Facilitation of Evolution by Plasticity Scales with Phenotypic Complexity.

Developmental plasticity enables organisms to cope with new environmental challenges. If deploying such plasticity is costly in terms of time or energy, the same adaptive behaviour could subsequently evolve through piecemeal genomic reorganisation that replaces the requirement to acquire that adaptation by individual plasticity. Here, we report a new dimension to the way in which plasticity can drive evolutionary change, leading to an ever-greater complexity in biological organisation.

Associative Learning and Active Inference.

Associative learning is a behavioral phenomenon in which individuals develop connections between stimuli or events based on their co-occurrence. Initially studied by Pavlov in his conditioning experiments, the fundamental principles of learning have been expanded on through the discovery of a wide range of learning phenomena. Computational models have been developed based on the concept of minimizing reward prediction errors.

Advances in modern osteotomies around the knee : Report on the Association of Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy, Orthopaedic surgery, Rehabilitation (ASTAOR) Moscow International Osteotomy Congress 2017.

Corrective lower limb osteotomies are innovative and efficient therapeutic procedures for restoring axial alignment and managing unicompartmental knee osteoarthritis. This review presents critical insights into the up-dated clinical knowledge on osteotomies for complex posttraumatic or congenital lower limb deformities with a focus on high tibial osteotomies, including a comprehensive overview of basic principles of osteotomy planning, biomechanical considerations of different implants for osteotomies and insights in specific bone deformity correction techniques. Emphasis is placed on complex cases of lower limb osteotomies associated with ligament and multiaxial instability including pediatric cases, computer-assisted navigation, external fixation for long bone deformity correction and return to sport after such osteotomies.

A new design for a green calcium indicator with a smaller size and a reduced number of calcium-binding sites.

Genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) are mainly represented by two- or one-fluorophore-based sensors. One type of two-fluorophore-based sensor, carrying Opsanus troponin C (TnC) as the Ca-binding moiety, has two binding sites for calcium ions, providing a linear response to calcium ions. One-fluorophore-based sensors have four Ca-binding sites but are better suited for in vivo experiments.

Detection of trace processes in the networks of neurons cultured on microelectrode arrays.

We compared the effects of electrical stimulation of primary dissociated neuronal cultures cultured on microelectrode arrays in terms on the expression of c-fos transcriptional factor that is involved in plastic reorganization in neurons. Dissociated hippocampal neurons cultured on multielectrode arrays were exposed to two stimulation protocols: high-frequency and low-frequency stimulations. Expression of c-fos was evaluated using immunofluorescence.

[Studying the mechanisms of genomic and synaptic plasticity in neuronal cultures with microelectrode arrays].

The plasticity of neural networks is a complex process determined by changes in physiological status, gene expression and phenotype of a cell. A detailed study of this process dynamics requires the simultaneous recording of electrical and genomic activities in networks of neurons. This sets up one of the tasks for modern neuroscience as development of integration of electrophysiology and molecular biology methods.

[Are we controlling the sedation in ICU? A multicenter study results].

The aim of this study is to evaluate the issues of sedation and analgesia in all-purpose ICUs in Russia. To obtain that, a single-day observational survey was performed in 55 ICUs of Ural and Siberia regions. This work enabled to describe the targets, instruments of control and patterns of sedative and analgetics and sedatives prescription, as well as to make conclusions about issues in this area and possibilities of creation and necessity of analgesia and sedation standards.

Adaptive functional systems: learning with chaos.

We propose a new model of adaptive behavior that combines a winnerless competition principle and chaos to learn new functional systems. The model consists of a complex network of nonlinear dynamical elements producing sequences of goal-directed actions. Each element describes dynamics and activity of the functional system which is supposed to be a distributed set of interacting physiological elements such as nerve or muscle that cooperates to obtain certain goal at the level of the whole organism.

Evolution of cooperative strategies from first principles.

One of the greatest challenges in the modern biological and social sciences is to understand the evolution of cooperative behaviour. General outlines of the answer to this puzzle are currently emerging as a result of developments in the theories of kin selection, reciprocity, multilevel selection and cultural group selection. The main conceptual tool used in probing the logical coherence of proposed explanations has been game theory, including both analytical models and agent-based simulations.

Tracking the trajectories of evolution.

This article proposes a method of visualizing and measuring evolution in artificial life simulations. The evolving population of agents is treated as a dynamical system. The proposed method is inspired by the notion of trajectory.

[10-year experience with using Cavinton in cerebrovascular disorders].

Cavinton was used for 10 years in 967 patients with different cerebrovascular diseases. The highest effect was seen in patients with early forms and primarily chronic forms: vegetovascular (neurocirculatory) dystonia, initial manifestations of brain blood supply insufficiency, circulatory encephalopathy in the first and second stages. Improvement of the subjective status and a decrease of the intensity of vestibulocerebellar disorders were recorded by the end of the treatment in 75-85% of such patients.