Towards an objective theory of subjective liking: A first step in understanding the sense of beauty.

The study of the electroencephalogram signals recorded from subjects during an experience is a way to understand the brain processes that underlie their physical and emotional involvement. Such signals have the form of time series, and their analysis could benefit from applying techniques that are specific to this kind of data. Neuroaesthetics, as defined by Zeki in 1999, is the scientific approach to the study of aesthetic perceptions of art, music, or any other experience that can give rise to aesthetic judgments, such as liking or disliking a painting.

Neonatal exposure to a neuroactive steroid alters low-frequency oscillations in the subiculum.

Preclinical studies have established that neonatal exposure to contemporary sedative/hypnotic drugs causes neurotoxicity in the developing rodent and primate brains. Our group recently reported that novel neuroactive steroid (3β,5β,17β)-3-hydroxyandrostane-17-carbonitrile (3β-OH) induced effective hypnosis in both neonatal and adult rodents but did not cause significant neurotoxicity in vulnerable brain regions such as subiculum, an output region of hippocampal formation particularly sensitive to commonly used sedatives/hypnotics. Despite significant emphasis on patho-morphological changes, little is known about long-term effects on subicular neurophysiology after neonatal exposure to neuroactive steroids.

The voice of COVID-19: Breath and cough recording classification with temporal decision trees and random forests.

Symbolic learning is the logic-based approach to machine learning, and its mission is to provide algorithms and methodologies to extract logical information from data and express it in an interpretable way. Interval temporal logic has been recently proposed as a suitable tool for symbolic learning, specifically via the design of an interval temporal logic decision tree extraction algorithm. In order to improve their performances, interval temporal decision trees can be embedded into interval temporal random forests, mimicking the corresponding schema at the propositional level.

Sex-specific hypnotic effects of the neuroactive steroid (3β,5β,17β)-3-hydroxyandrostane-17-carbonitrile are mediated by peripheral metabolism into an active hypnotic steroid.

Background: The novel synthetic neuroactive steroid (3β,5β,17β)-3-hydroxyandrostane-17-carbonitrile (3β-OH) blocks T-type calcium channels but does not directly modulate neuronal γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA) currents like other anaesthetic neurosteroids. As 3β-OH has sex-specific hypnotic effects in adult rats, we studied the mechanism contributing to sex differences in its effects.

Methods: We used a combination of behavioural loss of righting reflex, neuroendocrine, pharmacokinetic, in vitro patch-clamp electrophysiology, and in vivo electrophysiological approaches in wild-type mice and in genetic knockouts of the Ca3.

Further Evidence that Inhibition of Neuronal Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels Contributes to the Hypnotic Effect of Neurosteroid Analogue, 3β-OH.

We recently reported that a neurosteroid analogue with T-channel-blocking properties (3β,5β,17β)-3-hydroxyandrostane-17-carbonitrile (3β-OH), induced hypnosis in rat pups without triggering neuronal apoptosis. Furthermore, we found that the inhibition of the Ca3.1 isoform of T-channels contributes to the hypnotic properties of 3β-OH in adult mice.