The physical structure of the surrounding environment shapes the paths of progression, which in turn reflect the structure of the environment and the way that it shapes behavior. A regular and coherent physical structure results in paths that extend over the entire environment. In contrast, irregular structure results in traveling ...

Objective: The maturation pattern of the envelope following response (EFR) was described using rats as an experimental model. Design: EFRs were recorded in animals at different postnatal ages (15, 20, 25, 35, and 70 postnatal days) in response to broadband noise (BBN) and tones of 8 and 4 kHz modulated ...

We evaluated whether frequency analysis could detect the development of interstitial fibrosis in rats. SHR/Izm and age-matched WKY/Izm were used. Limb lead II electrocardiograms were recorded. Continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was applied for the time-frequency analysis. The integrated time-frequency power (ITFP) between QRS complexes was measured and compared between groups. ...

BACKGROUND: Intense pulsed light has been used in the treatment of photoaging without a full understanding of its mechanism of action. OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of intense pulsed light on photoaging and on the skin immune response by means of a clinical and histopathological study, evaluating Langerhans cells (CD1), ...

The neural mechanisms that support speech discrimination in noisy conditions are poorly understood. In quiet conditions, spike timing information appears to be used in the discrimination of speech sounds. In this study, we evaluated the hypothesis that spike timing is also used to distinguish between speech sounds in noisy conditions ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Non-auditory effects of noise, including digestive disorders have long being reported. Low frequency noise (LFN) is considered to be responsible to most of non-auditory effects of noise and is widely spread in modern societies. Only a few studies were designed to evaluate these noise-induced digestive alterations. The ...

Inotropic agents induce changes in the contraction amplitude and frequency of cardiomyocytes (CMs). However, it is unknown how local contractions of CMs treated by inotropic agents behave spatiotemporally. In this study, the effect of isoproterenol, a positive inotropic agent, on local contractions of isolated neonatal rat CMs was explored by ...

A stimulus driver circuit for a micro-stimulator used in an implantable device is presented in this paper. For epileptic seizure control, the target of the driver was to output 30 µA stimulus currents when the electrode impedance varied between 20 and 200 kΩ. The driver, which consisted of the output ...

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) refers to the process wherein startle responses to salient stimuli (e.g., startling sound pulses) are attenuated by the presentation of another stimulus (e.g., a brief pre-pulse) immediately before the startling stimulus. Accordingly, deficits in PPI reflect atypical sensorimotor gating that is linked to neurobehavioral systems underlying responsivity ...

Purpose: To study immediate gait changes in persons with PD when walking with different assistive walking devices. Methods: Ten individuals with idiopathic PD participated in the study. Gait parameters were recorded while walking with a cane and a wheeled walker, and were compared to a free walk without a walking ...

Animals that fall upside down typically engage in an aerial righting response so as to reorient dorsoventrally. This behavior can be preparatory to gliding or other controlled aerial behaviors and is ultimately necessary for a successful landing. Aerial righting reflexes have been described historically in various mammals such as cats, ...

The master circadian clock located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) is dominantly entrained by external light/dark cycle to run with a period of a solar day, that is, 24 h, and synchronizes various peripheral clocks located in the body's cells and tissues accordingly. A daily restricted normocaloric feeding regime synchronizes ...

Rat ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are ethologically-essential social signals. Under natural conditions, 22kHz USVs and 50kHz USVs are emitted in association with negative and positive emotional states, respectively. Our first experiment examined freezing behavior elicited in naïve Sprague-Dawley rats by a 22kHz USV, a 50kHz USV, and frequency-matched tones. None of ...

We have shown previously that stimulus-induced modulation of noise correlation in rat somatosensory cortex conveys additional information about the delivery of tactile stimulation. Here we investigated whether noise correlation is also modulated by an external sensory stimulus in rat prefrontal cortex and, if so, whether such modulation conveys additional information ...

Previous research in our laboratory revealed sexually dimorphic effects of prior exposure to phencyclidine (PCP) on elevated plus maze behavior. In an attempt to examine the developmental time course of this effect and determine the extent to which it generalizes to other anxiety paradigms, young adult (61-64days old) and adult ...

OBJECTIVE: Sex differences have been demonstrated in the peripheral auditory system as well as in higher-level cognitive processing. Here, we aimed to determine if the subcortical response to a complex auditory stimulus is encoded differently between the sexes. METHODS: Using electrophysiological techniques, we assessed the auditory brainstem response to a ...

Postpartum female rodents are less anxious than diestrous virgins and this difference contributes to dams' ability to adequately care for pups and defend the nest. Low postpartum anxiety has been observed in many behavioral paradigms but the results of previous studies using the light-dark box have been inconsistent. We here ...

