The detection and perceived intensity of noxious thermal stimuli in monkey and in human

1989 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 429-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. Kenshalo ◽  
F. Anton ◽  
R. Dubner

1. The magnitude of the sensations produced by small increases in thermal stimuli superimposed on noxious levels of heat stimulation was studied by the use of a simple reaction-time task. Noxious thermal stimuli were presented on the face of three monkeys, the forearm volar surface of three monkeys, and the face of four human subjects. The subject, either monkey or human, initiated a trial by pressing an illuminated button. Subsequently, a contact thermode increased in temperature from a base line of 38 degree C to temperatures of 44, 45, 46, or 47 degrees C (T1). After a variable time period lasting between 4 and 10 s, the thermode temperature increased an additional 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, or 0.8 degrees C (T2). The subject was required to release the button as soon as the T2 stimulus was detected. Detection latency, expressed as its reciprocal, detection speed, was defined as the time interval between the onset of T2 and the release of the button. 2. The monkeys' detection speed to stimuli presented on the upper lip was dependent on the intensity of both T1 and T2. Increases in the intensity of T2 between 0.1 and 0.8 degrees C produced faster detection speeds. In general, as the intensity of T1 increased, the detection speed increased to identical T2 stimuli. The monkeys' T2-detection threshold was also dependent on the intensity of T1. 3. The psychophysical functions obtained from stimulation of the monkey's face were compared with those obtained from the volar surface of the monkey's forearm. Whereas the T2 thresholds obtained from stimulation of the monkey's forearm and face were similar, the psychophysical functions obtained from stimulation of the face were significantly steeper than those obtained from stimulation of the forearm. 4. The humans' detection speed of T2 stimuli presented on the face was monotonically related to the intensity of T2 and was dependent on the level of T1. The psychophysical functions obtained from the human's face were equivalent to those obtained from the monkey's faces. 5. A cross-modality matching procedure was used to examine the perceived intensity of pain sensation produced by T2 stimuli in human subjects. The magnitude estimates of these stimuli were dependent on the level of T1, as well as the intensity of T2. Detection speed, plotted as a function of the estimated magnitude of pain, independent of T1 and T2 temperature, was best fit by a logarithmic function.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e10210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Ibanez-Berganza ◽  
Ambra Amico ◽  
Gian Luca Lancia ◽  
Federico Maggiore ◽  
Bernardo Monechi ◽  
...  

The perception of facial attractiveness is a complex phenomenon which depends on how the observer perceives not only individual facial features, but also their mutual influence and interplay. In the machine learning community, this problem is typically tackled as a problem of regression of the subject-averaged rating assigned to natural faces. However, it has been conjectured that this approach does not capture the complexity of the phenomenon. It has recently been shown that different human subjects can navigate the face-space and “sculpt” their preferred modification of a reference facial portrait. Here we present an unsupervised inference study of the set of sculpted facial vectors in such experiments. We first infer minimal, interpretable and accurate probabilistic models (through Maximum Entropy and artificial neural networks) of the preferred facial variations, that encode the inter-subject variance. The application of such generative models to the supervised classification of the gender of the subject that sculpted the face reveals that it may be predicted with astonishingly high accuracy. We observe that the classification accuracy improves by increasing the order of the non-linear effective interaction. This suggests that the cognitive mechanisms related to facial discrimination in the brain do not involve the positions of single facial landmarks only, but mainly the mutual influence of couples, and even triplets and quadruplets of landmarks. Furthermore, the high prediction accuracy of the subjects’ gender suggests that much relevant information regarding the subjects may influence (and be elicited from) their facial preference criteria, in agreement with the multiple motive theory of attractiveness proposed in previous works.


