Vigilant State Research Articles

Social facilitation of trotting: Can horses perceive and adapt to the movement of another horse?

Exercise intensity is prone to be self-regulated in horses exercising freely. The main drivers include social, feeding and escape behaviors, as well as the operant conditioning. We hypothesized that self-regulated exercise intensity may increase due to the presence of another horse exercising ahead. Seven horses were assigned to a 2x2 crossover trial following treadmill familiarization. Video images of a trotting horse were displayed on the wall in front of the experimental unit (Visual), which was positioned in the treadmill. Physiological and behavioral markers were further compared with a control visual stimulus (Co), comprising a racetrack image without horses. Horses were sampled during a constant load exercise test (1) at rest (baseline), (2) after the warm-up (0 - 10th minute) and (3) after visual stimulation or control (10th- 12th minutes of the SET) to quantify plasma lactate and glucose concentration, heart rate, head angle, as well as behavioral markers. Following visual stimulation, heart rate (130.8 ± 27.8 b.p.m.) was higher than control (84.7 ± 15.1 b.p.m., P = .017), as was plasma lactate (Visual - 5.28 ± 1.48 mg/dl; Co -3.27 ± 1.24 mg/dl, P = .042) and head angle (Visual - 36.43 ± 3.69°; Co -25.14 ± 4.88°, P = .003). The prevalence of "ears forward" behavior was also higher following Visual (100% - 7/7) than Co (14% - 1/7, P = .004). These results suggest that visual stimulus (1) was safe and well tolerated and (2) prompted the anaerobic lactic pathways and shifted the behavior to a vigilant state. In conclusion, horses were able to perceive and adapt to a social environment. Our findings validate the use of social facilitation of trotting to encourage horses to move forward avoiding the use of the whip.

Fear-Conditioning to Unpredictable Threats Reveals Sex and Strain Differences in Rat Fear-Potentiated Startle (FPS).

Fear-potentiated startle (FPS) has been widely used to study fear processing in humans and rodents. Human studies showed higher startle amplitudes and exaggerated fear reactivity to unpredictable vs. predictable threats in individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although human FPS studies use both sexes, a surprisingly limited number of rodent FPS studies use females. Here we investigate the effects of signal-threat contingency, signal-threat order and threat predictability on FPS in both sexes. We use a classic fear-conditioning protocol (100% contingency of cue and shock pairings, with forward conditioning such that the cue co-terminates with the shock) and compare it to modified fear-conditioning protocols (70% contingency; backward conditioning; or cue and shock un-paired). Although there are no sex differences in the startle amplitudes when corrected for body weight, females consistently demonstrate higher shock reactivity during fear-conditioning. Both sexes and strains demonstrate comparable levels of cued, non-cued, and contextual fear in the classic FPS and FPS following fear-conditioning with 70% contingency or backward order (cue co-starts with shock). However, in the classic FPS, Sprague-Dawley females show reduced proportion between cued fear and cue-elicited vigilant state than males. Lastly, a prominent sex difference is uncovered following unpredictable fear-conditioning (cue and shock un-paired), with Wistar, but not Sprague-Dawley, females showing significantly higher startle overall during the FPS recall, regardless of trial type, and higher contextual fear than males. This striking sex difference in processing unpredictable threats in rodent FPS might help to understand the mechanisms underlying higher incidence of PTSD in women.

Context dependence of head bobs in gerbils and potential neural contributions

Headbobs are up-down movements of the cranium associated with the use of motion parallax for depth perception. Mongolian gerbils (aka jirds; Meriones unguiculatus) often execute a series of headbobs prior to jumping between surfaces. Gerbils were tested in a jumping stand task and headbobs videotaped under three light levels approximating low daylight, dawn/dusk, and moonlight across a range of distances to target. Headbobs per trial increased linearly with increasing distance to the target platform, whereas headbob frequency (rate of headbobbing pre-jump on the start platform) increased with gap distance up to an intermediate level and then decreased. Overall, gerbils made the most headbobs per trial under the darkest conditions, whereas their headbobbing rate was highest for medium illumination, especially for medium-long gap distances. There was a positive correlation between headbob frequency and volume of the superior colliculus (SC), but no relationship between headbobs and relative size of the temporo-posterior (TP) visual cortex. The results suggest that gerbils employ a specific visuomotor strategy for depth perception differentially under different conditions. We suggest that the deployment of headbobs under specific conditions may be part of an SC-driven vigilant state, of which more rapid sampling of the visual environment using headbobs for depth estimation is one component. Moreover, the findings highlight the importance of considering ecological factors in designing studies of visual behavior and its underpinnings in rodents.

