1,720,966 research outputs found
Microgravity affects the hair cell ionic currents of the frog semicircular canals
No full textThe effects of microgravity on the biophysical properties of frog labyrinthine hair cells have been examined by analyzing calcium and potassium currents in dissociated cells, using the patch-clamp technique. The entire, anaesthetized frog was exposed to vector-free gravity in a “random positioning machine (RPM)” and the functional modifications induced on single hair cells, dissected from the crista ampullaris, were subsequently studied in vitro. The major targets of microgravity exposure were the calcium/potassium current system and the IA (the fast transient potassium current) kinetic mechanism. The peak amplitude of the voltage-dependent calcium current, ICa, was significantly reduced in microgravity conditioned cells. The amplitude of the delayed potassium current, IKD (a complex of two different currents: IKV and IKCa), was drastically reduced, mostly in its IKCa component. Microgravity also affected IKD kinetics by shifting the steady-state inactivation curve towards negative potentials and increasing the sensitivity of inactivation removal to voltage. As concerns the IA, the I-V and steady–state inactivation curves were indistinguishable under normo- or microgravity conditions; conversely, IA decay systematically displayed a two-exponential time course and longer time constants in microgravity, thus potentially providing a larger K+ outward charge; furthermore, IA inactivation removal at -70 mV was slowed down. Stimulation in the RPM machine under normogravity conditions (to isolate the pure microgravity effects from those of the mere canal stimulation, due to the continuous rotation of the animal required to generate the artificial microgravity environment) resulted in minor effects on IKD and, occasionally, in incomplete IA inactivation at -40 mV. Reduced calcium influx and increased K+ repolarizing charge, in a variable mix according to the momentary membrane potential shifts, constitute a likely cause for the failure in the afferent mEPSP discharge at the cytoneural junction and for the reduced spike rate in the afferent fibers observed in the intact labyrinth after similar microgravity conditioning
FPGA Design Integration of a 32-Microelectrodes Low-Latency Spike Detector in a Commercial System for Intracortical Recordings
Full text linkNumerous experiments require low latencies in the detection and processing of the neural brain activity to be feasible, in the order of a few milliseconds from action to reaction. In this paper, a design for sub-millisecond detection and communication of the spiking activity detected by an array of 32 intracortical microelectrodes is presented, exploiting the real-time processing provided by Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The design is embedded in the commercially available RHS stimulation/recording controller from Intan Technologies, that allows recording intracortical signals and performing IntraCortical MicroStimulation (ICMS). The Spike Detector (SD) is based on the Smoothed Nonlinear Energy Operator (SNEO) and includes a novel approach to estimate an RMS-based firing-rate-independent threshold, that can be tuned to fine detect both the single Action Potential (AP) and Multi Unit Activity (MUA). A low-latency SD together with the ICMS capability, creates a powerful tool for Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI) closed-loop experiments relying on the neuronal activity-dependent stimulation. The design also includes: A third order Butterworth high-pass IIR filter and a Savitzky-Golay polynomial fitting; a privileged fast USB connection to stream the detected spikes to a host computer and a sub-milliseconds latency Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter (UART) protocol communication to send detections and receive ICMS triggers. The source code and the instruction of the project can be found on GitHub
Exposure to reduced gravity decreases junctional transmission at the frog labyrinth
No full textVestibular organs constitute the main sensory system for gravitational information. Itwas therefore of interest to examine how altered gravity conditions affect labyrinthinefunction. The properties of junctional transmission were studied at the posterior canal in frogs exposed to microgravity conditions for four hours.
Microgravity was simulated by rotating the anesthetised frog in a “random positioningmachine” which continually and randomly modified the orientation of the animal inspace (centre of rotation at the midpoint of the line joining the otic membranes. As thesemicircular canals are stimulated by this procedure, the effect of altered gravitycondition were isolated by comparing treated preparations (microgravity, mG) withcontrol (Ct), anesthetised frogs, and with anesthetised frogs exposed to randomrotations with similar angular acceleration intensity but constant orientation withrespect to the gravitational axis (normogravity, nG).
Electrophysiological experiments were performed in the isolated labyrinth, extracted from the animals after the treatment and mounted on a turn-table. Junctional activity was measured by recording quantal events (mEPSPs) and spikes at the first afferentneuron close to the junction, at rest and during rotational stimulation.
No significant differences were observed between anesthetised and Ct frogs.
Marked, significant decrease was detected in the frequency of mEPSP discharge inmG-treated frogs vs. Ct or nG (mean decrease by about 50%, mG vs. Ct, n = 25;p<0.01, K-S test). Correspondent effects were observed on spike discharge: 57% ofmG-treated frogs displayed no spikes, vs. 23-31% of Ct or nG frogs (p<0.01, Chi-squared); among the firing units the average number of spikes discharged during onecycle of sinusoidal rotation at 0.1 Hz was 34.7 in mG frogs vs. 76.6 in controls (n =33; p<0.01, K-S test).
Marked morphological signs of cellular suffering were observed in the sensoryepithelium.
All effects of microgravity were reversible in few days
Classification of Whisker Deflections From Evoked Responses in the Somatosensory Barrel Cortex With Spiking Neural Networks
Full text linkSpike-based neuromorphic hardware has great potential for low-energy brain-machine interfaces, leading to a novel paradigm for neuroprosthetics where spiking neurons in silicon read out and control activity of brain circuits. Neuromorphic processors can receive rich information about brain activity from both spikes and local field potentials (LFPs) recorded by implanted neural probes. However, it was unclear whether spiking neural networks (SNNs) implemented on such devices can effectively process that information. Here, we demonstrate that SNNs can be trained to classify whisker deflections of different amplitudes from evoked responses in a single barrel of the rat somatosensory cortex. We show that the classification performance is comparable or even superior to state-of-the-art machine learning approaches. We find that SNNs are rather insensitive to recorded signal type: both multi-unit spiking activity and LFPs yield similar results, where LFPs from cortical layers III and IV seem better suited than those of deep layers. In addition, no hand-crafted features need to be extracted from the data—multi-unit activity can directly be fed into these networks and a simple event-encoding of LFPs is sufficient for good performance. Furthermore, we find that the performance of SNNs is insensitive to the network state—their performance is similar during UP and DOWN states
Accelerated Aging Characterizes the Early Stage of Alzheimer’s Disease
Full text linkFor Alzheimer’s disease (AD), aging is the main risk factor, but whether cognitive impairments due to aging resemble early AD deficits is not yet defined. When working with mouse models of AD, the situation is just as complicated, because only a few studies track the progression of the disease at different ages, and most ignore how the aging process affects control mice. In this work, we addressed this problem by comparing the aging process of PS2APP (AD) and wild-type (WT) mice at the level of spontaneous brain electrical activity under anesthesia. Using local field potential recordings, obtained with a linear probe that traverses the posterior parietal cortex and the entire hippocampus, we analyzed how multiple electrical parameters are modified by aging in AD and WT mice. With this approach, we highlighted AD specific features that appear in young AD mice prior to plaque deposition or that are delayed at 12 and 16 months of age. Furthermore, we identified aging characteristics present in WT mice but also occurring prematurely in young AD mice. In short, we found that reduction in the relative power of slow oscillations (SO) and Low/High power imbalance are linked to an AD phenotype at its onset. The loss of SO connectivity and cortico-hippocampal coupling between SO and higher frequencies as well as the increase in UP-state and burst durations are found in young AD and old WT mice. We show evidence that the aging process is accelerated by the mutant PS2 itself and discuss such changes in relation to amyloidosis and gliosis
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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