Category Archives: Neuroscience

Neuroscience

Behavioral Neuroscience Program awards pair of summer research … – Western Washington University

The Behavioral Neuroscience Program is pleased to announce the 2023 recipients of the BNS Program Undergraduate Summer Research Award and the Dr. David Goldman and Dr. Linda Blackwell Undergraduate Summer Research Award. Both research awards aim to increase opportunities in Behavioral Neuroscience research for individuals who are typically underrepresented in the field. The awards will be given annually to a Behavioral Neuroscience undergraduate with demonstrated interest in behavioral neuroscience research, enthusiasm for a graduate degree or health professional program, and has financial need.

This years BNS Program Summer Undergraduate Research Award recipient is Lauren Gilman (she/her), who works in the lab of Josh Kaplan, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology. Gilman wants to become an osteopathic psychiatrist after graduation and this summer will research cannabis effects on autism spectrum disorder.

Im thrilled that Lauren will have the opportunity to explore her research interests this summer, and Im looking forward to supporting her scientific growth as she learns new molecular approaches that will be applied to her research into cannabis effects in autism spectrum disorder," said Kaplan. "Lauren will now be able to apply her holistic approach to medicine and research by studying the effect of cannabis on the gut-brain axis, neuroinflammation, and behavior using molecular and mass spectrometry approaches. These are hot areas of research and Im excited for Lauren to lead our lab in this new direction."

Gilman was grateful for the research award and excited to get to work this summer.

"I am grateful for this award and honored to be a presence for other queer women in STEM. My time at Western has given me immense opportunities for growth and leadership. To name a few, I participated in the psychiatry internship, as the NeRDS publicity officer, as the waterski team travel coordinator, and as a volunteer in Dr. Kaplan's cannabis lab," Gilman said. "I hope my research on the microbiome and inflammation in autism spectrum disorder increases our understanding of CBD and paves the way for other safe, novel treatments."

"In the future, I hope to work as an osteopathic psychiatrist, providing a holistic approach to healing. Admittedly, many psychiatric disorders have a biological basis and require pharmacological intervention to improve symptoms; however, I plan to approach patients as people first, not as an array of dysfunctional circuits and chemicals. Environment, social connections, and underlying disease impact the minds state just as much as neurotransmitters and deserve equal attention," she said.

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Neuroscience

Data and Tools Integration in the Canadian Open Neuroscience … – Nature.com

The platform design relies on open formats, APIs, and standards to allow for extensibility and promote interoperability. The key design ideas are based on the following constraints and considerations:

The platform should integrate data resources from different infrastructures,

Data and tools should be integrated without undue duplication,

Integration of data and tools in the platform by community members should be feasible,

Datasets and processing tools should implement the FAIR principles,

Data governance should remain with the original data stewards or providers,

The platform should rely on open formats and standards to foster reuse and integration with other projects, and

The portal should provide intuitive navigation and provide users with documentation and help resources.

The CONP consists of several key components (Fig.1, see also Table4):

A data infrastructure layer, incorporating disparate independent data repositories (e.g., Zenodo, http://www.zenodo.org, LORIS7, or the Open-Science Framework OSF5);

A (meta)data integration layer, leveraging DataLad13, GitHub14, Boutiques tool descriptors12, enabling uniform data search queries based on the Data Tags Suite (DATS) model15;

An analysis layer that allows for simple download of tools and easy use of High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments; and

An interface layer, which controls the interaction between these components and will be outlined further in the Results section.

Architecture of the Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform. The platform is comprised of multiple tiers including: (i) Independent data infrastructure; (ii) Metadata integration across tools and datasets via standard models (Biocaddie DATS, Boutiques descriptors); (iii) Data analysis on High-Performance Computing and; (iv) Web and command-line interfaces.

The CONP takes advantage of distributed data repositories, each with their own infrastructures, access control requirements, APIs, and licensing. This importantly gives flexibility to manage collections using specific context-appropriate tools, rather than prescribing an incomplete one-size-fits-all solution. The CONP presently supports accessing and integrating data from several flexible domain-agnostic datastores (OSF, Zenodo, FRDR-DFDR, https://www.frdr-dfdr.ca/), specific brain imaging repositories (LORIS, XNAT, Brain-CODE), and the commonly used HTTP and FTP web protocols. This set of supported infrastructures is intentionally extensible to any other repository which allows access via programmatic web-compatible interfaces (e.g. a RESTful API).

To integrate datasets across infrastructures, the CONP uses DataLad as a backend and GitHub to host the metadata. Crawlers automate both the discovery of tools (on Zenodo, http://www.zenodo.org) and datasets (on Zenodo and OSF) and the DataLad and GitHub integration workflows. CircleCI16 continuously tests if datasets are available and if data are accessible by testing the download of a few files from the datasets.

The CONP adopts a decentralized architecture, to accommodate the various governance, ethical, and performance models required by data owners. For instance, some datasets may not easily be stored outside of the jurisdiction where they were acquired, while some institutions require local control of data storage, with some projects preferring to remain in control of access rules. This is all possible in CONP, as data can remain hosted anywhere on the internet.

Integration between datasets is provided by DataLad, a software library for managing Git repositories that references data. In DataLad, datasets are described in a Git repository containing metadata, file URLs and hashes of data blobs managed by git-annex. Importantly, a DataLad dataset does not generally contain the data themselves, which remain stored remotely. DataLad datasets can also be nested to represent dataset aggregation.

The CONP dataset consists of a main DataLad dataset and its metadata stored on GitHub (github.com/CONP-PCNO/conp-dataset) and referenced in the main DataLad index (http://datasets.datalad.org). The use of GitHub enables a variety of features useful for open-source software development; including issue tracking, code reviews, pull requests, branch protection, and integration with various applications. Datasets are integrated as Git submodules of the main dataset, and may be hosted on GitHub or on any other platform including GitLab or even a simple web server. This has the added benefit of being able to point to a specific commit, allowing continued evolution of the remote subdataset while the CONP portal keeps a reference to the stable version of the root dataset. Any DataLad dataset can be integrated into CONP provided that it contains a README file and a Data Tags Suite (DATS17) model file describing it. In addition, a configuration script can be added to the root of the dataset, to perform any required initialization.

