Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Jake Witter, Conor Houghton
Summary: Zebra finches are used to study audition and the neural pathway for song recognition. This study illustrates the estimation of mutual information between stimuli and responses using the Kozachenko-Leonenko estimator. The findings show that the information content of spiking does not decrease as the song progresses.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Allen P. F. Chen, Jeffrey M. Malgady, Lu Chen, Kaiyo W. Shi, Eileen Cheng, Joshua L. Plotkin, Shaoyu Ge, Qiaojie Xiong
Summary: This study reveals the involvement of the nigrostriatal system in auditory decision-making and demonstrates the modulatory effects of dopaminergic projections on striatal tone representations, which are inversely correlated with the evidence strength of tones.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Cell Biology
Gioia De Franceschi, Tania Rinaldi Barkat
Summary: This study found that task engagement can modulate neuronal activity in the auditory system, changing the response patterns of most neurons. Ten distinct modulation patterns were identified, and different types of neurons were found to have varying sensitivity to specific task-related variables along the auditory pathway.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Sam Norman-Haignere, Jenelle Feather, Dana Boebinger, Peter Brunner, Anthony Ritaccio, Josh H. McDermott, Gerwin Schalk, Nancy Kanwisher
Summary: This study developed a new method to investigate the neural code for music in the human auditory cortex using intracranial responses and fMRI. The results revealed that representations of music are fractionated into subpopulations selective for different types of music, with one subpopulation specialized for the analysis of songs.
Article
Neurosciences
Daniel Schlingloff, Balazs Hangya, Lucas Pinto
Summary: The study shows that basal forebrain cholinergic neurons transmit fast and specific information about various sensory stimuli to the auditory cortex, which is modulated by slower fluctuations in cholinergic activity. These findings enhance our understanding of how the cholinergic system fulfills its diverse roles in attention, learning, and memory by encoding multiple representations.
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Physics, Fluids & Plasmas
Martin N. P. Nilsson, Henrik Jorntell
Summary: The Hodgkin and Huxley neuron model explains voltage spike propagation in axons, but falls short in explaining certain key features of the neural code. By analyzing channel current fluctuations in a trisection of the model, it was found that neuronal encoding can be conclusively described by a soft-thresholding function with just three parameters. This explanation provided excellent matches with in vivo recordings of cerebellar Purkinje neurons, supporting its validity.
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Thomas Kreuz, Federico Senocrate, Gloria Cecchini, Curzio Checcucci, Anna Letizia Allegra Mascaro, Emilia Conti, Alessandro Scaglione, Francesco Saverio Pavone
Summary: A new algorithm of multivariate latency correction for sparse data is proposed in this study. It effectively improves synchrony by correcting systematic shifts in spike timing. The algorithm is suitable for spike trains with low firing, where the timing of individual spikes contains crucial information.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2022)
Article
Biology
Joseph M. M. Fabian, David C. C. O'Carrol, Steven D. D. Wiederman
Summary: Animals, such as dragonflies, rely on sensorimotor circuits to process information and drive behaviors in their dynamic environments. While neuroscientists typically interpret neural activity using a rate code, which measures changes in spike frequency over time, this method has limitations in accurately capturing real-time information available to the animal. This study challenges the effectiveness of rate codes in driving rapid behaviors and highlights the need for a better understanding of how animals process information.
Article
Biology
Reyna L. Gordon, Andrea Ravignani, Julia Hyland Bruno, Cristina M. Robinson, Alyssa Scartozzi, Rebecca Embalabala, Maria Niarchou, Nancy J. Cox, Nicole Creanza
Summary: This paper explores evolutionary hypotheses linking vocal learning and beat synchronization through genomic approaches. Analysis shows that the genetic architecture of human beat synchronization is significantly enriched for birdsong genes, suggesting common genomic substrates underlying rhythm-related behaviors in humans and songbirds.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Infectious Diseases
Qiong Wang, Zhi-Jian Zhou, Zhi You, Deng-Yu Wu, Shu-Jing Liu, Wan-Lin Zhang, Ke-Rui Fan, Rui Luo, Ye Qiu, Xing-Yi Ge
Summary: The research shows that common magpies in China carry diverse deltacoronaviruses, including four novel strains, which could provide crucial information for prevention and control of future coronavirus epidemics.
TRANSBOUNDARY AND EMERGING DISEASES
(2022)
Review
Neurosciences
Alexandra E. Quimby, Kimberly Wei, Dayo Adewole, Steven Eliades, D. Kacy Cullen, Jason A. Brant
Summary: This article reviews the encoding methods of the human auditory system and the neural stimulation strategies for hearing restoration, including both conventional and emerging approaches.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Chu Yi Yu, Anne Cabildo, Jessica A. Grahn, Christina M. Vanden Bosch M. Der Nederlanden
Summary: This study examined the differences in rhythmic regularity between music and language through subjective ratings. The results showed that individuals have different definitions for rhythmic regularity, and it is challenging to find acoustic metrics to measure the differences. Experiment 2 found that participants rated songs as easier to tap or clap to than speech, and stimuli with longer syllable durations and less spectral flux were perceived as more rhythmically regular across domains.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Mathematics
Zhongyang Wang, Yahong Wu, Feng Liu
Summary: Hypergraph matching has been widely used in computer vision applications. The proposed metric-learning-based approach improves matching accuracy and effectiveness. Experimental results show superior performance on both synthetic and natural images.
