The dexterity of the human hand depends largely on the ability to move the fingers independently, the execution of which requires the coordination of multiple muscles. How these muscle ensembles are recruited by the central nervous system is not clear. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation was to identify some of the neural mechanisms whereby certain hand muscles are recruited into functional groups, or muscle synergies, needed for the generation of specific hand and finger movements.We characterized the organization of synaptic inputs onto the motor neurons supplying different compartments of a multi-tendoned finger flexor, the flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS). We found that the motor neurons controlling different finger compartments of the FDS do not receive entirely segregated inputs, and that the motor neurons supplying adjacent compartments receive substantially more common synaptic input than motor neurons supplying compartments further apart. The FDS and another multi-tendoned finger flexor, the flexor digitorum profundus (FDP), both insert onto each finger and function together to flex the fingers. Surprisingly, we found that the motor neurons controlling the compartments of FDS and FDP to the same finger receive completely independent inputs, despite similar mechanical functions of the two muscles. Thus, there is more neural coupling between motor neurons supplying compartments of the same muscle that move different fingers than there is between motor neurons supplying the compartments of two different muscles that move the same finger.Although the motor neurons supplying the flexors of the tips of the thumb [flexor pollicis longus (FPL)] and index finger [index compartment of the flexor digitorum profundus (FDP2)] receive substantial shared synaptic input during a precision grip task, the removal of the normal tactile feedback from the digit pads did not change the amount of common input to the two motor neuron pools, indicating these last-order divergent neurons do not require tactile afferent inputs for activation. Finally, in contrast to the substantial shared input to motor neurons supplying these two extrinsic muscles (FPL and FDP2), the motor neurons supplying two intrinsic muscles of the thumb [adductor pollicis (AdP)] and index finger [first dorsal interosseous (FDI)] were shown to receive few shared inputs during precision grip.

Gyvosios sistemos tikriausia labiausiai žadina žmogaus smalsumą ir suteikia įkvėpimo bendrųjų dėsnių ieškojimams. Daugelio jų sudėtinga tvarka ir dinamika vis dar yra neįmintos mįslės ir neišspręsti uždaviniai. Vienas tokių uždavinių yra sinchronizacijos atsiradimas, įtaka ir valdymas neuronų populiacijose. Nors neuronas – sudėtinga biologinė sistema ir matematiniai jo modeliai yra pakankamai komplikuoti, sinchronizacija silpnai įtakoja atskiro neorono ypatybes, bet atspindi visos populiacijos dinamiką. Pasinaudodami šia palankia aplinkybe, galime aproksimuoti neuronų populiaciją labai paprastų globaliai susietųjų (sąveikauja kiekvienas elementas su kiekvienu) osciliatorių ansambliu ir gauti gerą matematinio populiacijos dinamikos modelio sutapimą su realia sistema. Darni neuronų veikla žmogaus organizmui yra gyvybiškai svarbus procesas, kurio sutrikimai dažniausiai turi stiprias neigiamas pasekmes. Empiriškai buvo pastebėta, kad atsiradus Parkinsono ligos simptomams, dalis neuronų sinchronizuojasi. Kai ši sinchronizacija sustabdoma, ligos simptomai žymiai susilpnėja arba visai išnyksta. Medicinoje jau naudojamas aukšto dažnio giluminės smegenų stimuliacijos metodas gydyti šiai ligai yra veiksmingas, bet šis mechanizmas nėra gerai suprantamas ir turi nemažai neigiamų savybių: · metodas yra invazinis, · nėra grįžtamojo ryšio, · žmogaus smegenys yra adaptyvios ir ilgainiui pripranta prie pastovios stimuliacijos, o tai iššaukia stimuliacijos didinimą, · galimos komplikacijos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The phenomenon of the synchronization was observed and studied since XVII century and until today has been the main subject of many researches and core trigger of many devices as well as nature appearences. Though sometimes synchronization is not a desirable process and it is important to learn how to command over it in order to suppress or to strengthen synchronous behaviour in accordance with the results one would like to obtain. This study focuses on controlling the process of synchronization in globally coupled ensemble of oscillators with a configuration of separated observed and stimulated subsystems. The development of such technique could be usefull for suppression of the undesired synchronization of neural networks in the cases like Parkinsonian desease and dystonia. The main advantage of this method is being noninvasive feedback control.