The data themselves can be stored in any server implementing a protocol supported by git-annex, including HTTP, FTP, and many more. We used this flexibility to integrate data coming from three main types of sources. First, brain data archives such as the LORIS7, XNAT18, and Brain-CODE19 platforms provide a complete neuroscience data management solution for data ingestion, quality control, visualization, access control, and querying. They are commonly used to support large-scale multi-site longitudinal studies with hundreds of participants. Second, multi-disciplinary research data archives such as Zenodo in Europe, the Open Science Framework in the USA5, and the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR)20 in Canada, provide simple ways to share research data publicly through the web and to guarantee long-term archival, findability, and immutability of data objects through Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). They are typically used for local studies or companion data to a publication. Third, simple internet hosts accessible through the HTTP or FTP protocol allow for flexible integration of any other data already available online. CONP also provides local data-hosting for users who do not have the resources to make use of these other options.

Through git-annex, DataLad also supports authentication protocols, a critical feature for the ethical sharing of neuroscience data with restricted access. We extended this capability to support authentication to the LORIS, Zenodo, and OSF platforms. LORIS uses a common username/password authentication, which could be added to DataLad without particular challenges. Zenodo, however, implements private data sharing through secret tokens added to the file URLs. Since the file URLs are part of the DataLad repository and are therefore publicly shared, we implemented a custom mechanism to add and remove tokens from URLs on demand.

To leverage the capabilities of existing research data archives (currently Zenodo and OSF, and in the future FRDR), we developed a crawling framework to manage the life cycle of DataLad datasets on GitHub. As a result, users can upload datasets to the CONP through these web platforms, without having to install and learn DataLad, or to become familiar with our GitHub workflow. The CONP data crawler performs the following actions, implemented as a base class containing most of the GitHub and DataLad logic, and as a set of derived classes containing the API calls specific to each crawled platform:

Search for CONP-tagged datasets in web platforms;

When a new dataset is found, create a new DataLad dataset;

When a dataset modification is detected, update the corresponding DataLad dataset;

Push modifications to CONP forked GitHub repository;

Create a pull request for each modified dataset, for the CONP maintainers to review and approve.

In addition, if no DATS model is found in the datasets, one is created automatically from the fields available in the web platforms, with minimal information such as title, license and creators.

The CONP includes a dataset testing suite to mitigate the reliability challenges of decentralized systems. We implemented the testing suite in the CircleCI platform, due to its support for multithreaded testing, FTP connections, and interactive SSH sessions in testing environments. Hosting CONP DataLad datasets on GitHub allows for transparent integration with CircleCI. Similar to a software repository, dataset tests are triggered with every GitHub pull request, and their successful execution is required for the pull request to be approved by the maintainers. To reduce execution time, the testing framework only runs the tests for the datasets influenced by the pull request.

Datasets may become unavailable for a variety of transient reasons, including network interruptions, operational downtimes of the hosting platforms, or configuration errors. To detect these issues, we configured CircleCI to periodically test all the datasets available through the CONP every four hours, providing continuous monitoring. Results of this periodical testing are stored in CircleCI artifacts and are automatically displayed as status badges in the CONP portal. To increase robustness against transient errors, we used Pytests flaky module to re-run tests three times upon failure, with a 5-second delay.

The test suite tests the following properties for every dataset:

Presence of a README file at the root of the dataset,

Presence of a DATS model complying with our extended schema,

Successful installation of the dataset with DataLad,

Integrity of the git-annex repository, and

Successful download of the four smallest files from a sample to reduce runtime.

For datasets that require authentication, we include credentials through CircleCI environment variables. To reduce the associated security risks, we configured the testing framework to skip the testing of authenticated datasets in pull requests. From these environment variables, the testing framework generates a DataLad authentication provider (LORIS, Brain-CODE), or configures the dataset to use access credentials (Zenodo). The testing suite is executed in a Docker container also available for download to replicate the testing environment.

As the CONP portal brings together two types of research objects, software tools and datasets, we have reused two metadata standards developed to document these objects. The Boutiques standard12 describes a tools execution, inputs and outputs. We chose the Data Tags Suite (DATS) model17 developed by the BioCaddie consortium (Big Data to Knowledge NIH funds) to build the Datamed (https://datamed.org/) platform, for dataset description. Datamed was designed to be an equivalent of PubMed for datasets21, and DATS follows the architecture of the Journal Article Tag Suite JATS. This choice was driven by the flexible nature of DATS and its associated material (e.g., validator, documentation). DATS also has the capacity to represent sub-datasets, a feature that can be used in association with the DataLad sub-datasets mechanism (implemented with git submodules).

These two standards are used to extract information about the research objects to be displayed in the portal, as well as provide the necessary JSON-LD information for making the datasets discoverable by Google Dataset Search. The DATS model also allows for an RDF representation of the information, which enables integration of the CONP metadata as a knowledge graph in BlueBrain Nexus22. The portal includes an advanced search interface mapped to a BlueBrain Nexus SPARQL endpoint where the DATS model files are regularly exported.

The DATS model contains a number of required fields: the name and description of the dataset, the name and affiliation(s) of the individual(s) who generated the data, the license under which a dataset is released, keywords, and data types and formats. It may also include details regarding related publications, funding bodies, and cross-referencing derived datasets. We have also applied the extensibility of the DATS model to add specific fields such as a structured record of the datasets source, allowing searches by institution, city, or country of origin17.

The CONP portal goes beyond the findability of tools, directly integrating tools into workflows and enabling their execution on HPC systems.

Analysis tools are uniformly described in Boutiques, an open specification and software library for sharing tools according to the FAIR principles1. Boutiques descriptors are JSON objects containing a specification of the tool input data, parameters, and output data. They link to a Docker or Singularity container image where the tool and all its dependencies are installed and configured for execution. Boutiques tools can be reused in various platforms, such as workflow engines, as exemplified in TIGR-PURR (https://github.com/TIGRLab/TIGR_PURR), or in web platforms such as CBRAIN23 or VIP (https://www.creatis.insa-lyon.fr/vip/).

Boutiques tools can be published, archived, and retrieved in the Zenodo research archive or in the OpenAIRE-Nexus project. Once published, Boutiques tools receive a DOI, which makes their archives permanently findable.

Similar to the data integration layer, tools can be executed through both command-line and web interfaces. The Boutiques command-line tool can be used to run the tools locally with a uniform interface, provided that a container engine is installed. This is useful for testing analyses or processing smaller datasets. CONP datasets can be downloaded locally for processing through the DataLad command-line or Python API. Boutiques Python API also enables tool integration in external pipeline engines such as Pydra24, Nextflow25, or Apache Spark26.

