Ube Frontier University

Over the last two decades, substantial progress has been made in our understanding of the mechanisms of animacy recognition, the ability to detect the presence of living entities in the environment (Pavlova, 2012;Lorenzi and Vallortigara, 2021). This is conceivably one of the most vital abilities that an animal should possess, as it allows proper alertness toward probable interactions, or, more specifically, prompt identification of others as valuable social companions, mates, prey, or predators. We have understood that animacy detectors operate from the very beginning after birth (Bidet-Ildei et al., 2014;Di Giorgio et al., 2017) and we have started to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of some of these 'life detectors' (Buiatti et al., 2019;Kobylkov et a., 2024;Romagnano et al., 2024), mostly with respect to the selection of faces as well as face-like non-faces from similar patterns. The study of animacy is of broad interest because the brains of all vertebrates -and possibly also some invertebrates-seem to be predisposed to tell apart animate and non-animate entities. This basic, ontological ability to select animate entities has a profound impact on the development of the brain and mind.First and foremost, animacy detection mechanisms are the bricks for building up the social brain. A growing body of evidence suggests that the lack or delayed development of animacy detectors is ultimately associated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders (Jones and Klin, 2013;Pavlova et al., 2017;Shultz et al., 2018;Di Giorgio et al., 2021;Lorenzi et al., 2019;Galli et al., 2025). Detection of animacy also sets the stage for recognition of agency (e.g., when agents exhibit motion which is reciprocally contingent in space and time; Lemaire et al., 2022), in other words, the understanding that an animate entity may possess social characteristics such as desires, beliefs and goals, a cognitive capacity commonly dubbed as "theory of mind". Intriguingly, the distinction between animate and non-animate objects is at the foundation of intuitive dualism and essentialism (Bloom, 2004). The animate-inanimate distinction is foundational because it is the earliest cognitive division that links animacy/agency to minds and kinds to hidden essences, from which intuitive dualism and essentialism naturally emerge. Again, some fascinating evidence has been collected in recent years for attenuated dualism and essentialism in people who show reduced expression (or over-expression) of animacy and agency detectors (Berent et al., 2022;Berent and Hooley, 2025). Implication for the origins of beliefs, in particular religious beliefs have been harassed with regards to the animate/inanimate distinction (Bloom, 2004;Girotto et al., 2014;Vallortigara, 2012). Dynamic signals from the body and faces substantially contribute to inferring social characteristics, for instance, recognizing familiar individuals. Lander and Bennets synthesize psychological research showing that identity recognition is not solely based on static features (e.g., face structure) but also on dynamic cues such as facial movements, body actions, and vocal dynamics. This is consistent with recent neurobiological evidence that dynamic faces are processed via a cortical pathway distinct from that used for static faces in the human brain (Prabhakar et al., 2025). In this Topic, Shen et al. suggest that understanding point-light biological motion processing benefits from analysis 'through the lens of animate motion processing ' in the context of how the life-detection system is hardwired in the brain. Setogawa et al. show that, alongside faces, evolutionary salient threats such as snakes are processed via a fast, subcortical pathway. While previous studies have emphasized the role of this pathway in coarse and fast processing of facial expression (Inagaki et al., 2023), they extend this framework by showing that subcortical-prefrontal circuits conserved between human and non-human primates are tuned to threatening animacy cues.By using mobile EEG recording techniques, Soto et al. found that body posture selectively modulates early visual cortical processing but does not alter higher-level face processing, suggesting the robustness of face-sensitive neural mechanisms across bodily states.In a nutshell, the work presented in this Research Topic nicely dovetails with and enriches the initial line of research on perceiving of animacy and inferring social signals. Yet we are far from understanding which mechanisms underlying the perception of animacy are common for animals and which of them are unique/specific for humans. Moreover, there is still a lack of cross-cultural, developmental (including healthy aging), and gender (a social construct reflecting social roles and norms)/sex (a biological construct). One of the most prominent assets for future studies seems to be the assessment of animacy processing in cross-disease clinical research that contributes to a fundamental understanding of animacy signals in typical development and their impairments.

The diverse pigmentation patterns of animals are crucial for predation avoidance and behavioral display. This diversity arises from interactions among distinct pigment cell types, yet mechanisms generating pattern variation across teleost fishes remain incompletely understood. In zebrafish, Turing models have been proposed to explain stripe patterns, but it is unclear if they apply to other fishes. Here, we investigate the Snowflake mutant of the anemonefish Amphiprion ocellaris, which displays enlarged white bars with irregular boundaries. Using genome-wide association mapping and targeted sequencing, we identify a missense mutation (E42K) in gja5b, encoding the gap junction protein Connexin 41.8. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing recapitulates the Snowflake phenotype, while pharmacological inhibition of gap junctions phenocopies the boundary defects, supporting a causal role for impaired intercellular communication. Expression analyses reveal that, unlike zebrafish, anemonefish gja5b is predominantly expressed in iridophores. With functional in vitro assays we demonstrate that the E42K mutation acts as a dominant negative, strongly reducing gap junctional coupling. Introducing the same mutation in zebrafish reveals context-dependent effects on pigment patterning. Taken together our findings highlighting gap junction–mediated communication as a conserved but flexible mechanism controlling pigment boundary positioning and pattern diversification.

