276,682 research outputs found
The Role of executive function in children\u27s source monitoring with varying retrieval strategies
Previous research on the relationship between executive function and source monitoring in young children has been inconclusive, with studies finding conflicting results about whether working memory and inhibitory control are related to source-monitoring ability. In this study, the role of working memory and inhibitory control in recognition memory and source monitoring with two different retrieval strategies were examined. Children (N = 263) aged 4–8 participated in science activities with two sources. They were later given a recognition and source-monitoring test, and completed measures of working memory and inhibitory control. During the source-monitoring test, half of the participants were asked about sources serially (one after the other) whereas the other half of the children were asked about sources in parallel (considering both sources simultaneously). Results demonstrated that working memory was a predictor of source-monitoring accuracy in both conditions, but inhibitory control was only related to source accuracy in the parallel condition. When age was controlled these relationships were no longer significant, suggesting that a more general cognitive development factor is a stronger predictor of source monitoring than executive function alone. Interestingly, the children aged 4–6 years made more accurate source decisions in the parallel condition than in the serial condition. The older children (aged 7–8) were overall more accurate than the younger children, and their accuracy did not differ as a function of interview condition. Suggestions are provided to guide further research in this area that will clarify the diverse results of previous studies examining whether executive function is a cognitive prerequisite for effective source monitoring
Synchronization and Noise: A Mechanism for Regularization in Neural Systems
To learn and reason in the presence of uncertainty, the brain must be capable
of imposing some form of regularization. Here we suggest, through theoretical
and computational arguments, that the combination of noise with synchronization
provides a plausible mechanism for regularization in the nervous system. The
functional role of regularization is considered in a general context in which
coupled computational systems receive inputs corrupted by correlated noise.
Noise on the inputs is shown to impose regularization, and when synchronization
upstream induces time-varying correlations across noise variables, the degree
of regularization can be calibrated over time. The proposed mechanism is
explored first in the context of a simple associative learning problem, and
then in the context of a hierarchical sensory coding task. The resulting
qualitative behavior coincides with experimental data from visual cortex.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures. under revie
Detecting multineuronal temporal patterns in parallel spike trains
We present a non-parametric and computationally efficient method that detects spatiotemporal firing patterns and pattern sequences in parallel spike trains and tests whether the observed numbers of repeating patterns and sequences on a given timescale are significantly different from those expected by chance. The method is generally applicable and uncovers coordinated activity with arbitrary precision by comparing it to appropriate surrogate data. The analysis of coherent patterns of spatially and temporally distributed spiking activity on various timescales enables the immediate tracking of diverse qualities of coordinated firing related to neuronal state changes and information processing. We apply the method to simulated data and multineuronal recordings from rat visual cortex and show that it reliably discriminates between data sets with random pattern occurrences and with additional exactly repeating spatiotemporal patterns and pattern sequences. Multineuronal cortical spiking activity appears to be precisely coordinated and exhibits a sequential organization beyond the cell assembly concept
Universal Interface of TAUOLA Technical and Physics Documentation
Because of their narrow width, tau decays can be well separated from their
production process. Only spin degrees of freedom connect these two parts of the
physics process of interest for high energy collision experiments. In the
following, we present a Monte Carlo algorithm which is based on that property.
The interface supplements events generated by other programs, with tau decays.
