Neural mechanisms mediating optimism bias

Humans expect positive events in the future even when there is no evidence to support such expectations. For example, people expect to live longer and be healthier than average, they underestimate their likelihood of getting a divorce, and overestimate their prospects for success on the job market. We examined how the brain generates this pervasive optimism bias. Here we report that this tendency was related specifically to enhanced activation in the amygdala and in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex when imagining positive future events relative to negative ones, suggesting a key role for areas involved in monitoring emotional salience in mediating the optimism bias. These are the same regions that show irregularities in depression, which has been related to pessimism. Across individuals, activity in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex was correlated with trait optimism. The current study highlights how the brain may generate the tendency to engage in the projection of positive future events, suggesting that the effective integration and regulation of emotional and autobiographical information supports the projection of positive future events in healthy individuals, and is related to optimism.     

Neural mechanisms of perceptual learning

The traditional view of cortical visual processing is that primary visual cortex (V1) analyzes simple visual attributes, and that object recognition involves a progressive “complexification” of receptive field (RF) properties along the visual pathway extending into the temporal lobe. Based on our studies with a combination of electrophysiological, imaging, psychophysical and computational approaches, we find to the contrary that V1 is capable of encoding much more complex stimulus features than originally believed, and that it can integrate information over large parts of the visual field. Moreover, V1 is continually involved in encoding information about learned stimulus configurations under top-down influences specific to the trained perceptual task.     

Neural mechanisms of perceptual learning

The traditional view of cortical visual processing is that primary visual cortex (V1) analyzes simple visual attributes, and that object recognition involves a progressive “complexification” of receptive field (RF) properties along the visual pathway extending into the temporal lobe. Based on our studies with a combination of electrophysiological, imaging, psychophysical and computational approaches, we find to the contrary that V1 is capable of encoding much more complex stimulus features than originally believed, and that it can integrate information over large parts of the visual field. Moreover, V1 is continually involved in encoding information about learned stimulus configurations under top-down influences specific to the trained perceptual task.     

触觉信息处理及其脑机制

 触觉不仅包含对物理特征的感知,还包括对情感性信息的识别,其信息的整合是人类认识环境的基础。本文阐述了编码不同特征触觉信息的皮肤感受器是触觉信息感知的结构基础;讨论了触觉信息在外周和中枢神经系统的加工机制。其中脊髓背角是触觉信息在皮层下水平加工的初级枢纽,躯体感觉皮层是加工触觉信息的主要脑区,且针对不同特征的触觉信息加工,存在相对独立的脑网络连接。本文还探讨了触觉与跨模态感觉的交互作用,揭示了多模态感觉信息整合的神经机制及其广泛的应用价值。     

Neural mechanisms of unconscious visual motion priming

The neural correlates of the motion priming were examined in normal young subjects using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Visual motion perception can be uncon-sciously biased in favor of a particular direction by a pre-ceding motion in that direction. Motion priming first in-volved an enhancement of ERP amplitude about 100 ms fol-lowing the onset of motion. The amplitudes of ERP compo-nents after 350 ms were also increased. The fMRI results suggest that the early-latency effect reflects modulation of neural responses in extrastriate cortex. Higher-level visual processing areas, including cortical regions MT/MST and the intraparietal cortices were also activated. The findings provide direct evidence that unconscious priming of motion perception is the result of interaction of direction-selective neural responses to motion stimuli. The results cannot be accounted for by refractoriness of neural responses, but in-stead support a theory of motion priming based on motion opponency, as proposed in computational models.     

水杨酸钠诱导耳鸣的神经机制

水杨酸是阿司匹林的主要代谢产物,也是起药理作用的有效成分.高剂量的水杨酸钠可以在动物上可靠地诱导出耳鸣样行为,因此经常被用于研究耳鸣产生的神经机制.因为水杨酸能够在脑脊液中达到较高的浓度,我们设想水杨酸钠通过改变中枢听觉系统的兴奋-抑制平衡而产生耳鸣.为了验证这个假设,我们实验室在过去几年中利用全细胞膜片钳技术研究了水杨酸钠对中枢听觉系统神经元响应和突触传递的影响.我们发现该药物显著地压制GABA神经元的自发活动水平,提示水杨酸钠通过提高中枢听觉系统的兴奋性诱导耳鸣.     

基于ANOVA及多元回归对人体睡眠质量影响因素的研究

利用ANOVA及多元回归法对影响睡眠质量的因素大小进行了分析。首先利用方差分析法(ANOVA)比较不同睡眠质量人群间各指标之间的差异,其次利用多元回归将人体睡眠质量作为被解释变量,将年龄、性别、可信赖程度、精神质、神经质和性格因素6个指标作为解释变量进行OLS估计,得到诊断人体睡眠质量的多元回归模型;最后利用约束型F检验法判断各指标对人体睡眠质量的影响,并依据检验结果对模型进行了修正。模型结果表明:指标可信赖程度和精神质对睡眠质量不产生影响;性别对睡眠质量的影响程度最大,其次是年龄和神经质,影响程度最小的为指标性格因素。     

Neural mechanisms of perceptual grouping in human visual cortex

The current work examined neural substrates of perceptual grouping in human visual cortex using event-related potential (ERP) recording. Stimulus arrays consisted of local elements that were either evenly spaced (uniform stimuli) or grouped into columns or rows by proximity or color similarity (grouping stimuli). High-density ERPs were recorded while subjects identified orientations of perceptual groups in stimulus arrays that were presented randomly in one of the four quadrants of the visual field.Both uniform and grouping stimulus arrays elicited an early ERP component (C1), which peaked at about 70ms after stimulus onset and changed its polarity as a function of stimulated elevations. Dipole modeling based on realistichead boundary-element models revealed generators of the C1 component in the calcarine cortex. The C1 was modulated by perceptual grouping of local elements based on proximity, and this grouping effect was stronger in the upper than in the lower visual field. The findings provide ERP evidence for the engagement of human primary visual cortex in the early stage of perceptual grouping.     