Small mammals must negotiate terrains that consist of numerous substrates that vary in diameter, surface structure, rigidity and orientation. Most studies on mammals have focused on the effects of substrate diameter during horizontal locomotion, especially in small- to medium-sized primates and marsupials. Locomotion across sloped arboreal substrates, however, is poorly ...

Research investigating walkers suggests that safety and assistance for the elderly with weak lower limbs were important. However, the relationship between the use of a walker and the upper limbs has received little investigation. Standing up and sitting down are important daily activities. Therefore, the aim of this study was ...

Pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus (SE) results in chronic spontaneous recurrent seizures resembling human temporal lobe epilepsy. In this and other experimental models, behaviorally monitored seizure frequency was suggested to vary in a circadian fashion, and to increase with time. We re-addressed those hypotheses using continuous video-electroencephalography (EEG) telemetry in rats with ...

Many studies have shown that a change in stimulation frequency leads to altered contractility of the myocardium. However, it remains unclear what changes occur directly after a change in frequency, and which ones are a result of the slow processes that lead to the altered homeostasis that develops after a ...

Mammalian retina harbours a self-sustained circadian clock able to synchronize to the light : dark (LD) cycle and to drive cyclic outputs such as night-time melatonin synthesis. Clock genes are expressed in distinct parts of the tissue, and it is presently assumed that the retina contains several circadian oscillators. However, molecular organization ...

To study cell-field dynamics, physiologists simultaneously record local field potentials and the activity of individual cells from animals performing cognitive tasks, during various brain states or under pathological conditions. However, apart from spike shape and spike timing analyses, few studies have focused on elucidating the common time-frequency structure of local ...

In rats, the superior colliculus (SC) is a main destination for retinal ganglion cells and is an important subcortical structure for vision. Electrophysiology studies have observed that many SC neurons are highly sensitive to moving objects, but complementary non-invasive functional imaging studies with larger fields of view have been rarely ...

Older human listeners demonstrate perceptual deficits in temporal processing even when audibility has been controlled. These age-related auditory deficits in temporal processing are thought to originate in the central auditory pathway. Precise temporal processing is necessary to detect and discriminate auditory cues such as modulation frequency, modulation depth and envelope ...

Abstract Laboratory rats learn to fear relatively innocuous stimuli which signal the imminent arrival of an innate source of danger, typically brief but aversive foot shock. Much is now known about the neural substrates underling the acquisition, consolidation and subsequent expression of this fear. Rats also learn to fear stimuli ...

An add-on device is presented, which significantly expands the force measurement capabilities of the atomic force microscope (AFM). The device consists of a completely passive mechanism, which translates the vertical motion of the AFM tip in force measurements into a horizontal motion of two sample support pads. The advantage is ...

Use of pesticides and other agro-chemicals adversely influence amphibians either directly by killing them or by inducing sublethal, chronic effects. Many studies have investigated the effect of mixtures of pesticides or fertilizers. We studied the combined effects of nitrate and malathion ([(dimethoxy phosphino thioyl] butanediotae) on the early growth, expression ...

In a natural scene, multiple stimuli compete for the control of gaze direction and attention. The nucleus isthmi pars parvocellularis (Ipc) is a cholinergic, midbrain nucleus that is reciprocally interconnected to the optic tectum, a structure known to be involved in the control of gaze and attention. Previous research has ...

Seagrasses have declined at a global scale due to light reduction and toxicity events, caused by eutrophication and increased sediment loading. Although several studies have tested effects of light reduction and toxicants on seagrasses, there is at present no information available on their interacting effects. In a full-factorial 5-day laboratory ...

Recent U.S. climate change policy developments include aggressive proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including cap-and-trade legislation with a goal of an 83% reduction below 2005 levels by 2050. This study examines behavioral and technological changes required to achieve this reduction within the light-duty vehicle (LDV) sector. Under this "fair ...

The enhancement effect is consistently shown when simultaneously masked stimuli are preceded by the masker alone, with a reduction in the amount of masking relative to when that precursor is absent. One explanation for this effect proposed by Viemeister and Bacon [(1982). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 71, 1502-1507] is the ...

Abstract The inhibitory effects of continuously presented audio signals (/a/, /s/, 1,000 Hz pure-tone) on stuttering were examined. Eleven adults who stutter participated. Participants read four 300-syllable passages (i.e. in the presence and absence of the audio signals). All of the audio signals induced a significant reduction in stuttering frequency ...