Effects of spin, genuine weak corrections or of new physics may be taken into
account at the time when a tau decay is generated and written into an event
record.Comment: 1+44 pages, 17 eps figure
Voxel-wise comparisons of cellular microstructure and diffusion-MRI in mouse hippocampus using 3D Bridging of Optically-clear histology with Neuroimaging Data (3D-BOND)
A key challenge in medical imaging is determining a precise correspondence between image properties and tissue microstructure. This comparison is hindered by disparate scales and resolutions between medical imaging and histology. We present a new technique, 3D Bridging of Optically-clear histology with Neuroimaging Data (3D-BOND), for registering medical images with 3D histology to overcome these limitations. Ex vivo 120 × 120 × 200 μm resolution diffusion-MRI (dMRI) data was acquired at 7 T from adult C57Bl/6 mouse hippocampus. Tissue was then optically cleared using CLARITY and stained with cellular markers and confocal microscopy used to produce high-resolution images of the 3D-tissue microstructure. For each sample, a dense array of hippocampal landmarks was used to drive registration between upsampled dMRI data and the corresponding confocal images. The cell population in each MRI voxel was determined within hippocampal subregions and compared to MRI-derived metrics. 3D-BOND provided robust voxel-wise, cellular correlates of dMRI data. CA1 pyramidal and dentate gyrus granular layers had significantly different mean diffusivity (p > 0.001), which was related to microstructural features. Overall, mean and radial diffusivity correlated with cell and axon density and fractional anisotropy with astrocyte density, while apparent fibre density correlated negatively with axon density. Astrocytes, axons and blood vessels correlated to tensor orientation
Axon diameters and myelin content modulate microscopic fractional anisotropy at short diffusion times in fixed rat spinal cord
Mapping tissue microstructure accurately and noninvasively is one of the
frontiers of biomedical imaging. Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is
at the forefront of such efforts, as it is capable of reporting on microscopic
structures orders of magnitude smaller than the voxel size by probing
restricted diffusion. Double Diffusion Encoding (DDE) and Double Oscillating
Diffusion Encoding (DODE) in particular, are highly promising for their ability
to report on microscopic fractional anisotropy ({\mu}FA), a measure of the pore
anisotropy in its own eigenframe, irrespective of orientation distribution.
However, the underlying correlates of {\mu}FA have insofar not been studied.
Here, we extract {\mu}FA from DDE and DODE measurements at ultrahigh magnetic
field of 16.4T in the aim to probe fixed rat spinal cord microstructure. We
further endeavor to correlate {\mu}FA with Myelin Water Fraction (MWF) derived
from multiexponential T2 relaxometry, as well as with literature-based
spatially varying axonal diameters. In addition, a simple new method is
presented for extracting unbiased {\mu}FA from three measurements at different
b-values. Our findings reveal strong anticorrelations between {\mu}FA (derived
from DODE) and axon diameter in the distinct spinal cord tracts; a moderate
correlation was also observed between {\mu}FA derived from DODE and MWF. These
findings suggest that axonal membranes strongly modulate {\mu}FA, which - owing
to its robustness towards orientation dispersion effects - reflects axon
diameter much better than its typical FA counterpart. The {\mu}FA exhibited
modulations when measured via oscillating or blocked gradients, suggesting
selective probing of different parallel path lengths and providing insight into
how those modulate {\mu}FA metrics. Our findings thus shed light into the
underlying microstructural correlates of {\mu}FA and are (...
Forward-Backward Correlations and Event Shapes as probes of Minimum-Bias Event Properties
Measurements of inclusive observables, such as particle multiplicities and
momentum spectra, have already delivered important information on
soft-inclusive ("minimum-bias") physics at the Large Hadron Collider. In order
to gain a more complete understanding, however, it is necessary to include also
observables that probe the structure of the studied events. We argue that
forward-backward (FB) correlations and event-shape observables may be
particulary useful first steps in this respect. We study the sensitivity of
several different types of FB correlations and two event shape variables -
transverse thrust and transverse thrust minor - to various sources of
theoretical uncertainty: multiple parton interactions, parton showers, colour
(re)connections, and hadronization. The power of each observable to furnish
constraints on Monte Carlo models is illustrated by including comparisons
between several recent, and qualitatively different, PYTHIA 6 tunes, for pp
collisions at sqrt(s) = 900 GeV.Comment: 13 page
Orbital Kondo effect in carbon nanotubes
Progress in the fabrication of nanometer-scale electronic devices is opening
new opportunities to uncover the deepest aspects of the Kondo effect, one of
the paradigmatic phenomena in the physics of strongly correlated electrons.
Artificial single-impurity Kondo systems have been realized in various
nanostructures, including semiconductor quantum dots, carbon nanotubes and
individual molecules. The Kondo effect is usually regarded as a spin-related
phenomenon, namely the coherent exchange of the spin between a localized state
and a Fermi sea of electrons. In principle, however, the role of the spin could
be replaced by other degrees of freedom, such as an orbital quantum number.
Here we demonstrate that the unique electronic structure of carbon nanotubes
enables the observation of a purely orbital Kondo effect. We use a magnetic
field to tune spin-polarized states into orbital degeneracy and conclude that
the orbital quantum number is conserved during tunneling. When orbital and spin
degeneracies are simultaneously present, we observe a strongly enhanced Kondo
effect, with a multiple splitting of the Kondo resonance at finite field and
predicted to obey a so-called SU(4) symmetry.Comment: 26 pages, including 4+2 figure
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