Search results for "Developmental neuroscience"
showing 10 items of 360 documents
Musical training facilitates the neural discrimination of major versus minor chords in 13-year-old children
2012
Music practice since childhood affects the development of hearing skills. An important classification in Western music is the chords’ major-minor dichotomy. Its preattentive auditory discrimination was studied here using a mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm in 13-year-olds with active hobbies, music-related (music group) or other (control group). In a context of root major chords, root minor chords and inverted major chords were presented infrequently. The interval structure of inverted majors differs more from root majors than the interval structure of root minors. However, the identity of the chords is the same in inverted and root majors (major), but different in root minors. The deviant…
The Dialectics of Free Energy Minimization
2019
Karl Friston’s free energy minimization has been received with great enthusiasm. With good reason: it not only makes the bold claim to a unifying theory of the brain, but it is presented as an a priori principle applicable to living systems in general. In this article, we set out to show how the breadth of scope of Friston’s framework converges with the dialectics of Georg Hegel. Through an appeal to the work of Catherine Malabou, we aim to demonstrate how Friston not only reinvigorates Hegelian dialectics from the perspective of neuroscience, but that the implicit alignment with Hegel necessitates a reading of free energy minimization from the perspective of Hegel’s speculative philosophy.…
Electromagnetic Radiation, a Living Cell and the Soul: A Collated Hypothesis
2015
The soul is believed to be an immortal essence of living things in scores of philosophical and religious traditions but sparsely understood by science. The word ‘soul’ does not have a scientific definition but through this paper is hypothesized to be an indefinite, non-structured, massless energy made up of electromagnetic radiations that is confined in the cytoskeletal network of the biological cell. Electromagnetic radiations continually interact with the biological cell and propagate within the cell; by a pathway known as ‘Cell-Soul Pathway’. This pathway is a coherent, imperceptible, uncontainable and recyclable support pathway, which uses this energy to promulgate consciousness in a bi…
Is it Quantum Sentience or Quantum Consciousness? A Review of Social Behaviours Observed in Primitive and Present-Day Microorganisms
2015
Social and intelligent behavioural designs have been observed in primitive and present day microorganisms in all three kingdoms of life. These behavioural patterns help microorganisms, to understand, evaluate and judge their constantly varying environment. Behaviour is represented as conscious moment, which occurs due to an event, which may be intentional or unintentional. Microorganisms have the capability of displaying behaviours, which can be compared to cognitive actions of the neural system in higher organisms. This review is a collection of social behaviours observed in present-day microorganisms as well as predicted behaviours in microfossils that have been studied so far. The intent…
The pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents: A systematic review wi…
2017
Background Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders in childhood. A wide variety of treatments have been used for the management of ADHD. We aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of pharmacological, psychological and complementary and alternative medicine interventions for the treatment of ADHD in children and adolescents. Methods and findings We performed a systematic review with network meta-analyses. Randomised controlled trials (≥ 3 weeks follow-up) were identified from published and unpublished sources through searches in PubMed and the Cochrane Library (up to April 7, 2016). Interventions of interest were pharmacolo…
Dorsal Column Nuclei Neural Signal Features Permit Robust Machine-Learning of Natural Tactile- and Proprioception-Dominated Stimuli
2020
Neural prostheses enable users to effect movement through a variety of actuators by translating brain signals into movement control signals. However, to achieve more natural limb movements from these devices, the restoration of somatosensory feedback is required. We used feature-learnability, a machine-learning approach, to assess signal features for their capacity to enhance decoding performance of neural signals evoked by natural tactile and proprioceptive somatosensory stimuli, recorded from the surface of the dorsal column nuclei (DCN) in urethane-anesthetized rats. The highest performing individual feature, spike amplitude, classified somatosensory DCN signals with 70% accuracy. The hi…
Audiovisual attention boosts letter-speech sound integration
2013
We studied attention effects on the integration of written and spoken syllables in fluent adult readers by using event-related brain potentials. Auditory consonant-vowel syllables, including consonant and frequency changes, were presented in synchrony with written syllables or their scrambled images. Participants responded to longer-duration auditory targets (auditory attention), longer-duration visual targets (visual attention), longer-duration auditory and visual targets (audiovisual attention), or counted backwards mentally. We found larger negative responses for spoken consonant changes when they were accompanied by written syllables than when they were accompanied by scrambled text. Th…
Differences in agency? How adolescents from 18 countries perceive and cope with their futures
2012
This study investigated how N = 5,126 adolescents (mean age of 15 years) from 18 countries perceive and cope with future- and school-related stress. The adolescents completed the Problem Questionnaire (PQ), which assesses stress, and the Coping Across Situations Questionnaire (CASQ), which assesses three coping styles (reflection/support-seeking, emotional outlet, and withdrawal/denial). Across countries, adolescents reported considerably higher levels of future-related stress than school-related stress. The adolescents actively coped with stressors in both domains and seldom relied on emotional outlet or withdrawal/denial. A clustering of the countries according to socioeconomic criteria …
All they need is love? Placing romantic stress in the context of other stressors: A 17-nation study
2010
The present study focuses on romantic stress and coping styles in the context of identity and future-related stressors in 8,654 adolescents with a mean age of M = 15.3; SD = 1.84. The adolescents from 17 countries were grouped into seven regions, i.e., Mid-Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, South Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Future-related stressors were perceived as being more stressful than romantic stressors by all adolescents, irrespective of the region in which they lived. Identity-related stressors were of greater concern to adolescents from South Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Romantic stress was much higher in adolescents from Mid-…
Gendered pathways to young adult symptomatology
2016
The transition to adulthood is a critical juncture in the course of psychopathology. This study examined the ways in which earlier capacity to deal with relationship stress during adolescence contributed to an adaptive outcome in emerging adulthood. In a prospective study of 145 individuals, relationship stress, individual coping capacities, and perceived support from fathers, mothers, and peers were analyzed, when the participants were 13 and 17 years old. The effects of these earlier capacities to deal with relationship stress on health outcomes were examined in young adulthood (age 23). Gendered pathways to young adults’ symptomatology emerged. Females experiencing earlier relationship …