Coming full circle: In vivo Veritas, or expanding the neuroscience frontier

The 25-century long history of brain science can be divided into four distinct 'Eras': Era 1 (∼2000 years) started around 500 BC with reductionist studies of human and animal brains using invasive in vivo and ex vivo methods; Era 2 (∼200 years) started in the 17th century and introduced the first invasive methods to study the function of living tissues; Era 3 started around 1838 and is the ongoing era of cellular neurophysiology; finally, Era 4 (in statu nascendi) is the era of non-invasive, holistic yet mechanistic, studies of the brain. Animal experimentation is becoming increasingly more holistic as multimodal imaging and recording techniques are combined in a single experiment on the brain of awake behaving animal. This newly emerged approach can be called in vigilo (from Latin 'in awake' or 'in vigilant state'), by analogy to the earlier introduced terms in vivo or in vitro. We introduce the Special Issue "In Vigilo Veritas: New Frontiers of Optical Imaging and Electrical Recording in the Brain of Awake Behaving Mice", which features original research articles and reviews that represent some of the finest examples of a truly multimodal studies, where behavioural readouts and tasks are combined in the same longitudinal experiment and on the same mouse with the two-photon imaging, optogenetics and/or electrophysiological recordings. This exciting multi-methodological approach creates a fertile ground for breakthrough discoveries in neurophysiology and neuropsychology of an awake behaving mammalian brain.

SVIR rumor spreading model considering individual vigilance awareness and emotion in social networks

Rumor, as a form of information, can be widely spread in a short time. A host of researchers focus on the spread of rumor, aiming to explore the rules of rumor spreading and put forward effective measures to help control the spread of rumor. In real life, when the individual is not interested in the rumor spread or feels that the rumor is not related to him, it is easy to trigger the individual’s vigilance awareness. On the contrary, if the rumor is more closely related to the individual’s life, the individual will usually be less alert and have great motivation to share it with friends. Based on the typical Susceptible–Infected–Recovered (SIR) model, a new vigilant state is added to describe the above phenomenon and a Susceptible–Vigilant–Infectious–Recovered (SVIR) rumor model is proposed. In addition, considering the fact that the infectious with high emotion may cause emotional resonance among individuals, this model adds a connection edge from the recovered to the infectious triggered by emotional infection. Based on the obtained dynamic equations, the steady state of the model is analyzed by utilizing basic reproduction number method and verified on the generated homogeneous network as well as Facebook network. Simulation results reveal that the improvement of individual vigilance awareness can reduce the influence of rumor. Although high emotional infectious can promote the spread of rumor, appealing them to clarify the fact for curbing rumor spreading is a forceful measure.

Green Vaccination: A Boon to Plant Immunity and Sustainability

One of the biggest challenges for food security in the 21 st century is improving crop yield stability through the development of disease-resistant crops. Plants must deal with a variety of challenges that they encounter in the field. These environmental hazards result in enormous agricultural losses every year. The ever-increasing global population necessitates the development of sustainable crop protection tools. Green vaccination, or defence priming, is a chemical-free approach for plant protection. Plants, like humans, are vaccinated to protect themselves from threats. Plants are pretreated with a mild dose of biotic or abiotic stress in green vaccination. This weak or attenuated stimulus works as a priming signal and brings the plant into an alarmed or vigilant state, which leads to enhanced defence response upon future challenges. Green vaccination is the intentional, but regulated, “on demand defensive strategy” to increase plant defensive capacity. Although defence priming rarely provides complete protection, it is appealing for integrated disease management because of its broad range of effectiveness, long-term durability, and potential to be passed down to future generations. Transgenerational immune priming refers to the inheritance of defence priming from one generation to the next. Because it has no negative effects on the environment and provides long-term and even next-generation protection to the plant, it is a sustainable and environmentally benign approach to crop improvement.

The longitudinal association between externalizing behavior and frontoamygdalar resting-state functional connectivity in late adolescence and young adulthood.