Synchrony, or rhythmic bodily unison activities such as drumming or cadence marching, has attracted growing scholarly interest. Among laboratory subjects, synchrony elicits prosocial responses, including altruism and empathy. In light of such findings, researchers in social psychology and the bio-cultural study of religion have suggested that synchrony played a role in humanity’s evolutionary history by engendering collectivistic commitments and social cohesion. These models propose that synchrony enhances cohesion by making people feel united. However, such models overlook the importance of differentiated social relations, such as hierarchies. This dissertation builds on this insight by drawing on neuroscience, coordination dynamics, social psychology, anthropology, and ritual studies to generate a complex model of synchrony, ritual, and social hierarchy, which is then tested in an experimental study. In the hypothesized model, shared motor unison suppresses the brain’s ability to distinguish cognitively between self-caused and exogenous motor acts, resulting in subjective self-other overlap. During synchrony each participant is dynamically entrained to a group mean rhythm; this “immanent authority” prevents any one participant from unilaterally dictating the rhythm, flattening relative hierarchy. As a ritualized behavior, synchrony therefore paradigmatically evokes shared ideals of equality and unity. However, when lab participants were assigned to either a synchrony or asynchrony manipulation and given a collaborative task requiring complex coordination, synchrony predicted a marginally lower degree of collaboration and significantly lower interpersonal satisfaction. These findings imply that unity and equality can undercut group cohesion if the collective agenda is a shared goal that requires interpersonal coordination. My results emphasize that, despite the inevitable tensions associated with social hierarchy, complementary roles and hierarchy are vital for certain aspects of social cohesion. Ritual and convention institute social boundaries that can be adroitly negotiated, even as egalitarian effervescence such as communitas (in the sense of Victor Turner) facilitates social unity and inspires affective commitments. These findings corroborate theories in ritual studies and sociology that caution both against excessive emphasis on inner emotive states (such as empathy) and against excessively rigid conventions or roles. An organic balance between unity and functional differentiation is vital for genuinely robust, long-term social cohesion. / 2018-06-21T00:00:00Z

Submitted by Jos? Henrique Henrique (jose.neves@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-06-18T23:07:24Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) anderson_rodrigues_oliveira.pdf: 843156 bytes, checksum: 2052578a8e18183b399a2382be961ff9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Martins Cruz (rodrigo.cruz@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-07-18T12:24:10Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) anderson_rodrigues_oliveira.pdf: 843156 bytes, checksum: 2052578a8e18183b399a2382be961ff9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-18T12:24:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) anderson_rodrigues_oliveira.pdf: 843156 bytes, checksum: 2052578a8e18183b399a2382be961ff9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico (CNPq) / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / Funda??o de Amparo ? Pesquisa do estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) / Objetivou-se determinar os efeitos da associa??o entre milho mo?do ou silagem de milho reidratado com ureia convencional ou de lenta libera??o para os par?metros de consumo e digestibilidade de nutrientes em bovinos de corte. Utilizou-se dois consecutivos quadrados latinos (4x4) com dura??o de 56 dias, representado por quatro tratamentos (T1 milho mo?do + ureia comum, T2 milho mo?do + ureia protegida, T3 silagem de milho reidratado + ureia comum, T4 silagem de milho reidratado + ureia protegida) em quatro per?odos experimentais de 14 dias cada, com quatro animais em cada delineamento experimental. Os consumos de mat?ria seca (MS), prote?na bruta (PB) e de nutrientes digest?veis totais (NDT) n?o foram influenciados pelos tratamentos (P<0,05), no entanto houve efeito significativo (P<0,05) para os consumos de fibra em detergente neutro (FDN) e fibra em detergente ?cido (FDA), assim como tamb?m para a digestibilidade verdadeira da mat?ria seca (DVMS) e digestibilidade aparente total da PB (DapPB), da FDN (DapFDN) e FDA (DapFDA). As associa??es entre silagem de milho reidratado com a ureia comum ou a protegida demonstraram efetivo incremento na qualidade nutricional das dietas T3 e T4, pois houve redu??es no consumo de FDN e FDA e aumento nas digestibilidade aparente da MS, PB, FDN e FDA, o que possibilitou inferir que houve o sincronismo nutricional para as referidas dietas conforme os referidos par?metros nutricionais. / Disserta??o (Mestrado) ? Programa de P?s-Gradua??o em Zootecnia, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, 2017. / The objective of this study was to determine the effects of the interaction between ground corn or rehydrated corn grain silage associated with conventional urea or slow-release urea in the parameters of intake and nutrient digestibility. The experimental design was a Latin Square (4x4), lasting 56 days, represented by four treatments (T1 ground corn + common urea, T2 ground corn + slow-release urea, T3 rehydrated corn silage + common urea, T4 rehydrated corn silage + slow-release urea) in four experimental periods lasting 14 days with two repetitions (eight animals) resulting in two simultaneous Latin squares. The intake of MS, PB and NDT were not influenced by treatments (P <0.05), however there was a significant effect (P <0.05) not only for NDF and ADF intakes, but also for DVMS, DapCB, DapNDF and DapADF. The associations between rehydrated corn silage with common or protected urea increased the nutritional quality of the T3 and T4 diets, because there were reductions in the consumption of NDF and ADF and increase in the apparent digestibility of MS, CP, NDF and ADF, making it possible to infer that there was nutritional synchronism for said diets according to said nutritional parameters.

