Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

Appl Ergon 2021 Apr 14;94:103425. Epub 2021 Apr 14.

Ulm University, Dept. Human Factors, Albert-Einstein-Allee 41, 89081, Ulm, Germany.

Pedestrians rely on vehicle dynamics, engine sound, and driver cues. The lack of engine sound now constitutes an addressed pedestrian safety issue for (hybrid) electric vehicles ((H)EVs). Analogously, lacking driver cues may constitute a pedestrian safety issue for self-driving vehicles (SDVs). Read More

Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol 2021 Apr 14. Epub 2021 Apr 14.

Laboratorio de Neuroinmunología, Fundación Ciencia & Vida, Ñuñoa (7780272), Santiago, Chile; Facultad de Medicina y Ciencia, Universidad San Sebastián, Providencia (7510156), Santiago, Chile. Electronic address:

Background And Aims: CD4 T-cells constitute central players in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), driving inflammation in the gut-mucosa. Current evidence indicates that CCR9 and the integrin α4β7 are necessary and sufficient to imprint colonic homing on CD4 T-cells upon inflammation. Interestingly, dopaminergic signalling has been previously involved in leukocyte homing. Read More

New Phytol 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, 75 North Eagleville Road, Storrs, CT, USA, 06269-3043.

Anthocyanins play a variety of adaptive roles in both vegetative tissues and reproductive organs of plants. The broad functionality of these compounds requires sophisticated regulation of the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway to allow proper localization, timing, and optimal intensity of pigment deposition. While it is well-established that the committed steps of anthocyanin biosynthesis are activated by a highly conserved MYB-bHLH-WDR (MBW) protein complex in virtually all flowering plants, anthocyanin repression seems to be achieved by a wide variety of protein and small RNA families that function in different tissue types and in response to different developmental, environmental, and hormonal cues. Read More

Naturwissenschaften 2021 Apr 17;108(3):15. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, KU Leuven - University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Sexual pheromones are chemical molecules responsible for mediating sex recognition and mating events. Long- and close-range sexual pheromones act differently. The first type is released to attract potential partners, whereas the second coordinates the interactions after potential mating partners encounter each other. Read More

Alcohol Clin Exp Res 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA.

Background: The Alcohol and Addiction Research Domain Criteria (AARDoC) proposes that alcohol use disorder is associated with neural dysfunction in three primary domains: incentive salience, negative emotionality, and executive function. Prior studies in heavy drinking samples have examined brain activation changes associated with alcohol and negative affect cues, representing the incentive salience and negative emotionality domains, respectively; yet studies examining such cue-induced changes in functional connectivity are relatively sparse.

Methods: Non-treatment seeking heavy drinking adults (N=149, 56. Read More

J Med Entomol 2021 Apr 17. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit, Department of Entomology, Smithsonian Institution, MSC, MRC 534, 4210 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, MD 20746, USA.

Adult females and males of Ixodes affinis and Ixodes scapularis are illustrated by focus stacking image photography, and morphological character states are described that reliably differentiate the two species. In conjunction with other environmental cues, such as the questing phenology of adults, these characteristics will enable the rapid identification of adults of either sex along the southern Coastal Plain of the United States, where these species are sympatric. Read More

Stem Cell Rev Rep 2021 Apr 16. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Biomaterials and Organ Engineering Group, Centre for Biomaterials, Cellular and, Molecular Theranostics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, 632014, India.

Cardiovascular disorders (CVDs) are the leading cause of global death, widely occurs due to irreparable loss of the functional cardiomyocytes. Stem cell-based therapeutic approaches, particularly the use of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) is an emerging strategy to regenerate myocardium and thereby improving the cardiac function after myocardial infarction (MI). Most of the current approaches often employ the use of various biological and chemical factors as cues to trigger and modulate the differentiation of MSCs into the cardiac lineage. Read More

Atten Percept Psychophys 2021 Apr 16. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

University Grenoble Alpes, University Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000, Grenoble, France.

In the perception of self-motion, visual cues originating from an embodied humanoid avatar seen from a first-person perspective (1-PP) are processed in the same way as those originating from a person's own body. Here, we sought to determine whether the user's and avatar's bodies in virtual reality have to be colocalized for this visual integration. In Experiment 1, participants saw a whole-body avatar in a virtual mirror facing them. Read More

Cognition 2021 Apr 13:104686. Epub 2021 Apr 13.

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

One of the prominent ideas developed by Jacques Mehler and his colleagues was that perceptual tuning, present from birth on, enables infants, and language learners in general, to extract regularities from speech input. Here we discuss language learners'' ability to extract basic word order (VO or OV) structure from prosodic regularities in a language. The two are closely related: in phonological phrases of VO languages, the most prominent word is the rightmost one, and in OV languages, it is the leftmost one. Read More

Behav Res Ther 2021 Apr 2;141:103858. Epub 2021 Apr 2.

Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany. Electronic address:

Automatic approach biases toward smoking-related cues have been implicated in the development and maintenance of addictive behaviors. Studies aiming at modifying such biases have shown promise in changing maladaptive approach tendencies for smoking cues and reducing smoking behavior. However, training effects tend to be small and partly inconsistent. Read More

Behav Brain Res 2021 Apr 13:113297. Epub 2021 Apr 13.

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Wayne State University School of Medicine, 3901 Chrysler Dr, Tolan Park Suite 2C, Detroit, MI 48201 United States. Electronic address:

Fear and safety learning are necessary adaptive behaviors that develop over the course of maturation. While there is a large body of literature regarding the neurobiology of fear and safety learning in adults, less is known regarding safety learning during development. Given developmental changes in the brain, there are corresponding changes in safety learning that are quantifiable; these may serve to predict risk and point to treatment targets for fear and anxiety-related disorders in children and adolescents. Read More

Biomater Sci 2021 Apr 16. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Texas Heart Institute, 6770 Bertner Avenue, MC 1-135, Houston, TX 77030, USA. and RegenMedix Consulting LLC, Houston, TX 77030, USA.

New robust and reproducible differentiation approaches are needed to generate induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes of specific subtypes in predictable quantities for tissue-specific disease modeling, tissue engineering, and eventual clinical translation. Here, we assessed whether powdered decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) particles contained chamber-specific cues that could direct the cardiac differentiation of human iPSCs toward an atrial phenotype. Human hearts were dissected and the left ventricle (LV) and left atria (LA) were isolated, minced, and decellularized using an adapted submersion decellularization technique to generate chamber-specific powdered dECM. Read More

J Speech Lang Hear Res 2021 Apr 16:1-10. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Psychology/Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Purpose Speech perception in noise becomes difficult with age but can be facilitated by audiovisual (AV) speech cues and sentence context in healthy older adults. However, individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may present with deficits in AV integration, potentially limiting the extent to which they can benefit from AV cues. This study investigated the benefit of these cues in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), individuals with AD, and healthy older adult controls. Read More

J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 2021 Apr 16. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Linguistics, and the Australian Hearing Hub, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia.

Listeners typically perceive a sound as originating from the direction of its source, even as direct sound is followed milliseconds later by reflected sound from multiple different directions. Early-arriving sound is emphasised in the ascending auditory pathway, including the medial superior olive (MSO) where binaural neurons encode the interaural-time-difference (ITD) cue for spatial location. Perceptually, weighting of ITD conveyed during rising sound energy is stronger at 600 Hz than at 200 Hz, consistent with the minimum stimulus rate for binaural adaptation, and with the longer reverberation times at 600 Hz, compared with 200 Hz, in many natural outdoor environments. Read More

J Assoc Res Otolaryngol 2021 Apr 16. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Neurosciences, Research Group Experimental ORL, KU Leuven University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Developmental dyslexia is most commonly associated with phonological processing difficulties. However, children with dyslexia may experience poor speech-in-noise perception as well. Although there is an ongoing debate whether a speech perception deficit is inherent to dyslexia or acts as an aggravating risk factor compromising learning to read indirectly, improving speech perception might boost reading-related skills and reading acquisition. Read More

J Soc Psychol 2021 Apr 16:1-17. Epub 2021 Apr 16.

Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca.

Social attention is the ability to share with social partners the attentional focus on an object and to orient attentional resources after observing others' behaviors. In the present work, we analyzed whether social threat may influence social attention during the observation of social agents' reach-to-grasp movements. In two experimental studies, we adopted a Posner-like paradigm: participants were required to classify neutral stimuli appearing in a congruent or incongruent position with the actor's movement. Read More

Front Neurol 2021 30;12:637199. Epub 2021 Mar 30.

Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, United States.

Real-time gait biofeedback is a promising rehabilitation strategy for improving biomechanical deficits in walking patterns of post-stroke individuals. Because wearable sensor technologies are creating avenues for novel applications of gait biofeedback, including use in tele-health, there is a need to evaluate the state of the current evidence regarding the effectiveness of biofeedback for post-stroke gait training. The objectives of this review are to: (1) evaluate the current state of biofeedback literature pertaining to post-stroke gait training; and (2) determine future research directions related to gait biofeedback in context of evolving technologies. Read More

Front Hum Neurosci 2021 30;15:635611. Epub 2021 Mar 30.

Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, FR 3C, Marseille, France.

Human adaptive behavior in sensorimotor control is aimed to increase the confidence in feedforward mechanisms when sensory afferents are uncertain. It is thought that these feedforward mechanisms rely on predictions from internal models. We investigate whether the brain uses an internal model of physical laws (gravitational and inertial forces) to help estimate body equilibrium when tactile inputs from the foot sole are depressed by carrying extra weight. Read More

Oikos 2015 Jul 18;124(7):835-841. Epub 2014 Nov 18.

Dept of Biology, Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.

Many plants produce structural defenses to deter feeding by herbivores. However, many previous studies testing whether spines are effective at defending against mammalian herbivores have produced equivocal results. These ambiguous results are hypothesized to be due to herbivore counter-adaptations. Read More

Mol Psychiatry 2021 Apr 15. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA.

