How does orientation-tuned normalization spread across the visual field?

Visuocortical responses are regulated by gain control mechanisms, giving rise to fundamental neural and perceptual phenomena such as surround suppression. Suppression strength, determined by the composition and relative properties of stimuli, controls the strength of neural responses in early visual cortex, and in turn, the subjective salience of the visual stimulus. Notably, suppression strength is modulated by feature similarity; for instance, responses to a center-surround stimulus in which the components are collinear to each other are weaker than when they are orthogonal.

Anion and Substituents Effect on Spectral-Kinetic and Biological Characteristics of Spiropyran Salts.

Spiropyran salts containing a cationic vinyl-3H-indolium moiety are characterized by NIR absorption and fluorescence of their merocyanine forms. This feature makes them promising fluorescent probes and markers for bioimaging. The article focuses on the synthesis and study of the spectral, kinetic and toxic characteristics of such compounds with respect to various substituents in different moieties and the type of anion.

Expression of Rhodococcus erythropolis stress genes in planctonic culture supplemented with various hydrocabons.

Studying Rhodococcus erythropolis stress response is of significant scientific interest, since this microorganism is widely used for bioremediation of oil-contaminated sites and is essential for environmental biotechnology. In addition, much less data was published on molecular mechanisms of stress resistance and adaptation to effects of pollutants for Gram-positive oil degraders compared to Gram-negative ones. This study provided an assessment of changes in the transcription level of the soxR, sodA, sodC, oxyR, katE, katG, recA, dinB, sigF, sigH genes in the presence of decane, hexadecane, cyclohexane, benzene, naphthalene, anthracene and diesel fuel.

The effects of emotional arousal on pupil size depend on luminance.

Pupillometry is widely used to measure arousal states. The primary functional role of the pupil, however, is to respond to the luminance of visual inputs. We previously demonstrated that cognitive effort-related arousal interacted multiplicatively with luminance, with the strongest pupillary effects of arousal occurring at low-to-mid luminances (< 37 cd/m), implying a narrow range of conditions ideal for assessing cognitive arousal-driven pupillary differences.

Differential cortical and subcortical visual processing with eyes shut.

Closing our eyes largely shuts down our ability to see. That said, our eyelids still pass some light, allowing our visual system to coarsely process information about visual scenes, such as changes in luminance. However, the specific impact of eye closure on processing within the early visual system remains largely unknown.

Kinetics of programmed and spontaneous ribosome sliding along the mRNA.

The ribosome can slide along mRNA without establishing codon-anticodon interactions. This movement can be regulated (programmed) by the elements encoded in the mRNA, as observed in bypassing of non-coding gap in gene 60 of bacteriophage T4, or occur spontaneously, such as during traversal by the 70S ribosome of the 3'UTRs or upon re-initiation on bacterial polycistronic genes. In this study, we investigate the kinetic mechanism underlying the programmed and spontaneous ribosome sliding.

Differential cortical and subcortical visual processing with eyes shut.

Closing our eyes largely shuts down our ability to see. That said, our eyelids still pass some light, allowing our visual system to coarsely process information about visual scenes, such as changes in luminance. However, the specific impact of eye closure on processing within the early visual system remains largely unknown.

Molecular design and synthesis of methoxy-substitued spiropyrans with photomodulated NIR-fluorescence.

This study focuses on the molecular design and synthesis of salt spiropyrans with near-IR fluorescence. The structure of the obtained compounds was confirmed by NMR, IR and mass spectroscopy. In the course of studying the spectral and photoluminescent characteristics, it was possible to reveal the effect of some substituents in various positions on the properties of spiropyran dyes.

Attention preserves the selectivity of feature-tuned normalization.

Attention and divisive normalization both contribute to making visual processing more efficient. Attention selectively increases the neural gain of relevant information in the early visual cortex, resulting in stronger perceived salience for attended regions or features. Divisive normalization improves processing efficiency by suppressing responses to homogeneous inputs and highlighting salient boundaries, facilitating sparse coding of inputs.

Mechanical Behavior of a Medium-Entropy Fe(CoNi)CrC Alloy Produced by Selective Laser Melting.

Specimens of a medium-entropy Fe(CoNi)CrC (in at.%) alloy were produced using additive manufacturing (selective laser melting, SLM). The selected parameters of SLM resulted in a very high density in the specimens with a residual porosity of less than 0.

Non-corresponding contaminants in marine surface sediments as a factor of ARGs spread in the Sea of Azov.

The present study aims to analyze the level and total toxicity of the most common pollutants in surface sediments and assess their impact on the occurrence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the Sea of Azov. Biotesting using the whole-cell bacterial lux-biosensors showed high integral toxicity of surface sediments and the presence of genotoxicants and substances that cause oxidative stress and protein damage. Using cluster analysis, it was shown that the distribution of pollutants in the Sea of Azov depends on the type of surface sediments.

Recombinant Cathepsin L of and Its Potential in the Hydrolysis of Immunogenic Gliadin Peptides.

Wheat gliadins contain a large amount of glutamine- and proline-rich peptides which are not hydrolyzed by human digestive peptidases and can cause autoimmune celiac disease and other forms of gluten intolerance in predisposed people. Peptidases that efficiently cleave such immunogenic peptides can be used in enzyme therapy. The stored product insect pest efficiently hydrolyzes gliadins.

