Transcranial electric stimulation and cognitive training improves face perception

Recently, there has been much interest the effectiveness of cognitive training programmes across a variety of cognitive and perceptual domains. Some evidence suggests that combining training programmes with noninvasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) can enhance training gains, but to date this has only been examined in numerosity and arithmetic tasks. In this study, we examined whether tRNS modulated the effects of a face recognition training programme. Participants completed a face discrimination training task for an hour per day over five days. Each day, training was preceded by twenty minutes of active high frequency tRNS or sham stimulation, targeted at the posterior temporal cortices or the inferior frontal gyri (IFG). Participants who received active stimulation to the posterior temporal cortices showed significant improvement on a facial identity discrimination task (the Cambridge Face Perception Test) after training, whereas those receiving sham or IFG stimulation showed no performance change. There was no evidence of an effect of stimulation on a face memory task (the Cambridge Face Memory Test). These results suggest that tRNS can enhance the effectiveness of cognitive training programmes, but further work is needed to establish whether perceptual gains can be generalised to face memory

Poison plants of Western Australia—the birdsville indigo

The Birdsville Indigo is a plant of wide distribution, being common on the plains of India as well as being widely diffused in tropical Australia. In Western Australia, besides being widely distributed in many parts of the Kimberley Division, it is particularly abundant on the plains of the Ashburton district, and extends as far south as Williambury on the Minilya River. Other areas in which it is common are the sandy spots around Derby and Broome, where it appears to be spreading. It is also common in Central Australia around Alice Springs. The plant was included by Dymock in his Vegetable Materia Medica of India as an antiscorbutic and diuretic

Poison plants of Western Australia - Cabbage poison (Velleia discophora F. Muell.)

Cabbage poison is a plant of bitter and disagreeable taste, not readily eaten by stock, but field evidence suggests that on occasions it may be responsible for moralities, particularly of sheep. It was first tested and found to be toxic in 1939, with material obtained from Koorda-Mollerin district

Poison plants of Western Australia: toxic plants of the genus euphorbia

The genus Euphorbia comprises nearly one thousand species, a large number of which yield a milky juice or latex. Some of these plants are familiar as garden plants, e.g. the Poinsettia the Mexican fire bush, the crown of thorns , and the strange cactus-like Euphorbia lactea that is a familiar object in our parks and gardens

Poison plants of Western Australia: Ironwood

The genus Erythrophloeum comprises five species, native to Africa, China and Northern Australia. At least three of these are known to be poisonous, including E. guineense which was used as an ordeal and arrow poison by the natives of West Africa. The South African species, also, is known to be poisonous to stock

Poison plants of Western Australia: isotropis

The genus Isotropis is restricted to Australia. Of the total of nine species six are recorded in Western Australia, two of them being known as Lamb poisons while the remainder have no common names. Three are known to be toxic to stock, but concerning the remaining three we have no definite information. * Poison Plants of Western Australia is an ongoing series of articles. Toxic Plants of the Genus Isotropis is the subtitle and primary focus of this article

Poison Plants - Pituri

Only a few of the drug-yielding plants found on their hunting grounds appear ^* to have been known to the Australian aborigines. Among those used and valued was the plant called pituri by the Central Australian tribes. The leaves of this plant, after drying and suitable preparation, were chewed as a narcotic

Poison plants of Western Australia: toxic plants of the genera gastrolobium and oxylobium

Since the early days of settlement in Western Australia very heavy stock losses have resulted from the many poisonous species of the two closely related genera, Gastrolobium and Oxylobium which, with two exceptions, are widely distributed throughout the southern areas of the State. They constitute the largest groups of native poisonous plants and have been responsible for a large proportion of the economic losses due to plant poisoning

Poison plants of Western Australia: the thorn apples (datura species)

Many garden enthusiasts are familiar with a shrub or small tree known as the Angel\u27s Trumpet or Trumpet-flowered Brugmansia. Some nurserymen call it Brugsmania. There is another garden favourite which does not appear to possess a common name but is an annual or perennial plant from one to four feet in height, of summer growth and carrying erect violet or white trumpet-shaped flowers succeeded by large bristly or prickly pods. Both these are species of Datura. Another species is native to Western Australia while four more are introduced noxious weeds