681 research outputs found
Cancer therapeutic potential of combinatorial immuno- and vaso-modulatory interventions
Currently, most of the basic mechanisms governing tumor-immune system
interactions, in combination with modulations of tumor-associated vasculature,
are far from being completely understood. Here, we propose a mathematical model
of vascularized tumor growth, where the main novelty is the modeling of the
interplay between functional tumor vasculature and effector cell recruitment
dynamics. Parameters are calibrated on the basis of different in vivo
immunocompromised Rag1-/- and wild-type (WT) BALB/c murine tumor growth
experiments. The model analysis supports that tumor vasculature normalization
can be a plausible and effective strategy to treat cancer when combined with
appropriate immuno-stimulations. We find that improved levels of functional
tumor vasculature, potentially mediated by normalization or stress alleviation
strategies, can provide beneficial outcomes in terms of tumor burden reduction
and growth control. Normalization of tumor blood vessels opens a therapeutic
window of opportunity to augment the antitumor immune responses, as well as to
reduce the intratumoral immunosuppression and induced-hypoxia due to vascular
abnormalities. The potential success of normalizing tumor-associated
vasculature closely depends on the effector cell recruitment dynamics and tumor
sizes. Furthermore, an arbitrary increase of initial effector cell
concentration does not necessarily imply a better tumor control. We evidence
the existence of an optimal concentration range of effector cells for tumor
shrinkage. Based on these findings, we suggest a theory-driven therapeutic
proposal that optimally combines immuno- and vaso-modulatory interventions
The dual optimizer for the growth-optimal portfolio under transaction costs
We consider the maximization of the long-term growth rate in the Black-Scholes model under proportional transaction costs as in Taksar et al.(Math. Oper. Res. 13:277-294, 1988). Similarly as in Kallsen and Muhle-Karbe (Ann. Appl. Probab. 20:1341-1358, 2010) for optimal consumption over an infinite horizon, we tackle this problem by determining a shadow price, which is the solution of the dual problem. It can be calculated explicitly up to determining the root of a deterministic function. This in turn allows one to explicitly compute fractional Taylor expansions, both for the no-trade region of the optimal strategy and for the optimal growth rat
On the Influence of Reward on Action-Effect Binding
Ideomotor theory states that the formation of anticipatory representations about the perceptual consequences of an action [i.e., action-effect (A-E) binding] provides the functional basis of voluntary action control. A host of studies have demonstrated that A-E binding occurs fast and effortlessly, yet little is known about cognitive and affective factors that influence this learning process. In the present study, we sought to test whether the motivational value of an action modulates the acquisition of A-E associations. To this end, we linked specific actions with monetary incentives during the acquisition of novel A-E mappings. In a subsequent test phase, the degree of binding was assessed by presenting the former effect stimuli as task-irrelevant response primes in a forced-choice response task, absent reward. Binding, as indexed by response priming through the former action-effects, was only found for reward-related A-E mappings. Moreover, the degree to which reward associations modulated the binding strength was predicted by individualsâ trait sensitivity to reward. These observations indicate that the association of actions and their immediate outcomes depends on the motivational value of the action during learning, as well as on the motivational disposition of the individual. On a larger scale, these findings also highlight the link between ideomotor theories and reinforcement-learning theories, providing an interesting perspective for future research on anticipatory regulation of behavior
Expiratory Muscle Strength Training for Therapy of Pharyngeal Dysphagia in Parkinson's Disease
Background
Pharyngeal dysphagia in Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common and clinically relevant symptom associated with poor nutrition intake, reduced quality of life, and aspiration pneumonia. Despite this, effective behavioral treatment approaches are rare.
Objective
The objective of this study was to verify if 4 week of expiratory muscle strength training can improve pharyngeal dysphagia in the short and long term and is able to induce neuroplastic changes in cortical swallowing processing.
Methods
In this double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, 50 patients with hypokinetic pharyngeal dysphagia, as confirmed by flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing, performed a 4-week expiratory muscle strength training. Twenty-five participants used a calibrated (âactiveâ) device, 25 used a sham handheld device. Swallowing function was evaluated directly before and after the training period, as well as after a period of 3âmonth using flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing. Swallowing-related cortical activation was measured in 22 participants (active:sham; 11:11) using whole-head magnetencephalography.
Results
The active group showed significant improvement in the flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowingâbased dysphagia score after 4âweeks and after 3âmonths, whereas in the sham group no significant changes from baseline were observed. Especially, clear reduction in pharyngeal residues was found. Regarding the cortical swallowing network before and after training, no statistically significant differences were found by magnetencephalography examination.
Conclusions
Four-week expiratory muscle strength training significantly reduces overall dysphagia severity in PD patients, with a sustained effect after 3âmonths compared with sham training. This was mainly achieved by improving swallowing efficiency. The treatment effect is probably caused by peripheral mechanisms, as no changes in the cortical swallowing network were identified. © 2021 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Societ
Abrupt and spontaneous strategy switches emerge in simple regularised neural networks
Humans sometimes have an insight that leads to a sudden and drastic
performance improvement on the task they are working on. Sudden strategy
adaptations are often linked to insights, considered to be a unique aspect of
human cognition tied to complex processes such as creativity or meta-cognitive
reasoning. Here, we take a learning perspective and ask whether insight-like
behaviour can occur in simple artificial neural networks, even when the models
only learn to form input-output associations through gradual gradient descent.
We compared learning dynamics in humans and regularised neural networks in a
perceptual decision task that included a hidden regularity to solve the task
more efficiently. Our results show that only some humans discover this
regularity, whose behaviour was marked by a sudden and abrupt strategy switch
that reflects an aha-moment. Notably, we find that simple neural networks with
a gradual learning rule and a constant learning rate closely mimicked
behavioural characteristics of human insight-like switches, exhibiting delay of
insight, suddenness and selective occurrence in only some networks. Analyses of
network architectures and learning dynamics revealed that insight-like
behaviour crucially depended on a regularised gating mechanism and noise added
to gradient updates, which allowed the networks to accumulate "silent
knowledge" that is initially suppressed by regularised (attentional) gating.
This suggests that insight-like behaviour can arise naturally from gradual
learning in simple neural networks, where it reflects the combined influences
of noise, gating and regularisation.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure
Goal-seeking compresses neural codes for space in the human hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex
Humans can navigate flexibly to meet their goals. Here, we asked how the neural representation of allocentric space is distorted by goal-directed behavior. Participants navigated an agent to two successive goal locations in a grid world environment comprising four interlinked rooms, with a contextual cue indicating the conditional dependence of one goal location on another. Examining the neural geometry by which room and context were encoded in fMRI signals, we found that map-like representations of the environment emerged in both hippocampus and neocortex. Cognitive maps in hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortices were compressed so that locations cued as goals were coded together in neural state space, and these distortions predicted successful learning. This effect was captured by a computational model in which current and prospective locations are jointly encoded in a place code, providing a theory of how goals warp the neural representation of space in macroscopic neural signals
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