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Biomedical subjects

E Balaban

Publications and source records attributed to E Balaban.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Transferring an inborn auditory perceptual predisposition with interspecies brain transplants.

Inborn species' perceptual preferences are thought to serve as important guides for neonatal learning in most species of higher vertebrates. Although much work has been carried out on experiential contributions to the expression of such preferences, their neural and developmental correlates remain largely unexplored. Here we use embryonic neural transplants between two bird species, the Japanese quail and the domestic chicken, to demonstrate that an inborn auditory perceptual predisposition is transferable between species. The transfer of the perceptual preference was dissociated from changes to the vocalizations of the resulting animals (called chimeras), suggesting that experiential differences in auditory self-stimulation cannot explain the perceptual change. A preliminary localization of the effective brain region for the behavioral transfer by using a naturally occurring species-cell marker revealed that it is not contained within the major avian auditory pathways. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that abstract aspects of auditory perception can be transferred between species with transplants of the central nervous system.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed2001

Human pitch perception is reflected in the timing of stimulus-related cortical activity.

'Pitch' refers to a sound's subjective highness or lowness, as distinct from 'frequency,' which refers to a sound's physical structure. In speech, music and other natural contexts, complex tones are often perceived with a single pitch. Using whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) and stimuli that dissociate pitch from frequency, we studied cortical dynamics in normal individuals who extracted different pitches from the same tone complexes. Whereas all subjects showed similar spatial distributions in the magnitude of their brain responses to the stimuli, subjects who heard different pitches exhibited contrasting temporal patterns of brain activity in their right but not their left hemispheres. These data demonstrate a specific relationship between pitch perception and the timing (phase) of dynamic patterns of cortical activity.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2000

Learning and memory.

Memory is one of the most fundamental mental processes. Neuroscientists study this process by using extremely diverse strategies. Two different approaches aimed at understanding learning and memory were introduced in this symposium. The first focuses on the roles played by synaptic plasticity, especially in long-term depression in the cerebellum in motor learning, and its regulatory mechanism. The second approach uses an elegant chick-quail transplantation system on defined brain regions to study how neural populations interact in development to form behaviorally important neural circuits and to elucidate neurobiological correlates of perceptual and motor predispositions.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Temporal patterns of human cortical activity reflect tone sequence structure.

Despite growing interest in temporal aspects of auditory neural processing, little is known about large-scale timing patterns of brain activity during the perception of auditory sequences. This is partly because it has not been possible to distinguish stimulus-related activity from other, endogenous brain signals recorded by electrical or magnetic sensors. Here we use amplitude modulation of unfamiliar, approximately 1-minute-long tone sequences to label stimulus-related magnetoencephalographic neural activity in human subjects. We show that temporal patterns of activity recorded over particular brain regions track the pitch contour of tone sequences, with the accuracy of tracking increasing as tone sequences become more predictable in structure. In contrast, temporal synchronization between recording locations, particularly between sites over the left posterior hemisphere and the rest of the brain, is greatest when sequences have melody-like statistical properties, which may reflect the perceptual integration of local and global pitch patterns in melody-like sequences. This method is particularly well suited to studying temporal neural correlates of complex auditory sequences (such as speech or music) which engage multiple brain areas as perception unfolds in time.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed1997

Changes in multiple brain regions underlie species differences in a complex, congenital behavior.

The evolutionary brain modifications that produce any complex, congenital behavioral difference between two species have never been identified. Evolutionary processes may (i) alter a single, "higher" brain area that generates and/or coordinates the diverse motor components of a complex act; (ii) separately change independent, "lower" brain areas that modulate the fine motor control of the individual components; or (iii) modify both types of areas. This study explores the brain localization of a species difference in one such behavior, the crowing of chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) and Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica). Two major subcomponents of the behavioral difference can be independently transferred with interspecies transplantation of separate brain regions, despite the fact that these components, sound and patterned head movement, occur together in a highly integrated fashion. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration that species differences in a complex behavior are built up from separate changes to distinct cell groups in different parts of the brain and that these cell groups have independent effects on individual behavioral components.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

The development of a species difference in the local distribution of brain estrogen receptive cells.

Estrogen receptors (ER) are crucial for estrogen-dependent brain differentiation and for estrogen-dependent neural functions of vertebrates. ER are expressed in a area-specific pattern in the vertebrate brain. The mechanisms that lead to the area-specific expression of ER are unknown. Here we use a species difference in the ER distribution between quail and chick and isochronic and isotopic quail to chick transplants to investigate mechanisms underlying the development of area-specific expression of ER. The entire neural tube rostral to the 6th somite (n = 2) or rostral to the otic capsules (n = 4) were transplanted at the second day of incubation (E2). In immunocytochemical stainings with the ER antibody H222Sp gamma, there is a defined cluster of intensely immunostained cells in the ventrolateral preoptic area of adult quails (the QERN). At the time of grafting, the entire brain primordium lacks ER. The QERN expresses ER as early as E13. The homologous area of the chicken brain does not differentiate cells that contain ER at any stage after ER are first detectable in the chicken brain at E11. In contrast, quail-chick chimeras develop the QERN phenotype in the ventrolateral preoptic area similar to quails. This implies that some signal which commits cells to the QERN phenotype (ER expression) is present in the quail brain primordium rostral to the otic capsules by embryonic day 2, and that this signal is unaffected by subsequent exposure to the global chick environment.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Mean genes and the biology of aggression: a critical review of recent animal and human research.

