scholarly journals Brain oscillations and connectivity in autism spectrum disorders (ASD): new approaches to methodology, measurement and modelling

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kessler ◽  
R. A. Seymour ◽  
G. Rippon

AbstractAlthough atypical social behaviour remains a key characterisation of ASD, the presence of sensory and perceptual abnormalities has been given a more central role in recent classification changes. An understanding of the origins of such aberrations could thus prove a fruitful focus for ASD research. Early neurocognitive models of ASD suggested that the study of high frequency activity in the brain as a measure of cortical connectivity might provide the key to understanding the neural correlates of sensory and perceptual deviations in ASD. As our review shows, the findings from subsequent research have been inconsistent, with a lack of agreement about the nature of any high frequency disturbances in ASD brains. Based on the application of new techniques using more sophisticated measures of brain synchronisation, direction of information flow, and invoking the coupling between high and low frequency bands, we propose a framework which could reconcile apparently conflicting findings in this area and would be consistent both with emerging neurocognitive models of autism and with the heterogeneity of the condition.HighlightsSensory and perceptual aberrations are becoming a core feature of the ASD symptom prolife.Brain oscillations and functional connectivity are consistently affected in ASD.Relationships (coupling) between high and low frequencies are also deficient.Novel framework proposes the ASD brain is marked by local dysregulation and reduced top-down connectivityThe ASD brain’s ability to predict stimuli and events in the environment may be affectedThis may underlie perceptual sensitives and cascade into social processing deficits in ASD

2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (6) ◽  
pp. 2497-2512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kösem ◽  
Anahita Basirat ◽  
Leila Azizi ◽  
Virginie van Wassenhove

During speech listening, the brain parses a continuous acoustic stream of information into computational units (e.g., syllables or words) necessary for speech comprehension. Recent neuroscientific hypotheses have proposed that neural oscillations contribute to speech parsing, but whether they do so on the basis of acoustic cues (bottom-up acoustic parsing) or as a function of available linguistic representations (top-down linguistic parsing) is unknown. In this magnetoencephalography study, we contrasted acoustic and linguistic parsing using bistable speech sequences. While listening to the speech sequences, participants were asked to maintain one of the two possible speech percepts through volitional control. We predicted that the tracking of speech dynamics by neural oscillations would not only follow the acoustic properties but also shift in time according to the participant's conscious speech percept. Our results show that the latency of high-frequency activity (specifically, beta and gamma bands) varied as a function of the perceptual report. In contrast, the phase of low-frequency oscillations was not strongly affected by top-down control. Whereas changes in low-frequency neural oscillations were compatible with the encoding of prelexical segmentation cues, high-frequency activity specifically informed on an individual's conscious speech percept.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Talesh Jafadideh ◽  
Babak Mohammadzadeh Asl

AbstractGraph signal processing is a subset of signal processing enabling the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in brain topological domain. One of the most important and highly interested tool of GSP is graph Fourier transform (GFT) by which brain signals can be analyzed in different graph frequency bands. In this paper, the resting-state fMRI (rfMRI) data is analyzed using GFT tool in order to discover new knowledge about the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and find features discriminating between ASD and typically control (TC) subjects. For ASD group, the signal concentration in both low and high frequency bands is decreased by increasing the age in most of the brain well-known networks. The ASD in comparison to TC shows less intention for changing the signal concentration level when the level is very low or very high. In graph low frequency band, increasing the age is along with increasing the segregation and integration of brain ROIs respectively for ASD and TC. Also, in this band, the brain ROIs integration of ASD is more than TC. By increasing the age, the auditory network of ASD subjects shows increasing segregation and integration in graph low and high frequency bands, respectively. The reduced segregation of default mode network in ASD is happened in graph middle and higher frequency bands. The functional connectivity analysis between low and high frequency signals shows that some of the high frequency ROIs have connections with all low frequency ROIs so that the most of these connections are dramatically and significantly different between ASD and TC. By analyzing the local vertex frequency spectrum (LVFS) of ASD and TC at different states, it is seen these groups show contradictory behaviors with respect to each other in brain default mode network in two states. The results of different scenarios at different graph frequency bands demonstrate that using functional and structural data together can provide powerful tool for recognizing the ASD or even other brain disorders.


