Search results for "Cognitive"

Minors and Transexuality

2020

[ES] En el ámbito de la transexualidad los poderes públicos han ejercido desde un principio una política claramente restrictiva que ha requerido de años para poder abrirse a las nuevas necesidades y a la sociedad actual. Así, la normativa en la materia era totalmente excluyente de los menores de edad, considerándolos carentes de aptitud alguna para poder decidir sobre su identidad sexual y todo lo que ello conllevaba, quizá porque como afirman algunos autores “la finalidad básica de esa prohibición es la de garantizar que la decisión de la rectificación registral sea una decisión firme y coherente, evitando así cambios arbitrarios o no fundados en el sexo” (Vázquez-Pastor, 2010).Esta idea p…

Octopamine Shifts the Behavioral Response From Indecision to Approach or Aversion in Drosophila melanogaster

2018

Animals must make constant decisions whether to respond to external sensory stimuli or not to respond. The activation of positive and/or negative reinforcers might bias the behavioral response towards approach or aversion. To analyze whether the activation of the octopaminergic neurotransmitter system can shift the decision between two identical odor sources, we active in Drosophila melanogaster different sets of octopaminergic neurons using optogenetics and analyze the choice of the flies using a binary odor trap assay. We show that the release of octopamine from a set of neurons and not acetylcholine acts as positive reinforcer for one food odor source resulting in attraction. The activat…

Primary vitrectomy for degenerative and tractional lamellar macular holes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

2021

Purpose To assess the efficacy of vitrectomy in degenerative and tractional lamellar macular holes (LMHs) by meta-analysis of published studies. Methods PubMed, Medline and Embase databases were searched up to May 2020. Included cohorts were divided into three groups: degenerative LMH group, lamellar hole associated epiretinal proliferation (LHEP) group and tractional LMH group. LHEP is likely to be associated with degenerative LMHs, but less commonly could be associated with mixed LMHs. To reduce risk of possible misclassification bias, eyes with LHEP which could not have been precisely classified by the authors, were included into the LHEP group. The primary outcome was to investigate th…

Negative transfer effects between reference memory and working memory training in the water maze in C57BL/6 mice

2017

The water maze is one of the most widely employed spatial learning paradigms in the cognitive profiling of genetically modified mice. Oftentimes, tests of reference memory (RM) and working memory (WM) in the water maze are sequentially evaluated in the same animals. However, critical difference in the rules governing efficient escape from the water between WM and RM tests is expected to promote the adoption of incompatible mnemonic or navigational strategies. Hence, performance in a given test is likely poorer if it follows the other test instead of being conducted first. Yet, the presence of such negative transfer effects (or proactive interference) between WM and RM training in the water …

A Multilevel Functional Study of aSNAP25At-Risk Variant for Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia

2017

The synaptosomal-associated protein SNAP25 is a key player in synaptic vesicle docking and fusion and has been associated with multiple psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. We recently identified a promoter variant inSNAP25,rs6039769, that is associated with early-onset bipolar disorder and a higher gene expression level in human prefrontal cortex. In the current study, we showed that this variant was associated both in males and females with schizophrenia in two independent cohorts. We then combinedin vitroandin vivoapproaches in humans to understand the functional impact of the at-risk allele. Thus, we showedin vi…

Tony DeCasper, the man who changed contemporary views on human fetal cognitive abilities

2017

Tony DeCasper, the man who changed contemporary views on human fetal cognitive abilities

Changes in Serine Racemase-Dependent Modulation of NMDA Receptor: Impact on Physiological and Pathological Brain Aging

2018

International audience; The N-methyl-D-Aspartate glutamate receptors (NMDARs) are pivotal for the functional and morphological plasticity that are required in neuronal networks for efficient brain activities and notably for cognitive-related abilities. Because NMDARs are heterogeneous in subunit composition and associated with multiple functional regulatory sites, their efficacy is under the tonic influence of numerous allosteric modulations, whose dysfunction generally represents the first step generating pathological states. Among the enzymatic candidates, serine racemase (SR) has recently gathered an increasing interest considering that it tightly regulates the production of D-serine, an…

Barrel cortex: What is it good for?

2017

The rodent whisker system, with barrel cortex as its most prominent structure, has evolved into a powerful model system to study sensory processing. However, despite the vast amount of data collected on barrel cortex neural activity patterns, as well as its circuitry and plasticity, the precise behavioral and cognitive operations for which this structure is needed are still elusive. Proposed functions of barrel cortex include detection, discrimination, coordination of whisker movements during exploratory locomotion or active touch, and associative learning. Departing from a definition of what exactly constitutes a function and how the involvement of a brain area in a specific task can be es…

2018

Despite major progress in Robotics and AI, robots are still basically "zombies" repeatedly achieving actions and tasks without understanding what they are doing. Deep-Learning AI programs classify tremendous amounts of data without grasping the meaning of their inputs or outputs. We still lack a genuine theory of the underlying principles and methods that would enable robots to understand their environment, to be cognizant of what they do, to take appropriate and timely initiatives, to learn from their own experience and to show that they know that they have learned and how. The rationale of this paper is that the understanding of its environment by an agent (the agent itself and its effect…

2017

The biogenic amines octopamine (OA) and tyramine (TA) modulate insect motor behavior in an antagonistic manner. OA generally enhances locomotor behaviors such as Drosophila larval crawling and flight, whereas TA decreases locomotor activity. However, the mechanisms and cellular targets of TA modulation of locomotor activity are incompletely understood. This study combines immunocytochemistry, genetics and flight behavioral assays in the Drosophila model system to test the role of a candidate enzyme for TA catabolism, named Nazgul (Naz), in flight motor behavioral control. We hypothesize that the dehydrogenase/reductase Naz represents a critical step in TA catabolism. Immunocytochemistry rev…