Electric Fish Genomics: Progress, Prospects, and New Tools for Neuroethology
Publication date: Available online 18 October 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): William R. Pitchers, Savvas J. Constantinou, Mauricio Losilla, Jason R. Gallant Electric fish have served as a model system in biology since the 18th century, providing deep insight into the nature of bioelectrogenesis, the molecular structure of the synapse, and brain circuitry underlying complex behavior. Neuroethologists have collected extensive phenotypic data that span biological levels of analysis from molecules to ecosystems. This phenotypic data, together with genomic resources obtained over the past decades, have...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - October 28, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Electric organ discharges and near-field spatiotemporal patterns of the electromotive force in a sympatric assemblage of Neotropical electric knifefish
Publication date: Available online 26 October 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Joseph C. Waddell, Alejo Rodríguez-Cattáneo, Angel A. Caputi, William G.R. Crampton Descriptions of the head-to-tail electric organ discharge (ht-EOD) waveform – typically recorded with electrodes at a distance of approximately 1–2 body lengths from the center of the subject – have traditionally been used to characterize species diversity in gymnotiform electric fish. However, even taxa with relatively simple ht-EODs show spatiotemporally complex fields near the body surface that are determined by site-specific el...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - October 28, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Co-adaptation of Electric Organ Discharges and Chirps in South American Ghost Knifefishes (Apteronotidae)
Publication date: Available online 27 October 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Jacquelyn M. Petzold, Gary Marsat, G. Troy Smith Animal communication signals that simultaneously share the same sensory channel are likely to coevolve to maximize the transmission of each signal component. Weakly electric fish continuously produce a weakly electric field that functions in communication. Fish modulate the electric organ discharge (EOD) on short timescales to produce context-specific signals called chirps. EODs and chirps are simultaneously detected by electroreceptors and processed in the electrosensory sy...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - October 28, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Functional Changes in Brain Activity after Hypnosis in Patients with Dental Phobia
Publication date: Available online 6 October 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Ulrike Halsband, Thomas Gerhard Wolf Visiting the dentist is often accompanied by apprehension or anxiety. People, who suffer from specific dental phobia, a disproportional fear of dental procedures show psychological and physiological symptoms which make dental treatments difficult or impossible. For such purposes, hypnosis is often used in dental practice as an alternative for a number of treatments adjuvant or instead of sedation or general anesthetic, as medication is often associated with risks and side effects. This is...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - October 6, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Potential roles of cholinergic modulation in the neural coding of location and movement speed
Publication date: Available online 24 September 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Holger Dannenberg, James R. Hinman, Michael E. Hasselmo Behavioral data suggest that cholinergic modulation may play a role in certain aspects of spatial memory, and neurophysiological data demonstrate neurons that fire in response to spatial dimensions, including grid cells and place cells that respond on the basis of location and running speed. These neurons show firing responses that depend upon the visual configuration of the environment, due to coding in visually-responsive regions of the neocortex. This review focu...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - September 24, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Cholinergic and serotonergic modulation of visual information processing in monkey V1
Publication date: Available online 9 September 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Satoshi Shimegi, Akihiro Kimura, Akinori Sato, Chisa Aoyama, Ryo Mizuyama, Keisuke Tsunoda, Fuyuki Ueda, Sera Araki, Hiromichi Sato The brain dynamically changes its input-output relationship depending on the behavioral state and context in order to optimize information processing. At the molecular level, cholinergic/monoaminergic transmitters have been extensively studied as key players for the state/context-dependent modulation of brain function. In this paper, we review how cortical visual information processing ...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - September 9, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Modulatory compartments in cortex and local regulation of cholinergic tone
Publication date: Available online 21 August 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Jennifer J. Coppola, Nicholas J. Ward, Monika P. Jadi, Anita A. Disney Neuromodulatory signaling is generally considered broad in its impact across cortex. However, variations in the characteristics of cortical circuits may introduce regionally-specific responses to diffuse modulatory signals. Features such as patterns of axonal innervation, tissue tortuosity and molecular diffusion, effectiveness of degradation pathways, subcellular receptor localization, and patterns of receptor expression can lead to local modification ...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - August 20, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Cholinergic genetics of visual attention: human and mouse choline transporter capacity variants influence distractibility