For use-cases that benefit from the use of HPC clusters, the Clowdr command-line tool and Python API27 can easily be used to apply Boutiques tools concurrently to multiple subjects on HPC clusters available through the SLURM workload manager, such as the ones provided by Compute Canada (https://www.computecanada.ca/), or on the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2). This allows CONP users to leverage their own resource allocation and to process CONP datasets through the DataLad interface.

Many CONP tools are also installed in CBRAIN23, a web portal interfaced with storage and computing resources at HPC centers, to provide a higher-level interface for users who do not want to use the command-line, or for developers who prefer to interact with HPC resources through a web API. CBRAIN can import Boutiques descriptors, and create web forms and HPC jobs to launch and monitor the tools. Pipelines that were installed as Docker images are converted to Singularity for deployment on HPC clusters. To facilitate the processing of datasets accessible via the CONP, CBRAIN also interfaces with DataLad, downloading files on-demand for processing.

Running a data analysis pipeline on CBRAIN requires a CBRAIN account. There is no current billing model associated with the compute part of the platform, because CBRAIN relies on academic computing resources, primarily Compute Canada, obtained through resource allocation competitions. The CBRAIN infrastructure allows for external compute resources to be attached to the platform such that an international research laboratory could use its own resources. CBRAIN also has a certain amount of computing time allocated on Compute Canada and when possible the team can offer these for reasonable usage. This needs to be directly requested to the CBRAIN infrastructure governance team through an email to CBRAIN support. Data derived from processing will be stored on the CBRAIN infrastructure, and the agreement by the CBRAIN team to process data will depend on both the compute time (if on CBRAIN Compute Canada allocation) and on the capacity to store these derived data. We note that CBRAIN can also attach data providers with the Principal Investigators own disk space allocation on Compute Canada, on other accessible infrastructures, or even on their own laboratory servers. Given the variety of situations, requests for compute time and disk space are handled on a case by case basis.

Finally, Boutiques executions, including local, Clowdr and CBRAIN ones, also collect anonymized provenance records for activity monitoring, traceability, and other applications.

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Data and Tools Integration in the Canadian Open Neuroscience ... - Nature.com

Neuroscience

The Neuroscience of Learning – New Trader U

The neuroscience study opens new avenues for understanding the brains role in learning and education. As researchers uncover more about the mechanisms underlying acquiring knowledge, educators can implement evidence-based strategies to enhance student outcomes. This blog post delves into the fascinating world of neuroscience, explores how the brain learns, and examines various learning theories and strategies informed by neuroscientific research.

Neuroscience refers to studying the nervous system, focusing on its role in behavior, cognition, and learning. The human brain, a complex organ, contains billions of neurons that transmit information through electrical and chemical signals. These neurons form networks, and the brains organization into different regions allows it to carry out specific functions.

Learning involves three primary processes: encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. The brain processes new information during encoding, while consolidation refers to stabilizing memories. Retrieval, on the other hand, involves recalling information from memory. Several brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala, contribute to these processes. The prefrontal cortex plays a role in decision-making, problem-solving, and critical thinking, while the hippocampus is essential for forming new memories. The amygdala is responsible for emotional processing and memory consolidation.

Neuronal plasticity, the brains ability to change and adapt due to experience, is critical to learning. Synaptic plasticity involves changes in the strength of connections between neurons, and neurogenesis refers to the formation of new neurons. Both of these processes contribute to the brains adaptability and capacity for learning.

Cognitive learning theories focus on the mental processes involved in learning. One such theory, the Information Processing Theory, likens the brain to a computer. According to this theory, information passes through three stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Another cognitive learning theory, Cognitive Load Theory, emphasizes working memory capacity limits. Effective learning requires managing cognitive load to prevent overloading.

Neuroscience research has identified several effective learning strategies, including retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and interleaving. Retrieval practice involves actively recalling information from memory, which has been shown to strengthen memory and improve long-term retention. Spaced repetition refers to revisiting material at increasingly longer intervals, a technique proven to enhance memory consolidation and retention. Interleaving involves mixing different topics or types of problems during study sessions, which can enhance cognitive flexibility and promote the better transfer of learning.

The amygdala plays a significant role in learning, processing emotional stimuli, and connecting them to memories. Emotional regulation, or the ability to manage emotions, can impact cognitive processes and learning outcomes. Chronic stress can impair memory and cognitive function, making it essential to develop strategies to reduce stress and promote a positive learning environment.

Learning disabilities are neurodevelopmental disorders that affect the brains ability to process information. Individuals with learning disabilities exhibit structural and functional differences in language, memory, and attention-related brain regions. Strategies for supporting individuals with learning disabilities include personalized learning plans, assistive technologies, and support from educators, therapists, and specialists.

The potential of neuroscientific research in education is immense. As researchers continue to expand our understanding of how learning occurs, educators can integrate these findings into evidence-based teaching strategies. Identifying individual learning preferences and needs can lead to more personalized educational experiences.

Technology also plays a role in the intersection of neuroscience and education. Neuroimaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) allow researchers to study learning processes in real-time. Brain-computer interfaces and adaptive learning technologies hold promise for developing personalized learning experiences. Virtual reality and immersive learning environments can also provide unique educational opportunities that engage students on a deeper level.

Ethical considerations must be addressed in applying neuroscience to education. Balancing the benefits and potential risks of using neuroscientific data in educational settings is crucial. Issues of privacy, consent, and data security must be considered.

The field of neuroscience offers valuable insights into the brains role in learning and education. Educators can implement evidence-based strategies to enhance student outcomes by understanding the underlying learning mechanisms. Cognitive learning theories, such as Information Processing Theory and Cognitive Load Theory, can provide a framework for understanding the mental processes involved in learning.

Neuroscientific research has also informed effective learning strategies, such as retrieval practice, spaced repetition, and interleaving. These strategies have improved memory consolidation, retention, and cognitive flexibility. Additionally, understanding the impact of emotion on learning and the neuroscience of learning disabilities can help educators develop targeted support strategies for students with diverse needs.

As the field of neuroscience continues to grow, so too will its potential applications in education. Technology, including neuroimaging techniques and virtual reality, will undoubtedly play an increasingly important role in understanding and enhancing learning experiences. However, it is essential to address ethical considerations to ensure that these advancements benefit all students and protect their privacy and rights.

