Depth constancy and the absolute vergence anomaly.

Binocular disparity provides information about the depth structure of objects and surfaces in our environment. Since disparity depends on the distance to objects as well as the depth separation of points, information about distance is required to estimate depth from disparity. Our perception of size and shape is biased, such that far objects appear too small and flattened in depth, and near objects too big and stretched in depth.

GastronOmics: Edibility and safety of mycelium of the oyster mushroom .

Food production is one of the most environmentally damaging human activities. In the face of climate change, it is essential to rethink our dietary habits and explore potential alternative foods catering both towards human and planetary needs. Fungal mycelium might be an attractive alternative protein source due to its rapid growth on sustainable substrates as well as promising nutritional and organoleptic properties.

Walking on Virtual Surface Patterns Leads to Changed Control Strategies.

Inclusive design does not stop at removing physical obstacles such as staircases. It also involves identifying architectural features that impose sensory burdens, such as repetitive visual patterns that are known to potentially cause dizziness or visual discomfort. In order to assess their influence on human gait and its stability, three repetitive patterns-random dots, repetitive stripes, and repetitive waves (Lisbon pattern)-were displayed in a coloured and greyscale variant in a virtual reality (VR) environment.

Visual influence on bimanual haptic slant adaptation.

Adapting to particular features of a haptic shape, for example, the slant of a surface, affects how a subsequently touched shape is perceived (aftereffect). Previous studies showed that this adaptation is largely based on our proprioceptive sense of hand posture, yet the influence of vision on haptic shape adaptation has been relatively unexplored. Here, using a slant-adaptation paradigm, we investigated whether visual information affects haptic adaptation and, if so, how.

Body structural representation in schizotypy.

A deficient sense of self, typically observed in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, is often accompanied by abnormalities in bodily perception and awareness. These abnormalities are seemingly among the most powerful predictive factors for the onset of schizophrenic illnesses. According to the hypothesis of the psychosis continuum, high schizotypal traits in the general population may be characterized by a progressive sense of detachment from one's lived body.

The Human 2-Cys Peroxiredoxins form Widespread, Cysteine-Dependent- and Isoform-Specific Protein-Protein Interactions.

Redox signaling is controlled by the reversible oxidation of cysteine thiols, a post-translational modification triggered by HO acting as a second messenger. However, HO actually reacts poorly with most cysteine thiols and it is not clear how HO discriminates between cysteines to trigger appropriate signaling cascades in the presence of dedicated HO scavengers like peroxiredoxins (PRDXs). It was recently suggested that peroxiredoxins act as peroxidases and facilitate HO-dependent oxidation of redox-regulated proteins via disulfide exchange reactions.

The temporal sensitivity to the tactile-induced double flash illusion mediates the impact of beta oscillations on schizotypal personality traits.

The coherent experience of the self and the world depends on the ability to integrate vs. segregate sensory information. Optimal temporal integration between the senses is mediated by oscillatory properties of neural activity.

No need to touch this: Bimanual haptic slant adaptation does not require touch.

In our daily life, we often interact with objects using both hands raising the question the question to what extent information between the hands is shared. It has, for instance, been shown that curvature adaptation aftereffects can transfer from the adapted hand to the non-adapted hand. However, this transfer only occurred for dynamic exploration, e.

Cross-talk between redox signalling and protein aggregation.

It is well established that both an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS: i.e. O2•-, H2O2 and OH•), as well as protein aggregation, accompany ageing and proteinopathies such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.

Cysteine oxidation triggers amyloid fibril formation of the tumor suppressor p16.

The tumor suppressor p16 induces cell cycle arrest and senescence in response to oncogenic transformation and is therefore frequently lost in cancer. p16 is also known to accumulate under conditions of oxidative stress. Thus, we hypothesized it could potentially be regulated by reversible oxidation of cysteines (redox signaling).

Effects of prolonged exposure to feedback delay on the qualitative subjective experience of virtual reality.

When interacting with virtual environments, feedback delays between making a movement and seeing the visual consequences of that movement are detrimental for the subjective quality of the VR experience. Here we used standard measures of subjective experiences such as ownership, agency and presence to investigate whether prolonged exposure to the delay, and thus the possibility to adapt to it, leads to the recovery of the qualitative experience of VR. Participants performed a target-tracking task in a Virtual Reality environment.

Haptic adaptation to slant: No transfer between exploration modes.

Human touch is an inherently active sense: to estimate an object's shape humans often move their hand across its surface. This way the object is sampled both in a serial (sampling different parts of the object across time) and parallel fashion (sampling using different parts of the hand simultaneously). Both the serial (moving a single finger) and parallel (static contact with the entire hand) exploration modes provide reliable and similar global shape information, suggesting the possibility that this information is shared early in the sensory cortex.

