Description: Puberty onset in female sheep is marked by a decrease in estradiol-negative feedback, allowing for the increase in GnRH and LH pulses that heralds the first ovulation. Based on recent genetic studies in humans, two possible neuropeptides that could promote puberty onset are kisspeptin and neurokinin B (NKB). Our first experiment determined whether the NKB agonist, senktide, could stimulate LH secretion in prepubertal ewes. A second study used prepubertal and postpubertal ewes that were intact or ovariectomized (OVX) to test the hypothesis that expression of kisspeptin and NKB in the arcuate nucleus increased postpubertally. For comparison, kisspeptin and NKB expression in age-matched intact, and castrated males were also examined. In experiment 1, the percentage of ewes showing an LH pulse immediately after injection of senktide (100 μg, 60%; 500 μg, 100%) was greater than that for water-injected controls (experiment 1a, 25%; experiment 1b, 20%). In experiment 2, kisspeptin-positive cell numbers in the arcuate nucleus increased after puberty in intact females and were increased by OVX in prepubertal but not postpubertal ewes. Changes in kisspeptin cell numbers were paralleled by changes in kisspeptin-close contacts onto GnRH neurons in the medial preoptic area. NKB cell numbers did not differ significantly between intact prepubertal and postpubertal ewes but increased with OVX in both age groups. NKB fiber immunoreactivity was greater in postpubertal than in prepubertal intact ewes. In age-matched males, kisspeptin and NKB cell numbers increased with castration, but decreased with age. These results support the hypothesis that kisspeptin is a gatekeeper to female ovine puberty and raise the possibility that NKB may also play a role, albeit through different means.

Description: Although several lines of evidence have indicated that menopause is associated with increased susceptibility to neurological disorders, the mechanisms involved in this phenomenon remain to be elucidated. Because neuroinflammation is a common feature of a number of brain diseases, we hypothesized that the cessation of ovarian functions and the consequent decrease in estrogen receptor (ER)-mediated antiinflammatory activity may represent a trigger for postmenopausal brain dysfunctions. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of aging and surgical menopause on the activity of ER in neuroinflammation. The present study shows that ER genes are expressed in the hippocampus, but ER transcriptional activity decreases significantly beginning at 12 months of age in intact and ovariectomized mice. With ovariectomy, we observe an age-dependent accumulation of mRNA encoding inflammatory mediators ( e.g . TNFα, IL1β, and macrophage inflammatory protein-2) and changes in the morphology of astroglia and microglia. In addition, we show that aging itself is coupled with an exaggerated response to acute inflammatory stimuli with a major accumulation of TNFα, IL1β, macrophage inflammatory protein-2, and macrophage chemoattractant protein-1 mRNA in response to lipopolysaccharide administration. The response to acute inflammatory stimuli appears to be differentially modulated by the duration of hormone deprivation in 12-month-old mice. Taken together, the present results show that aging is associated with decreased ER activity, despite continuous ER synthesis, and that age-dependent neuroinflammation is strongly influenced by hormone deprivation.

Description: Age-related depletion of estrogens and androgens is associated with an increase in Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain pathology and diminished cognitive function. Here we investigated AD-associated molecular and cellular changes in brains of aged hypogonadal ( hpg ) male and female mice. hpg Mice have a spontaneous, inactivating genetic mutation in the GnRH gene resulting in life-long deficiency of gonadotropins and gonadal sex hormones. Western blot analysis revealed low levels of amyloid precursor protein and high levels of presenilin 1, amyloid precursor protein C-terminal fragment, and β-amyloid 42 in brains of aged male, but not female, hpg mice. Changes were confined to the hippocampus and were not evident in the cerebellum or other brain tissues. Male hpg mice tended to have lower levels of IL-1β protein than male littermate controls. Immunohistochemical staining of the basal forebrain revealed that male hpg mice had lower choline acetyltransferase levels per neuron compared with controls. These AD-like changes specific to male hpg mice supports a link between androgen depletion and the development of AD pathology.

