Search results for "Ceph"
showing 10 items of 2036 documents
Building blocks of fetal cognition: emotion and language
2010
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) can be effectively used to record fetal and neonatal cognitive abilities/functions by recording completely non-invasively the magnetic fields produced by the active neurons in the brain. During the last trimester and the first months of life, the cognitive capabilities related to emotion recognition and language acquisition develop rapidly. Latest research shows that already the newborn has advanced abilities related to processing emotional information and speech sounds. These abilities form the basis of the child's development towards mastering social tasks and native language. The possibilities of using fetal or neonatal MEG in studying these important abiliti…
An investigation of prototypical and atypical within-category vowels and non-speech analogues on cortical auditory evoked related potentials (AERPs) …
2011
The present study examined cortical auditory evoked related potentials (AERPs) for the P1-N250 and MMN components in children 9 years of age. The first goal was to investigate whether AERPs respond differentially to vowels and complex tones, and the second goal was to explore how prototypical language formant structures might be reflected in these early auditory processing stages. Stimuli were two synthetic within-category vowels (/y/), one of which was preferred by adult German listeners ("prototypical-vowel"), and analogous complex tones. P1 strongly distinguished vowels from tones, revealing larger amplitudes for the more difficult to discriminate but phonetically richer vowel stimuli. P…
Prior Precision Modulates the Minimization of Auditory Prediction Error
2019
International audience; The predictive coding model of perception proposes that successful representation of the perceptual world depends upon canceling out the discrepancy between prediction and sensory input (i.e., prediction error). Recent studies further suggest a distinction to be made between prediction error triggered by non-predicted stimuli of different prior precision (i.e., inverse variance). However, it is not fully understood how prediction error with different precision levels is minimized in the predictive process. Here, we conducted a magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiment which orthogonally manipulated prime-probe relation (for contextual precision) and stimulus repetition…
Mechanisms of resistance to autoimmune disease induced by T-cell vaccination.
1991
Many human autoimmune diseases tend to progress slowly. Phases of rapid progression may come to a halt and may be followed by transient or even permanent remissions. Autoimmune diseases in animals either arise spontaneously or are induced. The former tend to be slowly progressive, the latter mostly acute to subacute, and usually followed by spontaneous remissions. The mechanisms at work that prevent rapid disease progression and can effect remissions are poorly understood, but they may provide us with a clue both to natural self-tolerance and to the therapeutic induction of self-tolerance.
The matricellular protein SPARC supports follicular dendritic cell networking toward Th17 responses.
2011
Abstract Lymphnode swelling during immune responses is a transient, finely regulated tissue rearrangement, accomplished with the participation of the extracellular matrix. Here we show that murine and human reactive lymph nodes express SPARC in the germinal centres. Defective follicular dendritic cell networking in SPARC-deficient mice is accompanied by a severe delay in the arrangement of germinal centres and development of humoral autoimmunity, events that are linked to Th17 development. SPARC is required for the optimal and rapid differentiation of Th17 cells, accordingly we show delayed development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis whose pathogenesis involves Th17. Not only h…
Cross-reactivity of a pathogenic autoantibody to a tumor antigen in GABA(A) receptor encephalitis
2021
Encephalitis associated with antibodies against the neuronal gamma-aminobutyric acid A receptor (GABA A -R) is a rare form of autoimmune encephalitis. The pathogenesis is still unknown but autoimmune mechanisms were surmised. Here we identified a strongly expanded B cell clone in the cerebrospinal fluid of a patient with GABA A -R encephalitis. We expressed the antibody produced by it and showed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunohistochemistry that it recognizes the GABA A -R. Patch-clamp recordings revealed that it tones down inhibitory synaptic transmission and causes increased excitability of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. Thus, the antibody likely contributed to…
Detection of steering direction using EEG recordings based on sample entropy and time-frequency analysis.
2016
Monitoring driver's intentions beforehand is an ambitious aim, which will bring a huge impact on the society by preventing traffic accidents. Hence, in this preliminary study we recorded high resolution electroencephalography (EEG) from 5 subjects while driving a car under real conditions along with an accelerometer which detects the onset of steering. Two sensor-level analyses, sample entropy and time-frequency analysis, have been implemented to observe the dynamics before the onset of steering. Thus, in order to classify the steering direction we applied a machine learning algorithm consisting of: dimensionality reduction and classification using principal-component-analysis (PCA) and sup…
Predictability decomposition detects the impairment of brain-heart dynamical networks during sleep disorders and their recovery with treatment
2016
This work introduces a framework to study the network formed by the autonomic component of heart rate variability (cardiac process η ) and the amplitude of the different electroencephalographic waves (brain processes δ , θ , α , σ , β ) during sleep. The framework exploits multivariate linear models to decompose the predictability of any given target process into measures of self-, causal and interaction predictability reflecting respectively the information retained in the process and related to its physiological complexity, the information transferred from the other source processes, and the information modified during the transfer according to redundant or synergistic interaction betwee…
Pathogenic correlation between mosaic variegated aneuploidy 1 (MVA1) and a novel BUB1B variant: a reappraisal of a severe syndrome.
2022
Funder: Università degli Studi di Catania
Shifts in size, genetic structure and activity of the soil denitrifier community by nematode grazing
2010
International audience; Bacterial-feeding nematodes represent an important driver of the soil microbial activity and diversity. This study aimed at characterizing the impact of nematode grazing on a model functional bacterial guild involved in N-cycling, the denitrifiers. Bacterial-feeding nematodes (Cephalobus pseudoparvus) were inoculated into soil microcosms whose indigenous nematofauna had previously been removed. The size, genetic structure and activity of the soil denitrifier community were characterized 15 and 45 days after nematodes inoculation using quantitative PCR of the nirK, nirS and nosZ denitrification genes, fingerprinting of the nirK and nirS genes and denitrification enzym…