Selective Coupling between Theta Phase and Neocortical Fast Gamma Oscillations during REM-Sleep in Mice

TORT, A. B. L. ; SCHEFFER-TEIXEIRA, R ; Souza, B.C. ; DRAGUHN, A. ; BRANKACK, J. . Theta-associated high-frequency oscillations (110-160 Hz) in the hippocampus and neocortex. Progress in Neurobiology , v. 100, p. 1-14, 2013.

Slow Oscillations in the Mouse Hippocampus Entrained by Nasal Respiration

Different types of network oscillations occur in different behavioral, cognitive, or vigilance states. The rodent hippocampus expresses prominentoscillations atfrequencies between 4 and 12Hz,which are superimposed by phase-coupledoscillations (30 –100Hz).These patterns entrain multineuronal activity over large distances and have been implicated in sensory information processing and memory formation. Here we report a new type of oscillation at near- frequencies (2– 4 Hz) in the hippocampus of urethane-anesthetized mice. The rhythm is highly coherent with nasal respiration and with rhythmic field potentials in the olfactory bulb: hence, we called it hippocampal respiration-induced oscillations. Despite the similarity in frequency range, several features distinguish this pattern from locally generatedoscillations: hippocampal respiration-induced oscillations have a unique laminar amplitude profile, are resistant to atropine, couple differentlytooscillations, and are abolished when nasal airflow is bypassed bytracheotomy. Hippocampal neurons are entrained by both the respiration-induced rhythm and concurrent oscillations, suggesting a direct interaction between endogenous activity in the hippocampus and nasal respiratory inputs. Our results demonstrate that nasal respiration strongly modulates hippocampal network activity in mice, providing a long-range synchronizing signal between olfactory and hippocampal networks.

Análise de DFA e de agrupamento do perfil de densidade de poços de petróleo

In recent years, the DFA introduced by Peng, was established as an important tool capable of detecting long-range autocorrelation in time series with non-stationary. This technique has been successfully applied to various areas such as: Econophysics, Biophysics, Medicine, Physics and Climatology. In this study, we used the DFA technique to obtain the Hurst exponent (H) of the profile of electric density profile (RHOB) of 53 wells resulting from the Field School of Namorados. In this work we want to know if we can or not use H to spatially characterize the spatial data field. Two cases arise: In the first a set of H reflects the local geology, with wells that are geographically closer showing similar H, and then one can use H in geostatistical procedures. In the second case each well has its proper H and the information of the well are uncorrelated, the profiles show only random fluctuations in H that do not show any spatial structure. Cluster analysis is a method widely used in carrying out statistical analysis. In this work we use the non-hierarchy method of k-means. In order to verify whether a set of data generated by the k-means method shows spatial patterns, we create the parameter Ω (index of neighborhood). High Ω shows more aggregated data, low Ω indicates dispersed or data without spatial correlation. With help of this index and the method of Monte Carlo. Using Ω index we verify that random cluster data shows a distribution of Ω that is lower than actual cluster Ω. Thus we conclude that the data of H obtained in 53 wells are grouped and can be used to characterize space patterns. The analysis of curves level confirmed the results of the k-means

A influência do esqueleto açúcar-fostato no transporte da molécula de DNA

This dissertation analyses the influence of sugar-phosphate structure in the electronic transport in the double stretch DNA molecule, with the sequence of the base pairs modeled by two types of quasi-periodic sequences: Rudin-Shapiro and Fibonacci. For the sequences, the density of state was calculated and it was compared with the density of state of a piece of human DNA Ch22. After, the electronic transmittance was investigated. In both situations, the Hamiltonians are different. On the analysis of density of state, it was employed the Dyson equation. On the transmittance, the time independent Schrödinger equation was used. In both cases, the tight-binding model was applied. The density of states obtained through Rudin-Shapiro sequence reveal to be similar to the density of state for the Ch22. And for transmittance only until the fifth generation of the Fibonacci sequence was acquired. We have considered long range correlations in both transport mechanism

Estudo de sistemas complexos com interações de longo alcance : percolação, redes e tráfego

In this thesis we investigate physical problems which present a high degree of complexity using tools and models of Statistical Mechanics. We give a special attention to systems with long-range interactions, such as one-dimensional long-range bondpercolation, complex networks without metric and vehicular traffic. The flux in linear chain (percolation) with bond between first neighbor only happens if pc = 1, but when we consider long-range interactions , the situation is completely different, i.e., the transitions between the percolating phase and non-percolating phase happens for pc < 1. This kind of transition happens even when the system is diluted ( dilution of sites ). Some of these effects are investigated in this work, for example, the extensivity of the system, the relation between critical properties and the dilution, etc. In particular we show that the dilution does not change the universality of the system. In another work, we analyze the implications of using a power law quality distribution for vertices in the growth dynamics of a network studied by Bianconi and Barabási. It incorporates in the preferential attachment the different ability (fitness) of the nodes to compete for links. Finally, we study the vehicular traffic on road networks when it is submitted to an increasing flux of cars. In this way, we develop two models which enable the analysis of the total flux on each road as well as the flux leaving the system and the behavior of the total number of congested roads

