A Blog Around The Clock

Let's see what is new in PLoS Medicine, PLoS Biology and PLoS ONE today:

Time-of-Day-Dependent Enhancement of Adult Neurogenesis in the Hippocampus:

Adult neurogenesis occurs in specific regions of the mammalian brain such as the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. In the neurogenic region, neural progenitor cells continuously divide and give birth to new neurons. Although biological properties of neurons and glia in the hippocampus have been demonstrated to fluctuate depending on specific times of the day, it is unclear if neural progenitors and neurogenesis in the adult brain are temporally controlled within the day. Here we demonstrate that in the dentate gyrus of the adult mouse hippocampus, the number of M-phase cells shows a day/night variation throughout the day, with a significant increase during the nighttime. The M-phase cell number is constant throughout the day in the subventricular zone of the forebrain, another site of adult neurogenesis, indicating the daily rhythm of progenitor mitosis is region-specific. Importantly, the nighttime enhancement of hippocampal progenitor mitosis is accompanied by a nighttime increase of newborn neurons. These results indicate that neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus occurs in a time-of-day-dependent fashion, which may dictate daily modifications of dentate gyrus physiology.

Mutualistic Interactions Drive Ecological Niche Convergence in a Diverse Butterfly Community:

What governs the composition of communities of species? Competition promotes divergence in behavior and habitat, allowing species to co-exist. But the effects of other interactions, such as mutualism, are less well understood. We examined the interplay between mutualistic interactions, common ancestry and competition in mimetic butterflies, one of the best studied examples of mutualism, in which species converge in wing pattern to advertize their toxicity to predators. We showed that mutualism drives convergence in flight height and forest habitat, and that these effects outweigh common ancestry (which should lead related species to be more similar) and competition (which promotes ecological divergence). Our findings imply that species that benefit from one another might evolve to form more tightly knit local communities, suggesting that adaptation is a more important process affecting community composition than is commonly suspected. Our results also support the idea that mimicry can cause speciation, through its multiple cascading effects on species' biology.

The Prevalence of Mental Disorders among the Homeless in Western Countries: Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis:

There are well over a million homeless people in Western Europe and North America, but reliable estimates of the prevalence of major mental disorders among this population are lacking. We undertook a systematic review of surveys of such disorders in homeless people. We searched for surveys of the prevalence of psychotic illness, major depression, alcohol and drug dependence, and personality disorder that were based on interviews of samples of unselected homeless people. We searched bibliographic indexes, scanned reference lists, and corresponded with authors. We explored potential sources of any observed heterogeneity in the estimates by meta-regression analysis, including geographical region, sample size, and diagnostic method. Twenty-nine eligible surveys provided estimates obtained from 5,684 homeless individuals from seven countries. Substantial heterogeneity was observed in prevalence estimates for mental disorders among the studies (all Cochran's χ2 significant at p < 0.001 and all I2 > 85%). The most common mental disorders were alcohol dependence, which ranged from 8.1% to 58.5%, and drug dependence, which ranged from 4.5% to 54.2%. For psychotic illness, the prevalence ranged from 2.8% to 42.3%, with similar findings for major depression. The prevalence of alcohol dependence was found to have increased over recent decades. Homeless people in Western countries are substantially more likely to have alcohol and drug dependence than the age-matched general population in those countries, and the prevalences of psychotic illnesses and personality disorders are higher. Models of psychiatric and social care that can best meet these mental health needs requires further investigation.