1952 ◽  
Vol 98 (412) ◽  
pp. 421-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis G. Croft

The fact that electrical stimulation of the brain can produce unconsciousness in man and animals has been known since the eighteenth century, and from time to time this knowledge has been used in the production of anaesthesia for surgical purposes; Hobday, in 1932, performed castrations and herniotomies in small animals under electrical general anaesthesia, and in 1935 Hertz used electrical anaesthesia for laparotomies in dogs. To-day electrical stunning is used in bacon factories with the object of rendering pigs unconscious before slaughter. Electroconvulsant therapy (E.C.T.) is widely used in mental hospitals for the treatment of certain conditions, and recently Freeman (1948) has modified this technique to produce surgical anaesthesia for prefrontal leucotomy.In some instances electrical anaesthesia has proved satisfactory, but there have been reports of “distorted consciousness” after E.C.T. in human subjects (Morgan, 1950), and of electrical curarization after industrial accidents (Hume, 1935); in these conditions the subject is conscious of sensation but unable to make voluntary movements. Such a condition is only appreciated when the subject is questioned after regaining full consciousness, and hence, if it occurred in animals, it would not be readily recognized.The object of the work described in this paper was to determine the effect of the many variables of electric stimulation, and to investigate the state of consciousness of human subjects and animals after electric stunning. It was hoped thus to provide a basis for future work on electrical anacsthesia and to acquire a better understanding of the action of E.C.T.


In continuation of our former minute analysis of the excitable region of the cerebral cortex, we have explored the so-called centres for the facial, lingual, and pharyngeal movements, or as we prefer to speak of them collectively, the facial area. This district, as will presently be seen, has been mapped out by numerous investigators, and its general limits are fairly well understood; but as we have found in the course of our investigations several points untouched, especially relating to the representation of the movements of the tongue, we think it better to arrange the facts previously determined in an historical introduction and to subjoin our own observations. In this, as in our second paper on the minuter representation of movements in the cerebral cortex, we have, in order to avoid discrepancies in the arrangement of the sulci, employed only the same variety of Monkey, viz., Macacus sinicus . In all we have performed twenty experiments. Historical Introduction. Fritsch and Hitzig, in the original memoir which forms the basis of all modern research on the subject, contented themselves with defining the foci of representation of movements of the face in the Carnivora.


1981 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. 169-173
Author(s):  
J. Wagner ◽  
G. Pfurtscheixer

The shape, latency and amplitude of changes in electrical brain activity related to a stimulus (Evoked Potential) depend both on the stimulus parameters and on the background EEG at the time of stimulation. An adaptive, learnable stimulation system is introduced, whereby the subject is stimulated (e.g. with light), whenever the EEG power is subthreshold and minimal. Additionally, the system is conceived in such a way that a certain number of stimuli could be given within a particular time interval. Related to this time criterion, the threshold specific for each subject is calculated at the beginning of the experiment (preprocessing) and adapted to the EEG power during the processing mode because of long-time fluctuations and trends in the EEG. The process of adaptation is directed by a table which contains the necessary correction numbers for the threshold. Experiences of the stimulation system are reflected in an automatic correction of this table. Because the corrected and improved table is stored after each experiment and is used as the starting table for the next experiment, the system >learns<. The system introduced here can be used both for evoked response studies and for alpha-feedback experiments.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Masterov

The paper discusses the use of the program-targeted budgeting methodology in the investment stimulation of business in the most problem sectors of the economy. The subject of the study is the dynamics of business activity in key economic sectors adversely affected by factors of the economic and geopolitical nature. The purposes of the study were to identify the key factors that have a negative impact on economic growth and seek options for investment stimulation of business activities in the most problem sectors of the economy using state budget funds. It is concluded that the current practice of budget investment is associated with significant risks and poor justification of investment decisions. Therefore, the American practice of the program budgeting in the implementation of large investment infrastructure projects using budget funds seems to be advantageous. Based on the research findings, methods for increasing the effectiveness of program-target budgeting tools under the Russian conditions are proposed.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abimael Francisco do Nascimento

The general objective of this study is to analyze the postulate of the ethics of otherness as the first philosophy, presented by Emmanuel Levinas. It is a proposal that runs through Levinas' thinking from his theoretical foundations, to his philosophical criticism. Levinas' thought presents itself as a new thought, as a critique of ontology and transcendental philosophy. For him, the concern with knowledge and with being made the other to be forgotten, placing the other in totality. Levinas proposes the ethics of otherness as sensitivity to the other. The subject says here I am, making myself responsible for the other in an infinite way, in a transcendence without return to myself, becoming hostage to the other, as an irrefutable responsibility. The idea of the infinite, present in the face of the other, points to a responsibility whoever more assumes himself, the more one is responsible, until the substitution by other.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akram Alizadeh

