sensory flow

The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) addresses the issues in evolutionary biology which cannot be explained by neo-Darwinian theory. The EES paradigm recognises teleology and agency in living systems, and identifies that organisms can directly affect their evolutionary trajectory in a goal-directed manner, yet the physiological pathways via which this occurs remain unidentified. Here, I propose a physiological pathway via which organisms can alter their genotype and phenotype by making behavioural decisions with respect their activity levels, partitioning of resources either toward growth, defence against disease, or their behavioural response to stressors...

Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a critical condition affecting neonates due to oxygen deprivation and insufficient flow of blood to the brain. It is associated with high neonatal mortality and the risk of developmental psychomotor disorders, including cerebral palsy. The global epidemiology of HIE reveals significant disparities, with more advanced healthcare systems reporting lower incidence rates. The aim of the study is to contribute to the understanding of effective rehabilitation strategies for children with HIE and global developmental delay (GDD), with the goal of improving outcomes and quality of life for these individuals...

Animals possess senses which gather information from their environment. They can tune into important aspects of this information and decide on the most appropriate response, requiring coordination of their sensory and motor systems. This interaction is bidirectional. Animals can actively shape their perception with self-driven motion, altering sensory flow to maximise the environmental information they are able to extract. Mormyrid fish are excellent candidates for studying sensory-motor interactions, because they possess a unique sensory system (the active electric sense) and exhibit notable behaviours that seem to be associated with electrosensing...

Many studies have demonstrated that attention affects the perception of many visual features. However, previous studies show conflicting results regarding the effect of attention on the perception of self-motion direction (i.e., heading) from optic flow. To address this question, we conducted three behavioral experiments and found that estimation accuracies of large headings (>14°) decreased with attention load, discrimination thresholds of these headings increased with attention load, and heading estimates were systematically compressed toward the focus of attention...

The kidney functions as a finely tuned sensor to balance body fluid composition and filter out waste through complex coordinated mechanisms. This versatility requires tight neural control, with innervating efferent nerves playing a crucial role in regulating blood flow, glomerular filtration rate, water and sodium reabsorption, and renin release. In turn sensory afferents provide feedback to the central nervous system for the modulation of cardiovascular function. However, the cells targeted by sensory afferents and the physiological sensing mechanisms remain poorly characterized...

Hypertension, a disease whose prevalence increases with age, induces pathological conditions of ischemic vascular disorders such as cerebral infarction and myocardial infarction due to accelerated arteriosclerosis and circulatory insufficiency of small arteries and sometimes causes hemorrhagic conditions such as cerebral hemorrhage and ruptured aortic aneurysm. On the other hand, as it is said that aging starts with the blood vessels, impaired blood flow associated with vascular aging is the basis for the development of many pathological conditions, and ischemic changes in target organs associated with vascular disorders result in tissue dysfunction and degeneration, inducing organ hypofunction and dysfunction...

The recent advancements in large-scale activity imaging of neuronal ensembles offer valuable opportunities to comprehend the process involved in generating brain activity patterns and understanding how information is transmitted between neurons or neuronal ensembles. However, existing methodologies for extracting the underlying properties that generate overall dynamics are still limited. In this study, we applied previously unexplored methodologies to analyze time-lapse 3D imaging (4D imaging) data of head neurons of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans...

UNLABELLED: In the current study, yogurts containing instant stevia powder (ISP) at varying proportions (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 g/100 mL) were perused in terms of physicochemical attributes, textural behavior, antioxidant activity, and sensory acceptability during 14 day storage at 4 °C. For this, bioactive components extracted by using microwave-assisted system were spray dried in optimum conditions (11 mL/min flow rate and 167 °C inlet air temperature) and then incorporated into yogurts...

UNLABELLED: "Aquafaba", defined as legume cooking water, has a feature that can be used in various formulations as an egg and milk alternative in vegan products and improves functional properties such as foaming, emulsifying and gelling. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the usability of aquafaba in ice cream type frozen desserts containing different fruit purees (strawberry, nectarine and banana) by using its foaming capacity. Rheological properties, microstructure, overrun, melting characteristics, color measurement, dry matter, and sensory properties were investigated in different fruit-based frozen dessert samples...

Self-motion perception is a multi-sensory process that involves visual, vestibular, and other cues. When perception of self-motion is induced using only visual motion, vestibular cues indicate that the body remains stationary, which may bias an observer's perception. When lowering the precision of the vestibular cue by for example, lying down or by adapting to microgravity, these biases may decrease, accompanied by a decrease in precision. To test this hypothesis, we used a move-to-target task in virtual reality...