Estudo de propriedades críticas em sistemas complexos: método de procura automática em sistemas tipo Ising e percolação de longo alcance

The new technique for automatic search of the order parameters and critical properties is applied to several well-know physical systems, testing the efficiency of such a procedure, in order to apply it for complex systems in general. The automatic-search method is combined with Monte Carlo simulations, which makes use of a given dynamical rule for the time evolution of the system. In the problems inves¬tigated, the Metropolis and Glauber dynamics produced essentially equivalent results. We present a brief introduction to critical phenomena and phase transitions. We describe the automatic-search method and discuss some previous works, where the method has been applied successfully. We apply the method for the ferromagnetic fsing model, computing the critical fron¬tiers and the magnetization exponent (3 for several geometric lattices. We also apply the method for the site-diluted ferromagnetic Ising model on a square lattice, computing its critical frontier, as well as the magnetization exponent f3 and the susceptibility exponent 7. We verify that the universality class of the system remains unchanged when the site dilution is introduced. We study the problem of long-range bond percolation in a diluted linear chain and discuss the non-extensivity questions inherent to long-range-interaction systems. Finally we present our conclusions and possible extensions of this work

Não-extensividade em percolação por ligações de longo - alcance

A linear chain do not present phase transition at any finite temperature in a one dimensional system considering only first neighbors interaction. An example is the Ising ferromagnet in which his critical temperature lies at zero degree. Analogously, in percolation like disordered geometrical systems, the critical point is given by the critical probability equals to one. However, this situation can be drastically changed if we consider long-range bonds, replacing the probability distribution by a function like . In this kind of distribution the limit α → ∞ corresponds to the usual first neighbor bond case. In the other hand α = 0 corresponds to the well know "molecular field" situation. In this thesis we studied the behavior of Pc as a function of a to the bond percolation specially in d = 1. Our goal was to check a conjecture proposed by Tsallis in the context of his Generalized Statistics (a generalization to the Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics). By this conjecture, the scaling laws that depend with the size of the system N, vary in fact with the quantitie

The influence of visual inter-hemispheric connections on spiking, assembly and LFP activities, and their phase relationship during figure-ground stimulation

Desde os descobrimentos pioneiros de Hubel e Wiesel acumulou-se uma vasta literatura descrevendo as respostas neuronais do córtex visual primário (V1) a diferentes estímulos visuais. Estes estímulos consistem principalmente em barras em movimento, pontos ou grades, que são úteis para explorar as respostas dentro do campo receptivo clássico (CRF do inglês classical receptive field) a características básicas dos estímulos visuais como a orientação, direção de movimento, contraste, entre outras. Entretanto, nas últimas duas décadas, tornou-se cada vez mais evidente que a atividade de neurônios em V1 pode ser modulada por estímulos fora do CRF. Desta forma, áreas visuais primárias poderiam estar envolvidas em funções visuais mais complexas como, por exemplo, a separação de um objeto ou figura do seu fundo (segregação figura-fundo) e assume-se que as conexões intrínsecas de longo alcance em V1, assim como as conexões de áreas visuais superiores, estão ativamente envolvidas neste processo. Sua possível função foi inferida a partir da análise das variações das respostas induzidas por um estímulo localizado fora do CRF de neurônios individuais. Mesmo sendo muito provável que estas conexões tenham também um impacto tanto na atividade conjunta de neurônios envolvidos no processamento da figura quanto no potencial de campo, estas questões permanecem pouco estudadas. Visando examinar a modulação do contexto visual nessas atividades, coletamos potenciais de ação e potenciais de campo em paralelo de até 48 eletrodos implantados na área visual primária de gatos anestesiados. Estimulamos com grades compostas e cenas naturais, focando-nos na atividade de neurônios cujo CRF estava situado na figura. Da mesma forma, visando examinar a influência das conexões laterais, o sinal proveniente da área visual isotópica e contralateral foi removido através da desativação reversível por resfriamento. Fizemos isso devido a: i) as conexões laterais intrínsecas não podem ser facilmente manipuladas sem afetar diretamente os sinais que estão sendo medidos, ii) as conexões inter-hemisféricas compartilham as principais características anatômicas com a rede lateral intrínseca e podem ser vistas como uma continuação funcional das mesmas entre os dois hemisférios e iii) o resfriamento desativa as conexões de forma causal e reversível, silenciando temporariamente seu sinal, permitindo conclusões diretas a respeito da sua contribuição. Nossos resultados demonstram que o mecanismo de segmentação figurafundo se reflete nas taxas de disparo de neurônios individuais, assim como na potência do potencial de campo e na relação entre sua fase e os padrões de disparo produzidos pela população. Além disso, as conexões laterais inter-hemisféricas modulam estas variáveis dependendo da estimulação feita fora do CRF. Observamos também uma influência deste circuito lateral na coerência entre potenciais de campo entre eletrodos distantes. Em conclusão, nossos resultados dão suporte à ideia de um mecanismo complexo de segmentação figura-fundo atuando desde as áreas visuais primárias em diferentes escalas de frequência. Esse mecanismo parece envolver grupos de neurônios ativos sincronicamente e dependentes da fase do potencial de campo. Nossos resultados também são compatíveis com a hipótese que conexões laterais de longo alcance também fazem parte deste mecanismo