BackgroundExternalizing behavior has been attributed, in part, to decreased frontolimbic control over amygdala activation. However, little is known about developmental trajectories of frontoamygdalar functional connectivity and its relation to externalizing behavior. The present study addresses this gap by examining longitudinal associations between adolescent and adult externalizing behavior and amygdala–anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and amygdala–orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) resting‐state functional connectivity in a sample of 111 typically developing participants aged 11–23 at baseline.MethodsParticipants completed two‐to‐four data waves spaced approximately two years apart, resulting in a total of 309 data points. At each data wave, externalizing behavior was measured using the Externalizing Behavior Broadband Scale from the Achenbach Youth/Adult Self‐Report questionnaire. Resting‐state fMRI preprocessing was performed using FSL. Amygdala functional connectivity was examined using AFNI. The longitudinal association between externalizing behavior and amygdala–ACC/OFC functional connectivity was examined using linear mixed effect models in R.ResultsExternalizing behavior was associated with increased amygdala–ACC and amygdala–OFC resting‐state functional connectivity across adolescence and young adulthood. For amygdala–ACC connectivity, externalizing behavior at baseline primarily drove this association, whereas for amygdala–OFC functional connectivity, change in externalizing behavior relative to baseline drove the main effect of externalizing behavior on amygdala–OFC functional connectivity. No evidence was found for differential developmental trajectories of frontoamygdalar connectivity for different levels of externalizing behavior (i.e., age‐by‐externalizing behavior interaction effect).ConclusionsHigher externalizing behavior is associated with increased resting‐state attunement between the amygdala and ACC/OFC, perhaps indicating a generally more vigilant state for neural networks important for emotional processing and control.

Optimal imaging of multi-channel EEG features based on a novel clustering technique for driver fatigue detection

Fatigue may cause a decrease in mental and physical performance capacity, which is a serious safety risk for the drivers in the transportation system. Recently, various studies have demonstrated the deviations of electroencephalogram (EEG) indicators from normal vigilant state during fatigue in time and frequency domains. However, when considering spatial information, these feature descriptors are not satisfying the demand for reliable detection due to the well-known challenge of signal mixing. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on clustering on brain networks (CBNs) to alleviate the problem to improve the performance of driver fatigue detection. The clustering algorithm was employed to extract the spatial nodes with distinct connectivity attributes throughout the EEG-based brain networks. Then, the temporal features of wavelet entropy from the extracted nodes were transformed to spatio-temporal images so that the image edge detection method (pulse-coupled neural networks) to distinguish different stages of fatigue can be used. The experimental results demonstrated the temporal features from the extracted nodes reduced signal mixing and showed clearer deviations. The detected fatigue based on the imaging method was to an extent consistent with self-reported subjective feelings and most of the critical fatigue was detected before the subjective feelings of fatigue. For all the subjects, 21 of 29 accidents happened after detected fatigue in the simulated driving task. Therefore, the proposed method owns potential value for early warning and avoidance of traffic accidents caused by driver fatigue.

In a vigilant state of chronic disruption: how parents with a young child with type 1 diabetes negotiate events and moments of uncertainty

AbstractLiving as a parent and self‐care surrogate of a young child with type 1 diabetes (T1D) is demanding and a disruption to ‘normal’ routinised daily living. Research has mainly focused on the time of diagnosis as a one‐time biographical disruption. In this article, we will show how, in the case of families with young children with T1D, the biographical disruption can be viewed as a continuous state of vigilance that affects family functioning and ‘normal’ living. We will show this by focusing on the temporal events and moments that keep the families in a state of what we will term ‘chronic disruption’. The events are the transitions from hospitalisation to home, home to nursery, nursery to daycare, and daycare to school and preparations for social activities concerning the child. The moments are more fluid, ranging from daily interruptions when daycare workers and teachers call parents with doubts about self‐care to negotiations with institutions and municipalities and a constant state of worry.