abstract: Attachment relationships serve a variety of important functions for infants and adults. Despite the importance of attachment relationships in adults, the mechanisms that underlie the formation or maintenance of these kinds of relationships outside of romantic relationships remains chronically understudied. The current research investigated whether the mechanism of synchrony, which is associated with attachment formation in the parent-infant literature, may still be tied to attachment in adults. To measure this association, these studies showed participants videos to prime synchrony, and then measured activation of attachment concepts in a word completion task. The results of Experiment 1 showed that attachment style moderated the effects of the video prime such that those who were securely attached showed activation of attachment concepts while watching the Synchrony video. Those with a preoccupied attachment style showed activation of attachment concepts when they viewed the Asynchrony video. Those with a dismissive attachment style showed an unhypothesized activation of social distance concepts when viewing the Synchrony video. Experiment 2 suggested an overall effect of the Synchrony video on activation of attachment concepts. However, there was no effect of attachment style on these results. Limits of these studies and future directions are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2015

abstract: Literature was reviewed about how synchrony occurs in infant-parent dyads, in emotion, and physiologically in couple dyads. Social baseline theory suggests that both conversation and interpersonal touch confer benefits by reducing burden on the participants through coregulatory processes. The current study examined how affectionate touch and positive conversation influenced physiological synchrony, a potential mechanism of physiological coregulation, in couples. Because synchrony is believed to occur within the autonomic nervous system, in the present study, physiological synchrony was measured using cardiac interbeat interval (IBI) as an indicator of autonomic nervous system activation. Couples were assigned to one of four conditions: interpersonal touch with positive conversation, interpersonal touch without conversation, positive conversation with no interpersonal touch, and neither interpersonal touch nor conversation. We hypothesized that 1) IBI synchrony between spouses within the real data would be significantly higher than within a phase-shuffled version of the data; and 2) synchrony would be strongest in the touch-talk condition, followed by the touch-no talk condition, followed by the talk-no touch- condition, and finally by the no touch-no talk condition. We also investigated whether there was a tendency for husbands or wives to serve as leader or follower in the four conditions. Using windowed lagged cross-correlations, we found that synchrony within the real data was stronger than synchrony within the shuffled data, suggesting that it reflects an ongoing interpersonal process. Next, we found that there was significantly greater synchrony in the touch-talk than in the touch-no talk condition, marginally greater synchrony in the touch-no talk condition than in the no touch-talk condition, and significantly greater synchrony in the no touch-talk than in the no touch-no talk conditions, suggesting that talk, rather than touch, was driving these synchrony levels. We also found that the only condition with a significant level of leading-following pattern was the no touch-talk condition. More husbands than wives led the covariation in IBI when couples were conversing but not touching. When touch was included this effect did not occur. Future research should include potential moderators such as marital satisfaction and investigate whether seeing one’s partner influences synchrony. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2018

El artículo analiza las subordinadas locativas y modales del tehuelche o aonek’o ?a?jen, lengua indígena de la Patagonia argentina hablada entre el río Santa Cruz y el Estrecho de Magallanes. Actualmente, se halla en un proceso avanzado de pérdida, aunque la comunidad tehuelche intenta revitalizarla. En el marco de la tipología funcional, se describen ambas cláusulas teniendo en cuenta el elemento que las introduce, su ubicación en la oración principal y el modo del núcleo predicativo. Asimismo, se consideran las similitudes existentes entre ambas. Por último, se explica el origen de los subordinantes y de las variantes que estos presentan. Para ello, se recurre a la comparación con el selknam, lengua perteneciente a la familia Chon, al igual que el tehuelche. / This article analyzes locative and manner clauses of the Tehuelche or Aonek’o ?a?jen, an indigenous language of the Argentinian Patagonia, spoken between the Santa Cruz river and the Strait of Magellan. At present, this language is facing an advanced process of extinction, despite Tehuelche community efforts to revitalize it. Locative and manner clauses are described according to a functional-typological frame, by taking into account the element that introduces them, their location in the sentence and the mood of the predicative core. In addition, the similarities found between both clauses are considered. Finally, the origin of the subordinators are explained by comparing them with those found in Selknam, a language that, like Tehuelche, belongs to the Chon family.

