Experiential Manipulation Research Articles

Alpha and theta oscillations are inversely related to progressive levels of meditation depth.

Meditation training is proposed to enhance mental well-being by modulating neural activity, particularly alpha and theta brain oscillations, and autonomic activity. Although such enhancement also depends on the quality of meditation, little is known about how these neural and physiological changes relate to meditation quality. One model characterizes meditation quality as five increasing levels of ‘depth’: hindrances, relaxation, concentration, transpersonal qualities and nonduality. We investigated the neural oscillatory (theta, alpha, beta and gamma) and physiological (respiration rate, heart rate and heart rate variability) correlates of the self-reported meditation depth in long-term meditators (LTMs) and meditation-naïve controls (CTLs). To determine the neural and physiological correlates of meditation depth, we modelled the change in the slope of the relationship between self-reported experiential degree at each of the five depth levels and the multiple neural and physiological measures. CTLs reported experiencing more ‘hindrances’ than LTMs, while LTMs reported more ‘transpersonal qualities’ and ‘nonduality’ compared to CTLs, confirming the experiential manipulation of meditation depth. We found that in both groups, theta (4–6 Hz) and alpha (7–13 Hz) oscillations were related to meditation depth in a precisely opposite manner. The theta amplitude positively correlated with ‘hindrances’ and increasingly negatively correlated with increasing meditation depth levels. Alpha amplitude negatively correlated with ‘hindrances’ and increasingly positively with increasing depth levels. The increase in the inverse association between theta and meditation depth occurred over different scalp locations in the two groups—frontal midline in LTMs and frontal lateral in CTLs—possibly reflecting the downregulation of two different aspects of executive processing—monitoring and attention regulation, respectively—during deep meditation. These results suggest a functional dissociation of the two classical neural signatures of meditation training, namely, alpha and theta oscillations. Moreover, while essential for overcoming ‘hindrances’, executive neural processing appears to be downregulated during deeper meditation experiences.

Towards an efficient indoor navigation system: a near field communication approach

PurposeThis research aims to focus on providing interventions to alleviate usability challenges to strengthen the overall accuracy and the navigation effectiveness in indoor and stringent environments through the experiential manipulation of technical attributes of the positioning and navigation system.Design/methodology/approachThe study followed a quantitative and experimental method of empirical enquiry and software engineering and synthesis research methods. The study further entails three implementation processes, namely, map generation, positioning framework and navigation service using a prototype mobile navigation application that uses the near field communication (NFC) technology.FindingsThe approach and findings revealed that the capability of NFC in leveraging its low-cost infrastructure of passive tags, its availability in mobile devices and the ubiquity of the mobile device provided a cost-effective solution with impressive accuracy and usability. The positioning accuracy achieved was less than 9 cm. The usability improved from 44 to 96 per cent based on feedbacks given by respondents who tested the application in an indoor environment. These showed that NFC is a viable alternative to resolve the challenges identified in previous solutions and technologies.Research limitations/implicationsThe major limitation of the navigation application was that there is no real-time update of user position. This can be investigated and extended further by using NFC in a hybrid make-up with WLAN, radio-frequency identification (RFID) or Bluetooth as a cost-effective solution for real-time indoor positioning because of their coverage and existing infrastructures. The hybrid positioning model, which merges two or more techniques or technologies, is becoming more popular and will improve its accuracy, robustness and usability. In addition, it will balance complexity, compensate for the limitations in the technologies and achieve real-time mobile indoor navigation. Although the presence of WLAN, RFID and Bluetooth technologies are likely to result in system complexity and high cost, NFC will reduce the system’s complexity and balance the trade-off.Practical implicationsWhilst limitations in existing indoor navigation technologies meant putting up with poor signal and poor communication capabilities, outcomes of the NFC framework will offer valuable insight. It presents new possibilities on how to overcome signal quality limitations at improved turn-around time in constrained indoor spaces.Social implicationsThe innovations have a direct positive social impact in that it will offer new solutions to mobile communications in the previously impossible terrains such as underground platforms and densely covered spaces. With the ability to operate mobile applications without signal inhibitions, the quality of communication – and ultimately, life opportunities – are enhanced.Originality/valueWhile navigating, users face several challenges, such as infrastructure complexity, high-cost solution, inaccuracy and usability. Hence, as a contribution, this paper presents a symbolic map and path architecture of a floor of the test-bed building that was uploaded to OpenStreetMap. Furthermore, the implementation of the RFID and the NFC architectures produced new insight on how to redress the limitations in challenged spaces. In addition, a prototype mobile indoor navigation application was developed and implemented, offering novel solution to the practical problems inhibiting navigation in indoor challenged spaces – a practical contribution to the community of practice.