A novel protocol to measure startle magnitude in sheep

Temperament is a trait of interest as it impacts ease of handling, production and reactivity to stressful situations. Excessive behavioural reactivity, as an aspect of temperament, may lead to reduced welfare and stockperson safety. Current tests of behavioural reactivity involve isolating the subject and it can be difficult to differentiate between behavioural responses. We therefore aimed to develop a startle test in sheep which quantified variability in behavioural reactivity whilst addressing the effects of social isolation. The startle response is a consistent universal reaction to sudden and intense stimulation, however, magnitude of startle can be highly variable and may be modulated by affective state. In this study, 60 ewes were allocated into three social groups: isolated; surrounded by six life-sized pictures of sheep or; three conspecifics penned on two sides (total six). Sheep were tested over two days in sets of 10 per treatment. Sheep were confined to a 2.1 m × 1.2 m area, with a bowl of feed at one end, for four minutes (min). Approximately 15 s after the sheep commenced eating, a sudden one sec blast of compressed air was delivered to the face. Tri-axial accelerometers, visual scoring, agitometer scores and body temperature were used to assess the magnitude of the startle response and the pre- and post-startle fear behaviours. In the 15 s pre-startle, isolated sheep spent less time eating (p < 0.001; mean percentage of time: 37.4% vs 71.2% and 83.3%) and were 2–4 times longer in a vigilant state (p < 0.001; mean percentage of time: 38.9% vs 18.2% and 11.3%) than those with pictures and conspecifics respectively. Sheep in the conspecific treatment were 3–4 times faster to return to eating after startle than those in the isolated and picture treatments and there was a tendency for them to spend more time eating (p = 0.09) and less time vigilant (p = 0.09) post-startle. For each measure of startle magnitude (startle force, startle duration or retreat distance) the effect of treatment was not statistically important (p > 0.22), however each measure was positively correlated to time spent vigilant post-startle and there were significant increases in time to return to eating for every one unit increase in each of the startle magnitude measures independent of social treatment. The use of conspecifics did not provide social facilitation or buffering of the startle response. This shows promise as a behavioural reactivity test which can utilise conspecifics to reduce any potential negative effects of social isolation during testing.

Pilot study in France about the infiltration of local anaesthetics associated to oral surgery procedures performed under general anaesthesia

Introduction: Opinions differ regarding the combined use of local anaesthesia (LA) and general anaesthesia (GA) in oral surgery procedures. The aim of this study was to evaluate practices in France concerning intraoperative LA for oral surgery performed under GA. Practitioners and method: We conducted a prospective survey of 250 oral surgery practitioners (CNIL-2045135v0 e) and carried out a literature review with the MEDLINE search engine (PubMed) covering the period from January 2000 to September 2017. Results: Among the 77 practitioners who participated, 88.3% were dental practitioners, the majority of whom were in the 25–34-yr age group. More than half (59%) infiltrated the surgical site; 46% pre-operatively, 24% intraoperatively and 11% post-operatively. Discussion: LA under GA appears to have advantages for post-operative pain management, dissection of the first mucosal plane and bleeding management pre- and post-operatively. The contraindications remain the same as for patients in a vigilant state. In children, it should be used in moderation to limit the risk of self-inflicted lip or mouth trauma during recovery. Conclusion: The indications of LA under GA are operator-dependent and the analysis of the literature did not allow us to determine the interest or not of LA administered intraoperatively during oral surgery performed under GA.

The Repressive Regime of the Vigilant State

Review of: Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018). 376 pp. USD 35 (hb). ISBN: 9781400890323

What have we been looking at? A call for consistency in studies of primate vigilance.

Vigilance functions to detect threats. In primates, these threats emerge from both predators and conspecifics, but a host of other social, demographic, and ecological factors have been shown to influence primate vigilance patterns. The primate vigilance literature is thus characterized by considerable variation in findings, with inconsistent or contradictory results reported not only across different species but also within species and populations across studies. Some of this variation could emerge from fundamental differences in the methods employed, making comparisons across species and groups challenging. Furthermore, identifying consistent behavioral markers for the state of vigilance appears to have proved challenging in primates, leading to a range of definitions being developed. Deviation at this level leads directly into concomitant variation at the level of sampling methodologies. As a result, the primate vigilance literature currently presents a diverse series of approaches to exploring subtly different behaviors and phenomena. This review calls for a greater consistency in studying vigilance, with the aim of encouraging future research to follow similar principles leading to more comparable results. Identifying whether an animal is in a vigilant state is challenging for most field researchers; identifying and recording a more general behavior of "looking" should though be more achievable. Experimental approaches could then be employed to understand the compatibility "looking" has with predator detection (and other threats) in individual study systems. The outcome of this approach will allow researchers to understand the key determinants of looking in their study groups and explore threat detection probabilities given an individual or group's relative level of looking.

