A new device for the simultaneous recording of cerebral, cardiac, and muscular electrical activity in freely moving rodents

AbstractWe present a new technique for the simultaneous capture of bioelectrical time signals from the brain and peripheral organs of freely moving rodents. The recording system integrates all systemic signals into an electrical interface board that is mounted on an animal's head for an extended period. The interface board accommodates up to 48 channels, enabling us to analyze neuronal activity patterns in multiple brain regions by comparing a variety of physiological body states over weeks and months. This technique will advance the understanding of the neurophysiological correlate of mind–body associations in health and disease

Neuroethology of the Waggle Dance: How Followers Interact with the Waggle Dancer and Detect Spatial Information

Since the honeybee possesses eusociality, advanced learning, memory ability, and information sharing through the use of various pheromones and sophisticated symbol communication (i.e., the "waggle dance"), this remarkable social animal has been one of the model symbolic animals for biological studies, animal ecology, ethology, and neuroethology. Karl von Frisch discovered the meanings of the waggle dance and called the communication a "dance language." Subsequent to this discovery, it has been extensively studied how effectively recruits translate the code in the dance to reach the advertised destination and how the waggle dance information conflicts with the information based on their own foraging experience. The dance followers, mostly foragers, detect and interact with the waggle dancer, and are finally recruited to the food source. In this review, we summarize the current state of knowledge on the neural processing underlying this fascinating behavior

A Hybrid Higgs

We construct composite Higgs models admitting a weakly coupled Seiberg dual description. We focus on the possibility that only the up-type Higgs is an elementary field, while the down-type Higgs arises as a composite hadron. The model, based on a confining SQCD theory, breaks supersymmetry and electroweak symmetry dynamically and calculably. This simultaneously solves the \mu/B_\mu problem and explains the smallness of the bottom and tau masses compared to the top mass. The proposal is then applied to a class of models where the same confining dynamics is used to generate the Standard Model flavor hierarchy by quark and lepton compositeness. This provides a unified framework for flavor, supersymmetry breaking and electroweak physics. The weakly coupled dual is used to explicitly compute the MSSM parameters in terms of a few microscopic couplings, giving interesting relations between the electroweak and soft parameters. The RG evolution down to the TeV scale is obtained and salient phenomenological predictions of this class of "single-sector" models are discussed.Comment: 56 pages, 7 figures, v2: discussion on FCNCs and references added, v3: JHEP versio

Evidence for instantaneous e-vector detection in the honeybee using an associative learning paradigm

Many insects use the polarization pattern of the sky for obtaining compass information during orientation or navigation. E-vector information is collected by a specialized area in the dorsal-most part of the compound eye, the dorsal rim area (DRA). We tested honeybees' capability of learning certain e-vector orientations by using a classical conditioning paradigm with the proboscis extension reflex. When one e-vector orientation (CS+) was associated with sugar water (US), while another orientation (CS-) was not rewarded, the honeybees could discriminate CS+ from CS-. Bees, whose DRA was inactivated by painting, did not learn CS+. When ultraviolet polarized light (350 nm) was used for CS, the bees discriminated CS+ from CS-, but no discrimination was observed in blue (442 nm) or green light (546 nm). Our data indicate that honeybees can learn and discriminate between different e-vector orientations, sensed by the UV receptors of the DRA, suggesting that bees can determine their flight direction from polarized UV skylight during foraging. Fixing the bees' heads during the experiments did not prevent learning, indicating that they use an "instantaneous" algorithm of e-vector detection; i.e. the bees do not need to actively scan the sky with their DRAs ("sequential" method) to determine e-vector orientation

Heated egg yolk challenge predicts the natural course of hen’s egg allergy: a retrospective study

Abstract Background Children do not always outgrow hen’s egg allergies in early childhood. Because egg yolks are less allergenic than egg whites, we performed an oral food challenge with heated egg yolk slightly contaminated with egg white (EYSEW OFC) in infants allergic to hen’s egg. We hypothesized that the EYSEW OFC results would predict the egg allergy’s natural course. Methods We retrospectively reviewed participants with hen’s egg allergy who underwent their first EYSEW OFC at 12–23 months of age between 2004 and 2010. Participants who passed the first EYSEW OFC were defined as EYSEW-tolerant, and participants who failed the OFC were defined as EYSEW-reactive. Participants who passed the EYSEW OFC underwent an OFC with half of a heated whole egg (WE OFC). Participants who passed a WE OFC were defined to be heated hen’s egg-tolerant. Participants who failed the EYSEW OFC or the WE OFC underwent another OFC at least 6 months later. We compared tolerance to heated hen’s egg at 36 months after the first EYSEW OFC between EYSEW-tolerant and EYSEW-reactive participants. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted. Results Of the 197 included participants (median age: 18.3 months; range: 12.1–23.8 months), 179 (90.9 %) were EYSEW tolerant and 18 (9.1 %) were EYSEW reactive. At 36 months after the first EYSEW OFC, 164 EYSEW-tolerant (91.6 %) and 12 EYSEW-reactive participants (66.7 %) achieved heated hen’s egg tolerance. In the univariate logistic regression analyses, EYSEW-reactive participants (crude odds ratio [OR], 5.5 [95 % confidence intervals [CI], 1.8–16.6]; p = 0.003) and those with baseline egg white sIgE levels (crude OR: 3.9 per ten-fold increase [95 % CI, 1.5–10.2]; p = 0.005) had greater odds of persistent allergy to hen’s egg at 36 months after the first EYSEW OFC. In a multivariate logistic regression analysis after adjustment for baseline egg white sIgE, EYSEW-reactive participants had greater odds of persistent allergy to hen’s egg than EYSEW-tolerant participants (adjusted OR: 4.6 [95 % CI, 1.5–15.0]; p = 0.003). Conclusions Classifying infants who are allergic to hen’s egg into EYSEW tolerant and EYSEW reactive groups was useful in determining prognosis