Search results for " Brain."

High-skilled migration and the knowledge society. Theories, processes, perspectives

2018

The recent economic crisis has led to an upswing in migration from the Mediterranean countries of Europe towards its central and northern development hubs. This overall increase in migration also includes high numbers of the so-called skilled migrants, consisting mainly, though not exclusively, of young people moving within Europe for study or specialisation, or seeking employment that matches their skills profile. It is no coincidence then that this new trend for skilled migration within Europe forms the main thrust of the cognitive and research interests of sociologists, economists and migration geographers. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the theoretical debate on skilled migrati…

CLONING OF RAT-SPECIFIC LONG PCP4/PEP19 ISOFORM (LPI)

2007

We report the identification of a cDNA that encodes a putative protein of 94 amino acids and expected molecular weight of 10.7 kDa, the C-terminal half of which is identical to that of PEP19, a small, brain-specific protein involved in Ca++/calmodulin signaling. The novel rat-specific protein, tentatively named long PEP19 isoform (LPI), is the product of alternative splicing of the rat PCP4 gene encoding PEP19. We found that antibodies raised against the first 13 N-terminal amino acids of LPI, not present in PEP19, recognize a protein enriched in the developing rat brain.

CAN RETURN MIGRATION REVITALISE LATVIA’S REGIONS? FACILITATORS AND BARRIERS TO HUMAN CAPITAL GAINS

2021

Migration researchers from East-Central Europe most often focus on the impact of ‘brain drain’ which is characterised by the loss of human capital from emigration. In this paper focus is placed on the assumption that migrants living abroad gain valuable experiences and education opportunities, that lead to personal growth, facilitate entrepreneurship and psychological resilience, amongst other important skills. This experience may be used for the revitalisation of the less-developed regions the migrants return to. To explore what facilitates or inhibits the fulfil potential of ‘brain circulation’ or gain, we use data from two large-scale surveys of return migrants in Latvia, in-depth interv…

Adolescent Brain Development and Progressive Legal Responsibility in the Latin American Context

2020

In this article, we analyze the contributions of neuroscience to the development of the adolescent brain and shed additional light on the minimum age of criminal responsibility in the context of Latin America. In neurobiology, maturity is perceived to be complex because the brain’s temporal development process is not uniform across all its regions. This has important consequences for adolescents’ behavior; in their search for the acceptance of their peers, they are more vulnerable to pressure and more sensitive to stress than adults. Their affectivity is more unstable, and they show signs of low tolerance to frustration and important emotional reactivity, with a decrease in the capacity to …

RELATIVISTIC COMPRESSION AND EXPANSION OF EXPERIENTIAL TIME IN THE LEFT AND RIGHT SPACE

2007

Time, space and numbers are closely linked in the physical world. However, the relativistic-like effects on time perception of spatial and magnitude factors remain poorly investigated. Here we wanted to investigate whether duration judgments of digit visual stimuli are biased depending on the side of space where the stimuli are presented and on the magnitude of the stimulus itself. Different groups of healthy subjects performed duration judgment tasks on various types of visual stimuli. In the first two experiments visual stimuli were constituted by digit pairs (1 and 9), presented in the centre of the screen or in the right and left space. In a third experiment visual stimuli were constitu…

P26-S Left and right motor cortical excitability and relationship to motor functions in healthy adolescents

2019

Background The interhemispheric difference in cortical excitability and its relationship to motor functions is unclear. Aim We examined the relationship between handedness, left and right motor cortex excitability and fine and gross motor functions in adolescence. Methods 28 healthy adolescents (age 16–19 years, 19 girls) were studied. Handedness was determined by the Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire. Motor threshold (MT) of the abductor pollicis brevis was measured on both hemispheres using biphasic stimulation, and on the left hemisphere also with monophasic stimulation. Box and block test (BBT) was used for manual dexterity, line run and standing long jump for gross motor tasks. Spearma…

Dissecting the Phenotype and Genotype of PLA2G6-Related Parkinsonism.

2022

Background Complex parkinsonism is the commonest phenotype in late-onset PLA2G6-associated neurodegeneration. Objectives The aim of this study was to deeply characterize phenogenotypically PLA2G6-related parkinsonism in the largest cohort ever reported. Methods We report 14 new cases of PLA2G6-related parkinsonism and perform a systematic literature review. Results PLA2G6-related parkinsonism shows a fairly distinct phenotype based on 86 cases from 68 pedigrees. Young onset (median age, 23.0 years) with parkinsonism/dystonia, gait/balance, and/or psychiatric/cognitive symptoms were common presenting features. Dystonia occurred in 69.4%, pyramidal signs in 77.2%, myoclonus in 65.2%, and cere…

Differential influence of Pomphorhynchus laevis (Acanthocephala) on brain serotonergic activity in two congeneric host species.

2007

The physiological mechanisms by which parasites with complex life cycles manipulate the behaviour of their intermediate hosts are still poorly understood. In Burgundy, eastern France, the acanthocephalan parasitePomphorhynchus laevisinverses reaction to light in its amphipod hostGammarus pulex, but not inGammarus roeseli, a recent invasive species. Here, we show that this difference in manipulation actually reflects a difference in the ability of the parasite to alter brain serotonergic (5-HT) activity of the two host species. Injection of 5-HT in uninfected individuals of both host species was sufficient to inverse reaction to light. However, a difference in brain 5-HT immunocytochemical s…

2016

The neural systems supporting speech and sign processing are very similar, although not identical. In a previous fTCD study of hearing native signers (Gutierrez-Sigut, Daws, et al., 2015) we found stronger left lateralization for sign than speech. Given that this increased lateralization could not be explained by hand movement alone, the contribution of motor movement versus ‘linguistic’ processes to the strength of hemispheric lateralization during sign production remains unclear. Here we directly contrast lateralization strength of covert versus overt signing during phonological and semantic fluency tasks. To address the possibility that hearing native signers’ elevated lateralization ind…

Transposed-letter and laterality effects in lexical decision.

2006

Two divided visual field lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine the role of the cerebral hemispheres in transposed-letter similarity effects. In Experiment 1, we created two types of nonwords: nonadjacent transposed-letter nonwords (TRADEGIA; the base word was TRAGEDIA, the Spanish for TRAGEDY) and two-letter different nonwords (orthographic controls: TRATEPIA). In Experiment 2, the controls were one-letter different nonwords (TRAGEPIA) instead of two-letter different nonwords (TRATEPIA). The effect of transposed-letter similarity was substantially greater in the right visual field (left hemisphere) than in the left visual field. Furthermore, nonwords created by transposing …