Arousal-based pupil modulation is dictated by luminance.

Pupillometry has become a standard measure for assessing arousal state. However, environmental factors such as luminance, a primary dictator of pupillary responses, often vary across studies. To what degree does luminance interact with arousal-driven pupillary changes? Here, we parametrically assessed luminance-driven pupillary responses across a wide-range of luminances, while concurrently manipulating cognitive arousal using auditory math problems of varying difficulty.

Pollution impact on microbial communities composition in natural and anthropogenically modified soils of Southern Russia.

Metagenomic studies of soil microbocenoses are extremely relevant nowadays. The study of pollution impact on soil microbiomes is of particular interest. The structure of microbial communities in soils with different levels of pollution by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and potentially toxic elements (PTEs) was studied.

The specificity of orientation-tuned normalization within human early visual cortex.

Normalization within visual cortex is modulated by contextual influences; stimuli sharing similar features suppress each other more than dissimilar stimuli. This feature-tuned component of suppression depends on multiple factors, including the orientation content of stimuli. Indeed, pairs of stimuli arranged in a center-surround configuration attenuate each other's response to a greater degree when oriented collinearly than when oriented orthogonally.

Brain Mechanisms of COVID-19-Sleep Disorders.

2020 and 2021 have been unprecedented years due to the rapid spread of the modified severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus around the world. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) causes atypical infiltrated pneumonia with many neurological symptoms, and major sleep changes. The exposure of people to stress, such as social confinement and changes in daily routines, is accompanied by various sleep disturbances, known as 'coronasomnia' phenomenon.

Mechanisms of Sound-Induced Opening of the Blood-Brain Barrier.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) poses a significant challenge for drug delivery to the brain. The limitations of our knowledge about the nature of BBB explain the slow progress in the therapy of brain diseases and absence of methods for drug delivery to the brain in clinical practice. Here, we show that the BBB opens for high-molecular-weight compounds after exposure to loud sound (100 dB 370 Hz) in rats.

Transcranial Photobiomodulation of Clearance of Beta-Amyloid from the Mouse Brain: Effects on the Meningeal Lymphatic Drainage and Blood Oxygen Saturation of the Brain.

Here, we demonstrate the therapeutic effects of transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM, 1267 nm, 32 J/cm, a 9-day course) in mice with the injected model of Alzheimer's disease (AD) associated with accumulation of beta-amyloid (Aβ) in the brain resulting in neurocognitive deficit vs. the control group (CG) (the neurological severity score (NNS), AD 3.67 ± 0.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, antibiotic resistance genes, toxicity in the exposed to anthropogenic pressure soils of the Southern Russia.

The influence of anthropogenic pollution, particularly with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on soil toxicity and spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) is extremely important nowadays. We studied 20 soil samples from a technogenically polluted site, municipal solid wastes (MSW) landfills, and rural settlements in the southwestern part of the Rostov Region of Russia. A close correlation was established between the results of biosensor testing for integral toxicity, the content of genes for the biodegradation of hydrocarbons, and the concentration of PAHs in soils.

Phenomenon of music-induced opening of the blood-brain barrier in healthy mice.

Music plays a more important role in our life than just being an entertainment. For example, it can be used as an anti-anxiety therapy of human and animals. However, the unsafe listening of loud music triggers hearing loss in millions of young people and professional musicians (rock, jazz and symphony orchestra) owing to exposure to damaging sound levels using personal audio devices or at noisy entertainment venues including nightclubs, discotheques, bars and concerts.

Design of Novel 4-Aminobenzofuroxans and Evaluation of Their Antimicrobial and Anticancer Activity.

A series of novel 4-aminobenzofuroxan derivatives containing aromatic/aliphatic amines fragments was achieved via aromatic nucleophilic substitution reaction of 4,6-dichloro-5-nitrobenzofuroxan. The quantum chemistry calculations were performed to identify the factors affecting the regioselectivity of the reaction. The formation of 4-substituted isomer is favored both by its greater stability and the lower activation barrier.

Exceptionally high strain-hardening and ductility due to transformation induced plasticity effect in Ti-rich high-entropy alloys.

Ti-rich body-centered cubic (BCC, β) high-entropy alloys having compositions TiZrHfNbTa, TiZrHfTaSn, and TiZrHfTaSn (in at%) were designed using bond order (Bo)-mean d-orbital energy level (Md) approach. Deformation mechanisms of these alloys were studied using tensile deformation. The alloys showed exceptionally high strain-hardening and ductility.

Polysomes Bypass a 50-Nucleotide Coding Gap Less Efficiently Than Monosomes Due to Attenuation of a 5' mRNA Stem-Loop and Enhanced Drop-off.

Efficient translational bypassing of a 50-nt non-coding gap in a phage T4 topoisomerase subunit gene (gp60) requires several recoding signals. Here we investigate the function of the mRNA stem-loop 5' of the take-off codon, as well as the importance of ribosome loading density on the mRNA for efficient bypassing. We show that polysomes are less efficient at mediating bypassing than monosomes, both in vitro and in vivo, due to their preventing formation of a stem-loop 5' of the take-off codon and allowing greater peptidyl-tRNA drop off.