Low-level image statistics in natural scenes influence perceptual decision-making.

A fundamental component of interacting with our environment is gathering and interpretation of sensory information. When investigating how perceptual information influences decision-making, most researchers have relied on manipulated or unnatural information as perceptual input, resulting in findings that may not generalize to real-world scenes. Unlike simplified, artificial stimuli, real-world scenes contain low-level regularities that are informative about the structural complexity, which the brain could exploit.

Spontaneous eye blink rate predicts individual differences in exploration and exploitation during reinforcement learning.

Spontaneous eye blink rate (sEBR) has been linked to striatal dopamine function and to how individuals make value-based choices after a period of reinforcement learning (RL). While sEBR is thought to reflect how individuals learn from the negative outcomes of their choices, this idea has not been tested explicitly. This study assessed how individual differences in sEBR relate to learning by focusing on the cognitive processes that drive RL.

Learning in Visual Regions as Support for the Bias in Future Value-Driven Choice.

Reinforcement learning can bias decision-making toward the option with the highest expected outcome. Cognitive learning theories associate this bias with the constant tracking of stimulus values and the evaluation of choice outcomes in the striatum and prefrontal cortex. Decisions however first require processing of sensory input, and to date, we know far less about the interplay between learning and perception.

Dopaminergic medication reduces striatal sensitivity to negative outcomes in Parkinson's disease.

Reduced levels of dopamine in Parkinson's disease contribute to changes in learning, resulting from the loss of midbrain neurons that transmit a dopaminergic teaching signal to the striatum. Dopamine medication used by patients with Parkinson's disease has previously been linked to behavioural changes during learning as well as to adjustments in value-based decision-making after learning. To date, however, little is known about the specific relationship between dopaminergic medication-driven differences during learning and subsequent changes in approach/avoidance tendencies in individual patients.

Correction: How pupil responses track value-based decision-making during and after reinforcement learning.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.

A consensus guide to capturing the ability to inhibit actions and impulsive behaviors in the stop-signal task.

Response inhibition is essential for navigating everyday life. Its derailment is considered integral to numerous neurological and psychiatric disorders, and more generally, to a wide range of behavioral and health problems. Response-inhibition efficiency furthermore correlates with treatment outcome in some of these conditions.

Scene complexity modulates degree of feedback activity during object detection in natural scenes.

Selective brain responses to objects arise within a few hundreds of milliseconds of neural processing, suggesting that visual object recognition is mediated by rapid feed-forward activations. Yet disruption of neural responses in early visual cortex beyond feed-forward processing stages affects object recognition performance. Here, we unite these discrepant findings by reporting that object recognition involves enhanced feedback activity (recurrent processing within early visual cortex) when target objects are embedded in natural scenes that are characterized by high complexity.

How pupil responses track value-based decision-making during and after reinforcement learning.

Cognition can reveal itself in the pupil, as latent cognitive processes map onto specific pupil responses. For instance, the pupil dilates when we make decisions and these pupil size fluctuations reflect decision-making computations during and after a choice. Surprisingly little is known, however, about how pupil responses relate to decisions driven by the learned value of stimuli.

Prevalence of tick-borne viruses in Ixodes ricinus assessed by high-throughput real-time PCR.

Ticks are one of the principal arthropod vectors of human and animal infectious diseases. Whereas the prevalence of tick-borne encephalitis virus in ticks in Europe is well studied, there is less information available on the prevalence of the other tick-borne viruses (TBVs) existing worldwide. The aim of this study was to improve the epidemiological survey tools of TBVs by the development of an efficient high-throughput test to screen a wide range of viruses in ticks.

Cross-Task Contributions of Frontobasal Ganglia Circuitry in Response Inhibition and Conflict-Induced Slowing.

Why are we so slow in choosing the lesser of 2 evils? We considered whether such slowing relates to uncertainty about the value of these options, which arises from the tendency to avoid them during learning, and whether such slowing relates to frontosubthalamic inhibitory control mechanisms. In total, 49 participants performed a reinforcement-learning task and a stop-signal task while fMRI was recorded. A reinforcement-learning model was used to quantify learning strategies.

Individual differences in eye blink rate predict both transient and tonic pupil responses during reversal learning.

The pupil response under constant illumination can be used as a marker of cognitive processes. In the past, pupillary responses have been studied in the context of arousal and decision-making. However, recent work involving Parkinson's patients suggested that pupillary responses are additionally affected by reward sensitivity.

Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus in Ticks and Roe Deer, the Netherlands.

We report the presence of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) in the Netherlands. Serologic screening of roe deer found TBEV-neutralizing antibodies with a seroprevalence of 2%, and TBEV RNA was detected in 2 ticks from the same location. Enhanced surveillance and awareness among medical professionals has led to the identification of autochthonous cases.

