Dopamine-dependent prediction errors underpin reward-seeking behaviour in humans

Theories of instrumental learning are centred on understanding how success and failure are used to improve future decisions. These theories highlight a central role for reward prediction errors in updating the values associated with available actions. In animals, substantial evidence indicates that the neurotransmitter dopamine might have a key function in this type of learning, through its ability to modulate cortico-striatal synaptic efficacy. However, no direct evidence links dopamine, striatal activity and behavioural choice in humans. Here we show that, during instrumental learning, the magnitude of reward prediction error expressed in the striatum is modulated by the administration of drugs enhancing (3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine; L-DOPA) or reducing (haloperidol) dopaminergic function. Accordingly, subjects treated with L-DOPA have a greater propensity to choose the most rewarding action relative to subjects treated with haloperidol. Furthermore, incorporating the magnitude of the prediction errors into a standard action-value learning algorithm accurately reproduced subjects' behavioural choices under the different drug conditions. We conclude that dopamine-dependent modulation of striatal activity can account for how the human brain uses reward prediction errors to improve future decisions.     

Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour

The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the nature of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic are matters of intense debate. Most researchers accept that before the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals had adopted several 'transitional' technocomplexes. Two of these, the Uluzzian of southern Europe and the Chatelperronian of western Europe, are key to current interpretations regarding the timing of arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region and their potential interaction with Neanderthal populations. They are also central to current debates regarding the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals and the reasons behind their extinction. However, the actual fossil evidence associated with these assemblages is scant and fragmentary, and recent work has questioned the attribution of the Chatelperronian to Neanderthals on the basis of taphonomic mixing and lithic analysis. Here we reanalyse the deciduous molars from the Grotta del Cavallo (southern Italy), associated with the Uluzzian and originally classified as Neanderthal. Using two independent morphometric methods based on microtomographic data, we show that the Cavallo specimens can be attributed to anatomically modern humans. The secure context of the teeth provides crucial evidence that the makers of the Uluzzian technocomplex were therefore not Neanderthals. In addition, new chronometric data for the Uluzzian layers of Grotta del Cavallo obtained from associated shell beads and included within a Bayesian age model show that the teeth must date to ~45,000-43,000 calendar years before present. The Cavallo human remains are therefore the oldest known European anatomically modern humans, confirming a rapid dispersal of modern humans across the continent before the Aurignacian and the disappearance of Neanderthals.     

An RNA gene expressed during cortical development evolved rapidly in humans

The developmental and evolutionary mechanisms behind the emergence of human-specific brain features remain largely unknown. However, the recent ability to compare our genome to that of our closest relative, the chimpanzee, provides new avenues to link genetic and phenotypic changes in the evolution of the human brain. We devised a ranking of regions in the human genome that show significant evolutionary acceleration. Here we report that the most dramatic of these 'human accelerated regions', HAR1, is part of a novel RNA gene (HAR1F) that is expressed specifically in Cajal-Retzius neurons in the developing human neocortex from 7 to 19 gestational weeks, a crucial period for cortical neuron specification and migration. HAR1F is co-expressed with reelin, a product of Cajal-Retzius neurons that is of fundamental importance in specifying the six-layer structure of the human cortex. HAR1 and the other human accelerated regions provide new candidates in the search for uniquely human biology.     

Homing behaviour of axons in the embryonic vertebrate brain

In embryonic nervous systems, growing axons must often travel long distances through diverse extracellular terrains to reach their postsynaptic partners. In most embryos, axons grow to their appropriate targets along particular tracts or nerves, as though they were following guidance cues confined to specific pathways. For example, in all vertebrates, axons from the retina invariably grow to the tectum along the well-defined optic tract. Yet, transplant experiments demonstrate that retinal axons make tectal projections even though they enter the brain at locations which are distinctly off the optic tract. Only recently has it become possible to label discreet growing projections in the embryonic vertebrate brain. Thus, it is not yet known whether displaced retinal axons grow directly towards the tectum or find it accidently, through random extension. To resolve this question, pioneering axons from normal and transplanted eyes in embryonic Xenopus were labelled using a short-survival horseradish peroxidase (HRP) method, and their orientation during growth was quantitatively assessed. The finding that the ectopic fibres head towards their distant targets implies that guidance cues are not restricted to specific pathways but are distributed throughout the embryonic brain. The significance of this result is discussed with respect to the ontogeny and evolution of the visual pathway.     

Cortical ensemble activity increasingly predicts behaviour outcomes during learning of a motor task

When an animal learns to make movements in response to different stimuli, changes in activity in the motor cortex seem to accompany and underlie this learning. The precise nature of modifications in cortical motor areas during the initial stages of motor learning, however, is largely unknown. Here we address this issue by chronically recording from neuronal ensembles located in the rat motor cortex, throughout the period required for rats to learn a reaction-time task. Motor learning was demonstrated by a decrease in the variance of the rats' reaction times and an increase in the time the animals were able to wait for a trigger stimulus. These behavioural changes were correlated with a significant increase in our ability to predict the correct or incorrect outcome of single trials based on three measures of neuronal ensemble activity: average firing rate, temporal patterns of firing, and correlated firing. This increase in prediction indicates that an association between sensory cues and movement emerged in the motor cortex as the task was learned. Such modifications in cortical ensemble activity may be critical for the initial learning of motor tasks.     

