Publications by authors named "Noah J"

Leptosphaeria maculans is one of the major fungal pathogens on oilseed rape (Brassica napus), causing stem canker disease. The closely related Brassica species B. nigra, B.

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Background: Psychological and social support for adolescents living with HIV remains undocumented and unaddressed in Central Africa. This study aimed at assessing effectiveness of a peer-facilitated community-based support model in improving retention in care among adolescents living with HIV and attending care in Chantal Biya Foundation, Yaounde, Cameroon.

Materials And Methods: We conducted an analysis of adolescents aged 10-19 years old, perinatally infected with HIV, on follow-up in the Day Care Unit of a reference hospital in Yaounde, Cameroon, and enrolled in the IAS-CIPHER-2021/1214-ATE-SMAVI, a individually randomized controlled trial.

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Introduction: Perinatally HIV-Infected Adolescents (HIVIA) are more likely to have mental health problems than their uninfected peers. In resource-limited settings, mental health disorders are rarely taken into account in the care offered to HIVIA and have an impact on their routine follow-up. The objective of this study was to assess the baseline socio-demographic factors and mental health conditions associated with detectable viral load or poor ART adherence in HIVIA on ART followed at the Mother and Child Centre of the Chantal Biya Foundation in Yaoundé (CME-FCB), Cameroon.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study explored how Broca's area in the brain is linked to creativity, particularly during spontaneous improvisation with a guitar.
  • Twenty guitarists performed both improvised and formulaic music while their brain activity was measured, revealing significant responses in Broca's area only during improvisation.
  • The findings suggest that activity in Broca's area (BA45) is a common neural response related to creative improvisation, functioning similarly to how the brain plans and executes speech.
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Social difficulties during interactions with others are central to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Understanding the links between these social difficulties and their underlying neural processes is a primary aim focused on improved diagnosis and treatment. In keeping with this goal, we have developed a multivariate classification method based on neural data acquired by functional near infrared spectroscopy, fNIRS, during live eye-to-eye contact with adults who were either typically developed (TD) or individuals with ASD.

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Hyperscanning is a form of neuroimaging experiment where the brains of two or more participants are imaged simultaneously whilst they interact. Within the domain of social neuroscience, hyperscanning is increasingly used to measure inter-brain coupling (IBC) and explore how brain responses change in tandem during social interaction. In addition to cognitive research, some have suggested that quantification of the interplay between interacting participants can be used as a biomarker for a variety of cognitive mechanisms aswell as to investigate mental health and developmental conditions including schizophrenia, social anxiety and autism.

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People who stutter learn to anticipate many of their overt stuttering events. Despite the critical role of anticipation, particularly how responses to anticipation shape stuttering behaviors, the neural bases associated with anticipation are unknown. We used a novel approach to identify anticipated and unanticipated words, which were produced by 22 adult stutterers in a delayed-response task while hemodynamic activity was measured using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

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Viewing a live facial expression typically elicits a similar expression by the observer (facial mimicry) that is associated with a concordant emotional experience (emotional contagion). The model of embodied emotion proposes that emotional contagion and facial mimicry are functionally linked although the neural underpinnings are not known. To address this knowledge gap, we employed a live two-person paradigm ( = 20 dyads) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy during live emotive face-processing while also measuring eye-tracking, facial classifications and ratings of emotion.

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Unlabelled: Atypical eye gaze in joint attention is a clinical characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Despite this documented symptom, neural processing of joint attention tasks in real-life social interactions is not understood. To address this knowledge gap, functional-near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and eye-tracking data were acquired simultaneously as ASD and typically developed (TD) individuals engaged in a gaze-directed joint attention task with a live human and robot partner.

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Background: Leptosphaeria maculans, the cause of stem canker of oilseed rape, develops gene-for-gene interactions with its host and shows a high evolutionary potential to 'break down' novel resistance genes (R, Rlm) deployed in cultivars over large areas. For optimal management of R genes, updated knowledge of the population structure of the pathogen is needed. In France, large-scale surveys have been done at 10-year intervals since 2000.

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Introduction: Adolescents living with HIV are more likely to experience mental health challenges compared to their peers who do not have HIV. However, there is a lack of data regarding the mental health of adolescents living with HIV in Cameroon. Understanding risk factors and protective factors that influence mental health amongst adolescents is critical for effective programming.

