821 research outputs found
TMS-evoked EEG potentials demonstrate altered cortical excitability in migraine with aura
Migraine is associated with altered sensory processing, that may be evident as changes in cortical responsivity due to altered excitability, especially in migraine with aura. Cortical excitability can be directly assessed by combining transcranial magnetic stimulation with electroencephalography (TMS-EEG). We measured TMS evoked potential (TEP) amplitude and response consistency as these measures have been linked to cortical excitability but were not yet reported in migraine. We recorded 64-channel EEG during single-pulse TMS on the vertex interictally in 10 people with migraine with aura and 10 healthy controls matched for age, sex and resting motor threshold. On average 160 pulses around resting motor threshold were delivered through a circular coil in clockwise and counterclockwise direction. Trial-averaged TEP responses, frequency spectra and phase clustering (over the entire scalp as well as in frontal, central and occipital midline electrode clusters) were compared between groups, including comparison to sham-stimulation evoked responses. Migraine and control groups had a similar distribution of TEP waveforms over the scalp. In migraine with aura, TEP responses showed reduced amplitude around the frontal and occipital N100 peaks. For the migraine and control groups, responses over the scalp were affected by current direction for the primary motor cortex, somatosensory cortex and sensory association areas, but not for frontal, central or occipital midline clusters. This study provides evidence of altered TEP responses in-between attacks in migraine with aura. Decreased TEP responses around the N100 peak may be indicative of reduced cortical GABA-mediated inhibition and expand observations on enhanced cortical excitability from earlier migraine studies using more indirect measurements
Genetics and molecular mechanisms of resistance to powdery mildews in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and its wild relatives
Powdery mildews (PMs) cause disease in a wide range of plant species including important crops. Taking tomato as an example, here we review findings on the genetic basis and mechanisms of plant resistance to PMs. First, we present a summary of our research on tomato resistance to two PM species, with the focus on Oidium neolycopersici. We discuss the genetics of resistance to this pathogen in tomato. Then, we
compare different forms of resistance mediated by different resistance genes based on molecular and
cytological data. Also, we provide a comparison between these resistance genes in tomato with those in barley, Arabidopsis and wheat, in order to present a model for the genetic basis of resistance to PMs in plants. We try to accommodate these resistance mechanisms in the current model of plant innate
immunity. At the end we discuss possibilities to
translate these findings to practical approaches in
breeding for resistance to PMs in crops
Electrostatics in a simple wormhole revisited
The electrostatic potential generated by a point charge at rest in a simple
static, spherically symmetric wormhole is given in the form of series of
multipoles and in closed form. The general potential which is physically
acceptable depends on a parameter due to the fact that the monopole solution is
arbitrary. When the wormhole has Z2-symmetry, the potential is completely
determined. The calculation of the electrostatic self-energy and of the
self-force is performed in all cases considered.Comment: 16 pages, no figure
Spectral action, Weyl anomaly and the Higgs-Dilaton potential
We show how the bosonic spectral action emerges from the fermionic action by
the renormalization group flow in the presence of a dilaton and the Weyl
anomaly. The induced action comes out to be basically the Chamseddine-Connes
spectral action introduced in the context of noncommutative geometry. The
entire spectral action describes gauge and Higgs fields coupled with gravity.
We then consider the effective potential and show, that it has the desired
features of a broken and an unbroken phase, with the roll down.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figure
Hidden Orbital Order in
When matter is cooled from high temperatures, collective instabilities
develop amongst its constituent particles that lead to new kinds of order. An
anomaly in the specific heat is a classic signature of this phenomenon. Usually
the associated order is easily identified, but sometimes its nature remains
elusive. The heavy fermion metal is one such example, where the
order responsible for the sharp specific heat anomaly at has
remained unidentified despite more than seventeen years of effort. In
, the coexistence of large electron-electron repulsion and
antiferromagnetic fluctuations in leads to an almost incompressible
heavy electron fluid, where anisotropically paired quasiparticle states are
energetically favored. In this paper we use these insights to develop a
detailed proposal for the hidden order in . We show that
incommensurate orbital antiferromagnetism, associated with circulating currents
between the uranium ions, can account for the local fields and entropy loss
observed at the transition; furthermore we make detailed predictions for
neutron scattering measurements
Stellar models with Schwarzschild and non-Schwarzschild vacuum exteriors
A striking characteristic of non-Schwarzschild vacuum exteriors is that they
contain not only the total gravitational mass of the source, but also an {\it
arbitrary} constant. In this work, we show that the constants appearing in the
"temporal Schwarzschild", "spatial Schwarzschild" and
"Reissner-Nordstr{\"o}m-like" exteriors are not arbitrary but are completely
determined by star's parameters, like the equation of state and the
gravitational potential. Consequently, in the braneworld scenario the
gravitational field outside of a star is no longer determined by the total mass
alone, but also depends on the details of the internal structure of the source.
