Analysis of postural motoneuron activity in crayfish abdomen. II. Coordination by excitatory and inhibitory connections between motoneurons

1975 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. G. Tatton ◽  
P. G. Sokolove

The identified spike trains of the crayfish abdominal postural efferent neurons were recorded simultaneously from one or more segments. The efferent activity was analyzed using cross-correlation histograms, peristimulus time scatter diagrams, and specialized antidromic techniques. The analyses show that the larger, phasically active motoneurons are coordinated in their activity by cross connections made at the motoneuron level. The cross connections are both excitatory and inhibitor in nature and result in significant alterations in spike output. Further, the accessory neuron receives an inhibitory cross connection from a middle-sized extensor excitor motoneuron or motoneurons. In each case, the cross connections appear to be appropriate to the function of the postural system.

2003 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 2271-2278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessy D. Dorn ◽  
Dario L. Ringach

The cross-correlation coefficient between neural spike trains is a commonly used tool in the study of neural interactions. Two well-known complications that arise in its interpretation are 1) modulations in the correlation coefficient may result solely from changes in the mean firing rate of the cells and 2) the mean firing rates of the neurons impose upper and lower bounds on the correlation coefficient whose absolute values differ by an order of magnitude or more. Here, we propose a model-based approach to the interpretation of spike train correlations that circumvents these problems. The basic idea of our proposal is to estimate the cross-correlation coefficient between the membrane voltages of two cells from their extracellular spike trains and use the resulting value as the degree of correlation (or association) of neural activity. This is done in the context of a model that assumes the membrane voltages of the cells have a joint normal distribution and spikes are generated by a simple thresholding operation. We show that, under these assumptions, the estimation of the correlation coefficient between the membrane voltages reduces to the calculation of a tetrachoric correlation coefficient (a measure of association in nominal data introduced by Karl Pearson) on a contingency table calculated from the spike data. Simulations of conductance-based leaky integrate-and-fire neurons indicate that, despite its simplicity, the technique yields very good estimates of the intracellular membrane voltage correlation from the extracellular spike trains in biologically realistic models.


1975 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Sokolove ◽  
W. G. Tatton

The activity of the crayfish abdominal postural motoneurons and their associated neurons (the accessory neuron(s) and the MRO(1)) were examined with the aid of techniques for the analysis of simultaneously recorded spike trains. A means of reliably identifying the spikes of the individual motoneurons based on their relative axon conduction velocities is presented. The analyses show that: 1) the large, phasically active synergist motoneurons innervating muscles producing the same movement show a marked similarity in their average responses, which is independent of the input source; 2) the small, tonically active and the middle-sized, tonicphasic synergist motoneurons innervating the same muscle and similar synergist motoneurons innervating antagonistic muscles are coordinated entirely by premotoneuron connections; 3) the accessory neuron is coordinated in its activity with the phasically active flexor excitor motoneurons and the extensor inhibitor motoneuron and thereby functions as a flexor synergist; and 4) the simultaneous presentation of flexion-producing and extension-producing inputs to the postural system results in a reciprocal oscillation in flexor-extensor motoneuron output. The functional significance of these results with respect to the operation of the postural system are discussed.


Author(s):  
Matthias Weber ◽  
Anja Niehoff ◽  
Markus A. Rothschild

AbstractThis work deals with the examination of tool marks in human cartilage. We compared the effectiveness of several cleaning methods on cut marks in porcine cartilage. The method cleaning by multiple casts achieved the significantly highest scores (P = 0.02). Furthermore, we examined the grain-like elevations (dots) located on casts of cut cartilage. The results of this study suggest that the casting material forms these dots when penetrating cartilage cavities, which are areas where the strong collagen fibres leave space for the chondrocytes. We performed fixation experiments to avoid this, without success. In addition, 31 casting materials were compared regarding contrast under light-microscope and 3D tool marks scanner. Under the light-microscope, brown materials achieved significantly higher values than grey (P = 0.02) or black (P = 0.00) whereas under the 3D scanner, black materials reached higher contrast values than grey (P = 0.04) or brown (P = 0.047). To compare the accuracy and reproducibility of 6 test materials for cartilage, we used 10 knives to create cut marks that were subsequently scanned. During the alignment of the individual signals of each mark, the cross-correlation coefficients (Xmax) and lags (LXmax) were calculated. The signals of the marks in agarose were aligned with significantly fewer lags and achieved significantly higher cross-correlation coefficients compared to all tested materials (both P = 0.00). Moreover, we determined the cross-correlation coefficients (XC) for known-matches (KM) per material. Agarose achieved significantly higher values than AccuTrans®, Clear Ballistics™, and gelatine (all P = 0.00). The results of this work provide valuable insights for the forensic investigation of marks in human costal cartilage.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Jia ◽  
Yong Guo ◽  
Chao Yan ◽  
Haoxuan Sheng ◽  
Guolong Cui ◽  
...  

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of detection and localization of multiple stationary human targets based on cross-correlation of the dual-station stepped-frequency continuous-wave (SFCW) radars. Firstly, a cross-correlation operation is performed on the preprocessed pulse signals of two SFCW radars at different locations to obtain the correlation coefficient matrix. Then, the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection is applied to extract the ranges between each target and the two radars, respectively, from the correlation matrix. Finally, the locations of human targets is calculated with the triangulation localization algorithm. This cross-correlation operation mainly brings about two advantages. On the one hand, the cross-correlation explores the correlation feature of target respiratory signals, which can effectively detect all targets with different signal intensities, avoiding the missed detection of weak targets. On the other hand, the pairing of two ranges between each target and two radars is implemented simultaneously with the cross-correlation. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of this algorithm.


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