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PubMed1992

Learning-induced changes in D2 receptors of rat brain are sexually dimorphic.

Pharmacological agents known to stimulate monoamine systems improve memory, and destruction of the dopaminergic systems or dopamine depletion lead to impairments in various learning-related tasks. These reported effects of the central dopaminergic system imply the involvement of D2 receptors. The aim of the present study was to investigate changes in [3H]spiroperidol binding in seven areas of rat brain following informal and active avoidance learning. Littermate male and female rats were reared until 3 months of age in standard colony conditions and treated as active controls or in enriched environmental conditions and exposed to pole-jump active avoidance trials. Female rats acquired avoidance behavior more rapidly than males. Among the brain regions, only the hippocampus showed significant variations in D2 receptor binding between the groups; sex differences and learning-sex interaction were observed in the corpus striatum. There was an inverse correlation between learning performance and hippocampal D2 receptor binding. Our results show that learning affects hippocampal D2 receptors in a sexually dimorphic pattern.

Animals↗

PubMed2025

Accurate prediction of toxicity peptide and its function using multi-view tensor learning and latent semantic learning framework.

MOTIVATION: Therapeutic peptide is an important ingredient in the treatment of various diseases and drug discovery. The toxicity of peptides is one of the major challenges in peptide drug therapy. With the abundance of therapeutic peptides generated in the post-genomics era, it is a challenge to promptly identify toxicity peptides using computational methods. Although several efforts have been made, few algorithms are designed to identify whether a query peptide exhibits toxicity. Considering the varied levels of biological activities, the toxicity peptides should be further classified into multi-functional peptides. RESULTS: This study introduces a two-level predictor, ToxPre-2L, developed using the multi-view tensor learning and latent semantic learning framework. The proposed method utilized multi-label learning with feature induced labels to avoid the redundancy of information from each view. Then the multi-view tensor learning was employed to establish the latent semantic information among different views, while low-rank constraint learning was leveraged to exploit the correlation information among multi-labels. Finally, we constructed an updated toxicity peptide benchmark dataset to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method. Experimental results demonstrated that ToxPre-2L achieves a better performance than alternative computational methods in the prediction of toxicity peptides and their multi-functional types. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The source code and data of ToxPre-2L can be accessed at http://bliulab.net/ToxPre-2L.

Peptides↗

PubMed1999

Coherence of gamma-band EEG activity as a basis for associative learning.

Different regions of the brain must communicate with each other to provide the basis for the integration of sensory information, sensory-motor coordination and many other functions that are critical for learning, memory, information processing, perception and the behaviour of organisms. Hebb suggested that this is accomplished by the formation of assemblies of cells whose synaptic linkages are strengthened whenever the cells are activated or 'ignited' synchronously. Hebb's seminal concept has intrigued investigators since its formulation, but the technology to demonstrate its existence had been lacking until the past decade. Previous studies have shown that very fast electroencephalographic activity in the gamma band (20-70 Hz) increases during, and may be involved in, the formation of percepts and memory, linguistic processing, and other behavioural and perceptual functions. We show here that increased gamma-band activity is also involved in associative learning. In addition, we find that another measure, gamma-band coherence, increases between regions of the brain that receive the two classes of stimuli involved in an associative-learning procedure in humans. An increase in coherence could fulfil the criteria required for the formation of hebbian cell assemblies, binding together parts of the brain that must communicate with one another in order for associative learning to take place. In this way, coherence may be a signature for this and other types of learning.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Practice-based learning: views on the development of a reflective learning tool.

CONTEXT: This study reports the first part of a funded project to develop a tool to improve and record learning, known as a Progress File. A Progress File typically contains an element of reflection and a means of recording achievement. AIM: The aim of the study was to collect and understand the attitudes and experiences of students and tutors with regard to reflection, and to determine their views on the development and implementation of a Progress File for one member of the dental team, the dental therapist. METHOD: A consultation exercise was undertaken in four institutions which train dental therapists. A total of 76 students and tutors were interviewed individually or in groups. Examples of reflective tools were used to prompt discussion and feedback. Emergent themes were derived from content analysis. RESULTS: Participants identified many uses for the Progress File within and beyond their courses. They also expressed concerns regarding the effectiveness and feasibility of Progress File learning within present educational environments. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Successful integration of the Progress File into courses of medical and dental education may depend upon institutional culture change and a move towards a system which facilitates and rewards reflection on learning. The results will inform development of the File.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1992

Stereotypes of emotional caregivers and their capacity to absorb information: the views of nurses, stroke carers and the general public.