We show that the general relativistic upper bound on the gravitational
potential , for perfect fluid stars, is significantly increased in
these exteriors. Namely, , and for the
temporal Schwarzschild, spatial Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordstr{\"o}m-like
exteriors, respectively. Regarding the surface gravitational redshift, we find
that the general relativistic Schwarzschild exterior as well as the braneworld
spatial Schwarzschild exterior lead to the same upper bound, viz., .
However, when the external spacetime is the temporal Schwarzschild metric or
the Reissner-Nordstr{\"o}m-like exterior there is no such constraint: . This infinite difference in the limiting value of is because for
these exteriors the effective pressure at the surface is negative. The results
of our work are potentially observable and can be used to test the theory.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures and caption
Integrating evolution into ecological modelling: accommodating phenotypic changes in agent based models.
PMCID: PMC3733718This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Evolutionary change is a characteristic of living organisms and forms one of the ways in which species adapt to changed conditions. However, most ecological models do not incorporate this ubiquitous phenomenon. We have developed a model that takes a 'phenotypic gambit' approach and focuses on changes in the frequency of phenotypes (which differ in timing of breeding and fecundity) within a population, using, as an example, seasonal breeding. Fitness per phenotype calculated as the individual's contribution to population growth on an annual basis coincide with the population dynamics per phenotype. Simplified model variants were explored to examine whether the complexity included in the model is justified. Outputs from the spatially implicit model underestimated the number of individuals across all phenotypes. When no phenotype transitions are included (i.e. offspring always inherit their parent's phenotype) numbers of all individuals are always underestimated. We conclude that by using a phenotypic gambit approach evolutionary dynamics can be incorporated into individual based models, and that all that is required is an understanding of the probability of offspring inheriting the parental phenotype
A Unified Functional Network Target for Deep Brain Stimulation in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
BACKGROUND: Multiple deep brain stimulation (DBS) targets have been proposed for treating intractable obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Here, we investigated whether stimulation effects of different target sites would be mediated by one common or several segregated functional brain networks. METHODS: First, seeding from active electrodes of 4 OCD patient cohorts (N = 50) receiving DBS to anterior limb of the internal capsule or subthalamic nucleus zones, optimal functional connectivity profiles for maximal Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale improvements were calculated and cross-validated in leave-one-cohort-out and leave-one-patient-out designs. Second, we derived optimal target-specific connectivity patterns to determine brain regions mutually predictive of clinical outcome for both targets and others predictive for either target alone. Functional connectivity was defined using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data acquired in 1000 healthy participants. RESULTS: While optimal functional connectivity profiles showed both commonalities and differences between target sites, robust cross-predictions of clinical improvements across OCD cohorts and targets suggested a shared network. Connectivity to the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and precuneus, among other regions, was predictive regardless of stimulation target. Regions with maximal connectivity to these commonly predictive areas included the insula, superior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex, and anterior thalamus, as well as the original stereotactic targets. CONCLUSIONS: Pinpointing the network modulated by DBS for OCD from different target sites identified a set of brain regions to which DBS electrodes associated with optimal outcomes were functionally connected-regardless of target choice. On these grounds, we establish potential brain areas that could prospectively inform additional or alternative neuromodulation targets for obsessive-compulsive disorder
Effective action in a higher-spin background
We consider a free massless scalar field coupled to an infinite tower of
background higher-spin gauge fields via minimal coupling to the traceless
conserved currents. The set of Abelian gauge transformations is deformed to the
non-Abelian group of unitary operators acting on the scalar field. The gauge
invariant effective action is computed perturbatively in the external fields.
The structure of the various (divergent or finite) terms is determined. In
particular, the quadratic part of the logarithmically divergent (or of the
finite) term is expressed in terms of curvatures and related to conformal
higher-spin gravity. The generalized higher-spin Weyl anomalies are also
determined. The relation with the theory of interacting higher-spin gauge
fields on anti de Sitter spacetime via the holographic correspondence is
discussed.Comment: 40 pages, Some errors and typos corrected, Version published in JHE
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