西藏拉萨越冬黑颈鹤家庭群的警戒同步性

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 西藏拉萨越冬黑颈鹤家庭群的警戒同步性 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201701110085 作者: 作者单位: 南京大学生命科学学院,西藏自治区高原生物研究所,南京大学 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金项目（31360141，J1210026）；中国科学院西部之光青年学者项目（2015） Vigilance synchronization of wintering black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis) families in Tibet Author: Affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University,Tibet Plateau Institute of Biology,School of Life Sciences, NJU Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:以往关于动物警戒行为的研究多以经典随机独立模型为基础，然而，近期一些理论和实证研究则向该模型发出了挑战。根据警戒行为同步性程度的不同，集体警戒可能存在基于模仿的同步警戒和避免重复的协调警戒两种模式。研究了中国雅鲁藏布江自然保护区越冬黑颈鹤家庭群的警戒行为，通过独立样本t检验验证由于年龄和是否携幼所导致的个体警戒水平的差异，通过单因素方差分析比较不同类型家庭群的集体警戒水平，通过配对t检验比较集体警戒的实际观测值和独立假设下的预期值从而确定越冬黑颈鹤家庭群的警戒同步性。结果表明家庭群中的幼年黑颈鹤警戒行为时间显著低于成年黑颈鹤，但幼鹤的存在对成鹤的警戒水平没有显著影响。不同类型黑颈鹤家庭群的集体警戒水平没有差异，但并未如预期表现为同步警戒。警戒行为模式是动物在特定环境中的适应性表现，越冬黑颈鹤生境中不存在落后目标策略的捕食者和高强度的捕食风险，因而可能不足以诱发以降低捕食风险为主要功能的高强度的警戒行为同步性；同时，在资源匮乏的冬季对食物获取的优先性可能也削弱了对同步警戒的需求。 Abstract:Most previous studies of animal vigilance behavior have been based on Pulliam's classical model, which emphasizes that individuals' vigilance occurs independently and is, therefore, unaffected by the vigilant state of other individuals in the same group. However, recent theoretical and empirical studies have challenged this model and have reported that, depending on the degree of vigilance synchronization, the collective vigilance can be either imitation-based synchronized vigilance or coordinated vigilance that avoids overlapping bouts. In the present study, we observed the vigilance behavior of wintering black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis) families in the Yarlung Zangbo River Nature Reserve. The black-necked crane is a globally endangered species that lives exclusively in the Tibetan Plateau. We captured videos in the field and then scanned 30-s intervals of the footage to record individual and collective vigilance behavior. Further, we used Student's t-test to determine the effects of age and predation vulnerability at the individual level. The results indicated that juveniles spent significantly less time in vigilance than their parents, mainly owing to lack of vigilance and feeding experience, which necessitates juveniles to spend more time feeding to meet their energetic and developmental requirements. However, the presence of juveniles in family groups had no effect on the vigilance of adult cranes, and according to one-way ANOVA, there was no difference in the collective vigilance of different types of black-necked crane family groups. Meanwhile, a paired t-test, which was used to compare the observed and predicted collective vigilance values in order to determine the vigilance synchronization of wintering black-necked cranes, indicated that there was no synchronization tendency. The difference between the predicted and observed values was not significant between adult cranes, all family members, or adults and juveniles. Vigilance patterns are adaptive behaviors of animals in particular environments. In the wintering habitat of black-necked cranes, there is no targeting predator, and the black-necked cranes are generally protected as a symbol of auspiciousness in the Tibetan area. Although black-necked cranes that forage in farmland are inevitably disturbed by humans, the degree of interference and predation risk is insufficient to induce high-intensity vigilance synchronization that mainly function for reducing predator risk. In addition, when food availability becomes a key factor for survival, energy acquisition takes precedence over safety assurance, and as a result, the need for synchronized vigilance is reduced. Studying vigilance synchronization can reveal the vigilance pattern of black-necked cranes in the field and provide meaningful information for their management and conservation. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Improving visual spatial working memory in younger and older adults: effects of cross-modal cues

ABSTRACTSpatially informative auditory and vibrotactile (cross-modal) cues can facilitate attention but little is known about how similar cues influence visual spatial working memory (WM) across the adult lifespan. We investigated the effects of cues (spatially informative or alerting pre-cues vs. no cues), cue modality (auditory vs. vibrotactile vs. visual), memory array size (four vs. six items), and maintenance delay (900 vs. 1800 ms) on visual spatial location WM recognition accuracy in younger adults (YA) and older adults (OA). We observed a significant interaction between spatially informative pre-cue type, array size, and delay. OA and YA benefitted equally from spatially informative pre-cues, suggesting that attentional orienting prior to WM encoding, regardless of cue modality, is preserved with age. Contrary to predictions, alerting pre-cues generally impaired performance in both age groups, suggesting that maintaining a vigilant state of arousal by facilitating the alerting attention system does not help visual spatial location WM.