This study examines the phenomenon of stereotyping informal caregivers' capacity to learn about the condition of stroke victims. Forty-nine nurses, 55 carers and 39 members of the general public gave their opinions on how emotional they considered six hypothetical wives of stroke patients to be and how much information they thought each wife would be able to absorb. Results indicated that nurses were more pessimistic than caregivers in their assessment of how much information could be absorbed, even though these two groups did not differ in their assessment of the emotionality of the wives. Nurses and the general public responded in accordance with the expected stereotype: those rated as being high in emotionality were less likely to absorb information. No such association emerged from the ratings of caregivers. The existence of the stereotype, particularly among health professionals, has serious implications for rehabilitation programmes and caregiver well-being, and provides an explanation for why caregivers sometimes feel neglected in medical settings.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Depression screening in a university campus pharmacy: a pilot project.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the usefulness of a depression screening tool in a university campus pharmacy. DESIGN: Uncontrolled study. SETTING: University campus pharmacy. PARTICIPANTS: 25 individuals were screened while waiting for a prescription to be dispensed or while browsing in the pharmacy. INTERVENTIONS: Completion of a depression screening tool and a follow-up participant satisfaction survey to rate the usefulness of the depression screening tool. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Scores on the depression screening tool and descriptive analysis of participant satisfaction survey. RESULTS: One participant was rated as depressed and one participant as "borderline" depression on the screening tool. Overall, 64% (16/25) of participants rated the screening tool as very useful, 92% (23/25) felt very comfortable while completing the screening tool, 40% (10/25) were very likely to read the provided written information, and 60% (15/25) learned about depression or themselves by participating in the survey. CONCLUSION: Depression screening is feasible in a university campus pharmacy. Participants reported feeling comfortable discussing depression with a pharmacist in a university campus pharmacy. In addition, they considered the information provided by the pharmacist on depression to be useful.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Sources of support for learning words in conversation: evidence from mealtimes.

This study examines mealtimes of preschoolers' families to determine whether rare words are used in informative ways so that a child could learn their meanings. Is there an association between informative use of rare words and the child's later vocabulary? Each use of rare words in 160 transcripts was coded for whether it was informative or uninformative. Each informative exchange was coded for type of strategy used to provide support: physical or social context, prior knowledge, and semantic support. There were 1,631 exchanges around rare words. About two-thirds of these exchanges were informative uses from which the child could learn the word's meaning. The most frequent strategy used was semantic support, accounting for two-thirds of strategies used. The frequency of use of rare words was positively correlated with age-five and age-seven PPVT scores.

Child Language↗

PubMed2000

Content-based image retrieval system using neural networks.

An effective image retrieval system is developed based on the use of neural networks (NNs). It takes advantages of association ability of multilayer NNs as matching engines which calculate similarities between a user's drawn sketch and the stored images. The NNs memorize pixel information of every size-reduced image (thumbnail) in the learning phase. In the retrieval phase, pixel information of a user's drawn rough sketch is inputted to the learned NNs and they estimate the candidates. Thus the system can retrieve candidates quickly and correctly by utilizing the parallelism and association ability of NNs. In addition, the system has learning capability: it can automatically extract features of a user's drawn sketch during the retrieval phase and can store them as additional information to improve the performance. The software for querying, including efficient graphical user interfaces, has been implemented and tested. The effectiveness of the proposed system has been investigated through various experimental tests.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2005

Information network topologies for enhanced local adaptive management.

We examined the principal effects of different information network topologies for local adaptive management of natural resources. We used computerized agents with adaptive decision algorithms with the following three fundamental constraints: (1) Complete understanding of the processes maintaining the natural resource can never be achieved, (2) agents can only learn by experimentation and information sharing, and (3) memory is limited. The agents were given the task to manage a system that had two states: one that provided high utility returns (desired) and one that provided low returns (undesired). In addition, the threshold between the states was close to the optimal return of the desired state. We found that networks of low to moderate link densities significantly increased the resilience of the utility returns. Networks of high link densities contributed to highly synchronized behavior among the agents, which caused occasional large-scale ecological crises between periods of stable and high utility returns. A constructed network involving a small set of experimenting agents was capable of combining high utility returns with high resilience, conforming to theories underlying the concept of adaptive comanagement. We conclude that (1) the ability to manage for resilience (i.e., to stay clear of the threshold leading to the undesired state as well as the ability to re-enter the desired state following a collapse) resides in the network structure and (2) in a coupled social-ecological system, the system-wide state transition occurs not because the ecological system flips into the undesired state, but because managers lose their capacity to reorganize back to the desired state.

