Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Alan J. Emanuel, Brendan P. Lehnert, Stefano Panzeri, Christopher D. Harvey, David D. Ginty
Summary: Research shows that signals from physiologically distinct mechanoreceptor subtypes are extensively integrated and transformed within the subcortical somatosensory system to generate cortical representations of touch.
Article
Neurosciences
R. Somervail, R. J. Bufacchi, C. Salvatori, L. Neary-Zajiczek, Y. Guo, G. Novembre, G. D. Iannetti
Summary: The brain response to the sudden increase and decrease of sensory input, known as the onset and offset Vertex Potentials (VPs), share similar topographic features and neural activity. Both onset and offset VPs are highly sensitive to surprise and likely reflect the activity of a common supramodal brain network.
Article
Acoustics
Yoshiharu Soeta, Aya Kambara, Ei Onogawa
Summary: This study investigated how users respond to low-level transient background noises generated by air conditioners and correlated their responses with existing physical factors. Subjective loudness, pitch, and annoyance were appraised using a paired comparison method. The results revealed significant predictive variables for assessing subjective responses to low-level transient background sounds, such as the delay time of the first maximum peak, the initial decay width of the autocorrelation function, and the amplitude difference between certain percentile values of the A-weighted equivalent continuous sound pressure level.
Article
Immunology
S. Vancassel, H. Fanet, N. Castanon, C. Moncheaux De Oliveira, S. Cussotto, L. Capuron
Summary: This study aimed to investigate the response of the brain BH4 pathway to inflammatory stimulus and found that BH4 supply can help maintain or restore dopaminergic neurotransmission under inflammatory conditions. Experimental results indicated that BH4 activity may decrease in inflammation, but BH4 supply can effectively increase BH4 levels, restore dopamine levels, and dampen inflammatory cytokine expression.
BRAIN BEHAVIOR AND IMMUNITY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Vanessa C. Irsik, Ala Almanaseer, Ingrid S. Johnsrude, Bjorn Herrmann
Summary: Older listeners have difficulty understanding speech in noise, possibly due to changes in sensitivity to speech-sound identity with age, which alters neural synchronization to envelope dynamics.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Cell Biology
Tanushree Dangi, Sarah Sanchez, Min Han Lew, Bakare Awakoaiye, Lavanya Visvabharathy, Justin M. Richner, Igor J. Koralnik, Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster
Summary: mRNA vaccines are effective in preventing severe COVID-19, but breakthrough infections, emerging variants, and waning immunity warrant the use of boosters. The extent to which pre-existing immunity influences the efficacy of boosters remains unclear.
Article
Neurosciences
Fan-Yin Cheng, Can Xu, Lisa Gold, Spencer Smith
Summary: The efferent auditory nervous system may play a significant role in shaping the brain's response to behaviorally significant sounds. Using sine-wave speech stimuli, this study found that training-induced neural enhancements improved listeners' identification of speech stimuli, suggesting a rapid modulation of auditory brainstem representation based on context and perception.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Bruno L. Giordano, Michele Esposito, Giancarlo Valente, Elia Formisano
Summary: The authors compare three classes of models (acoustic, semantic, and sound-to-event deep neural network) to determine which can best link specific features of auditory stimuli to predicted functional magnetic resonance imaging responses in auditory cortical regions. Sound recognition involves the transformation of input waveforms into semantic representations in the brain. They found that sound-to-event deep neural networks outperform acoustic and semantic models in predicting both auditory cortex responses and perceived sound dissimilarity. These findings suggest the presence of intermediate acoustic-to-semantic sound representations in the superior temporal gyrus that cannot be accounted for by acoustic or semantic models.
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Andre K. Portella, Afroditi Papantoni, Antoneta T. Joseph, Liuyi Chen, Richard S. Lee, Patricia P. Silveira, Laurette Dube, Susan Carnell
Summary: Dopamine receptor 4 in the prefrontal cortex plays a role in modulating brain food responsiveness in adolescence, with sex-specific effects observed where females exhibit lesser activation to high-ED and low-ED food cues compared to males.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Hanna Renvall, Jaeho Seol, Riku Tuominen, Bettina Sorger, Lars Riecke, Riitta Salmelin
Summary: The study found that when participants attended to speech within the superimposed stimuli, higher speech-to-environmental sound ratios resulted in shorter sustained MEG responses and stronger BOLD fMRI signals especially in the left supratemporal auditory cortex, leading to improved behavioral performance.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Fatemeh Mollaei, Douglas M. Shiller, Shari R. Baum, Vincent L. Gracco
Summary: Parkinson's disease patients may have speech deficits related to basal ganglia dysfunction, which contribute to early-stage auditory processing abnormalities and may be part of a broader sensorimotor processing impairment associated with the disease.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Elena Selezneva, Michael Brosch, Sanchit Rathi, T. Vighneshvel, Nicole Wetzel
Summary: Research demonstrates a qualitative similarity in pupil dilation responses to unexpected auditory stimuli between macaques and humans, although there are some quantitative differences.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Alison K. Post, Alan K. Knapp
Summary: A field experiment conducted in a native semiarid shortgrass steppe in Colorado, USA showed that most variables of the water-limited ecosystem responded linearly to increasing deluge size without clear response thresholds during a dry year. The study found that responses reflected a linear increase in the duration of elevated soil moisture with increasing event size. Overall, the results suggest that this semiarid grassland will respond positively and linearly to predicted increases in deluge size.
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Steven Hughes, Jessica K. Edwards, Ashleigh G. Wilcox, Carina A. Pothecary, Alun R. Barnard, Russell Joynson, Greg Joynson, Mark W. Hankins, Stuart N. Peirson, Gareth Banks, Patrick M. Nolan
Summary: Mutations in the transcription factor ZFHX3 have been shown to affect circadian rhythms in mice, with further investigation revealing its impact on retinal function, particularly in altered light responses and increased sensitivity to pupillary reflexes.
Article
Neurosciences
Daniel Reznik, Noa Guttman, Batel Buaron, Elana Zion-Golumbic, Roy Mukamel
Summary: Sensory perception is influenced by the internal state of an organism and the physical attributes of a stimulus. The study found evidence for efferent signals in the human auditory cortex that are locked to voluntary actions and their auditory consequences.