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g., beautiful – ugly and funny – boring) plus indicating their language familiarities, L2 backgrounds, speaker voice liking, demographics, and musicality levels. Findings revealed that all factors in complex interplay explain a certain percentage of variance familiarity and expertise in foreign languages, speaker voice characteristics, phonetic complexity, musical acoustic properties, and finally musical expertise of the listener. The most important discovery was the trade-off between speech tempo and so-called linguistic melody (pitch variance) the faster the language, the flatter/more atonal it is in terms of the pitch (speech melody), making it highly appealing acoustically (sounding beautiful and sexy), but not so melodious in a “musical” sense.

White matter damage (WMD) was defined as the appearance of rough and uneven echo enhancement in the white matter around the ventricle. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a risk prediction model for neonatal WMD.

We collected data for 1,733 infants hospitalized at the Department of Neonatology at The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from 2017 to 2020. Infants were randomly assigned to training (

= 1,216) or validation (

= 517) cohorts at a ratio of 73. Multivariate logistic regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analyses were used to establish a risk prediction model and web-based risk calculator based on the training cohort data. The predictive accuracy of the model was verified in the validation cohort.

We identified four variables as independent risk factors for brain WMD in neonates by multivariate logistic regression and LASSO analysis, including gestational age, fetal distress, prelabor rupture of membranes, and use of cm and web-based calculator to predict the risk of WMD in neonates. The web-based calculator increases the applicability of the predictive model and is a convenient tool for doctors at primary hospitals and outpatient clinics, family doctors, and even parents to identify high-risk births early on and implementing appropriate interventions while avoiding excessive treatment of low-risk patients.Hypothalamic orexin (Orx) projections to the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) have received growing interest because of their role in drug-seeking behavior. Using an established model of cocaine dependence (i.e., long access [LgA] to cocaine), we previously showed that OrxA injections in the posterior PVT (pPVT) reinstated extinguished cocaine-seeking behavior in rats after an intermediate period of abstinence (2-3 weeks). Considering the long-lasting nature of drug-seeking behavior, the present study examined whether the priming effect of intra-pPVT OrxA administration was preserved after a period of protracted abstinence (4-5 weeks) in rats that self-administered cocaine under LgA conditions. Furthermore, to better understand whether a history of cocaine dependence affects the Orx system-particularly the hypothalamic Orx↔pPVT connection-the number of Orx-expressing cells in the lateral hypothalamus (LH), dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH), and perifornical area (PFA) and number of orexin receptor 1 (OrxR1)- and OrxR2-expressing cells in the pPVT were quantified. Orexin A administration in the pPVT induced cocaine-seeking behavior after intermediate abstinence, as reported previously. At protracted abstinence, however, the priming effect of OrxA was absent. A higher number of cells that expressed Orx was observed in the LH/DMH/PFA at both intermediate and protracted abstinence. INCB059872 In the pPVT, the number of OrxR2-expressing cells was significantly higher only at intermediate abstinence, with no changes in the number of OrxR1-expressing cells. These data build on our previous findings that the hypothalamic Orx↔pPVT connection is strongly recruited shortly after cocaine abstinence and demonstrate that the priming effect of OrxA is not long lasting. Furthermore, these findings suggest that throughout abstinence, the Orx↔pPVT connection undergoes neuroadaptive changes, reflected by alterations of the number of OrxR2-expressing cells in the pPVT.To explore brain function using functional connectivity and network topology derived from electroencephalogram (EEG) in patients with pharmacoresistant epileptic encephalopathy with cannabidiol as adjunctive antiepileptic treatment. Sixteen epileptic patients participated in the study, six of whom had epileptic encephalopathy with a stable dose of cannabidiol Epidiolex (CBD) as adjunctive therapy. Functional connectivity derived from EEG was analyzed based on the synchronization likelihood (SL). The analysis also included reconstructing graph-theoretic measures from the synchronization matrix. Comparison of functional connectivity data between each pathological group with the control group was carried out using a nonparametric permutation test applied to SL values between pairs of electrodes for each frequency band. To compare the association patterns between graph-theoretical properties of each pathological group with the control group, Z Crawford was calculated as a measure of distance. There were differenca and beta EEG bands. This exploratory study revealed a tendency to an overconnectivity with a random network topology mainly for fast EEG bands in epileptic encephalopathy patients using CBD adjunctive therapy. It can therefore be assumed that the CBD treatment could be related to inhibition of the transition of the interictal to ictal state and/or to the improvement of EEG organization and brain function.Neuroserpin is a serine protease inhibitor that regulates the activity of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) in the nervous system. Neuroserpin is strongly expressed during nervous system development as well as during adulthood, when it is predominantly found in regions eliciting synaptic plasticity. In the hippocampus, neuroserpin regulates developmental neurogenesis, synaptic maturation and in adult mice it modulates synaptic plasticity and controls cognitive and social behavior. High expression levels of neuroserpin in the neocortex starting from prenatal stage and persisting during adulthood suggest an important role for the serpin in the formation of this brain region and in the maintenance of cortical functions. In order to uncover neuroserpin function in the murine neocortex, in this work we performed a comprehensive investigation of its expression pattern during development and in the adulthood. Moreover, we assessed the role of neuroserpin in cortex formation by comparing cortical lamination and neuronal maturation between neuroserpin-deficient and control mice.