AbstractThe Urmia Lake Basin is located between the West and East Azerbaijan provinces in the northwest of Iran. Lake Urmia is the twentieth largest lake and second largest hypersaline lake in the world. Stratigraphic columns have been constructed, using published information, to compare the sedimentary units deposited from the Permian to the Neogene on the east and west sides of the lake, and to use these to quantity subsidence and uplift. East of the lake, the sedimentary section is more complete and has been the subject of detailed stratigraphic studies, including the compilation of measured sections for some units. West of the lake, the section is incomplete and less work has been done; three columns illustrate variations in the preserved stratigraphy for the time interval. In all cases, the columns are capped by the Oligocene–Miocene Qom Formation, which was deposited during a post-orogenic marine transgression and unconformably overlies units ranging from Precambrian to Cretaceous. Permian to Cretaceous stratigraphy is used to measure subsidence in the Lake Urmia basin up to the end of the Cretaceous, and then, the subsequent orogenic uplift, which was followed by further subsidence recorded by the deposition of the Qom Formation in the Oligocene–Miocene.


Author(s):  
Susan Petrilli

AbstractIdentity as traditionally conceived in mainstream Western thought is focused on theory, representation, knowledge, subjectivity and is centrally important in the works of Emmanuel Levinas. His critique of Western culture and corresponding notion of identity at its foundations typically raises the question of the other. Alterity in Levinas indicates existence of something on its own account, in itself independently of the subject’s will or consciousness. The objectivity of alterity tells of the impossible evasion of signs from their destiny, which is the other. The implications involved in reading the signs of the other have contributed to reorienting semiotics in the direction of semioethics. In Levinas, the I-other relation is not reducible to abstract cognitive terms, to intellectual synthesis, to the subject-object relation, but rather tells of involvement among singularities whose distinctive feature is alterity, absolute alterity. Humanism of the other is a pivotal concept in Levinas overturning the sense of Western reason. It asserts human duties over human rights. Humanism of alterity privileges encounter with the other, responsibility for the other, over tendencies of the centripetal and egocentric orders that instead exclude the other. Responsibility allows for neither rest nor peace. The “properly human” is given in the capacity for absolute otherness, unlimited responsibility, dialogical intercorporeity among differences non-indifferent to each other, it tells of the condition of vulnerability before the other, exposition to the other. The State and its laws limit responsibility for the other. Levinas signals an essential contradiction between the primordial ethical orientation and the legal order. Justice involves comparing incomparables, comparison among singularities outside identity. Consequently, justice places limitations on responsibility, on unlimited responsibility which at the same time it presupposes as its very condition of possibility. The present essay is structured around the following themes: (1) Premiss; (2) Justice, uniqueness, and love; (3) Sign and language; (4) Dialogue and alterity; (5) Semiotic materiality; (6) Globalization and the trap of identity; (7) Human rights and rights of the other: for a new humanism; (8) Ethics; (9) The World; (10) Outside the subject; (11) Responsibility and Substitution; (12) The face; (13) Fear of the other; (14) Alterity and justice; (15) Justice and proximity; (16) Literary writing; (17) Unjust justice; (18) Caring for the other.


1962 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-12
Author(s):  
J. M. Langlois ◽  
Guy Lamarche

The projections of the trigeminal nerve in the pontine reticular formation of the cat have been investigated by recording unit activity, after physiological stimulation of the face, in 30 "encéphales isolés" preparations. No somatotopical arrangement was found but a high degree of spatial convergence onto pontine reticular units exists and a certain degree of functional organization was observed.


1922 ◽  
Vol 26 (140) ◽  
pp. 325-330
Author(s):  
S. Heckstall Smith

If the thought of another war troubles you, then don't read this article. If you would rather say to yourself as the Secretary of State said to the Air Conference, “ There won't be another war for ten years, so why worry? ” then no doubt you will think with him that it is better to let other nations have alk the bother and expense of trying to advance; after all, we are jolly fine fellows and can soon pick up. If, on the other hand, you have imagination which gives you a nasty queasy sensation when you think of what might be, then perhaps the following notes, albeit disjointed and mostly stale, may at least conjure up in you thoughts of your own on the subject. This is all that is needed to help, our advancement in the air–the stimulation of spoken and written thoughts by the British nation, for if every taxpayer in the British Empire says “ Air Force,” then the Press and Parliament will say it too.


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