A New Kind of Permutation Entropy Used to Classify Sleep Stages from Invisible EEG Microstructure

Permutation entropy and order patterns in an EEG signal have been applied by several authors to study sleep, anesthesia, and epileptic absences. Here, we discuss a new version of permutation entropy, which is interpreted as distance to white noise. It has a scale similar to the well-known χ 2 distributions and can be supported by a statistical model. Critical values for significance are provided. Distance to white noise is used as a parameter which measures depth of sleep, where the vigilant awake state of the human EEG is interpreted as “almost white noise”. Classification of sleep stages from EEG data usually relies on delta waves and graphic elements, which can be seen on a macroscale of several seconds. The distance to white noise can anticipate such emerging waves before they become apparent, evaluating invisible tendencies of variations within 40 milliseconds. Data segments of 30 s of high-resolution EEG provide a reliable classification. Application to the diagnosis of sleep disorders is indicated.

Examining brain structures associated with attention networks in a large sample of young adults: a voxel-based morphometry study

Attention networks have three principal components supported by separate subprocesses, which include alerting, orienting, and executive control (EC) networks. Efficiently and accurately extracting useful information from the environment as the function of attention is pivotal to our survival. Previous brain imaging studies have examined activation patterns underlying the different attention networks in different cortical regions, yet focal differences in brain structures related to attention network components were not well understood. Therefore, in this study, voxel-based morphometry was used to investigate the relationship between gray matter volume (GMV) and different attention networks in a large young adult sample (n = 156). As a result, multiple regression analysis revealed that higher alerting scores (stronger alerting ability) were negatively significantly correlated with region gray matter volume (rGMV) in the PCC/PreCu (posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus), which might be associated with continuous maintenance of a vigilant state. Then, lower EC scores (stronger conflict resolution ability) were associated with larger rGMV in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which might be related to high-efficiency executive control processing. Together, findings of the present study provided a unique structural basis of GMV for individual differences in alerting and EC networks.

Neurophysiological correlates of cognitive absorption in an enactive training context

Various aspects of intrinsic motivation have long been theorized as key determinants of learning achievement. The present research seeks deeper insights into these intrinsically motivating mechanisms by investigating neurophysiological correlates of cognitive absorption in the context of enactive learning, specifically simulation-based training on the use of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. An experiment was conducted in which 36 student trainees used ERP software to make decisions while running a simulated company. Consistent with flow theory, skill, difficulty, and their interaction significantly influenced cognitive absorption (R2=.16). Five neurophysiological measures were captured for each trainee: EEG alpha, EEG beta, electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate, and heart rate variability. Each of the five neurophysiological measures explained significant unique variance in cognitive absorption over and above skill, difficulty, and their interaction, and collectively more than doubled the explained variance to R2=.34. Overall, cognitive absorption was positively related to a more relaxed, less vigilant state. Cognitive absorption was significantly related to the training outcome. These findings provide new insights into the psychological states that are conducive to experiencing cognitive absorption during enactive training.

Cumulative latency advance underlies fast visual processing in desynchronized brain state

Fast sensory processing is vital for the animal to efficiently respond to the changing environment. This is usually achieved when the animal is vigilant, as reflected by cortical desynchronization. However, the neural substrate for such fast processing remains unclear. Here, we report that neurons in rat primary visual cortex (V1) exhibited shorter response latency in the desynchronized state than in the synchronized state. In vivo whole-cell recording from the same V1 neurons undergoing the two states showed that both the resting and visually evoked conductances were higher in the desynchronized state. Such conductance increases of single V1 neurons shorten the response latency by elevating the membrane potential closer to the firing threshold and reducing the membrane time constant, but the effects only account for a small fraction of the observed latency advance. Simultaneous recordings in lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and V1 revealed that LGN neurons also exhibited latency advance, with a degree smaller than that of V1 neurons. Furthermore, latency advance in V1 increased across successive cortical layers. Thus, latency advance accumulates along various stages of the visual pathway, likely due to a global increase of membrane conductance in the desynchronized state. This cumulative effect may lead to a dramatic shortening of response latency for neurons in higher visual cortex and play a critical role in fast processing for vigilant animals.

The Judges and the Vigilant State

The Judges and the Vigilant State