Neural population dynamics during reaching

Most theories of motor cortex have assumed that neural activity represents movement parameters. This view derives from what is known about primary visual cortex, where neural activity represents patterns of light. Yet it is unclear how well the analogy between motor and visual cortex holds. Single-neuron responses in motor cortex are complex, and there is marked disagreement regarding which movement parameters are represented. A better analogy might be with other motor systems, where a common principle is rhythmic neural activity. Here we find that motor cortex responses during reaching contain a brief but strong oscillatory component, something quite unexpected for a non-periodic behaviour. Oscillation amplitude and phase followed naturally from the preparatory state, suggesting a mechanistic role for preparatory neural activity. These results demonstrate an unexpected yet surprisingly simple structure in the population response. This underlying structure explains many of the confusing features of individual neural responses.     

Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120,000 years

Oceans cover more than two-thirds of our blue planet. The waters move in a global circulation system, driven by subtle density differences and transporting huge amounts of heat. Ocean circulation is thus an active and highly nonlinear player in the global climate game. Increasingly clear evidence implicates ocean circulation in abrupt and dramatic climate shifts, such as sudden temperature changes in Greenland on the order of 5-10 degrees C and massive surges of icebergs into the North Atlantic Ocean --events that have occurred repeatedly during the last glacial cycle.     

控释肥养分释放机理及其影响因素研究进展

阐述控释肥的定义与分类,养分释放过程、特征及内外影响因素,包括土壤环境(水分、温度、微生物、pH、质地),包膜材料,制造工艺和施肥方式等,最后对我国控释肥的研究重点作了展望、旨在为控释肥研发和应用提供参考.     

Boosting slow oscillations during sleep potentiates memory

There is compelling evidence that sleep contributes to the long-term consolidation of new memories. This function of sleep has been linked to slow (<1 Hz) potential oscillations, which predominantly arise from the prefrontal neocortex and characterize slow wave sleep. However, oscillations in brain potentials are commonly considered to be mere epiphenomena that reflect synchronized activity arising from neuronal networks, which links the membrane and synaptic processes of these neurons in time. Whether brain potentials and their extracellular equivalent have any physiological meaning per se is unclear, but can easily be investigated by inducing the extracellular oscillating potential fields of interest. Here we show that inducing slow oscillation-like potential fields by transcranial application of oscillating potentials (0.75 Hz) during early nocturnal non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, that is, a period of emerging slow wave sleep, enhances the retention of hippocampus-dependent declarative memories in healthy humans. The slowly oscillating potential stimulation induced an immediate increase in slow wave sleep, endogenous cortical slow oscillations and slow spindle activity in the frontal cortex. Brain stimulation with oscillations at 5 Hz--another frequency band that normally predominates during rapid-eye-movement sleep--decreased slow oscillations and left declarative memory unchanged. Our findings indicate that endogenous slow potential oscillations have a causal role in the sleep-associated consolidation of memory, and that this role is enhanced by field effects in cortical extracellular space.     

Periodic flow characteristics during RH vacuum circulation refining

The circulation period of RH vacuum refining was studied to promote the refining efficiency. The influences of the lift gas flow rate and submersion depth of snorkels on the circulation period, and the relationship between mixing time and circulation flow were discussed. The effects of the lift gas flow rate and submersion depth on the degassing rate in one circulation period were studied by water modeling. The results show that the circulation period is shortened by increasing the lift gas flow rate. The circulation period is the shortest when the submersion depth of snorkels is 560 mm. The whole ladle can be mixed thoroughly after three times of circulation. Increasing the lift gas flow rate can enhance the degassing rate of RH circulation.     

Eastern Pacific cooling and Atlantic overturning circulation during the last deglaciation

Surface ocean conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean could hold the clue to whether millennial-scale global climate change during glacial times was initiated through tropical ocean-atmosphere feedbacks or by changes in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation. North Atlantic cold periods during Heinrich events and millennial-scale cold events (stadials) have been linked with climatic changes in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and South America, as well as the Indian and East Asian monsoon systems, but not with tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures. Here we present a high-resolution record of sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific derived from alkenone unsaturation measurements. Our data show a temperature drop of approximately 1 degrees C, synchronous (within dating uncertainties) with the shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during Heinrich event 1, and a smaller temperature drop of approximately 0.5 degrees C synchronous with the smaller reduction in the overturning circulation during the Younger Dryas event. Both cold events coincide with maxima in surface ocean productivity as inferred from 230Th-normalized carbon burial fluxes, suggesting increased upwelling at the time. From the concurrence of equatorial Pacific cooling with the two North Atlantic cold periods during deglaciation, we conclude that these millennial-scale climate changes were probably driven by a reorganization of the oceans' thermohaline circulation, although possibly amplified by tropical ocean-atmosphere interaction as suggested before.     

Spontaneous muscle twitches during sleep guide spinal self-organization

During development, information about the three-dimensional shape and mechanical properties of the body is laid down in the synaptic connectivity of sensorimotor systems through unknown adaptive mechanisms. In spinal reflex systems, this enables the fast transformation of complex sensory information into adequate correction of movements. Here we use a computer simulation to show that an unsupervised correlation-based learning mechanism, using spontaneous muscle twitches, can account for the functional adaptation of the withdrawal reflex system. We also show that tactile feedback resulting from spontaneous muscle twitches during sleep does indeed modify sensorimotor transformation in young rats in a predictable manner. The results indicate that these twitches, corresponding to human fetal movements, are important in spinal self-organization.