Although no comprehensive characterization of schizophrenia exists, there is a general consensus that patients have electrical dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex. The authors designed a novel piezoelectric silk-based implant and optimized electrical output through the addition of conductive materials zinc oxide (ZnO) and aluminum nitride (AlN). With further research and compatibility studies, this implant could rectify electrical misfiring in the infralimbic prefrontal cortex.
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Sex differences in linear polyubiquitination in the entorhinal cortex during fear memory formation
The authors explore sex-specific differences in the formation of fear memories across several rat brain regions.
Read More...Lack of correlation between odor composition and neuron response in the olfactory cortex of mice
To address whether odor sensory circuits are organized topographically, the authors investigate whether the neuronal responses to similar odors amongst different mice mapped similarly in brain.
Read More...Starts and Stops of Rhythmic and Discrete Movements: Modulation in the Excitability of the Corticomotor Tract During Transition to a Different Type of Movement
Control of voluntary and involuntary movements is one of the most important aspects of human neurological function, but the mechanisms of motor control are not completely understood. In this study, the authors use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to stimulate a portion of the motor cortex while subjects performed either discrete (e.g. throwing) or rhythmic (e.g. walking) movements. By recording electrical activity in the muscles during this process, the authors showed that motor evoked potentials (MEPs) measured in the muscles during TMS stimulation are larger in amplitude for discrete movements than for rhythmic movements. Interestingly, they also found that MEPs during transitions between rhythmic and discrete movements were nearly identical and larger in amplitude than those recorded during either rhythmic or discrete movements. This research provides important insights into the mechanisms of neurological control of movement and will serve as the foundation for future studies to learn more about temporal variability in neural activity during different movement types.
Read More...Correlations between Gray-White Matter Contrast in Prefrontal Lobe Regions and Cognitive Set-Shifting in Healthy Adults
This study uses neuroimaging to investigate cognitive set-shifting, a type of executive function that involves shifting from one task to another. This study tested whether cortical gray-white matter contrast in subregions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) was associated with set-shifting abilities in adults.
Read More...Uncovering mirror neurons’ molecular identity by single cell transcriptomics and microarray analysis
In this study, the authors use bioinformatic approaches to characterize the mirror neurons, which are active when performing and seeing certain actions. They also investigated whether mirror neuron impairment was connected to neural degenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders.
Read More...Functional Network Connectivity: Possible Biomarker for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder and is difficult to diagnose in young children. Here magnetoencephalography was used to compare the brain activity in patients with ASD to patients in a control group. The results show that patients with ASD have a high level of activity in different areas of the brain than those in the control group.
Read More...Determining the Effects of Voice Pitch on Adolescent Perception, Subconscious Bias, and Marketing Success Using Electroencephalography
Voice pitch affects perceived authoritativeness, competency, and leadership capacity. In this study, the authors suggest that examining certain measures of brain activity collected using an affordable EEG could predict advertising effectiveness, which may be invaluable in future neuromarketing research. Understanding voice pitch and other factors that cause implicit bias may allow significant advances in marketing, facilitating business success.
Read More...Open Source RNN designed for text generation is capable of composing music similar to Baroque composers
Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are useful for text generation since they can generate outputs in the context of previous ones. Baroque music and language are similar, as every word or note exists in context with others, and they both follow strict rules. The authors hypothesized that if we represent music in a text format, an RNN designed to generate language could train on it and create music structurally similar to Bach’s. They found that the music generated by our RNN shared a similar structure with Bach’s music in the input dataset, while Bachbot’s outputs are significantly different from this experiment’s outputs and thus are less similar to Bach’s repertoire compared to our algorithm.
Read More...Relating socioeconomic position (SEP) and vaccination with Covid-19 rates in select populations
This article describes the relationship between socioeconomic factors and the extent of how the COVID-19 Pandemic affected communities. Factors such as infection rate, vaccination rate, and economic status were all evaluated within the context of this article.
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