An examination of linking hypotheses drawn from the perceptual consequences of experimentally induced changes in neural circuitry

Because targeted early experiential manipulations alter both perception and the response properties of particular cells in the striate cortex, they have been used as evidence for linking hypotheses between the two. However, such hypotheses assume that the effects of the early biased visual input are restricted to just the specific cell population and/or visual areas of interest and that the neural populations that contribute to the visual perception itself do not change. To examine this assumption, we measured the consequences for vision of an extended period of early monocular deprivation (MD) on a kitten (from 19 to 219 days of age) that began well before, and extended beyond, bilateral ablation of visual cortical areas 17 and 18 at 132 days of age. In agreement with previous work, the lesion reduced visual acuity by only a factor of two indicating that the neural sites, other than cortical areas 17 and 18, that support vision in their absence have good spatial resolution. However, these sites appear to be affected profoundly by MD as the effects on vision were just as severe as those observed following MD imposed on normal animals. The pervasive effects of selected early visual deprivation across many cortical areas reported here and elsewhere, together with the potential for perception to be mediated at a different neural site following deprivation than after typical rearing, points to a need for caution in the use of data from early experiential manipulations for formulation of linking hypotheses.

Adaptive tone-preserved image detail enhancement

An adaptive tone-preserved algorithm for image detail enhancement is proposed to retain the tonal distribution of the input image and avoid experiential manipulation. First of all, domain transform based multi-scale image decomposition is carried out to quickly divide the input image into a base image which contains the coarse-scale image information, and the detail layers which contain the fine-scale details. Then, during the process of detail enhancement and synthesis, we construct an adaptive detail enhancement function based on the edge response, to prevent the exaggeration of strong edges and increase the enhancing magnitude of small details. Finally, in order to keep the color values of the input image and the gradient values of the detail enhanced image, a tonal correction algorithm based on energy optimization is presented to eliminate the distinct tonal differences of the enhanced image from the input image. Our experimental results show that tone-consistent image detail enhancement effect is available for arbitrary input images with unified parameters setting, which is superior to the state-of-the-art methods.

Recovery of neurofilament following early monocular deprivation

Postnatal development of the mammalian geniculostriate visual pathway is partly guided by visually driven activity. Disruption of normal visual input during certain critical periods can alter the structure of neurons, as well as their connections and functional properties. Within the layers of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN), a brief early period of monocular deprivation can alter the structure and soma size of neurons within deprived-eye-receiving layers. This modification of structure is accompanied by a marked reduction in labeling for neurofilament protein, a principle component of the stable cytoskeleton. This study examined the extent of neurofilament recovery in monocularly deprived cats that either had their deprived eye opened (binocular recovery), or had the deprivation reversed to the fellow eye (reverse occlusion). The loss of neurofilament and the reduction of soma size caused by monocular deprivation were ameliorated equally and substantially in both recovery conditions after 8 days. The degree to which this recovery was dependent on visually driven activity was examined by placing monocularly deprived animals in complete darkness. Though monocularly deprived animals placed in darkness showed recovery of soma size in deprived layers, the manipulation catalyzed a loss of neurofilament labeling that extended to non-deprived layers as well. Overall, these results indicate that both recovery of soma size and neurofilament labeling is achieved by removal of the competitive disadvantage of the deprived eye. However, while the former occurred even in the absence of visually driven activity, recovery of neurofilament did not. The finding that a period of darkness produced an overall loss of neurofilament throughout the dLGN suggests that this experiential manipulation may cause the visual pathways to revert to an earlier more plastic developmental stage. It is possible that short periods of darkness could be incorporated as a component of therapeutic measures for treatment of deprivation-induced disorders such as amblyopia.

Non-Human Primates: Model Animals for Developmental Psychopathology

Non-human primates have been used to model psychiatric disease for several decades. The success of this paradigm has issued from comparable cognitive skills, brain morphology, and social complexity in adult monkeys and humans. Recently, interest in biological psychiatry has focused on similar brain, social, and emotional developmental processes in monkeys. In part, this is related to evidence that early postnatal experiences in human development may have profound implications for subsequent mental health. Non-human primate studies of postnatal phenomenon have generally fallen into three basic categories: experiential manipulation (largely manipulations of rearing), pharmacological manipulation (eg drug-induced psychosis), and anatomical localization (defined by strategic surgical damage). Although these efforts have been very informative each of them has certain limitations. In this review we highlight general findings from the non-human primate postnatal developmental literature and their implications for primate models in psychiatry. We argue that primates are uniquely capable of uncovering interactions between genes, environmental challenges, and development resulting in altered risk for psychopathology.

