2,912 research outputs found
Abnormal connectivity between the default mode and the visual system underlies the manifestation of visual hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease:A task-based fMRI study
Background: The neural substrates of visual hallucinations remain an enigma, due primarily to the difficulties associated with directly interrogating the brain during hallucinatory episodes. Aims: To delineate the functional patterns of brain network activity and connectivity underlying visual hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease. Methods: In this study, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a behavioral task capable of eliciting visual misperceptions, a confirmed surrogate for visual hallucinations, in 35 patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. We then applied an independent component analysis to extract time series information for large-scale neuronal networks that have been previously implicated in the pathophysiology of visual hallucinations. These data were subjected to a task-based functional connectivity analysis, thus providing the first objective description of the neural activity and connectivity during visual hallucinations in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Results: Correct performance of the task was associated with increased activity in primary visual regions; however, during visual misperceptions, this same visual network became actively coupled with the default mode network (DMN). Further, the frequency of misperception errors on the task was positively correlated with the strength of connectivity between these two systems, as well as with decreased activity in the dorsal attention network (DAN), and with impaired connectivity between the DAN and the DMNs, and ventral attention networks. Finally, each of the network abnormalities identified in our analysis were significantly correlated with two independent clinical measures of hallucination severity. Conclusions: Together, these results provide evidence that visual hallucinations are due to increased engagement of the DMN with the primary visual system, and emphasize the role of dysfunctional engagement of attentional networks in the pathophysiology of hallucinations
Blood-Brain Barrier Disruption And Lesion Localisation In Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis With Predominant Cerebellar And Brainstem Involvement
The role of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in determining lesion distribution was assessed in an atypical model of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) induced in C3H/HeJ mice by immunisation with peptide 190-209 of myelin proteolipid protein, which can result in two distinct types of EAE, each with distinct lesion distribution. Areas of the BBB showing constitutively greater permeability in naive mice did not correlate with the lesion distribution in EAE. BBB disruption occurred only in sites of inflammatory cell infiltration. Irrespective of the clinical type, the BBB was disrupted in the cerebellum and brainstem. Pertussis toxin had no effect on lesion distribution. Thus, lesion distribution is not influenced solely by BBB permeability
New aesthetic, new anxieties
The New Aesthetic was a design concept and netculture phenomenon
launched into the world by London designer James Bridle in 2011. It
continues to attract the attention of media art, and throw up
associations to a variety of situated practices, including speculative
design, net criticism, hacking, free and open source software
development, locative media, sustainable hardware and so on. In this book we consider the New Aesthetic: as an opportunity to rethink
the relations between these contexts in the emergent episteme of
computationality. There is a desperate need to confront the political
pressures of neoliberalism manifested in these infrastructures.
Indeed, these are risky, dangerous and problematic times; a period
when critique should thrive. But here we need to forge new alliances,
invent and discover problems of the common that nevertheless do not
eliminate the fundamental differences in this ecology of practices. In
this book, perhaps provocatively, we believe a great deal could be
learned from the development of the New Aesthetic not only as a mood,
but as a topic and fix for collective feeling, that temporarily
mobilizes networks. Is it possible to sustain and capture these
atmospheres of debate and discussion beyond knee-jerk reactions and
opportunistic self-promotion? These are crucial questions that the New
Aesthetic invites us to consider, if only to keep a critical network
culture in place
Adaptive evolution of molecular phenotypes
Molecular phenotypes link genomic information with organismic functions,
fitness, and evolution. Quantitative traits are complex phenotypes that depend
on multiple genomic loci. In this paper, we study the adaptive evolution of a
quantitative trait under time-dependent selection, which arises from
environmental changes or through fitness interactions with other co-evolving
phenotypes. We analyze a model of trait evolution under mutations and genetic
drift in a single-peak fitness seascape. The fitness peak performs a
constrained random walk in the trait amplitude, which determines the
time-dependent trait optimum in a given population. We derive analytical
expressions for the distribution of the time-dependent trait divergence between
populations and of the trait diversity within populations. Based on this
solution, we develop a method to infer adaptive evolution of quantitative
traits. Specifically, we show that the ratio of the average trait divergence
and the diversity is a universal function of evolutionary time, which predicts
the stabilizing strength and the driving rate of the fitness seascape. From an
information-theoretic point of view, this function measures the
macro-evolutionary entropy in a population ensemble, which determines the
predictability of the evolutionary process. Our solution also quantifies two
key characteristics of adapting populations: the cumulative fitness flux, which
measures the total amount of adaptation, and the adaptive load, which is the
fitness cost due to a population's lag behind the fitness peak.Comment: Figures are not optimally displayed in Firefo
Spatial population expansion promotes the evolution of cooperation in an experimental Prisoner's Dilemma
Cooperation is ubiquitous in nature, but explaining its existence remains a
central interdisciplinary challenge. Cooperation is most difficult to explain
in the Prisoner's Dilemma game, where cooperators always lose in direct
competition with defectors despite increasing mean fitness. Here we demonstrate
how spatial population expansion, a widespread natural phenomenon, promotes the
evolution of cooperation. We engineer an experimental Prisoner's Dilemma game
in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to show that, despite losing to
defectors in nonexpanding conditions, cooperators increase in frequency in
spatially expanding populations. Fluorescently labeled colonies show genetic
demixing of cooperators and defectors, followed by increase in cooperator
frequency as cooperator sectors overtake neighboring defector sectors. Together
with lattice-based spatial simulations, our results suggest that spatial
population expansion drives the evolution of cooperation by (1) increasing
positive genetic assortment at population frontiers and (2) selecting for
phenotypes maximizing local deme productivity. Spatial expansion thus creates a
selective force whereby cooperator-enriched demes overtake neighboring
defector-enriched demes in a "survival of the fastest". We conclude that colony
growth alone can promote cooperation and prevent defection in microbes. Our
results extend to other species with spatially restricted dispersal undergoing
range expansion, including pathogens, invasive species, and humans
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Addendum: “Storage Ring Measurement of Electron Impact Ionization for Mg7+ Forming Mg8+” (2010, Apj, 712, 1166)
Experimental cross-section data are presented as online data tables for electron impact single ionization of Mg7+ forming Mg8+
Odour dialects among wild mammals
Across multiple taxa, population structure and dynamics depend on effective signalling between individuals. Among mammals, chemical communication is arguably the most important sense, underpinning mate choice, parental care, territoriality and even disease transmission. There is a growing body of evidence that odours signal genetic information that may confer considerable benefits including inbreeding avoidance and nepotism. To date, however, there has been no clear evidence that odours encode population-level information in wild mammals. Here we demonstrate for the first time the existence of ‘odour dialects’ in genetically distinct mammalian subpopulations across a large geographical scale. We found that otters, Lutra lutra, from across the United Kingdom possess sex and biogeography-specific odours. Subpopulations with the most distinctive odour profiles are also the most genetically diverse but not the most genetically differentiated. Furthermore, geographic distance between individuals does not explain regional odour differences, refuting other potential explanations such as group odour sharing behaviour. Differences in the language of odours between subpopulations have the potential to affect individual interactions, which could impact reproduction and gene-flow
Evolutionary processes in finite populations
We consider the evolution of large but finite populations on arbitrary fitness landscapes. We describe the
evolutionary process by a Markov-Moran process.We show that toO(1/N), the time-averaged fitness is lower for
the finite population than it is for the infinite population.We also showthat fluctuations in the number of individuals
for a given genotype can be proportional to a power of the inverse of the mutation rate. Finally, we show that the
probability for the system to take a given path through the fitness landscape can be nonmonotonic in system size
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