Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

Neuroimage 2021 Apr 6:118031. Epub 2021 Apr 6.

Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.; Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address:

The primary somatosensory cortex (S1) plays a key role in the processing and integration of afferent somatosensory inputs along an anterior-to-posterior axis, contributing towards necessary human function. It is believed that anatomical connectivity can be used to probe hierarchical organization, however direct characterization of this principle in-vivo within humans remains elusive. Here, we use resting-state functional connectivity as a complement to anatomical connectivity to investigate topographical principles of human S1. Read More

Hum Brain Mapp 2021 Apr 9. Epub 2021 Apr 9.

Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.

Floatation-Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) is a procedure that reduces stimulation of the human nervous system by minimizing sensory signals from visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, thermal, tactile, vestibular, gravitational, and proprioceptive channels, in addition to minimizing musculoskeletal movement and speech. Initial research has found that Floatation-REST can elicit short-term reductions in anxiety, depression, and pain, yet little is known about the brain networks impacted by the intervention. This study represents the first functional neuroimaging investigation of Floatation-REST, and we utilized a data-driven exploratory analysis to determine whether the intervention leads to altered patterns of resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC). Read More

Phys Rev Lett 2021 Mar;126(12):120601

Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, LPTMS, 91405 Orsay, France.

The nature of level set percolation in the two-dimensional Gaussian free field has been an elusive question. Using a loop-model mapping, we show that there is a nontrivial percolation transition and characterize the critical point. In particular, the correlation length diverges exponentially, and the critical clusters are "logarithmic fractals," whose area scales with the linear size as A∼L^{2}/sqrt[lnL]. Read More

Adv Exp Med Biol 2021 ;1305:35-55

Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Department of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is frequently characterized as a disorder of the disconnection syndrome. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has played a critical role in supporting this view, with much investigation providing a large amount of evidence of structural connectivity abnormalities in the disorder. Recent research on the human connectome combined neuroimaging techniques with graph theoretic methods to highlight the disrupted topological properties of large-scale structural brain networks under depression, involving global metrics (e. Read More

Front Neuroanat 2021 22;15:635921. Epub 2021 Mar 22.

Interdisciplinary Program in Translational Neuroscience, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States.

The nervous system coordinates pathways and circuits to process sensory information and govern motor behaviors. Mapping these pathways is important to further understand the connectivity throughout the nervous system and is vital for developing treatments for neuronal diseases and disorders. We targeted long ascending propriospinal neurons (LAPNs) in the rat spinal cord utilizing Fluoro-Ruby (FR) [10kD rhodamine dextran amine (RDA)], and two dual-viral systems. Read More