DFA e análise de agrupamento aplicadas a perfis de porosidade neutrônico em poços de petróleo

Peng was the first to work with the Technical DFA (Detrended Fluctuation Analysis), a tool capable of detecting auto-long-range correlation in time series with non-stationary. In this study, the technique of DFA is used to obtain the Hurst exponent (H) profile of the electric neutron porosity of the 52 oil wells in Namorado Field, located in the Campos Basin -Brazil. The purpose is to know if the Hurst exponent can be used to characterize spatial distribution of wells. Thus, we verify that the wells that have close values of H are spatially close together. In this work we used the method of hierarchical clustering and non-hierarchical clustering method (the k-mean method). Then compare the two methods to see which of the two provides the best result. From this, was the parameter � (index neighborhood) which checks whether a data set generated by the k- average method, or at random, so in fact spatial patterns. High values of � indicate that the data are aggregated, while low values of � indicate that the data are scattered (no spatial correlation). Using the Monte Carlo method showed that combined data show a random distribution of � below the empirical value. So the empirical evidence of H obtained from 52 wells are grouped geographically. By passing the data of standard curves with the results obtained by the k-mean, confirming that it is effective to correlate well in spatial distribution

Transporte eletrônico e propriedades termodinâmicas de nanobiomoléculas

We use a tight-binding formulation to investigate the transmissivity and the currentvoltage (I_V) characteristics of sequences of double-strand DNA molecules. In order to reveal the relevance of the underlying correlations in the nucleotides distribution, we compare theresults for the genomic DNA sequence with those of arti_cial sequences (the long-range correlated Fibonacci and RudinShapiro one) and a random sequence, which is a kind of prototype of a short-range correlated system. The random sequence is presented here with the same _rst neighbors pair correlations of the human DNA sequence. We found that the long-range character of the correlations is important to the transmissivity spectra, although the I_V curves seem to be mostly inuenced by the short-range correlations. We also analyze in this work the electronic and thermal properties along an _-helix sequence obtained from an _3 peptide which has the uni-dimensional sequence (Leu-Glu-Thr- Leu-Ala-Lys-Ala)3. An ab initio quantum chemical calculation procedure is used to obtain the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) as well as their charge transfer integrals, when the _-helix sequence forms two di_erent variants with (the so-called 5Q variant) and without (the 7Q variant) _brous assemblies that can be observed by transmission electron microscopy. The di_erence between the two structures is that the 5Q (7Q) structure have Ala ! Gln substitution at the 5th (7th) position, respectively. We estimate theoretically the density of states as well as the electronic transmission spectra for the peptides using a tight-binding Hamiltonian model together with the Dyson's equation. Besides, we solve the time dependent Schrodinger equation to compute the spread of an initially localized wave-packet. We also compute the localization length in the _nite _-helix segment and the quantum especi_c heat. Keeping in mind that _brous protein can be associated with diseases, the important di_erences observed in the present vi electronic transport studies encourage us to suggest this method as a molecular diagnostic tool

Processos aleatórios não-markovianos: perfis de memória

One of the mechanisms responsible for the anomalous diffusion is the existence of long-range temporal correlations, for example, Fractional Brownian Motion and walk models according to Elephant memory and Alzheimer profiles, whereas in the latter two cases the walker can always "remember" of his first steps. The question to be elucidated, and the was the main motivation of our work, is if memory of the historic initial is condition for observation anomalous diffusion (in this case, superdiffusion). We give a conclusive answer, by studying a non-Markovian model in which the walkers memory of the past, at time t, is given by a Gaussian centered at time t=2 and standard deviation t which grows linearly as the walker ages. For large widths of we find that the model behaves similarly to the Elephant model; In the opposite limit (! 0), although the walker forget the early days, we observed similar results to the Alzheimer walk model, in particular the presence of amnestically induced persistence, characterized by certain log-periodic oscillations. We conclude that the memory of earlier times is not a necessary condition for the generating of superdiffusion nor the amnestically induced persistence and can appear even in profiles of memory that forgets the initial steps, like the Gausssian memory profile investigated here.