2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1864) ◽  
pp. 20171670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly C. Womack ◽  
Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard ◽  
Luis A. Coloma ◽  
Juan C. Chaparro ◽  
Kim L. Hoke

Sensory losses or reductions are frequently attributed to relaxed selection. However, anuran species have lost tympanic middle ears many times, despite anurans' use of acoustic communication and the benefit of middle ears for hearing airborne sound. Here we determine whether pre-existing alternative sensory pathways enable anurans lacking tympanic middle ears (termed earless anurans) to hear airborne sound as well as eared species or to better sense vibrations in the environment. We used auditory brainstem recordings to compare hearing and vibrational sensitivity among 10 species (six eared, four earless) within the Neotropical true toad family (Bufonidae). We found that species lacking middle ears are less sensitive to high-frequency sounds, however, low-frequency hearing and vibrational sensitivity are equivalent between eared and earless species. Furthermore, extratympanic hearing sensitivity varies among earless species, highlighting potential species differences in extratympanic hearing mechanisms. We argue that ancestral bufonids may have sufficient extratympanic hearing and vibrational sensitivity such that earless lineages tolerated the loss of high frequency hearing sensitivity by adopting species-specific behavioural strategies to detect conspecifics, predators and prey.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (19) ◽  
pp. 8081-8099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonietta Capotondi ◽  
Prashant D. Sardeshmukh ◽  
Lucrezia Ricciardulli

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is commonly viewed as a low-frequency tropical mode of coupled atmosphere–ocean variability energized by stochastic wind forcing. Despite many studies, however, the nature of this broadband stochastic forcing and the relative roles of its high- and low-frequency components in ENSO development remain unclear. In one view, the high-frequency forcing associated with the subseasonal Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and westerly wind events (WWEs) excites oceanic Kelvin waves leading to ENSO. An alternative view emphasizes the role of the low-frequency stochastic wind components in directly forcing the low-frequency ENSO modes. These apparently distinct roles of the wind forcing are clarified here using a recently released high-resolution wind dataset for 1990–2015. A spectral analysis shows that although the high-frequency winds do excite high-frequency Kelvin waves, they are much weaker than their interannual counterparts and are a minor contributor to ENSO development. The analysis also suggests that WWEs should be viewed more as short-correlation events with a flat spectrum at low frequencies that can efficiently excite ENSO modes than as strictly high-frequency events that would be highly inefficient in this regard. Interestingly, the low-frequency power of the rapid wind forcing is found to be higher during El Niño than La Niña events, suggesting a role also for state-dependent (i.e., multiplicative) noise forcing in ENSO dynamics.


Author(s):  
Joseph M. Corcoran ◽  
Marcel C. Remillieux ◽  
Ricardo A. Burdisso

As part of the effort to renew commercial supersonic flight, a predictive numerical tool to compute sonic boom transmission into buildings is under development. Due to the computational limitations of typical numerical methods used at low frequencies (e.g. Finite Element Method), it is necessary to develop a separate approach for the calculation of acoustic transmission and interior radiation at high frequencies. The high frequency approach can then later be combined with a low frequency method to obtain full frequency vibro-acoustic responses of buildings. An analytical method used for the computation of high frequency acoustic transmission through typical building partitions is presented in this paper. Each partition is taken in isolation and assumed to be infinite in dimension. Using the fact that a sonic boom generated far from the structure will approximate plane wave incidence, efficient analytical solutions for the vibration and acoustic radiation of different types of partitions are developed. This is linked to a commercial ray tracing code to compute the high frequency interior acoustic response and for auralization of transmitted sonic booms. Acoustic and vibration results of this high frequency tool are compared to experimental data for a few example cases demonstrating its efficiency and accuracy.


1993 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Batra ◽  
S. Kuwada ◽  
T. R. Stanford

1. Localization of sounds has traditionally been considered to be performed by a duplex mechanism utilizing interaural temporal differences (ITDs) at low frequencies and interaural intensity differences at higher frequencies. More recently, it has been found that listeners can detect ITDs at high frequencies if the amplitude of the sound varies and an ITD is present in the envelope. Here we report the responses of neurons in the inferior colliculi of unanesthetized rabbits to ITDs of the envelopes of sinusoidally amplitude-modulated (SAM) tones. 2. Neurons were studied extracellularly with glass-coated Pt-Ir or Pt-W microelectrodes. Their sensitivity to ITDs in the envelopes of high-frequency sounds (> or = 2 kHz) was assessed using SAM tones that were presented binaurally. The tones at the two ears had the same carrier frequency but modulation frequencies that differed by 1 Hz. This caused a cyclic variation in the ITD produced by the envelope. In this "binaural SAM" stimulus, the carriers caused no ITD because they were in phase. In addition to the binaural SAM stimulus, pure tones were used to investigate responses to ipsilateral and contralateral stimulation and the nature of the interaction during binaural stimulation. 3. Neurons tended to display one of two kinds of sensitivity to ITDs. Some neurons discharged maximally at the same ITD at all modulation frequencies > 250 Hz (peak-type neurons), whereas others were maximally suppressed at the same ITD (trough-type neurons). 4. At these higher modulation frequencies (> 250 Hz), the characteristic delays that neurons exhibited tended to lie within the range that a rabbit might normally encounter (+/- 300 microseconds). The peak-type neurons favored ipsilateral delays, which correspond to sounds in the contralateral sound field. The trough-type neurons showed no such preference. 5. The preference of peak-type neurons for a particular delay was sharper than that of trough-type neurons and was comparable to that observed in neurons of the inferior colliculus that are sensitive to delays of low-frequency pure tones. 6. At lower modulation frequencies (< 150 Hz) characteristic delays often lay beyond +/- 300 microseconds. 7. Increasing the ipsilateral intensity tended to shift the preferred delay ipsilaterally at lower (< 250 Hz), but not at higher, modulation frequencies. 8. When tested with pure tones, a substantial number of peak-type neurons were found to be excited by contralateral stimulation but inhibited by ipsilateral stimulation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-93
Author(s):  
Shuo Wu ◽  
Jizhan Liu ◽  
Jiangshan Wang ◽  
Dianhe Hao ◽  
Rongkai Wang