Small modulation of ongoing cortical dynamics by sensory input during natural vision

During vision, it is believed that neural activity in the primary visual cortex is predominantly driven by sensory input from the environment. However, visual cortical neurons respond to repeated presentations of the same stimulus with a high degree of variability. Although this variability has been considered to be noise owing to random spontaneous activity within the cortex, recent studies show that spontaneous activity has a highly coherent spatio-temporal structure. This raises the possibility that the pattern of this spontaneous activity may shape neural responses during natural viewing conditions to a larger extent than previously thought. Here, we examine the relationship between spontaneous activity and the response of primary visual cortical neurons to dynamic natural-scene and random-noise film images in awake, freely viewing ferrets from the time of eye opening to maturity. The correspondence between evoked neural activity and the structure of the input signal was weak in young animals, but systematically improved with age. This improvement was linked to a shift in the dynamics of spontaneous activity. At all ages including the mature animal, correlations in spontaneous neural firing were only slightly modified by visual stimulation, irrespective of the sensory input. These results suggest that in both the developing and mature visual cortex, sensory evoked neural activity represents the modulation and triggering of ongoing circuit dynamics by input signals, rather than directly reflecting the structure of the input signal itself.     

A functional circuit underlying male sexual behaviour in the female mouse brain

In mice, pheromone detection is mediated by the vomeronasal organ and the main olfactory epithelium. Male mice that are deficient for Trpc2, an ion channel specifically expressed in VNO neurons and essential for VNO sensory transduction, are impaired in sex discrimination and male-male aggression. We report here that Trpc2-/- female mice show a reduction in female-specific behaviour, including maternal aggression and lactating behaviour. Strikingly, mutant females display unique characteristics of male sexual and courtship behaviours such as mounting, pelvic thrust, solicitation, anogenital olfactory investigation, and emission of complex ultrasonic vocalizations towards male and female conspecific mice. The same behavioural phenotype is observed after VNO surgical removal in adult animals, and is not accompanied by disruption of the oestrous cycle and sex hormone levels. These findings suggest that VNO-mediated pheromone inputs act in wild-type females to repress male behaviour and activate female behaviours. Moreover, they imply that functional neuronal circuits underlying male-specific behaviours exist in the normal female mouse brain.     

PLL两点调制在跳频通信GMSK调制源中的应用

阐述了PLL两点调制的基本原理,并在ADS软件环境下,验证了两点调制在慢跳频通信GMSK调制源设计中应用的可行性。并且利用ADS软硬件协同仿真的功能进行了电路的相噪和杂散性能测试。     

Vasopressin alters female sexual behaviour by acting on the brain independently of alterations in blood pressure

Subcutaneous (s.c.) administration of Arg-vasopressin (AVP) prolongs retention of a learned behaviour and elevates arterial blood pressure. Intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injection of a thousandfold lower dose of AVP than needed with s.c. injection produces the same behavioural effect, suggesting that AVP acts on the brain to control behaviour. However, as i.c.v. injection of AVP also elevates arterial blood pressure, it was suggested that AVP, and perhaps other peptides as well, influences behaviour indirectly by eliciting a peripheral response, for example blood pressure changes, rather than by acting directly on the brain. The suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus, a source of vasopressin production, inhibit sexual receptivity in oestradiol-17 beta-treated ovariectomized rats during the light phase of the daily lighting cycle, leading to speculation that vasopressin might inhibit sexual behaviour. Here we report that i.c.v. injections of AVP (1, 4 or 10 ng) inhibit sexual behaviour in receptive rats. This behavioural response is prevented by i.c.v. injection of an antiserum to AVP 30 min before AVP injection. Subcutaneous injection of a high dose of AVP (1 microgram) has no behavioural effect but elevates arterial blood pressure within 30 min of administration. Intracerebroventricular injection of a behaviourally effective dose of AVP (1 ng) has no effect on blood pressure. The results provide direct evidence that AVP can alter behaviour by an action on the brain and independently of its effect on blood pressure.     

软件无线电中基本调制制式的自动识别

调制制式的自动识别是非合作通信系统接收机设计中的重要研究课题．着重讨论了利用特征参数对几种基本调制制式(DSB^*、FM、PM、2ASK、2FSK、2PSK)自动识别问题，对叠加了高斯白噪声的通信信号的自动识别进行了计算机仿真．实验结果表明，此种识别算法具有较为理想的识别效果．     

Intellectual ability and cortical development in children and adolescents

Children who are adept at any one of the three academic 'R's (reading, writing and arithmetic) tend to be good at the others, and grow into adults who are similarly skilled at diverse intellectually demanding activities. Determining the neuroanatomical correlates of this relatively stable individual trait of general intelligence has proved difficult, particularly in the rapidly developing brains of children and adolescents. Here we demonstrate that the trajectory of change in the thickness of the cerebral cortex, rather than cortical thickness itself, is most closely related to level of intelligence. Using a longitudinal design, we find a marked developmental shift from a predominantly negative correlation between intelligence and cortical thickness in early childhood to a positive correlation in late childhood and beyond. Additionally, level of intelligence is associated with the trajectory of cortical development, primarily in frontal regions implicated in the maturation of intelligent activity. More intelligent children demonstrate a particularly plastic cortex, with an initial accelerated and prolonged phase of cortical increase, which yields to equally vigorous cortical thinning by early adolescence. This study indicates that the neuroanatomical expression of intelligence in children is dynamic.     

Complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees

Genetic data from two or more species provide information about the process of speciation. In their analysis of DNA from humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and macaques (HCGOM), Patterson et al. suggest that the apparently short divergence time between humans and chimpanzees on the X chromosome is explained by a massive interspecific hybridization event in the ancestry of these two species. However, Patterson et al. do not statistically test their own null model of simple speciation before concluding that speciation was complex, and--even if the null model could be rejected--they do not consider other explanations of a short divergence time on the X chromosome. These include natural selection on the X chromosome in the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, changes in the ratio of male-to-female mutation rates over time, and less extreme versions of divergence with gene flow (see ref. 2, for example). I therefore believe that their claim of hybridization is unwarranted.