Recently-developed technologies for monitoring activity in populations of neurons make it possible for the first time, in principle, to ask many basic questions in neuroscience. However, computational tools for analyzing newly available data need to be developed. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to this effort by focusing on two specific problems. First, we used a point-process regression framework to provide a methodology for statistical assessment of the link between neural spike synchrony and network-wide oscillations. In simulations, we showed that our method can recover ground-truth relationships, and in two types of spike train data we illustrated the kinds of results the method can produce. The approach improves on methods in the literature and may be adapted to many different experimental settings. Second, we considered the problem of source extraction in calcium imaging data, i.e., the detection of neurons within a field of view and the extraction of each neuron’s activity. The data we mainly focus on are recorded with a microendoscope, which has the unique advantage of imaging deep brain regions in freely behaving animals. These data suffer from high levels of background fluorescence, as well as the potential for overlapping neuronal signals. Based on the existing constrained nonnegative matrix factorization (CNMF) framework, we developed an efficient method to process microendoscopic data. Our method utilizes a novel algorithm to initialize the spatial shapes and temporal activity of the neurons from the raw video data independently from the strong fluctuating background. This step ensures the efficiency and accuracy of solving a nonconvex CNMF problem. Our method also models the complicated background by including its low-spatial frequency structure and the locally-low-rank feature to avoid absorbing cellular signals into the background term. We developed a tractable solution to estimate the background activity using this new model. After subtracting the approximated background, we followed the CNMF framework to demix neural signals and recover denoised and deconvolved temporal activity. We optimized several algorithms in solving the CNMF problems to get accurate results. In practice, our method outperforms all existing methods and has been adopted by many experimental labs.

Studying older adults who are aging ‘successfully’ (i.e., avoiding disease/disability; maintaining high cognitive and physical functioning; engaging in meaningful interpersonal/social engagement) may offer insight into variables that contribute to cognitive change throughout the lifespan. Successful aging is related to levels of engagement, which may be promoted by the problem solving and reevaluation encouraged by the creative process (Fisher & Specht, 1999). Creative thinking requires the consideration of diverse concepts and strategies (e.g., generating many solutions), as well as the regulated filtering of these possibilities (e.g., neither too permissive nor too narrow when eliminating ideas; Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2011). Cognitive inhibition is necessary for goal-directed behavior, and may also promote creativity by influencing abilities such as plasticity and innovation. Performance on executive control tasks, especially those that draw on inhibition, are impacted by age. Performance on inhibitory (but not excitatory) tasks may be sensitive to arousal levels that fluctuate with circadian rhythm (synchrony effect). The current study examined performance on a variety of neuropsychological and creativity measures at two times of the day in a sample of successfully aging adults aged 70-79. Assessments of executive function, inhibition, and creativity (i.e., verbal and non-verbal divergent thinking) were administered to older adults twice, once at a time when inhibitory performance was expected to be ideal (synchronous) and another at a time when inhibitory performance was expected to be reduced (non-synchronous). We hypothesized that morning testing (synchronous) trials of inhibitory tasks would exhibit lower latency and error rates than evening testing (non-synchronous) trials; morning testing (synchronous) trials of creative potential tasks would exhibit lower fluency, flexibility, and originality scores than evening testing (non-synchronous) trials; and that Need For Cognition (NFC) scores and Information-Orientation ISI subscale scores would be positively correlated with overall (AM + PM) creativity scores (fluency, flexibility, originality). Participants were expected to demonstrate time of day effects on Stroop and TMT performance. Synchrony effects were not observed in this study. There was a significant relation between creative potential and Need for Cognition scores but not between creative potential and scores on the Information-Orientation subscale of the ISI. The current sample may have compensated with cognitive challenges such as those induced by testing time effects. These findings may suggest that a successfully-aging cohort is not impacted by synchrony effects. No previous research has used synchrony to compare aging trajectories (pathological, usual, successful) on cognitive performance. It is feasible that a successfully aging population would have significant cognitive reserve, brain reserve, or scaffolding strategies to compensate for the additional cognitive challenge of non-optimal testing time (Düzel, Schütze, Yonelinas, & Heinze, 2011; Reuter-Lorenz & Park, 2014). Indeed, a marker of successful aging is to compensate well with age-related changes and demonstrate minimal- to no- deficits in performance (Rowe & Kahn, 1997). Synchrony changes in cognitive performance may not be evident in a successfully aging population. The current study provides evidence that motivates intriguing questions about successful aging, inhibition, creativity, and time of day.

<p> Individuals often display preferences for the morning or evening; this preference is referred to as a chronotype and is supported by distinct diurnal physiological and behavioural fluctuations. Whereas prior work suggests an increase in individuals executive control throughout the day, the current study assesses the diurnal time course of executive control and the tendency to mind wander as a function of chronotype. Results suggest that executive control processes are modulated by time of day, with chronotype match conditions associated with increased executive control, akin to the 'Synchrony Effect' of chronotypes (Hasher et al., 2002). Results suggest that variations in the level of semantic processing in a task influences time of day effects on non-automatic (executive control) functioning. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)