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Neuroscience

CMU Neuroscience Major Researches Mindfulness Meditation – News – Carnegie Mellon University

Aiwen Chen remembers the stress of studying for the college entrance exam as a high school student in China, and the impact it had on her and her friends.

"That's why I'm very interested in stress management, because a lot of my friends were in this same, extremely stressful situation, and a lot of them were having mental health issues," Chen said. "It becomes such a heavy burden."

Chen, a Carnegie Mellon University junior with a major in neuroscience(opens in new window) and an additional major in philosophy(opens in new window) in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences(opens in new window), was the recipient of a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship(opens in new window) (SURF) award that allowed her to conduct research on the effects of mindfulness meditation on stress levels. She was part of a team working to determine the correct dosage of meditation a person needs for optimal results.

Her research was based on the Monitor and Acceptance theory of mindfulness training, which posits that people can be trained to achieve a state of mindfulness in meditation by learning how to experience and better monitor the present moment, with an attitude of acceptance. Participants in the research took 20-minute lessons daily for 14 days.

Her somewhat unusual combination of majors was possible because CMU encourages interdisciplinary learning. "It's like multiple programs or multiple displays intertwine with each other," Chen said. It was this encouragement to study across fields that helped Chen decide on philosophy as her additional major because she said it complements the work she does in her neuroscience major.

"I'm super interested in the brain, how it works and how the physiology of the brain impacts psychological effects in humans," she said. "I'm very interested in the problems of mind and body and how philosophers approach those questions."

Chen said the SURF award allowed her to get hands-on experience, the kind she was hoping for when she decided to attend CMU. "I really wanted to know how research is conducted, the whole process of doing research from scratch," she said.

Her graduate student mentor, Asal Yunusova, helped her learn how to tackle problems and improve her study management and communication skills. Yunusova said that Chen showed great initiative and thought like a research scientist.

J. David Creswell,(opens in new window) the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology, worked with Chen to come up with her core project design of assigning study participants to either zero, seven or 14-day programs, to examine the stress tolerance outcomes.

Aiwen has been building some really innovative research focused on answering just how much meditation training dose is needed for benefits, which is a largely unanswered question in the field. It has been a lot of fun for me to collaborate with her on this work, Creswell said.

Aiwen was very detail-oriented and thoughtful when conducting her research project, Yusunova said. And she worked very diligently putting together on the various experiment scripts and survey measures that we would be administering, and was very diligent with recruiting and running in-person sessions.

Aiwen said shes still trying to decide what she wants to do after she completes her undergraduate study. She is considering possibly going to medical school to be a psychiatrist, or enter a graduate program for clinical psychology to be a therapist.

I want to work in mental health, she said, to best help people relieve the pain of their mental health issues.

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CMU Neuroscience Major Researches Mindfulness Meditation - News - Carnegie Mellon University

Neuroscience

Using Photons as Neurotransmitters to Control the Activity of Neurons – Neuroscience News

Summary: Researchers present a new system that uses photons instead of chemical neurotransmitters to control neural activity.

Source: ICFO

Our brains are made of billions of neurons, which are connected forming complex networks. They communicate between themselves by sending electrical signals, known as action potentials, and chemical signals, known as neurotransmitters, in a process called synaptic transmission.

Chemical neurotransmitters are released from one neuron, diffuse to the others and arrive at the targeted cells, generating a signal which excites, inhibits or modulates the cellular activity. The timing and strength of these signals are crucial for the brain to process and interpret sensory information, make decisions, and generate behavior.

Controlling the connections between the neurons would allow us to understand and treat better neurological disorders, rewire or repair the malfunctions of the neural circuits after being damaged, improve our learning capabilities or expand our set of behaviours. There are several approaches to controlling neuronal activity.

One possible method is using drugs, that alter the levels of the chemical neurotransmitters in the brain and affect the activity of neurons. Another approach is to use electrical stimulation applied to specific brain regions to activate or inhibit the neurons. A third possibility is using light to control neural activity.

Using photons to control the neuronal activity

Using light to manipulate neuronal activity is a relatively new technique that has been explored in the past. It involves genetically modifying neurons to express light-sensitive proteins, ion channels, pumps or specific enzymes in the target cells. This technique allows researchers to precisely control the activity of concrete populations of neurons with higher precision.

There are, however, some limitations. It needs to be delivered very close to the neurons to achieve enough resolution at the level of the synapsis, as light scatters in the brain tissue. Thus, it is often invasive, requiring external interventions. Moreover, the intensity needed to reach the targeted cells can be potentially harmful to them.

To overcome these challenges, a team of ICFO researchers presents inNature Methodsa system that uses photons instead of chemical neurotransmitters as a strategy to control neuronal activity.

The ICFO researchersMontserrat Porta,Adriana Carolina Gonzlez,Neus Sanfeliu-Cerdn,Shadi Karimi,Nawaphat Malaiwong,Aleksandra Pidde,Luis Felipe MoralesandSara Gonzlez-Bolvarled byProf. Michael Kriegtogether withPablo FernndezandCedric Hurth, have developed a method to connect two neurons by using luciferases, light-emitting enzymes, and light-sensitive ion channels.

They have developed and tested a system named PhAST -short for Photons as synaptic transmitters- in the roundwormCaenorhabditis elegans, a model organism widely used to study specific biological processes. Resembling how the bioluminescent animals use photons to communicate, PhAST uses the enzymes luciferases to send photons, instead of chemicals, as transmitters between neurons.

Replacing chemical neurotransmitters with photons

To test if photons could codify and transmit the activity state between two neurons, the team genetically modified the roundworms to have faulty neurotransmitters, making them insensitive to mechanical stimuli. They aimed to overcome those defects using the PhAST system. Secondly, they engineered light-emitting enzymes luciferases and selected ion channels that were sensitive to light.

To follow the information flow, they developed a device that delivered mechanical stresses to the animals nose while measuring, at the same time, the calcium activity in the sensory neurons, one of the most important ions and intracellular messengers.

To be able to see the photons and study bioluminescence, the team had previously designed a new microscope by simplifying a fluorescence one, removing all the unnecessary optical elements such as filters, mirrors, or the laser itself, assisted with machine learning to reduce the noise coming from the external sources of light.

Researchers then tested that the PhAST system worked in several experiments and succeeded in using photons to transmit neuronal states. They were able to establish a new transmission between two unconnected cells, restoring neuronal communication in a defective circuit.

