Surgery in the rat during electrical analgesia induced by focal brain stimulation

Chronic monopolar electrodes were implanted in the region of the midbrain central gray in eight rats. In three rats, continuous 60 cycle-per-second sine-wave stimulation resulted in an electrical analgesia defined by the elimination of responses to aversive stimulation while general motor responsiveness was retained. Exploratory laparotomy was carried out in these animals during continuous brain stimulation without the use of chemical anesthetics. Following surgery, brain stimulation was terminated, and responses to aversive stimuli returned. Electrodes effective in inducing electrical analgesia at the lowest currents were located at the dorsolateral perimeter of the midbrain central gray. It was concluded that focal brain stimulation in this region can induce analgesia in the absence of diffusely applied "whole brain" stimulation.     

Electrical stimulation of the amygdala as a conditioned stimulus in a bait-shyness paradigm

Animals receiving low-intensity electrical stimulation of the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala while drinking plain tap water were injected with toxic doses of lithium chloride to examine whether brain stimulation can serve as a conditioned stimulus in a bait-shyness paradigm. Subjects receiving this pairing greatly reduced their water intake in a retention test, in a similar manner to a group in which saccharin was paired with poisoning. Pairing lithium chloride with stimulation of the amygdala had no effect on subsequent water intake in the absence of brain stimulation. This effect appears to be locus specific, as caudate stimulation could not serve as a conditioned stimulus.     

Slowing of heart rate after septal self-stimulation in rats

Heart rate, recorded continuously from rats trained to press a bar for intracranial electrical stimulation of their septal areas, fell consistently after brain stimulation. Interpretation of the rewarding effect of septal stimulation had previously been limited by the absence of any data on the autonomic effects of the stimulation. The results of this study suggest that the rewarding effect may possibly be produced by a parasympathetic (quieting) reaction of the autonomic nervous system to septal stimulation.     

Direct evidence for a parietal-frontal pathway subserving spatial awareness in humans

Intraoperative electrical stimulation, which temporarily inactivates restricted regions during brain surgery, can map cognitive functions in humans with spatiotemporal resolution unmatched by other methods. Using this technique, we found that stimulation of the right inferior parietal lobule or the caudal superior temporal gyrus, but not of its rostral portion, determined rightward deviations on line bisection. However, the strongest shifts occurred with subcortical stimulation. Fiber tracking identified the stimulated site as a section of the superior occipitofrontal fasciculus, a poorly known parietal-frontal pathway. These findings suggest that parietal-frontal communication is necessary for the symmetrical processing of the visual scene.     

The inversion of sensory processing by feedback pathways: a model of visual cognitive functions

The mammalian visual system has a hierarchic structure with extensive reciprocal connections. A model is proposed in which the feedback pathways serve to modify afferent sensory stimuli in ways that enhance and complete sensory input patterns, suppress irrelevant features, and generate quasi-sensory patterns when afferent stimulation is weak or absent. Such inversion of sensory coding and feature extraction can be achieved by optimization processes in which scalar responses derived from high-level neural analyzers are used as cost functions to modify the filter properties of more peripheral sensory relays. An optimization algorithm, Alopex, which is used in the model, is readily implemented with known neural circuitry. The functioning of the system is investigated by computer simulations.     

Tetrodotoxin: effects on brain metabolism in vitro

A 3-micromolar concentration of tetrodotoxin completely inhibits the stimulation of respiration of rat brain cortex that takes place upon application of electrical impulses. It also inhibits increase in the rate of the respiration that occurs when calcium ions are omitted from the incubation medium. No effect of tetrodotoxin on brain respiration takes place when stimulation is brought about by the addition of 100 millimolar potassium chloride. Tetrodotoxin prevents the fall in the rate of oxidation of cerebral acetate that occurs during electrical stimulation but does not affect the increased rate of the oxidation that occurs in the presence of an increased concentration of potassium chloride. The data indicate that oxidation of cerebral acetate is diminished by influx of sodium ions, which is prevented by tetrodotoxin, and is increased by influx of potassium ions, which is unaffected by tetrodotoxin.     

Human neuroelectric patterns predict performance accuracy

In seven right-handed adults, the brain electrical patterns before accurate performance differed from the patterns before inaccurate performance. Activity overlying the left frontal cortex and the motor and parietal cortices contralateral to the performing hand preceded accurate left- or right-hand performance. Additional strong activity overlying midline motor and premotor cortices preceded left-hand performance. These measurements suggest that brief, spatially distributed neural activity patterns, or "preparatory sets," in distinct cognitive, somesthetic-motor, and integrative motor areas of the human brain may be essential precursors of accurate visuomotor performance.     

Relapse to cocaine-seeking after hippocampal theta burst stimulation

Treatment efforts for cocaine addiction are hampered by high relapse rates. To map brain areas underlying relapse, we used electrical brain stimulation and intracranial injection of pharmacological compounds after extinction of cocaine self-administration behavior in rats. Electrical stimulation of the hippocampus containing glutamatergic fibers, but not the medial forebrain bundle containing dopaminergic fibers, elicited cocaine-seeking behavior dependent on glutamate in the ventral tegmental area. This suggests a role for glutamatergic neurotransmission in relapse to cocaine abuse. The medial forebrain bundle electrodes supported intense electrical self-stimulation. These findings suggest a dissociation of neural systems subserving positive reinforcement (self-stimulation) and incentive motivation (relapse).     

Midbrain reticular influences upon single neurons in lateral geniculate nucleus

The effect of electrical stimulation of the midbrain reticular formation upon patterns of discharge of single lateral geniculate neurons was studied. Data were processed by means of a 256-channel scaler analyzer. The rate of spontaneous discharge of geniculate neurons was raised by electrical stimulation of the reticular formation and their ability to respond to intermittent light was enhanced.     