Melting pot of tick-borne zoonoses: the European hedgehog contributes to the maintenance of various tick-borne diseases in natural cycles urban and suburban areas.

Background: European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) are urban dwellers and host both Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes hexagonus. These ticks transmit several zoonotic pathogens like Borrelia burgdorferi (sensu lato), Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Rickettsia helvetica, Borrelia miyamotoi and "Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis". It is unclear to what extent hedgehogs in (sub) urban areas contribute to the presence of infected ticks in these areas, which subsequently pose a risk for acquiring a tick-borne disease.

Evaluation of a serological test for the diagnosis of Borrelia miyamotoi disease in Europe.

Background: Borrelia miyamotoi causes systemic febrile illness and is transmitted by the same tick species that transmits Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato and tick-borne encephalitis virus. We describe a serological test using a fragment of glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase (GlpQ) as an antigen, and determined its performance in well-defined patient categories.

Methods: Serum of patients with PCR-confirmed Borrelia miyamotoi disease (BMD), Lyme borreliosis (LB), tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), and healthy blood donors (HBD) were collected in Udmurt Republic, Russia.

Borrelia miyamotoi in vectors and hosts in The Netherlands.

Ixodes ticks transmit Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.), the causative agent of Lyme borreliosis (LB).

Enzootic origins for clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis.

Both early localized and late disseminated forms of Lyme borreliosis are caused by Borrelia burgdorferi senso lato. Differentiating between the spirochetes that only cause localized skin infection from those that cause disseminated infection, and tracing the group of medically-important spirochetes to a specific vertebrate host species, are two critical issues in disease risk assessment and management. Borrelia burgdorferi senso lato isolates from Lyme borreliosis cases with distinct clinical manifestations (erythema migrans, neuroborreliosis, acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans, and Lyme arthritis) and isolates from Ixodes ricinus ticks feeding on rodents, birds and hedgehogs were typed to the genospecies level by sequencing part of the intergenic spacer region.

Molecular Detection of Tick-Borne Pathogens in Humans with Tick Bites and Erythema Migrans, in the Netherlands.

Background: Tick-borne diseases are the most prevalent vector-borne diseases in Europe. Knowledge on the incidence and clinical presentation of other tick-borne diseases than Lyme borreliosis and tick-borne encephalitis is minimal, despite the high human exposure to these pathogens through tick bites. Using molecular detection techniques, the frequency of tick-borne infections after exposure through tick bites was estimated.

Sensitivity to value-driven attention is predicted by how we learn from value.

Reward learning is known to influence the automatic capture of attention. This study examined how the rate of learning, after high- or low-value reward outcomes, can influence future transfers into value-driven attentional capture. Participants performed an instrumental learning task that was directly followed by an attentional capture task.

Imbalanced presence of Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. multilocus sequence types in clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis.

In this study we used typing based on the eight multilocus sequence typing scheme housekeeping genes (MLST) and 5S-23S rDNA intergenic spacer (IGS) to explore the population structure of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato isolates from patients with Lyme borreliosis (LB) and to test the association between the B. burgdorferi s.l.

Variable Major Proteins as Targets for Specific Antibodies against Borrelia miyamotoi.

Borrelia miyamotoi is a relapsing fever spirochete in Ixodes ticks that has been recently identified as a human pathogen causing hard tick-borne relapsing fever (HTBRF) across the Northern Hemisphere. No validated serologic test exists, and current serologic assays have low sensitivity in early HTBRF. To examine the humoral immune response against B.

Making Large-Scale Networks from fMRI Data.

Pairwise correlations are currently a popular way to estimate a large-scale network (> 1000 nodes) from functional magnetic resonance imaging data. However, this approach generally results in a poor representation of the true underlying network. The reason is that pairwise correlations cannot distinguish between direct and indirect connectivity.

Eco-epidemiology of Borrelia miyamotoi and Lyme borreliosis spirochetes in a popular hunting and recreational forest area in Hungary.

Background: Borrelia miyamotoi, the newly discovered human pathogenic relapsing fever spirochete, and Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato are maintained in natural rodent populations. The aim of this study was to investigate the natural cycle of B. miyamotoi and B.

Vertical transmission of Bartonella schoenbuchensis in Lipoptena cervi.

Background: Lipoptena cervi (Diptera: Hippoboscidae) is a hematophagous ectoparasite of cervids, which is considered to transmit pathogens between animals and occasionally to humans. The principal life stage that is able to parasitize new hosts is a winged ked that just emerged from a pupa. To facilitate efficient transmission of pathogens between hosts, vertical transmission from female deer keds to their offspring is necessary.

Presence of zoonotic agents in engorged ticks and hedgehog faeces from Erinaceus europaeus in (sub) urban areas.

Background: European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) are hosts for Ixodes hexagonus and I. ricinus ticks, which are vectors for zoonotic microorganisms. In addition, hedgehogs may carry several enteric zoonoses as well.