They also suppressed the animals response to a painful stimulus, changed their response to an olfactory stimulus from attractive to aversive behavior and studied the calcium dynamics when laying the eggs.

These results demonstrate that photons can indeed act as neurotransmitters and allow communication between neurons and that the PhAST system allows the synthetic modification of animal behavior.

The potential of light as a messenger

Light as a messenger offers a broad scope for future potential applications. As photons can be used in other types of cells and several animal species, it has wide-ranging implications for both basic research and clinical applications in neuroscience.

Using light to control and monitor neuronal activity can help researchers better understand the underlying mechanisms of brain function and complex behaviors, and how different brain regions communicate with each other, providing new ways of imaging and mapping brain activity with higher spatial and temporal resolution. It could also help researchers develop new treatments, and for example, be useful for repairing damaged brain connections without invasive surgeries.

However, there are still some limitations to the widespread use of the technology, and further improvements in the engineering of the bioluminescent enzymes and the ion channels or in the targeting of molecules would allow controlling optically the neuronal function, non-invasively and with higher specificity and precision.

Author: Alina HirschmannSource: ICFOContact: Alina Hirschmann ICFOImage: The image is credited to ICFO

Original Research: Closed access.Neural engineering with photons as synaptic transmitters by Montserrat Porta-de-la-Riva et al. Nature Methods

Abstract

Neural engineering with photons as synaptic transmitters

Neuronal computation is achieved through connections of individual neurons into a larger network. To expand the repertoire of endogenous cellular communication, we developed a synthetic, photon-assisted synaptic transmission (PhAST) system.

PhAST is based on luciferases and channelrhodopsins that enable the transmission of a neuronal state across space, using photons as neurotransmitters.

PhAST overcomes synaptic barriers and rescues the behavioral deficit of a glutamate mutant with conditional, calcium-triggered photon emission between two neurons of theCaenorhabditis elegansnociceptive avoidance circuit.

To demonstrate versatility and flexibility, we generated de novo synaptic transmission between two unconnected cells in a sexually dimorphic neuronal circuit, suppressed endogenous nocifensive response through activation of an anion channelrhodopsin and switched attractive to aversive behavior in an olfactory circuit.

Finally, we applied PhAST to dissect the calcium dynamics of the temporal pattern generator in a motor circuit for ovipositioning. In summary, we established photon-based synaptic transmission that facilitates the modification of animal behavior.

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Using Photons as Neurotransmitters to Control the Activity of Neurons - Neuroscience News

Neuroscience

COVID-19 Infection Accelerates the Progression of Dementia – Neuroscience News

Summary: Following COVID-19 infection, all subtypes of dementia, irrespective of a persons previous dementia type, behave like rapidly progressive dementia.

Source: IOS Press

Infection with SARS-CoV-2 has a significant impact on cognitive function in patients with preexisting dementia, according to newresearch, published in theJournal of Alzheimers Disease Reports.

Patients with all subtypes of dementia included in the study experienced rapidly progressive dementia following infection with SARS-CoV-2.

Since the first wave of COVID-19, neurologists have noticed both acute and long-term neurological syndromes and neuropsychiatric sequelae of this infectious disease. Insights into the impact of COVID-19 on human cognition has so far remained unclear, with neurologists referring to brain fog.

A group of researchers driven to gain a better understanding of and dissipate this fog investigated the effects of COVID-19 on cognitive impairment in 14 patients with preexisting dementia (four with Alzheimers disease [AD], five with vascular dementia, three with Parkinsons disease dementia, and two with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia), who had suffered further cognitive deterioration following COVID-19.

Lead investigators Souvik Dubey, MD, DM, from the Department of Neuromedicine, Bangur Institute of Neurosciences (BIN), Kolkata, West Bengal, India, and Julin Benito-Len, MD, PhD, from the Department of Neurology, University Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid, Spain, explained: We speculated there must have been some deleterious effect of COVID-19 in patients with preexisting dementia extrapolating our understanding from the cognitive impact of this viral infection in patients without dementia.

However, post-COVID-19 evaluation of cognitive impairments in patients with preexisting dementia is difficult due to multiple confounders and biases.

In addition to finding that that all subtypes of dementia, irrespective of patients previous dementia types, behaved like rapidly progressive dementia following COVID-19, the team of investigators found that the line of demarcation between different types of dementia became remarkably blurry post-COVID-19.

Co-investigator Ritwik Ghosh, MD, Department of General Medicine, Burdwan Medical College and Hospital, Burdwan, West Bengal, India, expressed his concern about dementia subtyping.

It is more difficult in the post-COVID-19 era, where the history of this viral infection plays the most important role. Few patients with a history of COVID-19 without preexisting dementia have phenotypically and imaging-wise similar brain changes mimicking other degenerative and vascular dementias.

Researchers also found that the characteristics of a particular type of dementia changed following COVID-19, and both degenerative and vascular dementias started behaving like mixed dementia both clinically and radiological.

A rapidly and aggressively deteriorating course was observed in patients having insidious onset, slowly progressive dementia, and who were previously cognitively stable.

Cortical atrophy was also evident in the studys subsequent follow-ups. Coagulopathy involving small vessels and inflammation, which were further correlated with white matter intensity changes in the brain, was considered the most important pathogenetic indicator.

The rapid progression of dementia, the addition of further impairments/deterioration of cognitive abilities, and the increase or new appearance of white matter lesions suggest that previously compromised brains have little defense to withstand a new insult (i.e., a second hit like infection/dysregulated immune response and inflammation).

According to Dr. Souvik Dubey and his co-investigators, Brain fog is an ambiguous terminology without specific attribution to the spectrum of post-COVID-19 cognitive sequelae.

Based on the progression of cognitive deficits and the association with white matter intensity changes, we propose a new term: FADE-IN MEMORY (i.e., Fatigue, decreased Fluency, Attention deficit, Depression, Executive dysfunction, slowed INformation processing speed, and subcortical MEMORY impairment).

Co-investigator Mahua Jana Dubey, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Berhampur Mental Hospital, Berhampur, West Bengal, India, added, Amidst various psychosocial impacts of COVID-19, cognitive deficits, when accompanied by depression and/or apathy and fatigue in patients with or without preexisting dementia, require meticulous evaluation because it imposes added stress and burden on caregivers, one of the most important but often forgotten issues that may have the potential to hamper treatment.

