In The Descent of Man, Darwin speculated that our capacity for musical rhythm reflects basic aspects of brain function broadly shared among animals. Although this remains an appealing idea, it is ...being challenged by modern cross-species research. This research hints that our capacity to synchronize to a beat, i.e., to move in time with a perceived pulse in a manner that is predictive and flexible across a broad range of tempi, may be shared by only a few other species. Is this really the case? If so, it would have important implications for our understanding of the evolution of human musicality.
Mounting evidence suggests that musical training benefits the neural encoding of speech. This paper offers a hypothesis specifying why such benefits occur. The "OPERA" hypothesis proposes that such ...benefits are driven by adaptive plasticity in speech-processing networks, and that this plasticity occurs when five conditions are met. These are: (1) Overlap: there is anatomical overlap in the brain networks that process an acoustic feature used in both music and speech (e.g., waveform periodicity, amplitude envelope), (2) Precision: music places higher demands on these shared networks than does speech, in terms of the precision of processing, (3) Emotion: the musical activities that engage this network elicit strong positive emotion, (4) Repetition: the musical activities that engage this network are frequently repeated, and (5) Attention: the musical activities that engage this network are associated with focused attention. According to the OPERA hypothesis, when these conditions are met neural plasticity drives the networks in question to function with higher precision than needed for ordinary speech communication. Yet since speech shares these networks with music, speech processing benefits. The OPERA hypothesis is used to account for the observed superior subcortical encoding of speech in musically trained individuals, and to suggest mechanisms by which musical training might improve linguistic reading abilities.
A growing body of research suggests that musical training has a beneficial impact on speech processing (e.g., hearing of speech in noise and prosody perception). As this research moves forward two ...key questions need to be addressed: 1) Can purely instrumental musical training have such effects? 2) If so, how and why would such effects occur? The current paper offers a conceptual framework for understanding such effects based on mechanisms of neural plasticity. The expanded OPERA hypothesis proposes that when music and speech share sensory or cognitive processing mechanisms in the brain, and music places higher demands on these mechanisms than speech does, this sets the stage for musical training to enhance speech processing. When these higher demands are combined with the emotional rewards of music, the frequent repetition that musical training engenders, and the focused attention that it requires, neural plasticity is activated and makes lasting changes in brain structure and function which impact speech processing. Initial data from a new study motivated by the OPERA hypothesis is presented, focusing on the impact of musical training on speech perception in cochlear-implant users. Suggestions for the development of animal models to test OPERA are also presented, to help motivate neurophysiological studies of how auditory training using non-biological sounds can impact the brain's perceptual processing of species-specific vocalizations.
This article is part of a Special Issue entitled <Music: A window into the hearing brain>.
•Offers a conceptual framework for understanding why instrumental musical training impacts speech processing.•Presents initial data on the impact of musical training on cochlear-implant users' ability to hear speech in noise.•Makes suggestions for animal models to study the impact of musical training on the processing of natural vocalizations.
How Beat Perception Co-opts Motor Neurophysiology Cannon, Jonathan J.; Patel, Aniruddh D.
Trends in cognitive sciences,
February 2021, 2021-02-00, 20210201, Letnik:
25, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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Beat perception offers cognitive scientists an exciting opportunity to explore how cognition and action are intertwined in the brain even in the absence of movement. Many believe the motor system ...predicts the timing of beats, yet current models of beat perception do not specify how this is neurally implemented. Drawing on recent insights into the neurocomputational properties of the motor system, we propose that beat anticipation relies on action-like processes consisting of precisely patterned neural time-keeping activity in the supplementary motor area (SMA), orchestrated and sequenced by activity in the dorsal striatum. In addition to synthesizing recent advances in cognitive science and motor neuroscience, our framework provides testable predictions to guide future work.
Components of the brain’s motor system are activated by the perception of a musical beat, even in the absence of movement, and may play an important role in beat-based temporal prediction.Two key brain regions involved in movement, the supplementary motor area (SMA) and dorsal striatum, have neurocomputational properties that lend themselves to beat perception.In SMA, neural firing rates represent the phase of cyclic sensorimotor processes.The involvement of SMA in perceptual suppression of self-generated sounds suggests that it could play a broader role in informing auditory expectations.The dorsal striatum plays a central role in initiating and sequencing units of movement, and may serve similar functions in structuring beat-based temporal anticipation.
Diabetes mellitus is one of the common metabolic disorders acquiring around 2.8%of the world’s population and is anticipated to cross 5.4%by the year 2025.Since long back herbal medicines have been ...the highly esteemed source of medicine therefore,they have become a growing part of modern,high-tech medicine.In view of the above aspects the present review provides profiles of plants(65 species) with hypoglycaemic properties,available through literature source from various database with proper categorization according to the parts used,mode of reduction in blood glucose(insulinomimetic or insulin secretagugues activity) and active phyloconsliluents having insulin mimetics activity.From the review it was suggested that,plant showing hypoglycemic potential mainly belongs to the family Leguminoseae,Lamiaceae,Liliaceae,Cucurbitaceae, Asteraceae,Moraceae,Rosaceae and Araliaceae.The most active plants are Allium sativum. Gymnema sylvestre,Citrullus colocynthis,Trigonella foenum greacum,Momordica charantia and Ficuts bengalensis.The review describes some new bioactive drugs and isolated compounds from plants such as roseoside,epigallocatechin gallate,beta-pyrazol-1-ylalanine,cinchonain Ib,leucocyandin 3-O-beta-d-galactosyl cellobioside,leucopelargonidin-3- O-alpha-L rhamuoside,glycyrrhetinic acid,dehydrotrametenolic acid,strictinin,isostrictinin,pedunculagin, epicatechin and christinin-A showing significant insulinomimetic and antidiabetic activity with more efficacy than conventional hypoglycaemic agents.Thus,from the review majorly,the antidiabetic activity of medicinal plants is attributed to the presence of polyphenols,flavonoida, terpenoids,coumarins and other constituents which show reduction in blood glucose levels.The review also discusses the management aspect of diabetes mellitus using these plants and their active principles.