The independent effects of short- and long-term experiences on visual perception have been discussed for decades. However, no study has investigated whether and how these experiences simultaneously affect our visual perception. To address this question, we asked participants to estimate their self-motion directions (i.e., headings) simulated from optic flow, in which a long-term experience learned in everyday life (i.e., straight-forward motion being more common than lateral motion) plays an important role...

BACKGROUND: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a destructive neurological and pathological state that causes major motor, sensory and autonomic dysfunctions. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs)-derived exosomes show great therapeutic potential for SCI. Exosomes derived from miR-26a-modified MSCs promote axonal regeneration following SCI. Our study aims to uncover the mechanisms by which BMSC-derived exosomes carrying miR-26a-5p regulate SCI. METHODS: BMSCs and BMSC-derived exosomes were isolated and characterized by Oil Red O and alizarin red staining, transmission electron microscopy, flow cytometry, nanoparticle tracking analysis and Western blotting...

Neurovascular coupling (NVC) is the functional hyperemia of the brain responding to local neuronal activity. It is mediated by astrocytes and affected by subcortical ascending pathways in the cortex that convey information, such as sensory stimuli and the animal condition. Here, we investigate the influence of the raphe serotonergic system, a subcortical ascending arousal system in animals, on the modulation of cortical NVC and cerebral blood flow (CBF). Raphe serotonergic neurons were optogenically activated for 30 s, which immediately awakened the mice from non-rapid eye movement sleep...

The impact of particle size distribution of coffee grounds on espresso extraction was explored. Finely ground coffee for espresso has a characteristically bimodal particle size distribution. For a given median grind size, different grinding technologies can yield a different share of fines (particles < 100 µm). We performed espresso extractions for a range of median particle sizes and systematically varying the share of fines by adding sieved fines to the coffee grounds. Dynamic beverage weights, extraction percentage, extraction time and dynamic headspace PTR-MS (proton-transfer mass spectrometer) analysis and sensory evaluation of the resulting brews were measured...

There is a high-capacity store of brief time span (∼1000 ms) which information enters from perceptual processing, often called iconic memory or sensory memory. It is proposed that a main function of this store is to hold recent perceptual information in a temporally segregated representation, named the perceptual timescape. The perceptual timescape is a continually active representation of change and continuity over time that endows the perceived present with a perceived history. This is accomplished primarily by two kinds of time marking information: time distance information, which marks all items of information in the perceptual timescape according to how far in the past they occurred, and ordinal temporal information, which organises items of information in terms of their temporal order...

In an ever-changing visual world, animals' survival depends on their ability to perceive and respond to rapidly changing motion cues. The primary visual cortex (V1) is at the forefront of this sensory processing, orchestrating neural responses to perturbations in visual flow. However, the underlying neural mechanisms that lead to distinct cortical responses to such perturbations remain enigmatic. In this study, our objective was to uncover the neural dynamics that govern V1 neurons' responses to visual flow perturbations using a biologically realistic computational model...

The basal forebrain (BF) is critical for the motivational recruitment of attention in response to reward-related cues. This finding is consistent with a role for the BF in encoding and transmitting motivational salience and readying prefrontal circuits for further attentional processing. We recorded local field potentials to determine connectivity between prelimbic cortex (PrL) and BF during the modulation of attention by reward-related cues. We find that theta and gamma power are robustly associated with behavior...

BACKGROUND.: Data on assessment and management of dyspnea in patients on veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) for cardiogenic shock are lacking. We hypothesized that increasing sweep gas flow through the VA-ECMO oxygenator may decrease dyspnea in non-intubated VA-ECMO patients exhibiting clinically significant dyspnea, with a parallel reduction in respiratory drive. METHODS.: Non-intubated, spontaneously breathing, supine patients on VA-ECMO for cardiogenic shock who presented with a visual analog dyspnea scale (dyspnea-VAS) ≥ 40/100 mm were included...

OBJECTIVE: To assess a potential efficacy signal, safety and feasibility of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) therapy as an adjunct to standard care in patients with diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN). METHODS: In this single-centre, prospective, cohort, proof-of-concept study, 25 patients with DSPN consented to at least one daily 30-minute NMES therapy session (Revitive® IX) for 10 weeks, with 20 patients completing the study. The primary outcome measure was nerve conductivity assessed using a nerve conduction study of the sural, superficial peroneal, common peroneal and tibial nerves at 10 weeks compared to baseline...

Humans use space to think of and communicate the flow of time. This spatial representation of time is influenced by cultural habits so that in left-to-right reading cultures, short durations and past events are mentally positioned to the left of long durations and future events. The STEARC effect (Space Temporal Association of Response Codes) shows a faster classification of short durations/past events with responses on the left side of space and of long durations/future events with responses on the right side...