Neuroscience
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Retraction Of Publication
WITHDRAWN: Auditory Surprise Model Based on Pattern Retrieval from the Past Observation.
This article has been withdrawn: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). This article has been withdrawn at the request of the authors. The authors regrets that the reason for withdrawal is due to an disagreement in authorship and in scope of data disclosure. The authors apologize to the readers for this unfortunate error.
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If one eye is patched for a period of 2.5 h in human adults, transient changes in sensory eye dominance result with the previously patched eye's contribution being strengthened. Similar changes result from opaque and translucent occlusion suggesting that it is the deprivation of contrast not luminance information that drives these transient shift of sensory eye dominance. ⋯ With further control experiments we show that this deprivation effect critically depends on the absolute luminance of each eye rather than the relative interocular luminance imbalance. These results indicate that changes in contrast gain at an early, monocular stage of the pathway can result in the transient shift of sensory eye dominance.
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To mimic the expected pathological changes of white matter lesions (WMLs) and increase the stability, we applied modified two-vessel occlusion (modified 2VO) (1-week interval bilateral carotid artery occlusion) in stroke-prone renovascular hypertensive rats (RHRSP) and established a modified WMLs model (RHRSP/modified 2VO) that compared their phenotypes with RHRSP and sham-operated rats. In addition, we tried to differentiate small veins from small arteries through the presence of smooth muscle to study the pathological changes of small veins detailed in the model. RHRSP/modified 2VO rats showed higher stability and more extensive white matter damage without an obvious increase in mortality rate at 12 weeks after the modified 2VO operation compared to RHRSP rats. ⋯ In addition, RHRSP/modified 2VO rats possessed cognitive impairment, mild wall thickness and blood-brain barrier disruption. Our findings suggest that the modified WMLs model (RHRSP/modified 2VO) mimics cognitive impairment and small vessel pathological changes similar to WMLs in humans. Differentiating small veins from small arteries through smooth muscle is feasible, and marked small venous deposition may play an important role in the hypertensive white matter lesions.
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Speech sound disorder (SSD) is common, yet its neurobiology is poorly understood. Recent studies indicate atypical structural and functional anomalies either in one hemisphere or both hemispheres, which might be accompanied by alterations in inter-hemispheric connectivity. Indeed, abnormalities of the corpus callosum - the main fiber tract connecting the two hemispheres - have been linked to speech and language deficits in associated disorders, such as stuttering, dyslexia, aphasia, etc. ⋯ Here, we investigated whether a sample of 18 children with SSD differed in callosal morphology from 18 typically developing children carefully matched for age. Significantly reduced dimensions of the corpus callosum, particularly in the callosal anterior third, were observed in children with SSD. These findings indicating pronounced callosal aberrations in SSD make an important contribution to an understudied field of research and may suggest that SSD is accompanied by atypical lateralization of speech and language function.
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The neuroimmune factor IL-6 has been shown to regulate hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), an activity-dependent enhancement of synaptic transmission that plays a central role in memory and learning. This IL-6 action was demonstrated with relatively short IL-6 exposure, and may reflect physiological actions of IL-6. IL-6 is also expressed chronically at elevated levels in the central nervous system (CNS) under pathological conditions such as neurological disorders. ⋯ An inhibitor of mTOR, rapamycin, reduced L-LTP in slices from both genotypes, and eliminated the difference in magnitude of L-LTP between IL-6 and non-tg hippocampus. There were no genotypic effect of rapamycin on basal synaptic transmission, but synaptic responses during the LTP induction protocol were reduced in IL-6 tg slices, an effect that could contribute to the reduction of L-LTP in the IL-6 tg slices. These results indicate that persistently increased levels of IL-6 can lead to alterations in mTOR regulation of L-LTP, possibly affecting learning and memory.