J in the Jungle

Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) in the snow today (2/20/19), one of a pair that nests under a staircase at my house in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Got a cold? Here’s some helpful(?) advice.

Gradual progression from sensory to task-related processing in cerebral cortex. Brincat, S. L., Siegel, M., von Nicolai, C., & Miller, E. K. (2018). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(30), E7202–E7211.

Selective Attention Controls Olfactory Decisions and the Neural Encoding of Odors. Carlson, K. S., Gadziola, M. A., Dauster, E. S., & Wesson, D. W. (2018). Current Biology, 28(14), 2195–2205.e4.

Adolescent Development of Value-Guided Goal Pursuit. Davidow, J. Y., Insel, C., & Somerville, L. H. (2018). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(8), 725–736.

The Role of Association in Pre-schoolers’ Solutions to “Spoon Tests” of Future Planning. Dickerson, K. L., Ainge, J. A., & Seed, A. M. (2018). Current Biology, 28(14), 2309–2313.e2.

Cerebellar Learning Properties Are Modulated by the CRF Receptor. Ezra-Nevo, G., Prestori, F., Locatelli, F., Soda, T., Ten Brinke, M. M., Engel, M., … Chen, A. (2018). Journal of Neuroscience, 38(30), 6751–6765.

Differential Representation of Landmark and Self-Motion Information along the CA1 Radial Axis: Self-Motion Generated Place Fields Shift toward Landmarks during Septal Inactivation. Fattahi, M., Sharif, F., Geiller, T., & Royer, S. (2018). Journal of Neuroscience, 38(30), 6766–6778.

Noradrenaline Modulates Visual Perception and Late Visually Evoked Activity. Gelbard-Sagiv, H., Magidov, E., Sharon, H., Hendler, T., & Nir, Y. (2018). Current Biology, 28(14), 2239–2249.e6.

Prefrontal Cortex Represents Long-Term Memory of Object Values for Months. Ghazizadeh, A., Hong, S., & Hikosaka, O. (2018). Current Biology, 28(14), 2206–2217.e5.

A Distance-Dependent Distribution of Presynaptic Boutons Tunes Frequency-Dependent Dendritic Integration. Grillo, F. W., Neves, G., Walker, A., Vizcay-Barrena, G., Fleck, R. A., Branco, T., & Burrone, J. (2018). Neuron, 99(2), 275–282.e3.

Recovery of “Lost” Infant Memories in Mice. Guskjolen, A., Kenney, J. W., de la Parra, J., Yeung, B. A., Josselyn, S. A., & Frankland, P. W. (2018). Current Biology, 28(14), 2283–2290.e3.

The Bilateral Prefronto-striatal Pathway Is Necessary for Learning New Goal-Directed Actions. Hart, G., Bradfield, L. A., Fok, S. Y., Chieng, B., & Balleine, B. W. (2018). Current Biology, 28(14), 2218–2229.e7.

Excitatory synaptic dysfunction cell-autonomously decreases inhibitory inputs and disrupts structural and functional plasticity. He, H., Shen, W., Zheng, L., Guo, X., & Cline, H. T. (2018). Nature Communications, 9, 2893.

Rightward and leftward biases in temporal reproduction of objects represented in central and peripheral spaces. Isham, E. A., Le, C., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2018). Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 153, 71–78.

Impaired spatial memory codes in a mouse model of Rett syndrome. Kee, S. E., Mou, X., Zoghbi, H. Y., & Ji, D. (2018). eLife, 7, e31451.

Rapid Bayesian Inference of Global Network Statistics Using Random Walks. Kion-Crosby, W. B., & Morozov, A. V. (2018). Physical Review Letters, 121(3), 038301.

Diversity of Astroglial Effects on Aging- and Experience-Related Cortical Metaplasticity. Lalo, U., Bogdanov, A., & Pankratov, Y. (2018). Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, 11, 239.

OLMα2 Cells Bidirectionally Modulate Learning. Siwani, S., França, A. S. C., Mikulovic, S., Reis, A., Hilscher, M. M., Edwards, S. J., … Kullander, K. (2018). Neuron, 99(2), 404–412.e3.

Action influences unconscious visual processing. Suh, J., & Abrams, R. A. (2018). Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 80(6), 1599–1608.

Co-transmission of acetylcholine and GABA regulates hippocampal states. Takács, V. T., Cserép, C., Schlingloff, D., Pósfai, B., Szőnyi, A., Sos, K. E., … Nyiri, G. (2018). Nature Communications, 9, 2848.

