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    A Drosophila model for the role of epigenetics in brain function and development

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    A genetic study in Drosophila gives important insights into the epigenetic control of gene expression implicated in a human mental retardation syndrome

    The role of histone acetylation in age-associated memory impairment and Alzheimer’s disease

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    Learning and memory are cognitive processes that are tightly regulated. A proper genome-environment interaction is a pre-requisite for cognitive function. Epigenetic processes are central regulators of genome-environment interactions. In line with this, it has been shown that the epigenetic machinery is essential for cognitive function. With a specific focus on histone acetylation, we will discuss recent research in the field of epigenetic mechanisms of learning and memory. We will also specifically address the role of histone acetylation in age-associated memory impairment and Alzheimer's disease and ask the question why targeting the epigenome could be a suitable strategy for neuroprotection and neuroregeneration

    Monitoring transcranial direct current stimulation induced changes in cortical excitability during the serial reaction time task

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    The measurement of the motor evoked potential (MEP) amplitudes using single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a common method to observe changes in motor cortical excitability. The level of cortical excitability has been shown to change during motor learning. Conversely, motor learning can be improved by using anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In the present study, we aimed to monitor cortical excitability changes during an implicit motor learning paradigm, a version of the serial reaction time task (SRTT). Responses from the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) and forearm flexor (FLEX) muscles were recorded before, during and after the performance of the SRTT. Online measurements were combined with anodal, cathodal or sham tDCS for the duration of the SRTT. Negative correlations between the amplitude of online FDI MEPs and SRTT reaction times (RTs) were observed across the learning blocks in the cathodal condition (higher average MEP amplitudes associated with lower RTs) but no significant differences in the anodal and sham conditions. tDCS did not have an impact on SRTT performance, as would be predicted based on previous studies. The offline before after SRTT MEP amplitudes showed an increase after anodal and a tendency to decrease after cathodal stimulation, but these changes were not significant. The combination of different interventions during tDCS might result in reduced efficacy of the stimulation that in future studies need further attention. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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
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