Distinct Characteristics of Circulating Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-A and C Levels in Human Subjects

The mechanisms that lead from obesity to atherosclerotic disease are not fully understood. Obesity involves angiogenesis in which vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) plays a key role. On the other hand, vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) plays a pivotal role in lymphangiogenesis. Circulating levels of VEGF-A and VEGF-C are elevated in sera from obese subjects. However, relationships of VEGF-C with atherosclerotic risk factors and atherosclerosis are unknown. We determined circulating levels of VEGF-A and VEGF-C in 423 consecutive subjects not receiving any drugs at the Health Evaluation Center. After adjusting for age and gender, VEGF-A levels were significantly and more strongly correlated with the body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference than VEGF-C. Conversely, VEGF-C levels were significantly and more closely correlated with metabolic (e.g., fasting plasma glucose, hemoglobin A1c, immunoreactive insulin, and the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance) and lipid parameters (e.g., triglycerides, total cholesterol (TC), low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and non-high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C)) than VEGF-A. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that independent determinants of VEGF-A were the BMI and age, whereas strong independent determinants of VEGF-C were age, triglycerides, and non-HDL-C. In apolipoprotein E-deficient mice fed a high-fat-diet (HFD) or normal chow (NC) for 16 weeks, levels of VEGF-A were not significantly different between the two groups. However, levels of VEGF-C were significantly higher in HFD mice with advanced atherosclerosis and marked hypercholesterolemia than NC mice. Furthermore, immunohistochemistry revealed that the expression of VEGF-C in atheromatous plaque of the aortic sinus was significantly intensified by feeding HFD compared to NC, while that of VEGF-A was not. In conclusion, these findings demonstrate that VEGF-C, rather than VEGF-A, is closely related to dyslipidemia and atherosclerosis

A mechanism for the cortical computation of hierarchical linguistic structure

Biological systems often detect species-specific signals in the environment. In humans, speech and language are species-specific signals of fundamental biological importance. To detect the linguistic signal, human brains must form hierarchical representations from a sequence of perceptual inputs distributed in time. What mechanism underlies this ability? One hypothesis is that the brain repurposed an available neurobiological mechanism when hierarchical linguistic representation became an efficient solution to a computational problem posed to the organism. Under such an account, a single mechanism must have the capacity to perform multiple, functionally related computations, e.g., detect the linguistic signal and perform other cognitive functions, while, ideally, oscillating like the human brain. We show that a computational model of analogy, built for an entirely different purpose—learning relational reasoning—processes sentences, represents their meaning, and, crucially, exhibits oscillatory activation patterns resembling cortical signals elicited by the same stimuli. Such redundancy in the cortical and machine signals is indicative of formal and mechanistic alignment between representational structure building and “cortical” oscillations. By inductive inference, this synergy suggests that the cortical signal reflects structure generation, just as the machine signal does. A single mechanism—using time to encode information across a layered network—generates the kind of (de)compositional representational hierarchy that is crucial for human language and offers a mechanistic linking hypothesis between linguistic representation and cortical computatio

Generic and Specific Numeral Classifier Input and its Relation to Children's Classifier and Number Learning

In Japanese, numeral classifiers-or measure words-co-occur with numbers in counting phrases. The present study characterized parent numeral classifier use and its relation to children's classifier acquisition and number learning. Twenty-four Japanese-speaking parents and their two- to six-year-old children viewed and talked about two wordless picture books about counting to each other. Children also participated in a Counting task and Give-N task. Results revealed (1) parents' classifier use changed in relation to children's age and classifier use, and (2) parents' increased use of specific classifiers was uniquely associated with children's number understanding. These results suggest that aspects of children's language and numerical development are related to parents' language input, demonstrating the importance of examining the relation between language and cognition in a developmental context

Generic and Specific Numeral Classifier Input and its Relation to Children's Classifier and Number Learning

In Japanese, numeral classifiers-or measure words-co-occur with numbers in counting phrases. The present study characterized parent numeral classifier use and its relation to children's classifier acquisition and number learning. Twenty-four Japanese-speaking parents and their two- to six-year-old children viewed and talked about two wordless picture books about counting to each other. Children also participated in a Counting task and Give-N task. Results revealed (1) parents' classifier use changed in relation to children's age and classifier use, and (2) parents' increased use of specific classifiers was uniquely associated with children's number understanding. These results suggest that aspects of children's language and numerical development are related to parents' language input, demonstrating the importance of examining the relation between language and cognition in a developmental context