Construction of Ethnic Belonging in the Context of Former Yugoslavia—the Case of a Migrant from Bosnia-Herzegovina

Este artículo aborda la cuestión del cambio y la continuidad de las construcciones étnicas y nacionales de la pertenencia en el contexto de la ex-Yugoslavia, con especial énfasis en Bosnia-Herzegovina. Empleo un enfoque de análisis biográfico. Esto me permite reconstruir el proceso de desarrollo y transformación, así como la continuidad de las construcciones étnicas y nacionales de pertenencia. Por otra parte, este enfoque también permite analizar la génesis de esos fenómenos. Tomando como base un estudio de caso, se demostrará cómo es el desarrollo de las pertenencias étnicas y nacionales, cómo han cambiado, y cómo presentan una cierta continuidad bajo determinadas circunstancias. Al hacerlo, se analizó la interacción entre el pasado y el presente, así como la evolución intra-biográfica y social. La conclusión es que el biógrafo formó una construcción supra-étnica de la pertenencia yugoslava que se mantuvo a pesar de la experiencia de la migración. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0903226Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Frage der Wandelbarkeit und der Kontinuität ethnischer und nationaler Zugehörigkeitskonstruktionen im Kontext des ehemaligen Jugoslawiens mit einem besonderen Schwerpunkt auf Bosnien-Herzegowina. Ich habe dabei einen biografieanalytischen Zugang verfolgt. Dies ermöglichte, den Prozess der Entstehung, Transformation sowie Kontinuität ethnischer und nationaler Zugehörigkeitskonstruktionen nachzuvollziehen und diese Phänomene in ihrer Genese zu analysieren. Auf Grundlage der Rekonstruktion eines Falles wird gezeigt, wie ethnische und nationale Zugehörigkeiten im Laufe des Lebens einer Person entstanden, wie sie sich veränderten und unter bestimmten Umständen eine gewisse Kontinuität aufwiesen. Dabei wird die Wechselwirkung sowohl von Vergangenheit und Gegenwart als auch zwischen innerbiografischen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen analysiert. Ich gelangte zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Biografin im Laufe ihres Lebens eine supraethnische, jugoslawische Zugehörigkeitskonstruktion herausgebildet hat, welche über die Migrationserfahrung hinaus erhalten blieb. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0903226This article deals with the question of the change and continuity of ethnic and national constructs of belonging in the context of former Yugoslavia with special emphasis on Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am taking a biographical analytical approach. This allows me to reconstruct the process of the development and transformation, as well as the continuity of ethnic and national constructs of belonging. Moreover, this approach also allows an analysis of these phenomena in their genesis. Based on a case study, it will be demonstrated how ethnic and national belongings developed, how they changed, and how under some circumstances they exhibit a certain continuity. In doing so, the interplay between the past and the present as well as the intra-biographical and societal developments were analyzed. I came to the conclusion that the biographer formed a supra-ethnical Yugoslavian construct of belonging which was maintained despite the migration experience. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090322

Behavioral Context Determines Network State and Variability Dynamics in Monkey Motor Cortex

Variability of spiking activity is ubiquitous throughout the brain but little is known about its contextual dependance. Trial-to-trial spike count variability, estimated by the Fano Factor (FF), and within-trial spike time irregularity, quantified by the coefficient of variation (CV), reflect variability on long and short time scales, respectively. We co-analyzed FF and the local coefficient of variation (CV2) in monkey motor cortex comparing two behavioral contexts, movement preparation (wait) and execution (movement). We find that the FF significantly decreases from wait to movement, while the CV2 increases. The more regular firing (expressed by a low CV2) during wait is related to an increased power of local field potential (LFP) beta oscillations and phase locking of spikes to these oscillations. In renewal processes, a widely used model for spiking activity under stationary input conditions, both measures are related as FF ≈ CV2. This expectation was met during movement, but not during wait where FF ≫ CV22. Our interpretation is that during movement preparation, ongoing brain processes result in changing network states and thus in high trial-to-trial variability (expressed by a high FF). During movement execution, the network is recruited for performing the stereotyped motor task, resulting in reliable single neuron output. Our interpretation is in the light of recent computational models that generate non-stationary network conditions