A precise fear memory encoding a traumatic event enables an individual to avoid danger and identify safety. An impaired fear memory (contextual amnesia), however, puts the individual at risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the inability to identify a safe context when encountering trauma-associated cues later in life. Although it is gaining attention that contextual amnesia is a critical etiologic factor for PTSD, there is no treatment currently available that can reverse contextual amnesia, and whether such treatment can prevent the development of PTSD is unknown. Read More

Sci Rep 2021 Apr 15;11(1):8266. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

Department of Biology, Zoology Unit, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.

Prey species assess the risk of threat using visual, olfactory, and acoustic cues from their habitat. Thus, they modify their behavior in order to avoid encounters with competitors, predators, and human disturbances that endanger their fitness. European mink (Mustela lutreola) is a critically endangered species that can be preyed upon by larger carnivores and displaced by dominant conspecifics to areas of lower quality, e. Read More

Sci Rep 2021 Apr 15;11(1):8242. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

Research Group Reproduction and Genetics, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Laarbeeklaan 103, Jette, 1090, Brussels, Belgium.

We identified a human embryonic stem cell subline that fails to respond to the differentiation cues needed to obtain endoderm derivatives, differentiating instead into extra-embryonic mesoderm. RNA-sequencing analysis showed that the subline has hyperactivation of the WNT and BMP4 signalling. Modulation of these pathways with small molecules confirmed them as the cause of the differentiation impairment. Read More

Otol Neurotol 2021 Apr 14. Epub 2021 Apr 14.

Hearts for Hearing, Tulsa, Oklahoma Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.

Purpose: Electric and acoustic stimulation (EAS) with preserved hearing in the implanted ear provides benefit for speech understanding, spatial hearing, and quality of life in adults. However, there is limited research on EAS outcomes in children. The aims of this study were to estimate the magnitude of EAS-related benefit on speech understanding in children with preserved acoustic hearing and to determine what role acoustic interaural time difference (ITD) sensitivity may have on said EAS benefit. Read More

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021 Apr;118(16)

Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21201;

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness among the elderly. Canonical disease models suggest that defective interactions between complement factor H (CFH) and cell surface heparan sulfate (HS) result in increased alternative complement pathway activity, cytolytic damage, and tissue inflammation in the retina. Although these factors are thought to contribute to increased disease risk, multiple studies indicate that noncanonical mechanisms that result from defective CFH and HS interaction may contribute to the progression of AMD as well. Read More

Learn Mem 2021 May 15;28(5):162-170. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

Institute for Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, University Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.

Spatial memory comprises different representational systems that are sensitive to different environmental cues, like proximal landmarks or local boundaries. Here we examined how sleep affects the formation of a spatial representation integrating landmark-referenced and boundary-referenced representations. To this end, participants ( = 42) were familiarized with an environment featuring both a proximal landmark and a local boundary. Read More

Pers Soc Psychol Bull 2021 Apr 15:1461672211007229. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

Evolutionary psychologists propose that men's conspicuous consumption facilitates mate attraction because it predicts resource investment in offspring. This article elaborates on the ultimate functions of men's luxury displays based on Life History Theory. Three studies provide evidence for phenotypic mimicry, in which consumer product features mimicking male secondary sex characteristics indicate investment in mating competition, at the expense of paternal investment. Read More

Cognition 2021 Apr 12;212:104702. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.

The language system uses syntactic, semantic, as well as prosodic cues to efficiently guide auditory sentence comprehension. Prosodic cues, such as pitch accents, can build expectations about upcoming sentence elements. This study investigates to what extent syntactic and semantic expectations generated by pitch accents can be dissociated and if so, which cues take precedence when contradictory information is present. Read More

Hum Mov Sci 2021 Apr 12;77:102798. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, USA. Electronic address:

Humans readily entrain their movements to a beat, including matching their gait to a prescribed tempo. Rhythmic auditory cueing tasks have been used to enhance stepping behavior in a variety of clinical populations. However, there is limited understanding of how temporal accuracy of gait changes over practice in healthy young adults. Read More

Cell Signal 2021 Apr 12:110006. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Development and Stem Cells Program, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia; Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden. Electronic address:

Cell-extracellular matrix interactions are crucial for the development of an organism from the earliest stages of embryogenesis. The main constituents of the extracellular matrix are collagens, laminins, proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans that form a network of interactions. The extracellular matrix and its associated molecules provide developmental cues and structural support from the outside of cells during development. Read More

J Exp Med 2021 Jun;218(6)

Division of Hematology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO.

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are capable of entering the cell cycle to replenish the blood system in response to inflammatory cues; however, excessive proliferation in response to chronic inflammation can lead to either HSC attrition or expansion. The mechanism(s) that limit HSC proliferation and expansion triggered by inflammatory signals are poorly defined. Here, we show that long-term HSCs (HSCLT) rapidly repress protein synthesis and cell cycle genes following treatment with the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-1. Read More