Communication↗

PubMed1976

Relationship between SCR, heart rate and information processing.

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between the amount of information processing in concept learning (CL) and autonomic physiological activity as measured by skin conductance response (SCR). Heart rate (HR) was also measured. Two conceptual rules were used: a conjunctive and an inclusive disjunctive concept. The results indicated that the SCR rose with increasing amount of information processing at the feedback during CL. Furthermore, it was shown that SCR increased with increasing difficulty of the conceptual rule. HR appeared not to vary with amount of information processing, nor with type of concept. In the conjunctive series, however, there was a significant difference between HR at stimulus presentation and HR at feedback.

Concept Formation↗

PubMed2006

Substantia nigra pars compacta is critical to both the acquisition and expression of learned orienting of rats.

Novel events produce characteristic orienting responses (ORs), which typically habituate rapidly with repeated stimulus presentation. However, they may re-emerge if those stimuli become predictors of biologically significant events. This acquisition of conditioned ORs may reflect a broader range of enhancements in top-down attentional processing of cues that predict important consequences. Previous research from this laboratory showed that a neural circuit that includes the amygdala central nucleus (CeA), substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) and dorsolateral striatum (DLS) is essential for the learning and expression of one example of conditioned orienting, the rearing of rats to visual stimuli paired with food. Other studies showed that the CeA is critical to the acquisition of these conditioned ORs, but not their expression, and that normal DLS function is required for the expression of previously acquired conditioned ORs, but not for learning itself. The experiments reported here considered the roles of the SNc in conditioned orienting by examining the effects of transient inactivation of the SNc during the acquisition of new associations and during the expression of previous learning. SNc function was critical to both the acquisition and expression of conditioned ORs but not to the display of unconditioned ORs or the learning and expression of conditioned responses directed to the food source. Together with our previous findings, these results suggest that the SNc is trained by the CeA during learning and maintains acquired information so that it may modulate DLS sensory-motor function at the time of action.

Animals↗

PubMed1996

Structure and function of learning flights in ground-nesting bees and wasps

Bees and wasps perform systematic flight manoevres when they leave their nest or a foodplace, during which they acquire or update their visual memory of the goal location. In a typical learning flight, the insect backs away from the goal in a series of arcs that are roughly centred on the goal. The mean rate of turning is rather constant and tends to balance the angular speed at which the arc is described. As a result, the insect views the goal at relatively fixed retinal positions in its left and right visual field, depending on flight direction. The general direction in which the insect backs away from the goal and the transition from one arc segment to the next are influenced by the local scene and by compass cues. Insects returning to the goal repeat some of the flight manoeuvres of their preceding learning flights. Their orientation in space and the retinal positions at which they view nearby landmarks are similar. One important function of learning flights appears to be the acquisition of visual depth information. We review the consequences of the structure of learning flights for visual information processing and discuss how they may relate to the acquisition of a visual representation and the task of pinpointing the goal.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2005

Coherent theta-band EEG activity predicts item-context binding during encoding.

Episodic memories consist of semantic information coupled with a rich array of contextual detail. Here, we investigate the neural processes by which information about the sensory context of a learning event is "bound" to the semantic representation of the to-be-encoded item. We present evidence that item-context binding during encoding is mediated by frontoposterior electroencephalographic (EEG) phase locking within and between hemispheres in the theta (4-8 Hz) band. During a task in which subjects encoded words in different font colors, later memory for the word was associated with sustained frontal theta activity and frontoposterior theta-band coherence, primarily within the left hemisphere. When the word-color association was later successfully retrieved, however, neurons synchronized their theta-band responses bilaterally in a more sustained fashion, particularly during the latter part of the stimulus epoch (>800 ms). Our results confirm the importance of functional coupling between frontal and posterior regions for successful encoding. One interpretation of these data is hemispheric contributions to item and context encoding may be asymmetric, with left hemisphere coherence facilitating semantic processing of an item and right hemisphere coherence facilitating processing of sensory context. Theta-band coherence may be an important mechanism by which brain networks exchange information during learning.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Spatial generalization of learning in smooth pursuit eye movements: implications for the coordinate frame and sites of learning.

