Familiarity Affects Entrainment of EEG in Music Listening.

Music perception involves complex brain functions. The relationship between music and brain such as cortical entrainment to periodic tune, periodic beat, and music have been well investigated. It has also been reported that the cerebral cortex responded more strongly to the periodic rhythm of unfamiliar music than to that of familiar music.

Impaired Gamma Oscillations in the Medial Entorhinal Cortex of Knock-in Alzheimer Model.

The entorhinal cortex (EC) has bidirectional connections with the hippocampus and plays a critical role in memory formation and retrieval. EC is one of the most vulnerable regions in the brain in early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a neurodegenerative disease with progressive memory impairments. Accumulating evidence from healthy behaving animals indicates gamma oscillations (30-100 Hz) as critical for mediating interactions in the circuit between EC and hippocampus.

Representation of Glossy Material Surface in Ventral Superior Temporal Sulcal Area of Common Marmosets.

The common marmoset () is one of the smallest species of primates, with high visual recognition abilities that allow them to judge the identity and quality of food and objects in their environment. To address the cortical processing of visual information related to material surface features in marmosets, we presented a set of stimuli that have identical three-dimensional shapes (bone, torus or amorphous) but different material appearances (ceramic, glass, fur, leather, metal, stone, wood, or matte) to anesthetized marmoset, and recorded multiunit activities from an area ventral to the superior temporal sulcus (STS) using multi-shanked, and depth resolved multi-electrode array. Out of 143 visually responsive multiunits recorded from four animals, 29% had significant main effect only of the material, 3% only of the shape and 43% of both the material and the shape.

Early Origin and Evolution of the Angelman Syndrome Ubiquitin Ligase Gene .

The human gene encodes an E3 ubiquitin ligase and exhibits brain-specific genomic imprinting. Genetic abnormalities that affect the maternal copy of this gene cause the neurodevelopmental disorder Angelman syndrome (AS), which is characterized by severe mental retardation, speech impairment, seizure, ataxia and some unique behavioral phenotypes. In this review article, I highlight the evolution of the gene and its imprinting to provide evolutionary insights into AS.

Hebbian Wiring Plasticity Generates Efficient Network Structures for Robust Inference with Synaptic Weight Plasticity.

In the adult mammalian cortex, a small fraction of spines are created and eliminated every day, and the resultant synaptic connection structure is highly nonrandom, even in local circuits. However, it remains unknown whether a particular synaptic connection structure is functionally advantageous in local circuits, and why creation and elimination of synaptic connections is necessary in addition to rich synaptic weight plasticity. To answer these questions, we studied an inference task model through theoretical and numerical analyses.

Exploring Combinations of Different Color and Facial Expression Stimuli for Gaze-Independent BCIs.

Background: Some studies have proven that a conventional visual brain computer interface (BCI) based on overt attention cannot be used effectively when eye movement control is not possible. To solve this problem, a novel visual-based BCI system based on covert attention and feature attention has been proposed and was called the gaze-independent BCI. Color and shape difference between stimuli and backgrounds have generally been used in examples of gaze-independent BCIs.