As the aging population and dementia are increasing globally, we believe pattern recognition of COVID-19-associated cognitive deficits is urgently needed to distinguish between COVID-19-associated cognitive impairments per se and other types of dementia. This understanding will have a definitive impact on future dementia research, Dr. Souvik Dubey concluded.

Increasing epidemiological evidence of the association of COVID-19 and AD is the heightened risk of AD with COVID-19, and of increased COVID-19 in patients with AD points to shared pathogenesis. Dubey et al further clarify this connection in demonstrating COVID-19 fundamentally alters the course of dementia no matter the cause, remarked George Perry, PhD, Editor-in-Chief,Journal of Alzheimers Disease, and Semmes Distinguished University Chair in Neurobiology at The University of Texas at San Antonio.

Author: Diana MurraySource: IOS Press Contact: Diana Murray IOS PressImage: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access.The Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Infection on the Cognitive Functioning of Patients with Pre-Existing Dementia by Souvik Dubey et al. Journal of Alzheimers Disease Reports

Abstract

The Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Infection on the Cognitive Functioning of Patients with Pre-Existing Dementia

Cognitive postscripts of COVID-19, codenamed as cognitive COVID or brain fog, characterized by multidomain cognitive impairments, are now being reckoned as the most devastating sequelae of COVID-19. However, the impact on the already demented brain has not been studied.

We aimed to assess the cognitive functioning and neuroimaging following SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with pre-existing dementia.

Fourteen COVID-19 survivors with pre-existing dementia (four with Alzheimers disease, five with vascular dementia, three with Parkinsons disease dementia, and two with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia) were recruited. All these patients had detailed cognitive and neuroimaging evaluations within three months before suffering from COVID-19 and one year later.

Of the 14 patients, ten required hospitalization. All developed or increased white matter hyperintensities that mimicked multiple sclerosis and small vessel disease. There was a significant increase in fatigue (p=0.001) and depression (p=0.016) scores following COVID-19. The mean Frontal Assessment Battery (p<0.001) and Addenbrookes Cognitive Examination (p=0.001) scores also significantly worsened.

The rapid progression of dementia, the addition of further impairments/deterioration of cognitive abilities, and the increase or new appearance of white matter lesion burden suggest that previously compromised brains have little defense to withstand a new insult (i.e., second hit like infection/dysregulated immune response, and inflammation). Brain fog is an ambiguous terminology without specific attribution to the spectrum of post-COVID-19 cognitive sequelae. We propose a new codename, i.e. FADE-IN MEMORY (i.e., Fatigue, decreased Fluency, Attention deficit, Depression, Executive dysfunction, slowed INformation processing speed, and subcortical MEMORY impairment).

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Neuroscience

Meet the Class of 2023: UConn Health Graduate Student Emily … – University of Connecticut

Commencement for UConn Health students is May 8. Meet the UConn Graduate School programs at UConn Health commencement speaker Emily Fabrizio-Stover, 26, from Greenwich, Connecticut. She is a graduating Ph.D. student in biomedical sciences in the Neuroscience department at UConn School of Medicine.

Q: Why did you choose UConn Graduate School and what drew you to UConn Health?A: When I was first looking at graduate schools, I knew I was interested in neuroscience research, but wasnt sure exactly what I wanted to do. The umbrella program at UConn Health was appealing to me because it had the flexibility to try new areas of research. Also, I appreciated that the environment wasnt intensely competitive and focused on learning.

Q: Did you have a favorite professor, class or part of the curriculum?A: My favorite class was Systems Neuroscience, because as part of the class we were able to study human anatomy. It made the anatomy really click for me and it was really cool to see what I had previously only seen in diagrams.

Q: What activities were you involved in as a student?A: I am involved in the Graduate Student Organization in multiple positions over the years, including as a yearly representative and currently neuroscience representative. I have also been involved in the Neuroscience Program Committee, Student Behavioral Health Committee, Student Wellness Committee, and Young Explorers in Science. Im very passionate about improving mental health resources for the graduate student community.

Q: Whats one thing that surprised you about UConn?A: My undergraduate university was very small, so I was surprised at how big UConn is and how many students there are.

Q: Any advice for incoming students?A: Its very easy to limit yourself based on what you believe others think of you. Ive talked to a number of incoming graduate students that believe they wont be able to work in the lab they want because they dont have experience in techniques that lab uses. That is most definitely not true. Good professors will understand that you can learn anything if youre able to think critically and logically, which if youre in a graduate program, you can do. So dont limit yourself based on your past experience!

Q: Whats one thing everyone should do during their time at UConn?A: Go to a UConn ice hockey game at the XL center in Hartford. Tickets are free if you are a student and its a lot of fun!

Q: What will always make you think of UConn?A: Whenever I see a husky, I think of the UConn mascot Jonathan the Husky.

Q: What or who inspired you most to enter health care and/or this field?A: Ive always been interested in neuroscience because at its roots is a study of how we as human beings work and because there are so many unanswered questions. Im interested in auditory neuroscience in particular because sensory information is how the brain interacts with the world around it and the auditory system is complex so that many things can go wrong with damage and with time.

Q: What did you love most about your experience here at UConn Health?A: I really enjoyed becoming more competent as a researcher. I also enjoyed interacting with all of the supportive individuals at UConn Health, both within and outside of my department.

Q: Whats it like to be part of UConn, and the significant impact its public service has on the states health, workforce and its people?A: Its been really great to see UConn Healths positive impact on health and Im proud that I can participate in it.

Q: Whats it going to be like to finally walk across the stage and get your graduate degree this May?A: Its going to feel really great knowing that the past five years I have worked really hard to make my impact on the field of auditory neuroscience and that my mentors believe that I have reached a point where I deserve to call myself a doctor.

Q: Whats next after UConn?A: A post-doc position at the Medical University of South Carolina investigating how auditory processing changes with age. My ultimate goal is to continue to work in academia and teach and continue to inspire love for research in the next generations of scientists.

Learn more about Commencement 2023 of UConn Health.

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Neuroscience

Deaths by Suicide Increase Significantly During the Week of a Full … – Neuroscience News

Summary: Deaths by suicide significantly increase during the week of a full moon, specifically in those aged 55 and older. Researchers also discovered deaths by suicide were more likely to occur between 3-4 p.m. and more people took their lives during the month of September.

Source: Indiana University

For centuries, people have suspected a full moon in the sky to cause mysterious changes in people. Now, psychiatrists at Indiana University School of Medicine have found deaths by suicide increase during the full moon.

