A wireless electro-optic platform for multimodal electrophysiology and optogenetics in freely moving rodents

This paper presents the design and the utilization of a wireless electro-optic platform to perform simultaneous multimodal electrophysiological recordings and optogenetic stimulation in freely moving rodents. The developed system can capture neural action potentials (AP), local field potentials (LFP) and electromyography (EMG) signals with up to 32 channels in parallel while providing four optical stimulation channels. The platform is using commercial off-the-shelf components (COTS) and a low-power digital field-programmable gate array (FPGA), to perform digital signal processing to digitally separate in real time the AP, LFP and EMG while performing signal detection and compression for mitigating wireless bandwidth and power consumption limitations. The different signal modalities collected on the 32 channels are time-multiplexed into a single data stream to decrease power consumption and optimize resource utilization. The data reduction strategy is based on signal processing and real-time data compression. Digital filtering, signal detection, and wavelet data compression are used inside the platform to separate the different electrophysiological signal modalities, namely the local field potentials (1–500 Hz), EMG (30–500 Hz), and the action potentials (300–5,000 Hz) and perform data reduction before transmitting the data. The platform achieves a measured data reduction ratio of 7.77 (for a firing rate of 50 AP/second) and weights 4.7 g with a 100-mAh battery, an on/off switch and a protective plastic enclosure. To validate the performance of the platform, we measured distinct electrophysiology signals and performed optogenetics stimulation in vivo in freely moving rondents. We recorded AP and LFP signals with the platform using a 16-microelectrode array implanted in the primary motor cortex of a Long Evans rat, both in anesthetized and freely moving conditions. EMG responses to optogenetic Channelrhodopsin-2 induced activation of motor cortex via optical fiber were also recorded in freely moving rodents

Harel, Simon, Laurent Lussier et Joël Thibert, 2015. Le Quartier des spectacles et le chantier de l’imaginaire montréalais, Québec : Presses de l’Université Laval

Premier ouvrage consacré entièrement au plus important projet d’urbanisme culturel à Montréal, Le Quartier des spectacles et le chantier de l’imaginaire se présente comme une vaste chambre d’écho où se mêlent les points de vue interdisciplinaires quant au rôle que peut – et devrait – jouer le design urbain dans la redéfinition identitaire d’un secteur de ville. C’est d’ailleurs en vertu de cet assemblage hétéroclite que le livre est à l’image du Quartier des spectacles. Comme l’entendent en e..

Spectacularisation urbaine et logement social : la place des Habitations Jeanne-Mance dans le Quartier des spectacles de Montréal

International audienceSet in the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles, the Habitations Jeanne-Mance is a vast, affordable housing complex which stands in contrast to the new, vibrant and artistic image of the city’s main cultural district. In spite of their different functions, these contrasting urban projects have recently deployed analogous strategies to beautify both the public spaces across the district and the shared spaces inside the perimeter of the modernist housing complex. But while public art and culture are used as a strategy to attract tourists to the Quartier des Spectacles, they serve a very different purpose at the Habitations Jeanne-Mance, where their purpose is to reinforce the 1,700 residents’ sense of belonging. Encompassing spectacularisation and aestheticisation, this article analyses how these recoding processes coalesce, and ultimately how they help to reshape the housing complex’s “symbolic edges” in a way that will, perhaps, determine its future.Situées au cœur du Quartier des Spectacles à Montréal, les Habitations Jeanne-Mance constituent un vaste ensemble de logements sociaux qui contraste avec la vitrine culturelle de la métropole québécoise. Pourtant, au-delà des différences de fonction, il se déploie dans ces projets urbains des pratiques d’embellissement analogues. Bien que l’on observe un recours à l’art public et la culture dans les deux cas, ces opérations d’embellissement prennent des formes différentes : destinées à attirer des publics dans le Quartier des Spectacles, elles cherchent plutôt à renforcer, dans le cas des Habitations Jeanne-Mance, le sentiment d’appartenance des 1 700 résidents qui y habitent. Entre la spectacularisation et l’esthétisation urbaine, nous proposons d’analyser dans cet article comment s’imbriquent et s’articulent ces opérations de recodage symbolique pour comprendre comment se négocient actuellement les frontières qui séparent ces deux territoires, et in fine, comment se dessine l’avenir de cet ensemble d’habitation moderniste

Urban spectacularisation and social housing : an asymmetrical relation ? The habitations Jeanne-Mance in Montreal’s quartier des spectacles

International audienc

Spectacularisation urbaine et logement social : la place des Habitations Jeanne-Mance dans le Quartier des spectacles de Montréal

International audienceSet in the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles, the Habitations Jeanne-Mance is a vast, affordable housing complex which stands in contrast to the new, vibrant and artistic image of the city’s main cultural district. In spite of their different functions, these contrasting urban projects have recently deployed analogous strategies to beautify both the public spaces across the district and the shared spaces inside the perimeter of the modernist housing complex. But while public art and culture are used as a strategy to attract tourists to the Quartier des Spectacles, they serve a very different purpose at the Habitations Jeanne-Mance, where their purpose is to reinforce the 1,700 residents’ sense of belonging. Encompassing spectacularisation and aestheticisation, this article analyses how these recoding processes coalesce, and ultimately how they help to reshape the housing complex’s “symbolic edges” in a way that will, perhaps, determine its future.Situées au cœur du Quartier des Spectacles à Montréal, les Habitations Jeanne-Mance constituent un vaste ensemble de logements sociaux qui contraste avec la vitrine culturelle de la métropole québécoise. Pourtant, au-delà des différences de fonction, il se déploie dans ces projets urbains des pratiques d’embellissement analogues. Bien que l’on observe un recours à l’art public et la culture dans les deux cas, ces opérations d’embellissement prennent des formes différentes : destinées à attirer des publics dans le Quartier des Spectacles, elles cherchent plutôt à renforcer, dans le cas des Habitations Jeanne-Mance, le sentiment d’appartenance des 1 700 résidents qui y habitent. Entre la spectacularisation et l’esthétisation urbaine, nous proposons d’analyser dans cet article comment s’imbriquent et s’articulent ces opérations de recodage symbolique pour comprendre comment se négocient actuellement les frontières qui séparent ces deux territoires, et in fine, comment se dessine l’avenir de cet ensemble d’habitation moderniste