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Reluctance to make eye contact during natural interactions is a central diagnostic criterion for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the underlying neural correlates for eye contacts in ASD are unknown, and diagnostic biomarkers are active areas of investigation. Here, neuroimaging, eye-tracking, and pupillometry data were acquired simultaneously using two-person functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during live "in-person" eye-to-eye contact and eye-gaze at a video face for typically-developed (TD) and participants with ASD to identify the neural correlates of live eye-to-eye contact in both groups.

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Hemp ( L.) contains a variety of secondary metabolites, including cannabinoids, such as psychoactive (-)--Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol. The present study was conducted to identify the major phenolic components contained in hemp root, which has been relatively under-researched compared to other parts of hemp.

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This investigation aims to advance the understanding of neural dynamics that underlies live and natural interactions during spoken dialogue between two individuals. The underlying hypothesis is that functional connectivity between canonical speech areas in the human brain will be modulated by social interaction. Granger causality was applied to compare directional connectivity across Broca's and Wernicke's areas during verbal conditions consisting of interactive and noninteractive communication.

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With the increasing popularity of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), the need to determine localization of the source and nature of the signals has grown. We compare strategies for removal of non-neural signals for a finger-thumb tapping task, which shows responses in contralateral motor cortex and a visual checkerboard viewing task that produces activity within the occipital lobe. We compare temporal regression strategies using short-channel separation to a spatial principal component (PC) filter that removes global signals present in all channels.

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Robot design to simulate interpersonal social interaction is an active area of research with applications in therapy and companionship. Neural responses to eye-to-eye contact in humans have recently been employed to determine the neural systems that are active during social interactions. Whether eye-contact with a social robot engages the same neural system remains to be seen.

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Although the neural systems that underlie spoken language are well-known, how they adapt to evolving social cues during natural conversations remains an unanswered question. In this work we investigate the neural correlates of face-to-face conversations between two individuals using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and acoustical analyses of concurrent audio recordings. Nineteen pairs of healthy adults engaged in live discussions on two controversial topics where their opinions were either in agreement or disagreement.

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Pairs of participants mutually communicated (or not) biographical information to each other. By combining simultaneous eye-tracking, face-tracking and functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we examined how this mutual sharing of information modulates social signalling and brain activity. When biographical information was disclosed, participants directed more eye gaze to the face of the partner and presented more facial displays.

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An emerging theoretical framework suggests that neural functions associated with stereotyping and prejudice are associated with frontal lobe networks. Using a novel neuroimaging technique, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), during a face-to-face live communication paradigm, we explore an extension of this model to include live dynamic interactions. Neural activations were compared for dyads of similar and dissimilar socioeconomic backgrounds.

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Eye-to-eye contact is a spontaneous behavior between interacting partners that occurs naturally during social interactions. However, individuals differ with respect to eye gaze behaviors such as frequency of eye-to-eye contacts, and these variations may reflect underlying differences in social behavior in the population. While the use of eye signaling to indicate a shared object of attention in joint attention tasks has been well-studied, the effects of the natural variation in establishing eye contact during joint attention have not been isolated.

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The expanding field of human social interaction is enabled by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) that acquires hemodynamic signals during live two-person interactions. These advances call for development of methods to quantify interactive processes. Wavelet coherence analysis has been applied to cross-brain neural coupling.

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Direct eye contact between two individuals is a salient social behavior known to initiate and promote interpersonal interaction. However, the neural processes that underlie these live interactive behaviors and eye-to-eye contact are not well understood. The Dynamic Neural Coupling Hypothesis presents a general theoretical framework proposing that shared interactive behaviors are represented by cross-brain signal coherence.

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Understanding how the brain modulates improvisation has been the focus of numerous studies in recent years. Models have suggested regulation of activity between default mode and executive control networks play a role in improvisational execution. Several studies comparing formulaic to improvised sequences support this framework and document increases in activity in medial frontal lobe with decreased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).

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Face-specific neural processes in the human brain have been localized to multiple anatomical structures and associated with diverse and dynamic social functions. The question of how various face-related systems and functions may be bound together remains an active area of investigation. We hypothesize that face processing may be associated with specific frequency band oscillations that serve to integrate distributed face processing systems.

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A novel photonic method for remote monitoring of task-related hemodynamic changes in human brain activation is presented. Physiological processes associated with neural activity, such as nano-vibrations due to blood flow and tissue oxygenation in the brain, are detected by remote sensing of nano-acoustic vibrations using temporal spatial analysis of defocused self-interference random patterns. Temporal nanometric changes of the speckle pattern due to visual task-induced hemodynamic responses were tracked by this method.

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