The brain morphology of Homo Liujiang cranium fossil by three-dimensional computed tomography

The Liujiang cranium is the most complete and well-preserved late Pleistocene human fossils ever unearthed in south China. Because the endocranial cavity is filled with hard stone matrix, earlier studies focused only on the exterior morphology of the specimen using the traditional methods. In order to derive more information for the phyletic evaluation of the Liujiang cranium, high-resolution industrial computed tomography （CT） was used to scan the fossil, and the three-dimensional （3D） brain image was reconstructed. Compared with the endocasts of the hominin fossils （Hexian, Zhoukoudian, KNM-WT 15000, Sm 3, Kabwe, Brunn 3, Predmost） and modern Chinese, most morphological features of the Liujiang brain are in common with modern humans, including a round brain shape, bulged and wide frontal lobes, an enlarged brain height, a full orbital margin and long parietal lobes. A few differences exist between Liujiang and the modern Chinese in our sample, including a strong posterior projection of the occipital lobes, and a reduced cerebellar lobe. The measurement of the virtual endocast shows that the endocranial capacity of Liujiang is 1567 cc, which is in the range of Late Homo sapiens and much beyond the mean of modern humans. The brain morphology of Liujiang is assigned to Late Homo sapiens.     

Resting state brain activity and functional brain mapping

Functional brain imaging studies commonly use either resting or passive task states as their control conditions, and typically identify the activation brain region associated with a specific task by subtracting the resting from the active task conditions. Numerous studies now suggest, however, that the resting state may not reflect true mental “rest” conditions. The mental activity that occurs during “rest” might therefore greatly influence the functional neuroimaging observations that are collected through the usual subtracting analysis strategies. Exploring the ongoing mental processes that occur during resting conditions is thus of particular importance for deciphering functional brain mapping results and obtaining a more comprehensive understanding of human brain functions. In this review article, we will mainly focus on the discussion of the current research background of functional brain mapping at resting state and the physiological significance of the available neuroimaging data.     

Resting state brain activity and functional brain mapping

Functional brain imaging studies commonly use either resting or passive task states as their control conditions, and typically identify the activation brain region associated with a specific task by subtracting the resting from the active task conditions. Numerous studies now suggest, however, that the resting state may not reflect true mental "rest" conditions. The mental activity that occurs during "rest" might therefore greatly influence the functional neuroimaging observations that are collected through the usual subtracting analysis strategies. Exploring the ongoing mental processes that occur during resting conditions is thus of particular importance for deciphering functional brain mapping results and obtaining a more comprehensive understanding of human brain functions. In this review article, we will mainly focus on the discussion of the current research background of functional brain mapping at resting state and the physiological significance of the available neuroimaging data.     

Impaired auditory sensorimotor gating： An animal model of schizophrenia

Establishment of animal models of schizophrenia is critical for both understanding the mechanisms underlying this severe mental disease and developing new antipsychotics. This paper starts from the theoretical root of sensory gating, the 損rotection-of-processing? theory, then thoroughly describes the representative studies over the past decade on the mechanism underlying prepulse inhibition and on those underlying modulation of prepulse inhibition, which is the normal startle suppression caused by the weak stimulus preceding the intense startling stimulus. The main methods for inducing prepulse inhibition deficits in experimental animals include: ⅰ) modulations of neuro- transmission that are closely associated with schizophrenia; ⅱ) focal lesions or pharmacological manipulations of brain structures in the cortico-striato-pallido-pontine circuit; and ⅲ) maternal deprivation or social isolation. Six essential topics for studies in modeling schizophrenia are suggested at the last part of this review.     

High pressure supramolecular chemistry

High pressure supramolecular chemistry is a developing interdisciplinary field. The use of high pressure for the study and fabrication of supramolecular systems has been explored only in the past few years. Such studies would shed light on the nature of the structures and functions of the complex supramolecular architectures. In this review, systematic progress made in this field is introduced based on the recent achievements. Special attention is paid to pressure-driven novel properties and functions of supramolecular assemblies resulting from the changes of molecular conformations, intermolecular interactions and supramolecular arrangements under high pressure.     

Course Intelligent Brain Model Based on Crowd Intelligence

The development of artificial intelligence in education promotes the reform of teaching methods in the direction of intelligence and individuation. In this paper, the programming course is taken as an example to propose a curriculum intelligent brain model for open source swarm intelligence based on knowledge graph, and the bootstrapping framework is introduced to try to make the intelligent brain track the frontier like human beings and study several courses vertically. It studies the knowledge...     

Progress in the studies of electrochemically controllable host-guest interactions

Studies on the electrochemically controllable host-guest interactions have received considerable attention since the middle of the 1980s. In this paper, progress in such studies is reviewed according to the types of the hosts, including cyclodextrin, calixarene, cucurbituril, cyclophane, and so on. In addition, perspectives for the future development and potential applications of the interactions are discussed.     

Thirty million year deep-sea records in the South China Sea

In the spring of 1999 the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 184 Shipboard Party cored 17 holes at 6 deep water sites in the northern and southern parts of the South China Sea (SCS). Chinese scientists actively participated in the entire process of this first deep-sea drilling leg off China, from proposal to post-cruise studies. More than 30 categories of analyses have been conducted post-cruise in various Chinese laboratories on a large number of core samples, and the total number of analyses exceeded 60 thousand.The major scientific achievements of the Leg 184 studies are briefly reported in three successive papers, with the first one presented here dealing with deep-sea stratigraphy and evolution of climate cycles. This ODP leg has established the best deep-sea stratigraphic sequences in the Western Pacific: the 23-Ma isotope sequence from the Dong-Sha area is unique worldwide because of its continuity; the last 5-Ma sequence from the Nansha area represents one of the best 4 ODP sites worldwide with the highest time-resolution for that time interval, and the sequences of physical properties enable a decadal-scale time resolution. All these together have provided for the first time high-quality marine records for paleoenvi-ronmental studies in the Asian-Pacific region. This new set of stratigraphic records has revealed changes in climate cyclicity over the last 20 Ma with the fluctuating power of the 100 ka, 400 ka, 2000 ka eccentricity cycles, indicating the evolving response of the climate system to orbital forcing along with the growth of the Antarctic and Northern Hemisphere ice sheets.     

