Visual- and saccade-related signals in the primate inferior colliculus

cloudy submitted, created time 1 year 1 month (www.pnas.org)

The inferior colliculus (IC) is normally thought of as a predominantly auditory structure because of its early position in the ascending auditory pathway just before the auditory thalamus. Here, we show that a majority of IC neurons (64% of 180 neurons) in awake monkeys carry visual- and/or saccade-related signals in addition to their auditory responses (P < 0.05). The response patterns involve primarily excitatory visual responses, but also increased activity time-locked to the saccade, slow rises in activity time-locked to the onset of the visual stimulus, and inhibitory responses

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Show me the neurons! Should "sensory processing disorder" be included in the DSM-IV?

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.nytimes.com)

Though sensory processing issues -- over or underreaction to sensory stimuli -- are well documented as components of autism and fragile X syndromes, many occupational therapists claim that they can occur on their own. Some parents groups have petitioned the American Psychiatric Association to include it in the DSM so that it will get attention and research. Many kids with sensory processing disorder, they say, are misdiagnosed as ADHD. Opponents worry that this would lead to thousands of diagnoses, overdiagnosis and overload schools and insurance companies

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Interictal habituation deficit of the nociceptive blink reflex: an endophenotypic marker for presymptomatic migraine?

athena submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (brain.oxfordjournals.org)

"We found a positive intraindividual correlation between attack frequency and habituation in MO (r = 0.621; P = 0.010). Migraine patients have interictally a deficient habituation of the nBR which is inversely related to attack frequency, suggesting that it is not due to trigeminal sensitization. Surprisingly, the most pronounced habituation deficit is found in asymptomatic individuals with a family history of migraine. Deficient nBR habituation could thus be a trait marker for the genetic predisposition to migraine. "

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