The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure

Effect of Wavelength on Pseudo-Hallucination Production in the Multi-Modal Ganzfeld

A one way, three factor repeated measures design to test the effect of wavelength of light on pseudo-hallucinations under multi-modal Ganzfel

Effect of Wavelength on Pseudo-Hallucination Production in the Multi-Modal Ganzfeld

A one way, three factor repeated measures design to test the effect of wavelength of light on pseudo-hallucinations under multi-modal Ganzfel

Quantitative Identification of Functional Connectivity Disturbances in Neuropsychiatric Lupus Based on Resting-State fMRI: A Robust Machine Learning Approach

Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) is an autoimmune entity comprised of heterogenous syndromes affecting both the peripheral and central nervous system. Research on the pathophysiological substrate of NPSLE manifestations, including functional neuroimaging studies, is extremely limited. The present study examined person-specific patterns of whole-brain functional connectivity in NPSLE patients (n = 44) and age-matched healthy control participants (n = 39). Static functional connectivity graphs were calculated comprised of connection strengths between 90 brain regions. These connections were subsequently filtered through rigorous surrogate analysis, a technique borrowed from physics, novel to neuroimaging. Next, global as well as nodal network metrics were estimated for each individual functional brain network and were input to a robust machine learning algorithm consisting of a random forest feature selection and nested cross-validation strategy. The proposed pipeline is data-driven in its entirety, and several tests were performed in order to ensure model robustness. The best-fitting model utilizing nodal graph metrics for 11 brain regions was associated with 73.5% accuracy (74.5% sensitivity and 73% specificity) in discriminating NPSLE from healthy individuals with adequate statistical power. Closer inspection of graph metric values suggested an increased role within the functional brain network in NSPLE (indicated by higher nodal degree, local efficiency, betweenness centrality, or eigenvalue efficiency) as compared to healthy controls for seven brain regions and a reduced role for four areas. These findings corroborate earlier work regarding hemodynamic disturbances in these brain regions in NPSLE. The validity of the results is further supported by significant associations of certain selected graph metrics with accumulated organ damage incurred by lupus, with visuomotor performance and mental flexibility scores obtained independently from NPSLE patients.</jats:p

Variations of autonomic arousal mediate the reportability of mind blanking occurrences

Abstract Mind blanking (MB) is the inability to report mental events during unconstraint thinking. Previous work shows that MB is linked to decreased levels of cortical arousal, indicating dominance of cerebral mechanisms when reporting mental states. What remains inconclusive is whether MB can also ensue from autonomic arousal manipulations, pointing to the implication of peripheral physiology to mental events. Using experience sampling, neural, and physiological measurements in 26 participants, we first show that MB was reported more frequently in low arousal conditions, elicited by sleep deprivation. Also, there was partial evidence for a higher occurence of MB reports in high arousal conditions, elicited by intense physical exercise. Transition probabilities revealed that, after sleep deprivation, mind wandering was more likely to be followed by MB and less likely to be followed by more mind wandering reports. Using classification schemes, we found higher performance of a balanced random forest classifier trained on both neural and physiological markers in comparison to performance when solely neural or physiological were used. Collectively, we show that both cortical and autonomic arousal affect MB report occurrences. Our results establish that MB is supported by combined brain-body configurations, and, by linking mental and physiological states, they pave the way for novel embodied accounts of spontaneous thinking. ‘The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 02/01/23. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: 10.17605/OSF.IO/SH2YE’ Techniques: Life sciences techniques, Biophysical methods [Electrocardiography - EKG]; Life sciences techniques, Biophysical methods [Electroencephalography - EEG]; CTS received date: 27.11.2024

Variations of autonomic arousal mediate the reportability of mind-blanking occurrences

Mind-blanking (MB) is the inability to report mental events during unconstraint thinking. Previous work shows that MB is linked to decreased levels of cortical arousal, indicating dominance of cerebral mechanisms when reporting mental states. What remains inconclusive is whether MB can also ensue from autonomic arousal manipulations, pointing to the implication of peripheral physiology to mental events. Using experience-sampling, neural, and physiological measurements in 26 participants, we first show that MB was reported more frequently in low arousal conditions, elicited by sleep deprivation. Also, there was partial evidence for a higher number of MB reports in high arousal conditions, elicited by intense physical exercise. Transition probabilities revealed that, after sleep deprivation, mind-wandering was more likely to be followed by MB and less likely to be followed by more mind-wandering reports. Using classification schemes, we show higher performance of a balanced random forest classifier trained on both neural and physiological markers in comparison to performance when solely neural or physiological were used. Collectively, we show that both cortical and autonomic arousal affect MB report occurrences. Our results establish that MB is supported by combined brain-body configurations, and, by linking mental and physiological states they pave the way for novel, embodied accounts of spontaneous thinking

Variations of autonomic arousal mediate the reportability of mind-blanking occurrences

Mind-Blanking (MB) is a state of complete absence of any mental content, only recognized by a post-hoc realization that "I was thinking of nothing". Previous work has identified unique brain physiology and network configurations which promote MB reportability. These indices seem to reflect decreased levels of physiological arousal as expressed in terms of reduced cortical excitation. Our project aims to provide a direct link between physiological and cortical arousal and MB occurrence. We will measure MB reports under 3 arousal conditions, baseline, after sleep deprivation (low), and after high-intensity exercise (high). Therefore, using multimodal physiological recordings, experience sampling, and a data-driven decoding approach, we want to examine: 1. how MB response distributions are affected by different levels of arousal 2. if there is a specific brain-body pattern that promotes MB occurrences. This dataset contains all raw data (EEG, ECG, EDA, RSP, EYE -- resampled to EEG sampling rate) in BIDS format, all results dataframes and all machine learning models used in "Variations of autonomic arousal mediate the reportability of mind-blanking occurrences"