Description: Dispersive surface waves are routinely used to estimate the subsurface shear-wave velocity distribution, at all length scales. In the well-known Spatial Autocorrelation method, dispersion information is gained from the correlation of seismic noise signals recorded on the vertical (or radial) components. We demonstrate practical advantages of including the cross-correlation between radial and vertical components of the wavefield in a spatial cross-correlation method. The addition of cross-correlation information increases the resolution and robustness of the phase velocity dispersion information, as demonstrated in numerical simulations and a near-surface field study with active seismic sources, where our method confirms the presence of a fault-zone conduit in a geothermal field.

Description: We analysed background surface waves in seismic ambient noise by cross-correlating continuous records of eight ocean bottom seismometers and nine differential pressure gauges deployed in the northwestern Pacific Ocean by the PLATE project. After estimating the clock delay and instrumental phase responses of differential pressure gauges by using cross-correlation functions, we measured average phase velocities in the area of the array for the fundamental-, first higher- and second higher-mode Rayleigh waves, and the fundamental-mode Love waves at a period range of 3–40 s by waveform fitting. We then measured phase-velocity anomalies of fundamental-mode and first higher-mode Rayleigh waves for each pair of stations at a period range of 5–25 s, and corrected the effect of variation in water-depths. The seismic anomalies imply the presence of strong azimuthal anisotropy beneath the eastern part of array. The direction of maximum velocity is approximately N35°E in the fossil seafloor spreading direction perpendicular to magnetic lineations from the ancient triple junction at this location. The peak-to-peak intensity of shear-wave velocity anisotropy in the mantle is ~7 per cent.

Description: In view of significant discrepancy between the slip models of the 2009 April 6 L'Aquila, (Italy) earthquake based on seismic waveforms or geodetic data, a new inversion strategy is proposed to constrain the coseismic rupture model and early post-seismic afterslip model of this earthquake. Both models were jointly inverted simultaneously from the near-source strong ground motion recordings, teleseismic P waves, long-period Rayleigh waves, GPS displacement vectors and InSAR line-of-sight displacement image. The deformations are mapped onto the fault with strike 140° and dip 50° to the southwest. The coseismic period here represents the first 10 s after the rupture initiation, when over 99 per cent of our total seismic moment (3.07 10 18 Nm) is already released in our preferred coseismic model. Most coseismic slip occurs in a small rupture area of approximately 16 km along strike and in a depth range of 3–10 km. The average slip is 0.45 m; peak slip reaches about 0.90 m. Our result reveals that L'Aquila rupture has a lag of 0.6 s before it first propagates updip to break an asperity equivalent to an M w 5.7. And then the rupture propagates along strike to break a large patch located about 8.0 km along strike and 4.0 km updip from the hypocentre. The weighted average of the rise time and slip velocity are 0.71 s and 0.77 m s –1 , respectively. Our estimate of radiated seismic energy is 1.67 10 13 J, yielding an energy to seismic moment ratio of 0.55 10 –5 , considerably smaller than the global average for shallow earthquakes. The early post-seismic period here represents the time window from 10 s to about first day. During this period, our preferred post-seismic model has an accumulated seismic moment of 6.0 10 17 Nm, equivalent to an M w of 5.8. The afterslip distribution features two separated high slip fault patches, locating either near the hypocentre or the region with peak coseismic slip. Their locations only partially overlap with the fault patches with significant afterslip after the first day. In particular, the slip distribution of the shallower patch is quantitatively consistent with the Amoruso and Crescentini’ diffusive afterslip model. Therefore, the coseismic rupture of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake was following by a slow-slip event with significant moment release in first hour.