Spectacularisation urbaine et logement social : la place des Habitations Jeanne-Mance dans le Quartier des spectacles de Montréal

Situées au cœur du Quartier des Spectacles à Montréal, les Habitations Jeanne-Mance constituent un vaste ensemble de logements sociaux qui contraste avec la vitrine culturelle de la métropole québécoise. Pourtant, au-delà des différences de fonction, il se déploie dans ces projets urbains des pratiques d’embellissement analogues. Bien que l’on observe un recours à l’art public et la culture dans les deux cas, ces opérations d’embellissement prennent des formes différentes : destinées à attirer des publics dans le Quartier des Spectacles, elles cherchent plutôt à renforcer, dans le cas des Habitations Jeanne-Mance, le sentiment d’appartenance des 1 700 résidents qui y habitent. Entre la spectacularisation et l’esthétisation urbaine, nous proposons d’analyser dans cet article comment s’imbriquent et s’articulent ces opérations de recodage symbolique pour comprendre comment se négocient actuellement les frontières qui séparent ces deux territoires, et in fine, comment se dessine l’avenir de cet ensemble d’habitation moderniste.Set in the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles, the Habitations Jeanne-Mance is a vast, affordable housing complex which stands in contrast to the new, vibrant and artistic image of the city’s main cultural district. In spite of their different functions, these contrasting urban projects have recently deployed analogous strategies to beautify both the public spaces across the district and the shared spaces inside the perimeter of the modernist housing complex. But while public art and culture are used as a strategy to attract tourists to the Quartier des Spectacles, they serve a very different purpose at the Habitations Jeanne-Mance, where their purpose is to reinforce the 1,700 residents’ sense of belonging. Encompassing spectacularisation and aestheticisation, this article analyses how these recoding processes coalesce, and ultimately how they help to reshape the housing complex’s “symbolic edges” in a way that will, perhaps, determine its future

Spectacularisation urbaine et logement social : la place des Habitations Jeanne-Mance dans le Quartier des spectacles de Montréal

International audienceSet in the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles, the Habitations Jeanne-Mance is a vast, affordable housing complex which stands in contrast to the new, vibrant and artistic image of the city’s main cultural district. In spite of their different functions, these contrasting urban projects have recently deployed analogous strategies to beautify both the public spaces across the district and the shared spaces inside the perimeter of the modernist housing complex. But while public art and culture are used as a strategy to attract tourists to the Quartier des Spectacles, they serve a very different purpose at the Habitations Jeanne-Mance, where their purpose is to reinforce the 1,700 residents’ sense of belonging. Encompassing spectacularisation and aestheticisation, this article analyses how these recoding processes coalesce, and ultimately how they help to reshape the housing complex’s “symbolic edges” in a way that will, perhaps, determine its future.Situées au cœur du Quartier des Spectacles à Montréal, les Habitations Jeanne-Mance constituent un vaste ensemble de logements sociaux qui contraste avec la vitrine culturelle de la métropole québécoise. Pourtant, au-delà des différences de fonction, il se déploie dans ces projets urbains des pratiques d’embellissement analogues. Bien que l’on observe un recours à l’art public et la culture dans les deux cas, ces opérations d’embellissement prennent des formes différentes : destinées à attirer des publics dans le Quartier des Spectacles, elles cherchent plutôt à renforcer, dans le cas des Habitations Jeanne-Mance, le sentiment d’appartenance des 1 700 résidents qui y habitent. Entre la spectacularisation et l’esthétisation urbaine, nous proposons d’analyser dans cet article comment s’imbriquent et s’articulent ces opérations de recodage symbolique pour comprendre comment se négocient actuellement les frontières qui séparent ces deux territoires, et in fine, comment se dessine l’avenir de cet ensemble d’habitation moderniste

Prenatal Workshops and Support Groups for Prospective Parents Whose Children Will Need Neonatal Care at Birth: A Feasibility and Pilot Study

Introduction: Support groups in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are beneficial to parents. The usefulness of prenatal support groups for prospective parents who will have a newborn requiring admission to the NICU has never been investigated. Methods: We assessed the needs of NICU parents regarding topics they would have wished to discuss prenatally and developed the content of a prenatal support workshop. A standardized survey prospectively evaluated the perspectives of pregnant women admitted to a high-risk pregnancy unit who participated in the resulting workshops. Results: During needs assessment, 295 parents invoked themes they would have wished to discuss antenatally: parental guilt, future parental role, normalizing their experience/emotions, coping with many losses, adapting to their new reality, control and trust, information about the NICU, technology around the baby, common neonatal interventions, the NICU clinical team, and the role of parents in the team. These findings were used to develop the workshop, including a moderator checklist and a visual presentation. Practical aspects of the meetings were tested/finalized during a pre-pilot phase. Among 21 pregnant women who answered the survey (average gestational age 29.3 weeks), all agreed that the workshop was useful, that it made them feel less lonely (95%), that exchanges with other women were beneficial (95%) and gave them a certain amount of control over their situation (89%). All answers to open-ended questions were positive. Conclusion: Prenatal educational/support workshops provide a unique and useful means to support future NICU parents. Future investigations will explore whether these prenatal interventions improve clinical outcomes