Transparent - may indicate over-hydration, can dilute essential salts, such as electrolytes, creating a problematic chemical imbalance in the blood (fine if not all the time).  

Pale straw - colour - normal, healthy, well-hydrated.

Transparent yellow - Normal.

Dark yellow - mild dehydration.

Amber or honey - Possibly dehydrated

Light orange - Possibly dehydrated, may also be caused by liver or bile duct problems, consumed food dyes or the excretion of excess B vitamins from bloodstream.

Orange - Some medications, such as rifampin or phenazopyridine

Dark orange or brown - A possible symptom of jaundice, rhabdomyolysis or Gilbert’s syndrome . Also caused by severe dehydration.

Pink - eating beets, blueberries or rhubarb can do this. A pinkish hue might be a first indicator of blood

Red - Blood in the urine, haematuria , can be benign, idiopathic or a sign of a kidney stone, infection or tumour in the urinary tract, or many other pathologies - immediately consult a physician.

Green- Eating asparagus does this for some people, some medications and food too, but it can also signal a bacterial infection in the urinary tract.

Dark brown or black - Potential causes like copper or phenol poisoning or melanoma, which can result in blackish urine called melanuria.

White or milky - This may be caused by an overabundance of certain minerals, such as calcium or phosphate, a urinary tract infection or excessive proteins.

Many species of kelp change their blade shape depending on the current they experience. In fast-moving waters, the kelp grows flat blades, but when the water around them is slower, the same plant will grow ruffled edges on its blades. In a slow current, the ruffled version’s extra drag causes it to flutter up and down with a large amplitude. That helps spread the blades out to catch more sunlight and increase photosynthesis, but it comes at the cost of higher drag, which could tear the plant from its holdfast.

In a new study from the University of Tampere in Finland, nasally administered oxytocin spray strengthened brain responses to pictures of infant and adult faces in mothers of 1-year-old infants.

Oxytocin is a hormone and a neuropeptide that has an important role in inducing labor, lactation, and caregiving behaviors in mammals. The influence of oxytocin on the perception of faces, emotions, and other social information has been widely studied in recent years by administering oxytocin with a nasal spray. Studies have shown, for example, that intranasal oxytocin administration may increase emotion recognition and brain activity during face perception.

Oxytocin appears to have an important role in processing social information and maintaining social bonds.  Considering that some researchers have even suggested that in the future oxytocin might be used to overcome problems in early parent-infant interaction, there have been surprisingly few studies that test the effects of intranasal oxytocin in mothers of young children.

The new study investigated whether oxytocin nasal spray has an effect on the neural responses to faces in mothers of 1-year-old infants. Given the role of oxytocin in early caregiving behaviors, the specific goal of the study was to explore whether the effects of oxytocin are more pronounced in response to infant faces. Brain responses were measured with electroencephalography (EEG) which provides information on the early stages of visual perception.

The participants were 52 Finnish mothers of 1-year-old infants. During two laboratory visits, the researchers used EEG to measure the mothers’ neural responses to infant and adult faces. Before each measurement, the mothers were administered either a placebo or an oxytocin nasal spray. A double-blind study design was used so that neither the mothers nor the researchers knew which spray was administered.

The analysis showed that oxytocin increased the so-called N170 component of the EEG signal in response to infant and adult faces. The N170 component reflects activation of brain areas sensitive to faces, indicating that faces activated these areas more strongly after being administered oxytocin. The results did not clearly show whether the effects of oxytocin were larger in response to infant faces than to adult faces.

“The main contribution of this study was to expand experimental oxytocin research to the mothers of young children who have rarely been included in this type of studies,” says Academy Research Fellow Mikko Peltola from the University of Tampere.

“In the future, it will be important to conduct research with larger samples in order to determine whether oxytocin specifically affects sensitivity to infant signals because that is one of the key aspects of parenting,” says Professor Kaija Puura from the University of Tampere and Tampere University Hospital.

Importing data

Visualizing data

Analyzing data

This is the first lesson when we really write code and try to understand how R works. I want to encourage you to try everything you can think of. What does this thing do if I enter something else? Why did I get an error message? What else can be done with this object? If you’re curious, google stuff, try it until it works or send me a message. Don’t be afraid of doing something wrong, this should be fun. Pay attention to capslock and using the correct symbols.

Variables

Vectors 

Numeric vectors

Logical vectors

Character vectors

Subsetting vectors

Named vectors

Arithmetic operators for numeric vectors