Recent genetic work has suggested that abnormalities in serotonin biochemistry are directly causally linked to aggressive behavior, and there appears to be a consensus in the psychiatric literature that low levels of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in cerebrospinal fluid are specifically associated with impulsive violent behavior. We review the limitations of the genetic studies and conduct a meta-analysis of 39 studies linking 5-HIAA to aggression in humans. No differences in mean 5-HIAA levels were found between groups of violent impulsive psychiatric patients and groups of subjects diagnosed with other psychiatric or medical conditions not considered to involve violence once these levels had been corrected for three nonpsychiatric sources of variation (age, sex and height). However, mean 5-HIAA levels in both of these groups were lower than the mean corrected level in groups of normal healthy volunteers. The results confirm an association between low 5-HIAA levels and psychiatric disorders, but fail to support any specific relationship between low 5-HIAA levels and impulsive aggression or criminality. It is premature and misleading to speak of "mean genes" (Hen 1996) or a specific neurochemistry of aggressive behavior.

Aggression↗
PubMed1991

Relative salience of species maternal calls in neonatal gallinaceous birds: a direct comparison of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) and domestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus).

Differential-approach tendencies of individual incubator-hatched chickens and Japanese quail were assayed using one exemplar of each of the species maternal calls in a simultaneous-choice paradigm. Within 24 hr after hatching, the birds received several short periods of exposure to rotating mounts of an adult female chicken and quail, which emitted the species-appropriate call. All birds were then tested with calls alone over the following 2 to 4 days. The test stimuli were played from speakers located behind pressure-sensitive panels so that approach behavior was recorded when a bird pushed against one of the panels. Both the chickens and the quail, as groups, spent significantly more time attempting to approach the exemplar of their own species maternal call, although there was considerable variation in the magnitude of the approach difference among individuals within each species. Sources of variation in preference scores are analyzed, and a simulation is used to interpret individual differences in response scores. This type of preference test is useful for a number of applications, notably for studying the behavior of quail-chick nervous system chimeras.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1988

Application of the quail-chick chimera system to the study of brain development and behavior.

Hatched chicks with chimeric brains containing cells from both the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) and the Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) have been produced by transplantation of various regions of the neural tube at the 8- to 15- somite stage. The positions of host and donor cells relative to graft boundaries observed throughout embryonic development and after hatching implicated both radial and tangential cell movements in brain morphogenesis. In addition, transplants containing the entire quail mesencephalon and diencephalon resulted in the transfer of certain aspects of species-typical crowing behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Bird song syntax: learned intraspecific variation is meaningful.

Song syntax, defined as orderly temporal arrangements of acoustic units within a bird song, is a conspicuous feature of the songs of many species of passerine birds. While syntactical features play a role in interspecific song recognition by males of many bird species, syntax variation within species and female responsiveness to song syntax have received little attention. This report demonstrates that differences in naturally occurring learned song syntax within a species whose syntax varies geographically are behaviorally salient to both male and female birds. The salience of culturally transmitted intraspecific differences in song syntax has implications for the process of conspecific song perception and may be involved in the regulation of genetic exchange between large populations of swamp sparrows (Melospiza georgiana).

Animals↗
PubMed1983

Successful treatment of primary central nervous system lymphomas with chemotherapy after osmotic blood-brain barrier opening.

Three patients with primary central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma have had major tumor regression with multiagent chemotherapy given in association with reversible blood-brain barrier opening used to enhance drug delivery to the tumor. In addition, in one patient barrier modification was carried out in the posterior fossa by mannitol infusion into the vertebral artery without untoward effects, an approach not heretofore accomplished. Computed tomographic (CT) studies documented that discontinuation of steroids rapidly effected an increase in the delivery of contrast agent to the tumor. CT monitoring of the degree of barrier modification showed tumor nodules and tumor size not apparent on the control scans, thereby providing additional evidence of the existence of a blood-brain barrier in CNS tumors. These studies further show that drug (contrast) delivery to the tumor, as well as to the surrounding barrier, is enhanced after reversible blood-brain barrier modification. Finally, chemotherapy administered by this approach resulted in defined, objective tumor responses in these three patients.

Adult↗