Quinolines have become important compounds because of their variety of applications in medicinal, synthetic organic chemistry as well as in the field of industrial chemistry. In recent years there ...are greater societal expectations that chemists should produce greener and more sustainable chemical processes. This review article gives information about the green and clean syntheses using alternative reaction methods for the synthesis of quinoline derivatives. The article includes synthesis by microwave, using clay or some other catalyst which could be recycled and reused, one-pot reaction, solvent-free reaction conditions, using ionic liquids, ultrasound promoted synthesis and photocatalytic synthesis (UV radiation).
Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is associated with a significant learning curve. There is paucity of data regarding the effect of hospital volume on outcomes after TAVI. This is a ...cross-sectional study based on Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's Nationwide Inpatient Sample database of 2012. Subjects were identified by International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification procedure codes, 35.05 (Trans-femoral/Trans-aortic Replacement of Aortic Valve) and 35.06 (Trans-apical Replacement of Aortic Valve). Annual hospital TAVI volumes were calculated using unique identification numbers and then divided into quartiles. Multivariate logistic regression models were created. The primary outcome was inhospital mortality; secondary outcome was a composite of inhospital mortality and periprocedural complications. Length of stay (LOS) and cost of hospitalization were assessed. The study included 1,481 TAVIs (weighted n = 7,405). Overall inhospital mortality rate was 5.1%, postprocedural complication rate was 43.4%, median LOS was 6 days, and median cost of hospitalization was $51,975. Inhospital mortality rates decreased with increasing hospital TAVI volume with a rate of 6.4% for lowest volume hospitals (first quartile), 5.9% (second quartile), 5.2% (third quartile), and 2.8% for the highest volume TAVI hospitals (fourth quartile). Complication rates were significantly higher in hospitals with the lowest volume quartile (48.5%) compared to hospitals in the second (44.2%), third (39.7%), and fourth (41.5%) quartiles (p <0.001). Increasing hospital volume was independently predictive of shorter LOS and lower hospitalization costs. In conclusion, higher annual hospital volumes are significantly predictive of reduced postprocedural mortality, complications, shorter LOS, and lower hospitalization costs after TAVI.
The humoral immune response provides specific, long-lived protection against invading pathogens, via immunoglobulin production and other memory functions. IgG, the most abundant immunoglobulin ...isotype, has the longest half-life and protects against bacterial and viral infections. The neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) transports IgG across barriers, for example, the placenta, enhancing fetal humoral immunity to levels similar to their mothers'. Importantly, FcRn, by protecting IgG from intracellular degradation, results in an approximately 21-day circulating IgG half-life and high plasma levels; similarly, FcRn recycles albumin and is the portal of entry for enteric cytopathic human orphan (echo) virus infection. Dysregulated immune responses may lead to antibodies against self-antigens (autoantibodies), resulting in organ-specific or systemic autoimmune diseases. Autoantibody-mediated diseases have been treated by nonspecific immunoglobulin-lowering/modulating therapies, including immunoadsorption, plasma exchange, and high-dose intravenous immunoglobulin. However, targeting FcRn with specific inhibitors results in reduction in only IgG levels. The effectiveness of FcRn inhibitors in autoimmune diseases, including myasthenia gravis and immune thrombocytopenia, provides further evidence that IgG is a primary driver in these autoantibody-mediated diseases. We describe the role of FcRn in human biology, including insights that clinical testing of FcRn inhibitors have provided into FcRn biology and autoimmune disease mechanisms, allowing fact-based speculation on their therapeutic potential.
This research provides a comprehensive delineation of the process that leads to the formation of green behavior by including the role played by media and attitude towards environment-friendly ...packaging, along with ecological concern and perceived consumer effectiveness. The study offers a parsimonious framework that measures the major antecedents of environmental attitude divided into inward and outward orientation. Moreover, it also measures the effects of these environmental attitudes and attitude towards green packaging on green purchase intention. A total of 308 usable questionnaires were obtained from Indian consumers and data analysis was conducted using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results show that inward environmental attitude and attitude towards green packaging play a pivotal role in shaping green purchase intention. Surprisingly, outward environmental attitude was found to be non-significant. Findings offer implications for marketing managers and public policy makers, as well as reveal fruitful avenues for further research.
•Media influences environmental concern positively and inward environmental attitude negatively.•Inward environmental attitude impacts green purchasing.•Perceived consumer effectiveness emerged as strong predictor of inward environmental attitude compared to outward environmental attitude.•Environmental concern impact outward environmental attitude more compared to inward environmental attitude and attitude towards EF packaging.
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