Publication date: Available online 9 July 2016 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Martin Sarter, Cindy Lustig, Randy D. Blakely, Ajeesh Koshy Cherian The basal forebrain cholinergic projection system to the cortex mediates essential aspects of visual attention performance, including the detection of cues and the response to performance challenges (top-down control of attention). Higher levels of top-down control are mediated via elevated levels of cholinergic neuromodulation. The neuronal choline transporter (CHT) strongly influences the synthesis and release of acetylcholine (ACh). As the capacity o...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - July 10, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Hypnosis and pain perception: An Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies
Conclusions HASs during experimental pain impact both cortical and subcortical brain activity. The anterior cingulate, left superior frontal, and right insular cortices activation increases could induce a thalamic deactivation (top-down inhibition), which may correlate with reductions in pain intensity. (Source: Journal of Physiology Paris)
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - January 11, 2016 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
The science of consciousness – Basics, models, and visions
This article presents a few models and aspects of the phenomenon consciousness that are emerging from modern neuroscience and might serve as a basis for scientific discourse in the field of Applied Consciousness Sciences. A first model describes the dynamics of information processing in the brain. The evoked electric brain potentials represent a hierarchical sequence of functions playing an important role in conscious perception. These range from primary processing, attention, pattern recognition, categorization, associations to judgments, and complex thoughts. Most functions seem to be implemented in the brain’s neural ...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - December 25, 2015 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
The Science of Consciousness –Basics, Models, and Visions
This article presents a few models and aspects of the phenomenon consciousness that are emerging from modern neuroscience and might serve as a basis for scientific discourse in the field of Applied Consciousness Sciences. A first model describes the dynamics of information processing in the brain. The evoked electric brain potentials represent a hierarchical sequence of functions playing an important role in conscious perception. These range from primary processing, attention, pattern recognition, categorisation, associations to judgments, and complex thoughts. Most functions seem to be implemented in the brain’s neural ...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - December 18, 2015 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Role of the First and Second Person Perspective for Control of Behaviour: Understanding other People’s Facial Expressions
Publication date: Available online 18 December 2015 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Denise Potthoff, Rüdiger J. Seitz Humans typically make probabilistic inferences about another person’s affective state based on her/his bodily movements when viewing body language like emotional facial expressions, emblematic gestures and whole body movements. Furthermore, they deduce tentative predictions about the other person’s intentions. Such interpretations reflect the valuating first person perspective of humans which allows the subject to adopt a second person perspective as in theory of mind and in empat...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - December 18, 2015 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Alteration of consciousness via diverse photo-acoustic stimulatory patterns. Phenomenology and effect on salivary flow rate, alpha-amylase and total protein levels
Publication date: Available online 18 December 2015 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Anita Beck, Gábor Fábián, Pál Fejérdy, Wolf-Rainer Krause, Péter Hermann, Károly Módos, Gábor Varga, Tibor Károly Fábián Long-term photo-acoustic stimulation is used for the induction of altered states of consciousness for both therapeutic and experimental purposes. Long-term photo-acoustic stimulation also leads to changes in the composition of saliva which have a key contribution to the efficiency of this technique in easing mucosal symptoms of oral psychosomatic patients. The aim of this stud...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - December 18, 2015 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Hypnosis modulates behavioural measures and subjective ratings about external and internal awareness
Publication date: Available online 10 November 2015 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Athena Demertzi, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Quentin Noirhomme, Marie-Elisabeth Faymonville, Steven Laureys In altered subjective states, the behavioural quantification of external and internal awareness remains challenging due to the need for reports on the subjects’ behalf. With the aim to characterize the behavioural counterpart of external and internal awareness in a modified subjective condition, we used hypnosis during which subjects remain fully responsive. Eleven right-handed subjects reached a satisfactory ...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - November 21, 2015 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
Hypnosis modulates behavioral measures and subjective ratings about external and internal awareness
Publication date: Available online 10 November 2015 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Athena Demertzi, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Quentin Noirhomme, Marie-Elisabeth Faymonville, Steven Laureys In altered subjective states, the behavioral quantification of external and internal awareness remains challenging due to the need for reports on the subjects’ behalf. With the aim to characterize the behavioral counterpart of external and internal awareness in a modified subjective condition, we used hypnosis during which subjects remain fully responsive. Eleven right-handed subjects reached a satisfactory le...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - November 11, 2015 Category: Physiology Source Type: research