We wanted to analyze the hypothesis that suicides are increased during the period around full moons and determine if high-risk patients should be followed more closely during those times, saidAlexander Niculescu, MD, PhD.

Niculescu and his team looked at data from the Marion County coroners office in Indiana about suicides that took place from 2012-2016.

They found deaths by suicide significantly increased during the week of the full moon, with people over age 55 showing an even higher increase.

They also looked at the time of day and months that suicides took place, finding 3 to- 4 p.m. and the month of September to be peak times for suicides.

The team recentlypublished their findings inDiscover Mental Health.

From a clinical perspective and a public health perspective, we found some important take-home messages in this study, Niculescu said.

High-risk patients should possibly be followed more closely the week of the full moon, during late afternoons and perhaps the month of September.

Niculescu and his team previously developed blood biomarker tests for other mental health conditions (anxiety,depression, andpost-traumatic stress disorder) andfor pain. Using blood samples previously taken by the coroner from some of the people, the team was able to see which biomarkers were present.

We tested a list of top blood biomarkers for suicidality that we identified in previous studies, Niculescu said.

The biomarkers for suicidality that are predictive of death by suicide during full moon, peak hour of day and peak month of the year compared to outside of those periods appear to be genes that regulate the bodys own internal clock, so called circadian clock. Using the biomarkers, we also found people with alcohol-use disorder or depression may be at higher risk during these time periods.

Niculescu said the increased light from the full moon could be what leads to the increase in suicides during that period. Ambient light plays a major role on the bodys circadian rhythm, which is the natural 24-hour cycle our bodies follow to regulate when we are asleep and when we are awake. Moonlight could be impacting people at a time when it should be darker.

The effect of ambient light and body clocks in suicide needs to be studied more closely, along with how people sleep and their exposure to light, Niculescu said. Changes in light can affect vulnerable people, in conjunction with other risk factors.

As for the other two peak periods for suicides, Niculescu said the peak of suicides from 3 to 4 p.m. could be related to stressors throughout the day as well as a decrease in light beginning to occur that day, causing a lower expression of circadian clock genes and cortisol.

And in September, many people are experiencing the end of summer vacations, which could cause stress, as well as seasonal affective disorder effects, as daylight decreases during that time of year.

Our work shows the full moon, fall season and late afternoon are temporal windows of increased risk for suicide, particularly in individuals who suffer from depression or alcohol use disorders, Niculescu said.

In the future, Niculescu hopes to study if exposure to screens at night contributes to increased suicidality in people, especially younger people.

Some people have a full moon in their hand every night, Niculescu said. Its an area we absolutely need to study further.

Author: Christina GriffithsSource: Indiana UniversityContact: Christina Griffiths Indiana UniversityImage: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access.Temporal effects on death by suicide: empirical evidence and possible molecular correlates by Alexander Niculescu et al. Discover Mental Health

Abstract

Temporal effects on death by suicide: empirical evidence and possible molecular correlates

Popular culture and medical lore have long postulated a connection between full moon and exacerbations of psychiatric disorders. We wanted to empirically analyze the hypothesis that suicides are increased during the period around full moons.

We analyzed pre-COVID suicides from the Marion County Coroners Office (n=776), and show that deaths by suicide are significantly increased during the week of the full moon (p=0.037), with older individuals (age55) showing a stronger effect (p=0.019). We also examined in our dataset which hour of the day (34pm, p=0.035), and which month of the year (September, p=0.09) show the most deaths by suicide.

We had blood samples on a subset of the subjects (n=45), which enabled us to look at possible molecular mechanisms. We tested a list of top blood biomarkers for suicidality (n=154) from previous studies of ours, to assess which of them are predictive.

The biomarkers for suicidality that are predictive of death by suicide during full moon, peak hour of day, and peak month of year, respectively, compared to outside of those periods, appear to be enriched in circadian clock genes.

For full moon it is AHCYL2, ACSM3, AK2, and RBM3. For peak hour it is GSK3B, AK2, and PRKCB. For peak month it is TBL1XR1 and PRKCI. Half of these genes are modulated in expression by lithium and by valproate in opposite direction to suicidality, and all of them are modulated by depression and alcohol in the same direction as suicidality.

These data suggest that there are temporal effects on suicidality, possibly mediated by biological clocks, pointing to changes in ambient light (timing and intensity) as a therapeutically addressable target to decrease suicidality, that can be coupled with psychiatric pharmacological and addiction treatment preventive interventions.

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Neuroscience

Senior Snapshot, Alex Edwards ’23: I Can See the Ties Between … – Wellesley College

Everything ties together for Alex Edwards 23. A neuroscience major, Edwards says she has benefited from the interdisciplinary nature of Wellesleys academic program, which led her to areas she never would have explored otherwise. She says she messed around with classes during her first semester and took advantage of shadow grading by enrolling in courses in archaeology and sociology (which eventually became her minor).

Just being able to explore so widely has been so fascinating, so empowering, and so valuable in facilitating an interdisciplinary education, says Edwards. She loves how her courses have built on one another: I can see the ties between every single class Ive taken.

Edwards, who is from the Bay Area, took a class at UC Berkeley in high school that sparked her interest in neuroscience. Before she applied to Wellesley, she reached out to Barbara Beltz, Allene Lummis Russell Professor of Neuroscience. After an initial video call, Edwards met with Beltz over lunch during her first visit to campus. That kind of professor-student interaction is what really drew Edwards to the College. She remarks that she was impressed by how much professors at Wellesley genuinely cared about students and their success and how much they wanted to help them achieve whatever their goals were. Now, Beltz is Edwards thesis advisor, research advisor, and major advisor, and Edwards has worked in Beltzs lab for three years.

Its incredibly valuable that Ive been able to have my first real lab experiences in spaces that are dominated by women and are so much more gender inclusive.

Alex Edwards 23

Edwards is also grateful for the opportunities that can kind of spring up out of nowhere. She landed an internship in a neuroscience research lab at theNational Institutes of Healthstudying fruit flies, in part because shed already studied fruit flies as part of her regular neuroscience coursework. Her rsums uncommon pairing of classwork and research stood out, thanks to Wellesleys distribution requirements.