Description: Using analogies to gaming, we consider the problem of comparing multiple probabilistic seismicity forecasts. To measure relative model performance, we suggest a parimutuel gambling perspective which addresses shortcomings of other methods such as likelihood ratio, information gain and Molchan diagrams. We describe two variants of the parimutuel approach for a set of forecasts: head-to-head, in which forecasts are compared in pairs, and round table, in which all forecasts are compared simultaneously. For illustration, we compare the 5-yr forecasts of the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Models experiment for M 4.95+ seismicity in California.

Description: Short-period seismograms of earthquakes are complex especially beneath volcanoes, where the S wave mean free path is short and low velocity bodies composed of melt or fluid are expected in addition to random velocity inhomogeneities as scattering sources. Resonant scattering inherent in a low velocity body shows trap and release of waves with a delay time. Focusing of the delay time phenomenon, we have to consider seriously multiple resonant scattering processes. Since wave phases are complex in such a scattering medium, the radiative transfer theory has been often used to synthesize the variation of mean square (MS) amplitude of waves; however, resonant scattering has not been well adopted in the conventional radiative transfer theory. Here, as a simple mathematical model, we study the sequence of isotropic resonant scattering of a scalar wavelet by low velocity spheres at low frequencies, where the inside velocity is supposed to be low enough. We first derive the total scattering cross-section per time for each order of scattering as the convolution kernel representing the decaying scattering response. Then, for a random and uniform distribution of such identical resonant isotropic scatterers, we build the propagator of the MS amplitude by using causality, a geometrical spreading factor and the scattering loss. Using those propagators and convolution kernels, we formulate the radiative transfer equation for a spherically impulsive radiation from a point source. The synthesized MS amplitude time trace shows a dip just after the direct arrival and a delayed swelling, and then a decaying tail at large lapse times. The delayed swelling is a prominent effect of resonant scattering. The space distribution of synthesized MS amplitude shows a swelling near the source region in space, and it becomes a bell shape like a diffusion solution at large lapse times.

Description: Stress inversions from focal mechanisms require knowledge of which nodal plane is the fault. If such information is missing, and faults and auxiliary nodal planes are interchanged, the stress inversions can produce inaccurate results. It is shown that the linear inversion method developed by Michael is reasonably accurate when retrieving the principal stress directions even when the selection of fault planes in focal mechanisms is incorrect. However, the shape ratio is more sensitive to the proper choice of the fault and substituting the faults by auxiliary nodal planes introduces significant errors. This difficulty is removed by modifying Michael's method and inverting jointly for stress and for fault orientations. The fault orientations are determined by applying the fault instability constraint and the stress is calculated in iterations. As a by-product, overall friction on faults is determined. Numerical tests show that the new iterative stress inversion is fast and accurate and performs much better than the standard linear inversion. The method is exemplified on real data from central Crete and from the West-Bohemia swarm area of the Czech Republic. The joint iterative inversion identified correctly 36 of 38 faults in the central Crete data. In the West Bohemia data, the faults identified by the inversion were close to the principal fault planes delineated by foci clustering. The overall friction on faults was estimated to be 0.75 and 0.85 for the central Crete and West Bohemia data, respectively.

Description: We present a numerical method to compute 3-D elastic waves in fully anisotropic axisymmetric media. This method is based on a decomposition of the wave equation into a series of uncoupled 2-D equations for which the dependence of the wavefield on the azimuth can be solved analytically. Four independent equations up to quadrupole order appear as solutions for moment-tensor sources located on the symmetry axis while single forces can be accommodated by two separate solutions up to dipole order. This decomposition gives rise to an efficient solution of the 3-D wave equation in a 2-D axisymmetric medium. First, we prove the validity of the decomposition of the wavefield in the presence of general anisotropy. Then we use it to derive the reduced 2-D equations of motions and discretize them using the spectral element method. Finally, we benchmark the numerical implementation for global wave propagation at 1 Hz and consider inner core anisotropy as an application for high-frequency wave propagation in anisotropic media at frequencies up to 2 Hz.