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Articles by Jeffrey E. Markowitz
Dynamics of striatal action selection and reinforcement learning
eLife Assessment The authors present a biologically plausible framework for action selection and learning in the striatum that is a fundamental advance in our understanding of possible neural implementations of reinforcement learning in the basal ganglia.
High-resolution in vivo kinematic tracking with injectable fluorescent nanoparticles
Abstract Behavioral quantification is a cornerstone of many neuroscience experiments. Recent advances in motion tracking have streamlined the study of behavior in small laboratory animals and enabled precise movement quantification on fast (millisecond) timescales. This includes markerless keypoint trackers, which utilize deep network systems to label positions of interest on the surface of an animal (e.g., paws, snout, tail, etc.). These approaches mark a major technological achievement.
Dynamics of striatal action selection and reinforcement learning
Abstract Spiny projection neurons (SPNs) in dorsal striatum are often proposed as a locus of reinforcement learning in the basal ganglia. Here, we identify and resolve a fundamental inconsistency between striatal reinforcement learning models and known SPN synaptic plasticity rules. Direct-pathway (dSPN) and indirect-pathway (iSPN) neurons, which promote and suppress actions, respectively, exhibit synaptic plasticity that reinforces activity associated with elevated or suppressed dopamine release.
Innate Behavior: A groom with a view
Are you sitting still right now, or are you moving? Occasionally, our brains compel us to scratch an itch, comb our fingers through our hair, or stroke our chin without even thinking about it. These actions may seem inconsequential to us, but they are examples of a unique type of behavior called self-grooming.
Hidden behavioral fingerprints in epilepsy
Unsupervised segmentation of seizure behavior allows automated seizure assessment and links to traditional human-defined scoring The results presented above showed that MoSeq was able to identify behavioral phenotypes in different epilepsy models and also allowed the study of AEDs in an automated manner free of human errors or bias, solely based on inter-ictal behaviors.
Flexible scaling and persistence of social vocal communication
Abstract Innate vocal sounds such as laughing, screaming or crying convey one’s feelings to others. In many species, including humans, scaling the amplitude and duration of vocalizations is essential for effective social communication1,2,3. In mice, female scent triggers male mice to emit innate courtship ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs)4,5. However, whether mice flexibly scale their vocalizations and how neural circuits are structured to generate flexibility remain largely unknown.
Tax Effects of PPP Loan Forgiveness – IRS Notice 2020-32 | JD Supra
Updated: May 25, 2018: JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.
The Striatum Organizes 3D Behavior via Moment-to-Moment Action Selection
Many naturalistic behaviors are built from modular components that are expressed sequentially. Although striatal circuits have been implicated in action selection and implementation, the neural mechanisms that compose behavior in unrestrained animals are not well understood. Here, we record bulk and cellular neural activity in the direct and indirect pathways of dorsolateral striatum (DLS) as mice spontaneously express action sequences.
Desus and Mero Have Conquered the Five Boroughs and Late Night-What’s Next?
On a Sunday night earlier this month, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero—hosts of the eponymous Viceland late-night show Desus and Mero as well as the podcast Bodega Boys—strutted onstage at the LeFrak Concert Hall in Queens. Desus, born Daniel Baker, held a Jamaican flag aloft. Mero, born Joel Martinez, carried the Dominican Republic’s. The audience went wild, though it was later apparent that the D.R. crowd far outnumbered the Jamaicans in the house.
Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff Are Showing Broadway How to Really Talk-and Sign
“We didn’t think, when we started this idea, that the world was going to lose its mind,” said Joshua Jackson. Starring in the Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God, which opened at Studio 54 Wednesday night, Jackson pointed out that the play’s themes—of communication and understanding—are “universal, [they] exist in all time.
Conan O’Brien Doubles Down on the Value of Pure Silliness
At a moment when American political news offers an embarrassment of riches for late-night talk-show hosts, Conan O’Brien has been busy offering viewers a different kind of relief. Prioritizing vaudevillian silliness over substance has always been O’Brien’s stock and trade. Yet given the current political climate, one would think he’d be tempted to leverage his American-history degree from Harvard and comment deeper on current events on a nightly basis.
Bond 25 Is Coming Sooner Than You Think
Daniel Craig is heading for the next Bond set sooner than we might have thought. On Tuesday, the British star confirmed to the Associated Press that the upcoming 007 movie—his fifth in the franchise—will be his next film. Break out out your martinis and Omega watches, because Bond 25 is upon us. Though he confirmed the Bond film is his next project lined up, Craig stayed quiet about whether or not Oscar-winning filmmaker Danny Boyle would direct the film. “We’ll see. We’ll see,” he responded.
How Reese Witherspoon Helped HBO Fix Its Gender-Pay Gap
HBO just completed a proactive effort to close its gender-pay gap. According to president of programming Casey Bloys, who recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, the Time’s Up movement—and, in particular, conversations with Big Little Lies star Reese Witherspoon—inspired the premium cable network to examine how it does business.
Celebrities-Turned-Activists Throughout the Years
Fonda was a vocal anti-war activist during the Vietnam War, sparking controversy with her infamous “ Hanoi Jane ” photograph. Since then, Fonda has been known for supporting and championing dozens of causes, including the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential, for which she raised money at her big 80th birthday bash this past December. “If it didn’t make a difference for famous people to speak out, the right wing wouldn’t object. We are like repeaters,” she told Vanity Fair then.
Mesoscopic Patterns of Neural Activity Support Songbird Cortical Sequences
Copyright: © 2015 Markowitz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited Data Availability: All data used in this study are available on figshare (http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1328060).
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