HighlightsA visualization method for the motion of strawberry leaves in an air-assisted spray field is proposed.Strawberry leaves showed two motion states in different critical velocity ranges of the sprayer airflow.The airflow instability and the turbulence effect are considered important factors for the leaf vibrations.A strawberry leaf azimuth angle in the range of 90° to 270° can provide good deposition with smaller droplets.Abstract. The reasonable motion of crop plants in an air-assisted spray field can improve droplet deposition. Therefore, this study focuses on the motion of strawberry leaves and the droplet deposition mechanism in an air-assisted spray field. First, this study proposes a descriptive method for strawberry leaf motion in an air-assisted spray field and clarifies the important influence of strawberry leaf motion on droplet deposition. Second, an experiment was performed on the motion and droplet capture of single strawberry leaves in multi-position postures in an air-assisted spray field. The results showed that the leaves had two motion states (i.e., low amplitude with low frequency and high amplitude with high frequency) at different airflow velocities and inclination angles, and the critical airflow velocity corresponding to the two motion states was determined to be 8.7 m s-1. When the azimuth angle of the strawberry leaves is in the range of 90° to 270°, a reasonable inclination angle of the airflow and the high frequency and high amplitude vibration state of the leaves driven by the airflow will provide good deposition and canopy penetration of droplets with smaller diameters. Keywords: Air-assisted spray field, Droplet deposition, Motion, Spray, Strawberry leaves.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Bröhl ◽  
Christoph Kayser

AbstractThe representation of speech in the brain is often examined by measuring the alignment of rhythmic brain activity to the speech envelope. To conveniently quantify this alignment (termed ‘speech tracking’) many studies consider the overall speech envelope, which combines acoustic fluctuations across the spectral range. Using EEG recordings, we show that using this overall envelope can provide a distorted picture on speech encoding. We systematically investigated the encoding of spectrally-limited speech-derived envelopes presented by individual and multiple noise carriers in the human brain. Tracking in the 1 to 6 Hz EEG bands differentially reflected low (0.2 – 0.83 kHz) and high (2.66 – 8 kHz) frequency speech-derived envelopes. This was independent of the specific carrier frequency but sensitive to attentional manipulations, and reflects the context-dependent emphasis of information from distinct spectral ranges of the speech envelope in low frequency brain activity. As low and high frequency speech envelopes relate to distinct phonemic features, our results suggest that functionally distinct processes contribute to speech tracking in the same EEG bands, and are easily confounded when considering the overall speech envelope.HighlightsDelta/theta band EEG tracks band-limited speech-derived envelopes similar to real speechLow and high frequency speech-derived envelopes are represented differentiallyHigh-frequency derived envelopes are more susceptible to attentional and contextual manipulationsDelta band tracking shifts towards low frequency derived envelopes with more acoustic detail


2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (12) ◽  
pp. 2067
Author(s):  
Y. Katsnelson ◽  
А.В. Ильинский ◽  
Е.Б. Шадрин

A method of transcranial electromagnetic stimulation of the mammalian brain is proposed. The method is based on the interference of currents caused by high-frequency orthogonal oscillations of electric fields, which are modulated by low-frequency meander pulses. The effectiveness of the method was confirmed by the results of experiments on stimulating the brain of rats and rabbits.


Author(s):  
A. S. Hill

Modern radio spectrometers make measurement of polarized intensity as a function of Faraday depth possible. I investigate the effect of depolarization along a model line of sight. I model sightlines with two components informed by observations: a diffuse interstellar medium with a lognormal electron density distribution and a narrow, denser component simulating a spiral arm or H~{\sc ii} region, all with synchrotron-emitting gas mixed in. I then calculate the polarized intensity from 300-1800 MHz and calculate the resulting Faraday depth spectrum. The idealized synthetic observations show far more Faraday complexity than is observed in Global Magneto-Ionic Medium Survey observations. In a model with a very nearby H~{\sc ii} region observed at low frequencies, most of the effects of a ``depolarization wall'' are evident: the H~{\sc ii} region depolarizes background emission and less (but not zero) information from beyond the H~{\sc ii} region reaches the observer. In other cases, the effects are not so clear, as significant amounts of information reach the observer even through significant depolarization, and it is not clear that low-frequency observations sample largely different volumes of the interstellar medium than high-frequency observations. The observed Faraday depth can be randomized such that it does not always have any correlation with the true Faraday depth.


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