Physical exercise: bulking up neurogenesis in human adults
CELL AND BIOSCIENCE
Authors: Lei, Xinjuan; Wu, Yajun; Xu, MengMeng; Jones, Odell D.; Ma, Jianjie; Xu, Xuehong
Abstract
Whether neurogenesis occurs in the adult human brain has been a long-debated topic fueled by conflicting data both for and against neurogenesis in the mature brain. Recent reports from two independent teams may have indubitably proven that adult, hippocampal neurogenesis persists throughout the human lifespan. Llorens-Martin et al. found that thousands of immature, neurogenesis related, doublecortin-positive (DCX+) labelled neurons can be detected in the human dentate gyrus (DG) up to the eighth decade of life. While the presence of these DCX+ neurons decrease with age, they are significantly decrease in patient with Alzheimer's disease. Another group have also found mammalian embryonic Hopx(+) precursors to persist beyond the early development stage as quiescent Hopx(+) radial glial-like neural progenitors during early postnatal period, then as Hopx(+) adult dentate neural progenitors. Together, the findings from these two groups suggest that unlike the previously thought, neurogenesis and neuroplasticity can occur well into adulthood in some capacity, at least in the hippocampus. These recent findings that neurogenesis can occur beyond development have brought into questions whether physical exercise can be shown to promote neurogenesis and brain health, as it has been shown to promote the function of other organ systems. Some data has already shown physical exercise to induce adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) as demonstrated by restoration of cognitive functions, improvement of synaptic plasticity, and enhancement of angiogenesis. A large-scale meta-analysis has also demonstrated that 45-60 min of moderate-intensity physical exercise to dramatically improve cognitive functions in human subjects over the age of 50. Given these convergent developments in our understanding of neurogenesis and exercise induced improvement in cognitive function, we speculate that hippocampal neurogenesis can be promoted by physical exercise and discuss the current molecular evidence supporting the likely molecular pathways involved.
Highly Scalable Sensorless Multicellular AC-DC Transformer (ADX) for the DC Distribution System in Data Centers
IEEJ JOURNAL OF INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS
Authors: Hayashi, Yusuke; Ninomiya, Tamotsu
Abstract
This paper proposes a novel multicellular ac-dc transformer (ADX). The proposed ADX consists of sensorless isolated ac-dc cell converters based on the multicellular converter topology and a non-isolated dc-dc converter for power factor correction (PFC). A single ac-dc cell converter is composed of a diode rectifier and a dc-dc transformer (DCX) with no feedback controllers. These cell converters are connected in input-series-and-output-parallel (ISOP) and input-parallel-and-output-series (IPOS) configurations to achieve various voltage transformation ratios. One of the features of the proposed ADX is the high scalability with no master-slave control. Each power converter in the ADX requires its own local information, and no additional auxiliaries are required for the global control of the multicellular converter, because the ISOP and the IPOS connection topologies in the multicellular converter inherently achieve balanced voltage and equalized current among the cell converters. The proposed ADX has a simplified control system and accomplishes high scalability without requiring additional components. A simplified circuit analysis is carried out to show the feasibility of the proposed ADX, and an ac 60V - dc 40V laboratory prototype, with three pairs of cell converters connected in ISOP, is fabricated to verify the analysis. The proposed approach contributes to realizing future dc distribution systems in data centers, taking into account the prevalence of the standardized high-power-density converters.