Article
Ornithology
Alois Robert, Thierry Lengagne, Martim Melo, Doris Gomez, Claire Doutrelant
Summary: Oceanic islands may exhibit parallel evolutionary trends in life-history traits, morphology, and visual signals, but the extent to which acoustic signals change in parallel remains unclear. A study on 11 insular species and their mainland relatives did not find a clear relationship between island environment and song traits, potentially due to factors such as relaxation of interspecific competition on islands. More research on island species is needed to understand divergence patterns and unique song characteristics in islands beyond confounding ecological factors.
JOURNAL OF AVIAN BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Biomedical
Gorana Mijatovic, Yuri Antonacci, Tatjana Loncar-Turukalo, Ludovico Minati, Luca Faes
Summary: This study introduces an information-theoretic framework for model-free, continuous-time estimation of interactions between spike trains, demonstrating its accuracy for weakly coupled and short realizations compared to the standard discrete-time approach. By applying this framework to real-world data, it shows the ability to describe how functional networks between neuronal units emerge over time, providing more efficient and flexible measures for assessing spike train interactions in neuroscience.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
(2021)
Editorial Material
Psychology, Biological
Conor Houghton
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES
(2016)
Article
Neurosciences
Amelia Burroughs, Andrew K. Wise, Jianqiang Xiao, Conor Houghton, Tianyu Tang, Colleen Y. Suh, Eric J. Lang, Richard Apps, Nadia L. Cerminara
JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY-LONDON
(2017)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Claire A. Hales, Conor J. Houghton, Emma S. J. Robinson
EUROPEAN NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2017)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Claire A. Hales, Emma S. J. Robinson, Conor J. Houghton
Article
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Conor Houghton
NEURAL COMPUTATION
(2019)
Meeting Abstract
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Haris Organtzidis, Claire Hales, Justyna Hinchcliffe, Emma Robinson, Conor Houghton
PHARMACOLOGICAL REPORTS
(2019)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Amelia Burroughs, Nina Kazanina, Conor Houghton
Summary: The interplay between lexical, syntactic and semantic processing in language comprehension has been a longstanding topic of debate. Research shows that cortical responses to linguistic stimuli can track the rate of phrase and sentence presentation, with evidence supporting hierarchical processing of speech. This suggests that word-level grammatical category information is essential for building larger linguistic units.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Review
Biology
Ensor Rafael Palacios, Conor Houghton, Paul Chadderton
Summary: The review discusses the possible contribution of inhibition to the encoding of precision of neural representations in the granular layer of the cerebellar cortex, emphasizing the critical role of Golgi cells in shaping information transmission downstream to Purkinje cells.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Editorial Material
Neurosciences
Conor Houghton, Philippe Isope, Richard Apps, Nadia L. Cerminara
FRONTIERS IN SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Chloe Slaney, Adam M. Perkins, Robert Davis, Ian Penton-Voak, Marcus R. Munafo, Conor J. Houghton, Emma S. J. Robinson
Summary: Anhedonia, a core symptom of depression, is poorly understood. This study examined reward motivation and sensitivity in individuals with high and low anhedonia. The results suggest that anhedonia is associated with impairments in decision-making and reward sensitivity.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
M. Oana Cucu, Nina Kazanina, Conor Houghton
Summary: This experiment investigated the reliance of neural entrainment to speech on syllabic features, and found that neural entrainment differed across different syllable-initial phonemes and depended on the sharpness of the sound envelope.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Nadia L. Cerminara, Martin Garwicz, Henry Darch, Conor Houghton, Dilwyn E. Marple-Horvat, Richard Apps
Summary: In this study, the organization and activity of microzones within the C3 zone during a skilled forelimb reaching task in cats were investigated. The results showed that neurons in different microzones exhibited different patterns of activity during movement, and groups of Purkinje cells belonging to different microzones collectively encoded different aspects of the reach controlled by the C3 zone. These findings suggest that the cerebellar C3 zone operates within a microzonal frame of reference.
JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY-LONDON
(2022)
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Jake Witter, Conor Houghton
Summary: Zebra finches are used to study audition and the neural pathway for song recognition. This study illustrates the estimation of mutual information between stimuli and responses using the Kozachenko-Leonenko estimator. The findings show that the information content of spiking does not decrease as the song progresses.
Article
Neurosciences
Jian Carlo Nocon, Jake Witter, Howard Gritton, Xue Han, Conor Houghton, Kamal Sen
Summary: A small subset of neurons in the auditory cortex can robustly encode competing sounds from different spatial locations, with the labeled line code performing better.
JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Review
Neurosciences
Ola Bykowska, Camille Gontier, Anne-Lene Sax, David W. Jia, Milton Llera Montero, Alex D. Bird, Conor Houghton, Jean-Pascal Pfister, Rui Ponte Costa
FRONTIERS IN SYNAPTIC NEUROSCIENCE
(2019)
