Causal evidence of a line attractor encoding an affective state.

Continuous attractors are an emergent property of neural population dynamics that have been hypothesized to encode continuous variables such as head direction and eye position. In mammals, direct evidence of neural implementation of a continuous attractor has been hindered by the challenge of targeting perturbations to specific neurons within contributing ensembles. Dynamical systems modelling has revealed that neurons in the hypothalamus exhibit approximate line-attractor dynamics in male mice during aggressive encounters.

Evaluation of a Photo Captioning Cognitive Empathy Intervention for Dementia Caregivers.

Objectives: The goal of this study was to develop and evaluate an intervention aimed at increasing cognitive empathy, improving mental health, and reducing inflammation in dementia caregivers, and to examine the relevant neural and psychological mechanisms.

Methods: Twenty dementia caregivers completed an intervention that involved taking 3-5 daily photographs of their person living with dementia (PLWD) over a period of 10 days and captioning those photos with descriptive text capturing the inner voice of the PLWD. Both before and after the intervention, participants completed questionnaires, provided a blood sample for measures of inflammation, and completed a neuroimaging session to measure their neural response to viewing photographs of their PLWD and others.

Elastic Shape Morphing of Ultralight Structures by Programmable Assembly.

Ultralight materials present an opportunity to dramatically increase the efficiency of load-bearing aerostructures. To date, however, these ultralight materials have generally been confined to the laboratory bench-top, due to dimensional constraints of the manufacturing processes. We show a programmable material system applied as a large-scale, ultralight, and conformable aeroelastic structure.