Genetic and experiential manipulation of fear-related behavior in Japanese quail chicks (Coturnix coturnix japonica).

Genetic and experiential manipulation of fear-related behavior in Japanese quail chicks (Coturnix coturnix japonica).

Genetic and experiential manipulation of fear-related behavior in Japanese quail chicks (Coturnix coturnix japonica).

We examined effects of environmental enrichment and regular handling on fear-related responses in chicks of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) selected over several generations for short or long tonic immobility (STI and LTI, respectively). STI chicks froze less, vocalized and walked sooner and more in an open field, emerged sooner from a hole-in-the-wall box, and showed shorter TI reactions than did chicks of the LTI line. Similarly, environmental enrichment reduced silence and inactivity in the open field, accelerated emergence, and attenuated TI. Regular handling promoted open-field vocalization and reduced the duration of TI but exerted no other significant effects. Principal component analysis showed that the responses in the 3 tests were not independent, which implies that they measured the same underlying factor. The genetic and experiential manipulation of stimulus-specific fears and of general fearfulness is discussed.

Methysergide-induced nipple attachment depends on suckling experience in juvenile rats.

These studies were designed to investigate the links between pharmacological and behavioral procedures that facilitate suckling in weanling rats by assessing the effects of methysergide on nipple attachment behavior following experiential manipulations known to either promote or attenuate suckling. In the first experiment, methysergide failed to stimulate suckling in 25-day-old rats separated from their dam on Day 20, although it facilitated suckling in rats kept with the dam until either Day 24 or Day 25. In the second experiment, methysergide did not facilitate suckling in 35-day-old rats separated on Day 25, although rats separated on Day 30 or 34 were induced to suckle. In the third experiment, rats were housed with preweanling litters until Day 35 and then separated, housed with 25-day-old litters, or housed with preweanling litters for another 10 days. Rats in a fourth group remained with their dams until Day 35 and were then separated for 10 days. When tested at Day 45, nipple attachment was facilitated by methysergide only in the three groups that had received extended suckling experience. These results demonstrate that serotonergic inhibitory mechanisms modulate nipple attachment only when suckling experience is recent or extensive.

Effects of experience and available cues on estrous versus diestrous preferences in male prairie voles, Microtus ochrogaster

Male prairie vole preferences for estrous versus diestrous females and associated stimuli were investigated. The role of sexual experience in engendering preferences proved more complex than reported for other species. Naive males did not display preferences. Neither males receiving sexual experience through monogamous cohabitation, nor males housed with two females displayed preferences. Males exposed to both estrous and diestrous females, and males housed with other males and females in a semi-naturalistic setting, displayed preferences. Thus, preferences seem to be “tuned” by experiential manipulations. Cues available for discrimination also influenced the display of preferences, as different results were obtained using apparatus that differed in cue availability. The observed pattern of responsiveness to sex odors may be related to the social organization and mating system of the prairie vole, a mammal that is believed to be monogamous.

Introduction to Special Series

This introduces a special four-part series about neural plasticity. Plasticity is an important property of developing and mature neural tissue and is currently a very popular topic for scientific investigation. The term plasticity is used here to mean the adaptive phenomena occurring in neural tissue when structural changes coincide with functional modifications. The developing nervous system is capable of a high degree of plasticity. It has the capacity to alter its pattern of pre-existing connections. Changes in the cellular, chemical, or “experiential” environment of the developing neuron may produce new neuronal pathways while previously established connections are lost. In the adult, plastic responses to experiential manipulation occur as well, but the responses in the adult nervous system usually differ qualitatively and quantitatively from those of the developing nervous system.…

Experimental and environmental factors in cancer. A review of research with animals.

The animal research dealing with experiential and environmental factors in cancer is reviewed. Despite the absence of a systematic approach to the role of psychologic factors in the pathogenesis of tumor states, it is concluded that the scientific evidence strongly supports the notion that center in animals can be influenced by experiential manipulations, and that further research afforts by psychologists are empirically justified.