We have examined the underlying coordinate frame for pursuit learning by testing how broadly learning generalizes to different retinal loci and directions of target motion. Learned changes in pursuit were induced using double steps of target speed. Monkeys tracked a target that stepped obliquely away from the point of fixation, then moved smoothly either leftward or rightward. In each experimental session, we adapted the response to targets moving in one direction across one locus of the visual field by changing target speed during the initial catch-up saccade. Learning occurred in both presaccadic and postsaccadic eye velocity. The changes were specific to the adapted direction and did not generalize to the opposite direction of pursuit. To test the spatial scale of learning, we examined the responses to targets that moved across different parts of the visual field at the same velocity as the learning targets. Learning generalized partially to motion presented at untrained locations in the visual field, even those across the vertical meridian. Experiments with two sets of learning trials showed interference between learning at different sites in the visual field, suggesting that pursuit learning is not capable of spatial specificity. Our findings are consistent with the previous suggestions that pursuit learning is encoded in an intermediate representation that is neither strictly sensory nor strictly motor. Our data add the constraint that the site or sites of pursuit learning must process visual information on a fairly large spatial scale that extends across the horizontal and vertical meridians.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Can an organism select new valuable information from environment].

The process of selecting new information by the organism ("learning") was studied. To take a decision, key patterns have to be set a priori, and so knowledge accumulation (learning) based on pattern recognition is impossible. It was shown that the only physical process that, takes place during the emergence of an external signal is the triggering of a priori programmes. An equivalent biophysical scheme of pattern recognition and taking the decisions by the organism was developed in which a signal received by the receptor leads to the synthesis of one of possible catalysts. The catalyst starts up the corresponding thermodynamic process. The information contained in the organism does not change during this process.

Animals↗

PubMed2000

Use of scheme-based problem solving: an evaluation of the implementation and utilization of schemes in a clinical presentation curriculum.

CONTEXT: The University of Calgary has implemented a new curriculum which is organized according to 120 ways in which patients may present to a physician. Students are taught scheme-based problem solving rather than the more typical hypothetico-deductive or search and scan approach to problem resolution. OBJECTIVE: This study sought to determine the extent to which faculty and students were implementing and utilizing scheme-based problem solving. METHOD: All classes taught within the new clinical presentation curriculum were surveyed at the year end. Participants included four classes of first-year students and three classes of second-year students. Using a 5-point scale, students responded to survey items regarding scheme implementation and utilization. RESULTS: Data were analysed using MANOVA (multivariate analysis of variance) and revealed significant differences among classes in both first- and second-year students. Increments in scheme implementation and utilization by instructors and students were observed, although instructors' utilization of schemes lagged behind that of students. A levelling effect to the benefits of schemes for problem solving was also evident. First-year students reported schemes to be very useful for learning and organizing new information. CONCLUSION: Although it has taken time to implement curriculum change, the student response to schemes has been favourable. Faculty development and further generation of pictorial/spatial representations for all schemes, to ensure that all clinical presentations provide pathways that students can use for both learning and problem solving are recommended. Whether students who utilize schemes are more successful problem solvers is not yet known but will be the subject of study as soon as scheme delivery is predominant.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

A modular learning environment for protein modeling.

We propose in this paper a modular learning environment for protein modeling. In this system, the protein modeling problem is tackled in two successive phases. First, partial structural informations are determined via numerical learning techniques. Then, in the second phase, the multiple available informations are combined in pattern matching searches via dynamic programming. It is shown on real problems that various protein structure predictions can be improved in this way, such as secondary structure prediction, alignment of weakly homologous protein sequences or protein model evaluations.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed1992

Augmented Kinematic Feedback for Motor Learning.

Although the study of feedback about goal achievement (knowledge of results, KR) has been important for the development principles of augmented information feedback in simple skills, there is reason to question the generalizability of these findings to many common learning situations. A more appropriate type of information for skill learning appears to be augmented kinematic (or kinetic) feedback regarding the movement pattern. The experiments presented here extend recent findings about KR to a paradigm involving kinematic feedback. In Experiment 1, we examined how several kinds of temporal and spatial kinematic information supplement KR in learning. Spatial kinematic variables were more effective than temporal variables, as indicated by performance in a retention test without kinematic feedback. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the schedule of augmented kinematic feedback in a method that paralleled previous KR work. We contrasted averaged schedules of augmented feedback, in which information was given either after every trial or as averaged information after every set of five trials. On retention tests without kinematic feedback given 1 day and 1 week after acquisition, averaged schedules led to enhanced performance over an every-trial format. Together, these results begin to define the variables important in kinematic feedback, and suggest that this feedback may influence learning in ways parallel to KR.

Journal Article↗