Can you hear me now?: Momentary increase in smartphone usage enhances neural processing of task-irrelevant sound tones

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Stretch reflex augmentation by subthreshold TMS is evidence for corticospinal signal integration

Reflex adaptation to environment and task at hand plays a key role in motor control. In search for cortical reflex modulation mechanisms, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been found to augment muscle stretch reflexes as recorded by electromyography (EMG). However, instead of reflecting true integration of efferent sensory with cortical activity, this augmentation can alternatively be explained by spinal summation of the stretch response with TMS induced motor evoked potentials (MEP). The goal of this study was to confirm true peripheral-cortical signal integration by combining muscle reflex responses with timed subthreshold TMS. Mechanically induced ramp-and-hold stretches (duration: 40 ms, velocity: 1.5 rad/s) of the m. flexor carpi radialis were combined with TMS pulses at 96% of active motor threshold applied between 10 ms before and 120 ms after stretch onset with a resolution of 5 to 10 ms. Significant MEP like augmentation of the EMG response was found when TMS was timed to arrive between 60 and 90 ms after stretch onset with a consistent and short delay between estimated TMS arrival time and peak EMG activity of 5 to 10 ms. Timing and nature of muscle stretch reflex activity augmentation by subthreshold TMS reflect supraspinal integration of peripheral sensory afferent with cortical efferent signals as a mechanism of supraspinal reflex adaptation

An Efficient Dual-Hierarchy t-SNE Minimization

t-distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding (t-SNE) has become a standard for exploratory data analysis, as it is capable of revealing clusters even in complex data while requiring minimal user input. While its run-time complexity limited it to small datasets in the past, recent efforts improved upon the expensive similarity computations and the previously quadratic minimization. Nevertheless, t-SNE still has high runtime and memory costs when operating on millions of points. We present a novel method for executing the t-SNE minimization. While our method overall retains a linear runtime complexity, we obtain a significant performance increase in the most expensive part of the minimization. We achieve a significant improvement without a noticeable decrease in accuracy even when targeting a 3D embedding. Our method constructs a pair of spatial hierarchies over the embedding, which are simultaneously traversed to approximate many N-body interactions at once. We demonstrate an efficient GPGPU implementation and evaluate its performance against state-of-the-art methods on a variety of datasets

Ordered vacancy network induced by the growth of epitaxial graphene on Pt(111)

We have studied large areas of (v3×v3)R30° graphene commensurate with a Pt(111) substrate. A combination of experimental techniques with ab initio density functional theory indicates that this structure is related to a reconstruction at the Pt surface, consisting of an ordered vacancy network formed in the outermost Pt layer and a graphene layer covalently bound to the Pt substrate. The formation of this reconstruction is enhanced if low temperatures and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are used as molecular precursors for epitaxial growth of the graphene layers

Augmentation of Endoxifen Exposure in Tamoxifen-Treated Women Following SSRI Switch

Background and Objective: The anti-oestrogen tamoxifen requires metabolic activation to endoxifen by cytochr

The TMS Map Scales with Increased Stimulation Intensity and Muscle Activation

One way to study cortical organisation, or its reorganisation, is to use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to construct a map of corticospinal excitability. TMS maps are reported to be acquired with a wide variety of stimulation intensities and levels of muscle activation. Whilst MEPs are known to increase both with stimulation intensity and muscle activation, it remains to be established what the effect of these factors is on the map's centre of gravity (COG), area, volume and shape. Therefore, the objective of this study was to systematically examine the effect of stimulation intensity and muscle activation on these four key map outcome measures. In a first experiment, maps were acquired with a stimulation intensity of 110, 120 and 130% of resting threshold. In a second experiment, maps were acquired at rest and at 5, 10, 20 and 40% of maximum voluntary contraction. Map area and map volume increased with both stimulation intensity (P 0.09 in all cases). This result indicates the map simply scales with stimulation intensity and muscle activation

Enhanced Dispersion of TiO2 Nanoparticles in a TiO2/PEDOT:PSS Hybrid Nanocomposite via Plasma-Liquid Interactions

A facile method to synthesize a TiO2/PEDOT:PSS hybrid nanocomposite material in aqueous solution through direct current (DC) plasma processing at atmospheric pressure and room temperature has been demonstrated. The dispersion of the TiO2 nanoparticles is enhanced and TiO2/polymer hybrid nanoparticles with a distinct core shell structure have been obtained. Increased electrical conductivity was observed for the plasma treated TiO2/PEDOT:PSS nanocomposite. The improvement in nanocomposite properties is due to the enhanced dispersion and stability in liquid polymer of microplasma treated TiO2 nanoparticles. Both plasma induced surface charge and nanoparticle surface termination with specific plasma chemical species are proposed to provide an enhanced barrier to nanoparticle agglomeration and promote nanoparticle-polymer binding