Variable stiffness shoes that have a stiffer lateral than medial sole may reduce the external knee adduction moment (EKAM) and pain during walking in patients with medial compartment knee osteoarthritis (OA). However, the mechanism by which EKAM may be reduced in the OA knee with this intervention remains unclear. Three ...

In the absence of conclusive evidence, the winner is the mask that has the confidence of clinicians.

The efficacy of façade insulation in providing an improved indoor noise environment and in reducing indoor noise annoyance was examined in a socio-acoustic before-and-after study with a control group. An average equivalent noise reduction inside the dwellings of 7 dB was obtained from the façade insulation. Whereas 42% of the ...

This paper builds on the combination of robotic path planning algorithms and molecular modeling methods for computing large-amplitude molecular motions, and introduces voxel maps as a computational tool to encode and to represent such motions. We investigate several applications and show results that illustrate the interest of such representation.

Extracting high-quality dynamic foreground layers from a video sequence is a challenging problem due to the coupling of color, motion, and occlusion. Many approaches assume that the background scene is static or undergoes the planar perspective transformation. In this paper, we relax these restrictions and present a comprehensive system for ...

Objective. To compare noise reduction of commercially available ear-level hearing protection (muffs/inserts) to that of firearm muzzle suppressors. Setting. Experimental sound measurements under consistent environmental conditions. Subjects. None. Study Design and Methods. Muzzle suppressors for 2 pistol and 2 rifle calibers were tested using the Bruel & Kjaer 2209 sound ...

Human choice behavior was assessed in a concurrent-chain schedule, where two equal initial links (IL) each led to a distinct terminal-link (TL). One TL was associated with a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, while the other was associated with a bi-valued mixed ratio schedule of reinforcement, whose arithmetic mean equaled ...

To quantify the effects of motion affected image-derived input functions (IDIF) on the outcome of tracer kinetic analyses. Two simulation studies, one based on high and the other on low cortical uptake, were performed. Different degrees of rotational and axial translational motion were added to the final frames of simulated ...

Knee osteoarthritis occurs predominately at the medial compartment. To unload the affected compartment, valgus braces are used which induce an additional valgus moment in order to shift the load more laterally. Until now the biomechanical effect of braces was mainly evaluated by measuring changes in external knee adduction moments. The ...

Contribution and relationship between oxidative phosphorylation and photophosphorylation pathways in purple non-sulfur bacteria (PNSB) wastewater treatment under weak light-micro oxygen condition were studied quantitatively. Results showed that under weak light-anaerobic condition, PNSB followed photophosphorylation with the first-order degradation kinetic constant k(3) of 0.0585. Under dark-micro aerobic condition, it followed oxidative ...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the role of steady-state and dynamic visual gestures of vowels in stuttering inhibition. Eight adults who stuttered recited sentences from memory while watching video presentations of the following visual speech gestures: a) a steady-state/u/, b) dynamic production of/a-i-u/, c) steady-state/u/with an accompanying ...

Surround suppression contributes to important functions in visual processing, such as figure-ground segregation; however, this benefit comes at the cost of decreased neuronal sensitivity. Studies of receptive fields at several levels of the visual hierarchy have demonstrated that surround suppression is reduced for low contrast stimuli, thereby improving neuronal sensitivity. ...

OBJECTIVE:: The aim of this study was to investigate whether a real-time noise reduction algorithm provided speech perception benefit for Cochlear™ Nucleus® cochlear implant recipients in the laboratory. DESIGN:: The noise reduction algorithm attenuated masker-dominated channels. It estimated the signal-to-noise ratio of each channel on a short-term basis from a ...

Increased importance of genetic drift and selection for stress resistance have been predicted to lead to a reduction in the degree of phenotypic plasticity in populations at margins of a species' geographical range, relative to those in the centre. We examined the effect of population positioning within the species range ...

This paper presents an automatic segmentation algorithm for video frames captured by a (monocular) webcam that closely approximates depth segmentation from a stereo camera. The frames are segmented into foreground and background layers that comprise a subject (participant) and other objects and individuals. The algorithm produces correct segmentations even in ...

The ON-OFF direction selective ganglion cells (DSGCs) in the mammalian retina code image motion by responding much more strongly to movement in one direction. They do so by receiving inhibitory inputs selectively from a particular sector of processes of the overlapping starburst amacrine cells, a type of retinal interneuron. The ...

This study investigated the degradation of bisphenol-A (BPA) by ultrasonic irradiation in the presence of different additives (H2O2, air bubbles and humic acid) under various operating conditions, i.e., ultrasonic frequency, power intensity and power density. The results demonstrated that the BPA degradation followed pseudo first-order kinetics under different experimental conditions. ...