Edwards also especially values the gender dynamics of working in a lab at Wellesley. To compete in her high school multivariable calculus class, in which only four out of 30 students were female, she felt she had to prove she had the brains, but at Wellesley, Edwards says, she has never felt that and its the best feeling in the world. Its incredibly valuable that Ive been able to have my first real lab experiences in spaces that are dominated by women and are so much more gender inclusive, she says.

Edwards has learned to not let fear of rejection hold her back from building relationships with her fellow students and professors. In her free time, she likes to challenge herself by climbing with the Babson Olin Wellesley climbing organization and playing sudoku. Though, for Edwards, professor-student relationships have defined her Wellesley experience. She appreciates that her professors have taken the time to get to know her and care about helping her balance her health, life, and academics while still pushing her to meet her goals.

In that vein, Beltz added Edwards name to one of her labs publications based on data Edwards gathered for her thesis project on neuron growth in adult crayfish. Edwards thesis will be the final paper published out of Beltzs lab; Beltz will retire at the end of the semester. After graduation, Edwards plans to move to Chicago to work as a research assistant in a lab at Northwestern University, researching the link between the immune system and Alzheimers disease.

Edwards is grateful for the freedom she has had to mix and match classes at Wellesley, which she says has expanded her understanding of every subject she has explored, from anthropology to religion to neuroendocrinology. She offers this advice to incoming Wellesley students: Take classes way outside of your interests, because you are going to love them. The professors here are so good. Theres no way youre not going to at least learn one super, super cool thing thats going to stick with you.

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Neuroscience

Tiny Eye Movements Are Under a Surprising Degree of Cognitive … – Neuroscience News

Summary: Ocular drift, or tiny eye movements that seem random can be influenced by prior knowledge of an expected visual target, researchers report.

Source: Weill Cornell University

A very subtle and seemingly random type of eye movement called ocular drift can be influenced by prior knowledge of the expected visual target, suggesting a surprising level of cognitive control over the eyes, according to a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine neuroscientists.

Thediscovery, described Apr. 3 inCurrent Biology, adds to the scientific understanding of how visionfar from being a mere absorption of incoming signals from the retinais controlled and directed by cognitive processes.

These eye movements are so tiny that were not even conscious of them, and yet our brains somehow can use the knowledge of the visual task to control them, says study lead author Dr. Yen-Chu Lin, who carried out the work as a Fred Plum Fellow in Systems Neurology and Neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Dr. Lin works in the laboratory of study senior authorDr. Jonathan Victor, the Fred Plum Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

The study involved a close collaboration with the laboratory ofDr. Michele Rucci, professor of brain and cognitive sciences and neuroscience at the University of Rochester.

Neuroscientists have known for decades that information stored in memory can strongly shape the processing of sensory inputs, including the streams of visual data coming from the eyes. In other words, what we see is influenced by what we expect to see or the requirements of the task at hand.

Most studies of cognitive control over eye movement have covered more obvious movements, such as the saccade movements in which the eyes dart across large parts of the visual field. In the new study, Drs. Lin and Victor and their colleagues examined ocular drift, tiny jitters of the eye that occur even when gaze seems fixed.

Ocular drifts are subtle motions that shift a visual target on the retina by distances on the order of a fraction of a millimeter or soacross just a few dozen photoreceptors (cones).

They are thought to improve detection of small, stationary details in a visual scene by scanning across them, effectively converting spatial details into trains of visual signals in time.

Prior studies had suggested that ocular drift and other small-scale fixational eye movements are under cognitive control only in a broad sensefor example, slowing when scanning across more finely detailed scenes. In the new study, the researchers found evidence for a more precise type of control.

Using sensitive equipment in Dr. Ruccis laboratory, the researchers recorded ocular drifts in six volunteers who were asked to identify which of a pair of letters (H vs. N, or E vs. F) was being shown to them on a background of random visual noise.

Based on computational modeling, the scientists expected that optimal eye movements for discriminating between letters would cross the key elements distinguishing the letters at right angles.

Thus, they hypothesized that a more precise cognitive control, if it existed, would tend to direct ocular drift in both vertical and oblique (lower left to upper right) directions for the H vs. N discrimination, compared to more strictly vertical movements for the E vs. F discrimination.

They found that the subjects eye movements did indeed tend to follow these patternseven in the 20 percent of trials in which the subjects, though expecting to see a letter, were shown only noise. The latter result showed that the cognitive control of ocular drift could be driven solely by specific prior knowledge of the visual task, independently of any incoming visual information.

These results underscore the interrelationship between the sensory and the motor parts of visionone really cant view them separately, said Dr. Victor, who is also a professor of neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell.

He noted that the direction of fine eye movements is thought to come from neurons in the brainstem, whereas the task knowledge presumably resides in the upper brain: the corteximplying some kind of non-conscious connection between them.

The subjects are aware of the tasks they have to do, yet they dont know that their eyes are executing these tiny movements, even when you tell them, Dr. Victor said.

Studies of this pathway, he added, could lead to better insights not only into the neuroscience of vision, but possibly also visual disorderswhich traditionally have been seen as disorders of the retina or sensory processing within the brain.

What our findings suggest is that visual disorders may sometimes have a motor component too, since optimal vision depends on the brains ability to execute these very tiny movements, Dr. Victor said.

Author: Barbara PrempehSource: Weill Cornell UniversityContact: Barbara Prempeh Weill Cornell UniversityImage: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Closed access.Cognitive influences on fixational eye movements by Jonathan Victor et al. Current Biology

Abstract

Cognitive influences on fixational eye movements

We perceive the world based on visual information acquired via oculomotor control,an activity intertwined with ongoing cognitive processes.Cognitive influences have been primarily studied in the context of macroscopic movements, like saccades and smooth pursuits. However, our eyes are never still, even during periods of fixation.

One of the fixational eye movements, ocular drifts, shifts the stimulus over hundreds of receptors on the retina, a motion that has been argued to enhance the processing of spatial detail by translating spatial into temporal information.Despite their apparent randomness, ocular drifts are under neural control.

However little is known about the control of drift beyond the brainstem circuitry of the vestibulo-ocular reflex.

Here, we investigated the cognitive control of ocular drifts with a letter discrimination task. The experiment was designed to reveal open-loop effects, i.e., cognitive oculomotor control driven by specific prior knowledge of the task, independent of incoming sensory information.

Open-loop influences were isolated by randomly presenting pure noise fields (no letters) while subjects engaged indiscriminating specific letter pairs.

Our results show open-loop control of drift direction in human observers.

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