Fast backprojections from the motion to the primary visual area necessary for visual awareness

Much is known about the pathways from photoreceptors to higher visual areas in the brain. However, how we become aware of what we see or of having seen at all is a problem that has eluded neuroscience. Recordings from macaque V1 during deactivation of MT+/V5 and psychophysical studies of perceptual integration suggest that feedback from secondary visual areas to V1 is necessary for visual awareness. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation to probe the timing and function of feedback from human area MT+/V5 to V1 and found its action to be early and critical for awareness of visual motion.     

Electrical sources in human somatosensory cortex: identification by combined magnetic and potential recordings

Magnetic fields and electrical potentials produced by neuronal activity have different properties that can be used for the identification of electrical sources in the human brain. Fields and potentials occurring 20 to 30 milliseconds after median nerve stimulation in human subjects were compared in order to investigate the sources of evoked potential components that have been attributed by different investigators to the thalamus or thalamocortical afferents, to separate radial sources in somatosensory cortex and motor cortex, or to a tangential source in somatosensory cortex. The magnetic and potential wave forms were highly similar in morphology, and their spatial distributions were centered over sensorimotor cortex, were dipolar in shape, and differed in orientation by approximately 90 degrees; distances between the minimum and maximum of the magnetic distributions were about 60 percent of those of the potential distributions. These results cannot be accounted for by thalamic sources or radial cortical sources alone, but are consistent with a tangential source in somatosensory cortex, with an additional smaller contribution from radial sources.     

Stimulus properties of reinforcing brain shock

Rats easily discriminate between two types of subcortical brain shock which differ in reinforcing properties. When both stimuli are either neutral or positively reinforcing subjects have difficulty in responding differentially to the two types of electrical stimulation of the brain. Possible implications for a theory concerning a generalized or diffuse reinforcement system are discussed.     

Elevated beta-endorphin in cerebrospinal fluid after electrical brain stimulation: artifact of contrast infusion?

Beta-Endorphin-like immunoreactivity in cerebrospinal fluid was assayed in 11 patients receiving electrical stimulation of the brain for chronic pain. Immunoreactivity increased dramatically after contrast ventriculography prior to stimulation. No further elevations were observed after stimulation. The magnitude and time course of elevations were identical after placement of electrodes either in the thalamus or in the periventricular gray matter. These results suggest that previous findings of stimulation-induced elevation of beta-endorphin-like immunoreactivity in cerebrospinal fluid are attributable to an artifact of contrast ventriculography.     

Escape from self-produced rates of brain stimulation

Rats were allowed to self-stimulate while their responses were being recorded on tape. Subsequently, prerecorded patterns of their brain stimulation were "played back" to them. All subjects learned to escape brain stimulation delivered in exactly the same manner as they had previously elected to receive it.     

Cardioaccelerator release in Periplaneta americana (L)

Focal electrical stimulation of the brain of Periplaneta americana evokes the release of a factor with high cardioaccelerator activity. Results of extirpation of components of the retrocerebral complex from an isolated head preparation imply that the corpus cardiacum is the critical component of this system. The cardioaccelerator is a heat-stable proteinaceous compound.     

Intracranial self-stimulation in man

Intracranial self-stimulation techniques, modified for use with neuropsychiatric patients, provide data suggestive of positive and negative reinforcing properties of brief electrical stimulation to various subcortical structures of the human brain.     

Precocious cardiac orienting in a human anencephalic infant

An anencephalic infant, 3 to 6 weeks old, responded to acoustic stimulation with cardiac decelerations typical of the response pattern seen in normal, older infants. Such precocity implies unexpected competence of lower brain structures and suggests that, in the normal infant, feedback from immature higher centers may sometimes interfere with rather than modulate the functioning of lower centers.     

Mapping and Candidate Gene Screening of Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus Resistant Gene ty-5

To identify the inheritance pattern and perform fine mapping of ty-5 gene, P_1, P_2, F_1, BC_1 and F_2 generations were obtained through a cross between CLN32120 a-23(containing ty-5 gene, P_1) and S. lycopersicum Moneymaker(fully susceptible, P_2). The results showed that resistance of ty-5 gene was determined by a recessive effect. Meanwhile, it was presumed that another resistance gene might be involved in mediating the resistance to tomato yellow leaf curl virus(TYLCV). In this study, fine mapping was used to map TYLCV resistance locus to an interval between NAC1 and TES2461 on the short arm of chromosome 4 with genetic distances of 0.5 and 0.8 cM, respectively. qRT-PCR results showed that four candidate genes, SlNAC1; LOC104229164; LOC101260925 and LOC101261508 having resistance-related expression patterns, were the likely target genes of ty-5. In addition, it was found that the codominant marker TES2461 could be used in marker-assisted selection(MAS) breeding. The findings of this research provided the basis for future cloning of ty-5 gene as well as MAS breeding and plant resistance mechanism studies.     

Electroencephalographic responses to ionizing radiation

Electroencephalographic recordings made from chronically implanted cortical electrodes indicate that ionizing radiation has an immediate effect upon brain wave patterns. X-rays delivered at the rate of 0.2 roentgen per second produce an arousal effect resembling that which occurs as a result of stimulation through peripheral receptor systems.     

Stimulation-dependent alterations in peroxidase uptake at lobster neuromuscular junctions

The uptake of cytochemically demonstrable horseradish peroxidase into small vesicles within nerve endings in lobster stretcher muscles can be enhanced by electrical stimulation of transmitter release by the endings. This is observed particularly if stimulation is interrupted periodically and the nerves