITO), was not efficient owing to the insufficient interfacial contact between the bulk heterojunction layer and the ITO surface. 2 Hence most of efficient organic solar cells employ a buffer layer, in most cases poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), between the bulk heterojunction layer and the ITO layer. 2,4,9 However, the influence of thickness and thermal annealing conditions of PEDOT:PSS layer was not much studied. In this work, we have briefly investigated the effect of thermal annealing temperature on the performance of polymer solar cells with the PEDOT:PSS nanolayer of which thickness is 20 nm. The result showed that about 40% power conversion efficiency was improved by thermal annealing of the PEDOT:PSS layer at 120 o C. Results and DiscussionThe blend solution of P3HT and PCBM (P3HT:PCBM =1:1 by weight) was prepared using chlorobenzene as a solvent at a solid concentration of 30 mg/mL. This solution was vigorously stirred for more than 2 days to dissolve all of solid particles in the solvent. Prior to making the polymer solar cells, the solution of PEDOT:PSS (Baytron AI 4083) was subjected to sonication for 15 min and then filtered using a Teflon membrane filter (pore size = 0.45 μm). On top of the precleaned ITO-coated glass, the filtered PEDOT: PSS solution was poured and then spin-coated to make 20 nm thi...
In order to extend the scaffold of non-peptidic calpain inhibitor, we have designed and synthesized 14 chalcone derivatives categorized into two groups based on their structures. Compounds 7 (IC50 = 16.67 ± 0.42 µM) and 8 (IC50 = 16.92 ± 0.14 µM) in group A were most selective µ-calpain inhibitor over cathepsins B and L. On the other hand, compound 14 possessing furan ring exhibited inhibitory activities for µ-calpain (IC50 = 15.39 ± 1.34 µM) as well as cathepsin B (IC50 = 20.59 ± 1.35 µM). The results discovered implicated that chalcone analogues possessing proper size and functional groups can be a potential lead core for selective non-peptidic µ-calpain inhibitor. Furthermore, dual inhibitors for µ-calpain and cathepsin B can also be developed from chalcones by elaborate structure manipulation.
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