The Local Field Potential Reflects Surplus Spike Synchrony

The oscillatory nature of the cortical local field potential (LFP) is commonly interpreted as a reflection of synchronized network activity, but its relationship to observed transient coincident firing of neurons on the millisecond time-scale remains unclear. Here we present experimental evidence to reconcile the notions of synchrony at the level of neuronal spiking and at the mesoscopic scale. We demonstrate that only in time intervals of excess spike synchrony, coincident spikes are better entrained to the LFP than predicted by the locking of the individual spikes. This effect is enhanced in periods of large LFP amplitudes. A quantitative model explains the LFP dynamics by the orchestrated spiking activity in neuronal groups that contribute the observed surplus synchrony. From the correlation analysis, we infer that neurons participate in different constellations but contribute only a fraction of their spikes to temporally precise spike configurations, suggesting a dual coding scheme of rate and synchrony. This finding provides direct evidence for the hypothesized relation that precise spike synchrony constitutes a major temporally and spatially organized component of the LFP. Revealing that transient spike synchronization correlates not only with behavior, but with a mesoscopic brain signal corroborates its relevance in cortical processing.Comment: 45 pages, 8 figures, 3 supplemental figure

LFP beta amplitude is predictive of mesoscopic spatio-temporal phase patterns

Beta oscillations observed in motor cortical local field potentials (LFPs) recorded on separate electrodes of a multi-electrode array have been shown to exhibit non-zero phase shifts that organize into a planar wave propagation. Here, we generalize this concept by introducing additional classes of patterns that fully describe the spatial organization of beta oscillations. During a delayed reach-to-grasp task in monkey primary motor and dorsal premotor cortices we distinguish planar, synchronized, random, circular, and radial phase patterns. We observe that specific patterns correlate with the beta amplitude (envelope). In particular, wave propagation accelerates with growing amplitude, and culminates at maximum amplitude in a synchronized pattern. Furthermore, the occurrence probability of a particular pattern is modulated with behavioral epochs: Planar waves and synchronized patterns are more present during movement preparation where beta amplitudes are large, whereas random phase patterns are dominant during movement execution where beta amplitudes are small

Saccade-Related Modulations of Neuronal Excitability Support Synchrony of Visually Elicited Spikes

During natural vision, primates perform frequent saccadic eye movements, allowing only a narrow time window for processing the visual information at each location. Individual neurons may contribute only with a few spikes to the visual processing during each fixation, suggesting precise spike timing as a relevant mechanism for information processing. We recently found in V1 of monkeys freely viewing natural images, that fixation-related spike synchronization occurs at the early phase of the rate response after fixation-onset, suggesting a specific role of the first response spikes in V1. Here, we show that there are strong local field potential (LFP) modulations locked to the onset of saccades, which continue into the successive fixation periods. Visually induced spikes, in particular the first spikes after the onset of a fixation, are locked to a specific epoch of the LFP modulation. We suggest that the modulation of neural excitability, which is reflected by the saccade-related LFP changes, serves as a corollary signal enabling precise timing of spikes in V1 and thereby providing a mechanism for spike synchronization

Correlation transmission of spiking neurons is boosted by synchronous input : From Twentieth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2011 Stockholm, Sweden. 23-28 July 2011

Published by BioMed Central Schultze-Kraft, Matthias ; Diesmann, Markus ; Grün, Sonja ; Helias, Moritz : Correlation transmission of spiking neurons is boosted by synchronous input : From Twentieth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2011 Stockholm, Sweden. 23-28 July 2011. - In: BMC Neuroscience. - ISSN 1471-2202 (online). - 12 (2011), suppl. 1, P144. - doi:10.1186/1471-2202-12-S1-P144

Efficient Identification of Assembly Neurons within Massively Parallel Spike Trains

The chance of detecting assembly activity is expected to increase if the spiking activities of large numbers of neurons are recorded simultaneously. Although such massively parallel recordings are now becoming available, methods able to analyze such data for spike correlation are still rare, as a combinatorial explosion often makes it infeasible to extend methods developed for smaller data sets. By evaluating pattern complexity distributions the existence of correlated groups can be detected, but their member neurons cannot be identified. In this contribution, we present approaches to actually identify the individual neurons involved in assemblies. Our results may complement other methods and also provide a way to reduce data sets to the “relevant” neurons, thus allowing us to carry out a refined analysis of the detailed correlation structure due to reduced computation time