Analysis of Gene Expression in 3D Spheroids Highlights a Survival Role for ASS1 in Mesothelioma.

To investigate the underlying causes of chemoresistance in malignant pleural mesothelioma, we have studied mesothelioma cell lines as 3D spheroids, which acquire increased chemoresistance compared to 2D monolayers. We asked whether the gene expression of 3D spheroids would reveal mechanisms of resistance. To address this, we measured gene expression of three mesothelioma cell lines, M28, REN and VAMT, grown as 2D monolayers and 3D spheroids.

Statistically Optimal Multisensory Cue Integration: A Practical Tutorial.

Humans combine redundant multisensory estimates into a coherent multimodal percept. Experiments in cue integration have shown for many modality pairs and perceptual tasks that multisensory information is fused in a statistically optimal manner: observers take the unimodal sensory reliability into consideration when performing perceptual judgments. They combine the senses according to the rules of Maximum Likelihood Estimation to maximize overall perceptual precision.

Relative errors can cue absolute visuomotor mappings.

When repeatedly switching between two visuomotor mappings, e.g. in a reaching or pointing task, adaptation tends to speed up over time.

Two-way communication between the metabolic and cell cycle machineries: the molecular basis.

The relationship between cellular metabolism and the cell cycle machinery is by no means unidirectional. The ability of a cell to enter the cell cycle critically depends on the availability of metabolites. Conversely, the cell cycle machinery commits to regulating metabolic networks in order to support cell survival and proliferation.

Mapping shape to visuomotor mapping: learning and generalisation of sensorimotor behaviour based on contextual information.

Humans can learn and store multiple visuomotor mappings (dual-adaptation) when feedback for each is provided alternately. Moreover, learned context cues associated with each mapping can be used to switch between the stored mappings. However, little is known about the associative learning between cue and required visuomotor mapping, and how learning generalises to novel but similar conditions.

Exploration mode affects visuohaptic integration of surface orientation.

We experience the world mostly in a multisensory fashion using a combination of all of our senses. Depending on the modality we can select different exploration strategies for extracting perceptual information. For instance, using touch we can enclose an object in our hand to explore parts of the object in parallel.

Predictability is necessary for closed-loop visual feedback delay adaptation.

In case of delayed visual feedback during visuomotor tasks, like in some sluggish computer games, humans can modulate their behavior to compensate for the delay. However, opinions on the nature of this compensation diverge. Some studies suggest that humans adapt to feedback delays with lasting changes in motor behavior (aftereffects) and a recalibration of time perception.

The eyes grasp, the hands see: metric category knowledge transfers between vision and touch.

Categorization of seen objects is often determined by the shapes of objects. However, shape is not exclusive to the visual modality: The haptic system also is expert at identifying shapes. Hence, an important question for understanding shape processing is whether humans store separate modality-dependent shape representations, or whether information is integrated into one multisensory representation.

Knowing each random error of our ways, but hardly correcting for it: an instance of optimal performance.

Random errors are omnipresent in sensorimotor tasks due to perceptual and motor noise. The question is, are humans aware of their random errors on an instance-by-instance basis? The appealing answer would be 'no' because it seems intuitive that humans would otherwise immediately correct for the errors online, thereby increasing sensorimotor precision. However, here we show the opposite.

Switching between visuomotor mappings: learning absolute mappings or relative shifts.

Adaptation to specific visuomotor mappings becomes faster when switching back and forth between them. What is learned when repeatedly switching between the visuomotor mappings: the absolute mappings or the relative shift between the mappings? To test this, we trained participants in a rapid pointing task using a unique color cue as context for each mapping between pointing location and visual feedback. After extensive training, participants adapted to a new mapping using a neutral contextual cue.

Preexposure disrupts learning of location-contingent perceptual biases for ambiguous stimuli.

The perception of a bistable stimulus as one or the other interpretation can be biased by prior presentations of that stimulus. Such learning effects have been found to be long lasting even after small amounts of training. The effectiveness of training may be influenced by preexposure to the ambiguous stimulus.

Retinal image shifts, but not eye movements per se, cause alternations in awareness during binocular rivalry.

Particularly promising studies on visual awareness exploit a generally used perceptual bistability phenomenon, "binocular rivalry"--in which the two eyes' images alternately dominate--because it can dissociate the visual input from the perceptual output. To successfully study awareness, it is crucial to know the extent to which eye movements alter the input. Although there is convincing evidence that perceptual alternations can occur without eye movements, the literature on their exact role is mixed.