Three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (3D COFs) are promising crystalline porous materials, but the elucidation of their structure remains challenging, particularly for those featuring spiroborate linkages. Herein, we report the synthesis of a 3D single-crystalline COF (scCOF) with nbo topology, constructed from a rigid square-planar monomer, tetracyclopentatetraphenylene (TCTP), and spiroborate linkages. Theoretical calculations revealed that the TCTP core possesses higher rigidity than phthalocyanine, effectively suppressing structural fluctuations during framework formation. The structure of the resulting TCTP-COF was successfully determined using microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED), revealing a non-interpenetrated cubic framework with space group Im-3m. TCTP-COF exhibits high crystallinity, thermal stability up to 320 °C, and permanent porosity with a Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area of 1360 m2·g–1. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first structural determination of a spiroborate-linked 3D scCOF using electron diffraction methods, providing a new design strategy for expanding the chemical space of highly ordered 3D COF architectures.

Membrane-bound alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) from Gluconobacter oxydans is a direct electron transfer-type biocatalyst for ethanol oxidation. To improve its bioelectrocatalysis, the membrane-binding regions of ADH were predicted and then deleted. A soluble ADH variant without surfactants was purified from the soluble fraction and characterized using structural and bioelectrochemical approaches.

Abstract Genomic imprinting, an epigenetic mechanism that governs parent-of-origin–specific gene expression, is essential for mammalian development, yet its role in late-stage development remains unclear due to the lethality of parthenogenetic (Pg) embryos. Here, we establish cell replacement with parthenogenote-derived cells (CReP), a blastocyst complementation strategy that enables survival and tissue-specific contribution of Pg-derived cells. Brain-targeted CReP showed that Pg-derived cells can participate in neural development but fail to maintain neuronal–glial balance due to aberrant activation of Notch signaling caused by the loss of the paternally expressed gene Dlk1. Restoration of Dlk1 normalized Notch activity and rescued neuronal differentiation. These findings reveal a critical role of the paternal genome, through Dlk1-mediated regulation of Notch signaling, in ensuring neural stem cell expansion and balanced cell fate decisions. The CReP model provides a powerful platform for investigating genomic imprinting and parental genome contributions in development and disease.

我々は，多繊毛上皮細胞における繊毛協調運動の基盤となる基底小体（BB）と基底足（BF）の秩序化過程を遺伝子改変蛍光標識マウスと高解像ライブイメージングで可視化し，細胞の分化段階に応じてアピカル細胞骨格である微小管と中間径フィラメントがBB-BFの配列・配向の秩序化の確立に寄与することを明らかにした．

Abstract Current multimodal image fusion methods typically cannot precisely locate and fuse features of key regions, leading to artifacts in fusion results and relatively weak local feature expression, failing to ensure the integrity of image structures or target contours. To address this issue, we propose a universal fusion framework called AdverFuse. Based on the Mamba module, this framework introduces an adaptive weight mixed attention mechanism module specifically targeting fusion artifact problems. The module enhances cross-modal feature complementarity through channel branches, precisely locates target regions using spatial attention, and adjusts modal contributions based on the confidence scores output by spatial and channel attention mechanisms, making feature enhancement more aligned with the characteristics of different modal data. Additionally, we design an adversarial network feature enhancement registration module to improve the local feature expression capability of fused images. Combined with the adversarial training mechanism of the discriminator, this module adaptively balances the contribution weights of modalities such as infrared and visible light, maps features of different modalities to a unified semantic space, and extracts richer semantic features while preserving local detail information. We design a convolutional attention module to achieve more comprehensive feature interaction and reduce computational complexity.Experimental results across multiple datasets demonstrate that this method has significant advantages and outperforms SOTA methods.

Background:Thread lifting is a minimally invasive aesthetic procedure that has gained popularity for facial rejuvenation. However, large-scale multicenter studies assessing trends, patient characteristics, and procedural variations are limited. This study aimed to evaluate longitudinal changes in facial thread lifting use, patient demographics, procedural composition, and combination treatments across a nationwide cosmetic surgery network during a 5-year period.Methods:We retrospectively analyzed 111,948 facial thread lifting procedures performed between 2020 and 2024 across more than 100 Tokyo Central Cosmetic Surgery Group clinics. Statistical analyses included the Kruskal–Wallis test with Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc comparisons for age-related trends.Results:Procedure volumes increased during the 5-year period, as did the median patient age (P < 0.001), with procedural patterns shifting toward an older demographic. Seven procedural combinations were identified, with polydioxanone + polycaprolactone threads being the most common. The use of nonabsorbable threads increased substantially, with more than 60% of patients undergoing thread lifting with additional treatments, such as fillers or toxins.Conclusions:Thread lifting is increasingly used as part of multimodal facial rejuvenation strategies, with trends toward older patient populations and broader procedural integration. These findings highlight the evolving role of thread lifting in evidence-based aesthetic medicine.

Background:The cosmetic surgery market has rapidly expanded owing to technological advancements and changes in aesthetic values. Minimally invasive procedures have gained substantial popularity among patients, with double-eyelid embedding being among the most common in Japan. This study used double-eyelid embedding as a model case to analyze market trends and demographics while evaluating the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic’s secondary effects. We elucidated time-series trends and the demographic patterns of double-eyelid embedding procedures in Japan, providing insights into overall cosmetic surgery market trends.Methods:A retrospective multicenter analysis was conducted using data from 195,893 procedures performed between October 2020 and December 2024. Patient age, sex, occupation, and procedure date data were analyzed using autoregressive integrated moving average models and interrupted time-series analysis, incorporating multivariate regression to evaluate demographic impacts.Results:An analysis of 195,893 double-eyelid embedding cases revealed a peak in demand in March 2023 and marked seasonality. The primary patient demographic comprised women in their 20s, with high demand among students and young office workers. Following the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, demand surged temporarily, then gradually stabilized over time, showing a downward trend. Time-series and multivariate analyses identified age, sex, and occupation as significant determinants of demand.Conclusions:This study highlighted the importance of demographic and seasonal factors that influence Japan’s cosmetic surgery market. These findings contribute to improved clinical operations and marketing strategies, serving as a foundation for future research.