Publications by authors named "Pat Gunn"

Volume electron microscopy (VEM) is an essential tool for studying biological structures. Due to the challenges of sample preparation and continuous volumetric imaging, image artifacts are almost inevitable. Such image artifacts complicate further processing both for automated computer vision methods and human experts.

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The size of image volumes in connectomics studies now reaches terabyte and often petabyte scales with a great diversity of appearance due to different sample preparation procedures. However, manual annotation of neuronal structures (e.g.

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Article Synopsis
  • Research in visual processing in neuroscience is challenging due to insufficient high-resolution maps of complex neuronal structures in most model organisms.
  • The microinsect Megaphragma viggianii offers a unique opportunity for studying connectomics due to its small size and interesting behavior, allowing scientists to use serial electron microscopy to image its entire head.
  • The visual system of Megaphragma is simpler than that of fruit flies and honeybees, featuring only 29 ommatidia and 6 types of lamina neurons, revealing essential circuits that could aid in developing computational models of insect visual processing.
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Advances in fluorescence microscopy enable monitoring larger brain areas in-vivo with finer time resolution. The resulting data rates require reproducible analysis pipelines that are reliable, fully automated, and scalable to datasets generated over the course of months. We present CaImAn, an open-source library for calcium imaging data analysis.

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What is the role of the left prefrontal cortex in the controlled retrieval of learned information? We present a theory of declarative retrieval that posits that the amount of control exerted by this region during retrieval is inversely proportional to 1) the frequency and recency of previous experiences with the retrieved memory and 2) the associative strength between the current context and the retrieved memory. This theory is rational in the sense that it claims that declarative retrieval is highly sensitive to the statistical regularities in the environment. We demonstrate how our theory produces precise predictions of response time and neural activity during recall and test these predictions in an experiment that manipulates the frequency of previous experiences and the associative strength to the retrieval cues.

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Two studies were performed that compared a "Paired" condition in which participants studied paired associates with a "Generated" condition in which participants completed word fragments to produce paired associates. In both tasks, participants were responsible for memory of the material either studied or generated. The experiments revealed significant differences between the responses of a predefined prefrontal region and a predefined parietal region.

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Fifty-four siblings of children with Down syndrome and their parents and an individually matched group of comparison children and parents provided data about the quality of sibling relationships. There were no group differences in parental reports, but siblings of children with Down syndrome reported less unkindness and, if in a same-sex dyad, more empathy than did comparison children. There were differences between same-sex and opposite-sex dyads regarding avoidance and frequency of sibling positive and negative interactions.

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