Endocasts—the direct evidence and recent advances in the study of human brain evolution

Brain evolution is one of the most important aspects of human evolution, usually studied through endocasts. Analysis of fossil hominid endocasts allows inferences on functional anatomy, physiology, and phylogeny. In this paper, we describe the general features of endocast studies and review some of the major topics in paleoneurology. These are: absolute and relative brain size evolution; brain shape variation; brain asymmetry and lateralization; middle meningeal vessels and venous sinuses; application of computed tomography and virtual imaging; the history of Chinese brain endocast studies. In particular, this review emphasizes endocast studies on Chinese hominin fossils.     

Application of computed tomography in paleoanthropological research

Hominin fossils are the most important materials for exploring questions about human origins and evolution. Because human fossils are very rare, it is impossible to use highly destructive techniques in order to study their morphology. Traditional analyses can only rely on the information gained from the study of the external morphology of specimens, and these approaches limited the study of human evolution. The application of computed tomography (CT) has facilitated major developments in paleoanthropology. To date, few studies on Chinese hominin fossils have used CT scanning methodology, but this is rapidly changing. In order to better understand the application of CT methodology in paleoanthropology, we review the applications of CT scanning on hominin fossils throughout the world. Studies examined include virtual fossil reconstruction, the use of endocasts to elucidate brain morphology, biomechanical analyses of bone distribution, imaging of mummies and research on early human health, and skeletal and dental microanatomical research.     

Identification of Zhoukoudian <Emphasis Type="Italic">Homo erectus</Emphasis> brain asymmetry using 3D laser scanning

Endocasts are important materials used for the study of human brain evolution, and allow examination of the external features of brain anatomy from the inside the cranium. Studies examining brain asymmetries in fossil hominids are usually limited to scoring of differences in hemisphere protrusion rostrally and caudally, or to comparing the width of the hemispheres. In the present study, using 3D laser scanning, we examined asymmetries of the hemisphere volumes and surface areas in the Zhoukoudain (ZKD) Homo erectus, dated to 0.4–0.8 Ma. Compared with modern endocasts, we found that the absolute hemisphere volumes and surface areas exhibited no significant asymmetries in the ZKD or in modern specimens. However, the relative hemisphere volumes against surface areas differed between the two groups. When comparing the relative sizes between the left and right hemispheres, the ZKD specimens exhibited a greater variation than in the modern humans; there were no differences in the two hemispheres in the ZKD specimens, while in the modern endocasts the left hemisphere was significantly greater than the right hemisphere. These data suggest that brain asymmetries originated from relative brain sizes rather than absolute brain volumes during human evolution. These anatomical changes are likely related to the origin of human brain lateralization.     

Dynamics of DNA in vitro evolution

In vitro evolution has been becoming a very important research area in recent years. From a practical point of view, it provides a powerful and reliable tool for engineering functional molecules (DNA, RNA or proteins) in reasonably short periods of time. From a theoretical point of view, since in vitro evolution is analogous to natural evolution in many respects, the study of the dynamic details of in vitro evolution may provide some instructive insights into the process of evolution. In this review, we summarize current theoretical and experimental studies, including several efforts made by our group, on the dynamics of DNA in vitro evolution.     

Dynamics of DNA in vitro evolution

In vitro evolution has become a very important research area in recent years. From a practical point of view, it provides a powerful and reliable tool for engineering functional molecules (DNA, RNA or proteins) in reasonably short periods of time. From a theoretical point of view, since in vitro evolution is analogous to natural evolution in many respects, the study of the dynamic details of in vitro evolution may provide some instructive insights into the process of evolution. In this review, we summarize current theoretical and exper-imental studies, including several efforts made by our group, on the dynamics of DNA in vitro evolution.     

河南灵井许昌人遗址古人类化石及相关研究进展

 2007年和2014年，河南灵井遗址出土的距今10万年左右的许昌人头骨化石引起古人类学界的广泛关注，研究显示晚更新世早期中国境内可能并存多种古人类成员，不同群体之间有杂交或者基因交流产生。许昌人为中国古人类演化的地区连续性以及与欧洲古人类之间的交流提供了一定程度的支持。本文回顾了许昌人化石的发现历史、复原和研究过程，介绍了许昌人伴生的哺乳动物化石、石制品、骨质工具的最新研究进展；讨论了灵井遗址未来工作前景。许昌人化石及伴生的文化遗物为探讨当时人类的体质特征、行为方式及中国古人类的演化模式提供了重要的参考资料。     

人力资本投资失衡的进化博弈分析

指出我国目前存在人力资本投资失衡问题,并运用进化博弈的分析方法,构建了对称状态下的模仿者动态方程;认为个体采用高学历和低学历两种策略,得出了复制动态下的3个均衡解.结论表明我国劳动者以较高的概率选择高学历,而高技术岗位的增长无法与高学历的增长相匹配,从而导致了人才浪费.     

酶体外定向进化(Ⅲ)展示技术及其应用

利用展示技术构建的蛋白质／多肽的突变体库，可以通过高通量进行高效地分析和筛选，因此特别适用于改造蛋白质．文中综述噬菌体、细胞表面、核糖体、mRNA等展示技术的原理和方法，以及其在酶定向进化中的应用．