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Biomedical subjects

S J Thorpe

Publications and source records attributed to S J Thorpe.

78 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Recall and recognition memory for spider information.

Two experiments were devised to examine the effect of anxiety on memory for threatening information in those with spider phobia. Those with spider phobia, control participants, and those with other phobias were shown video clips of spiders. In the recognition task, participants were asked to state whether they remembered having seen specific video clips of spiders that had been presented to them previously. In the recall task, they were asked to remember and note as much detail as possible about each of a second series of video clips of spiders. Those with spider phobia were no different from the other two groups in their ability to recognize spider stimuli or in the amount of detail they were able to recall.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Face identification using one spike per neuron: resistance to image degradations.

The short response latencies of face selective neurons in the inferotemporal cortex impose major constraints on models of visual processing. It appears that visual information must essentially propagate in a feed-forward fashion with most neurons only having time to fire one spike. We hypothesize that flashed stimuli can be encoded by the order of firing of ganglion cells in the retina and propose a neuronal mechanism, that could be related to fast shunting inhibition, to decode such information. Based on these assumptions, we built a three-layered neural network of retino-topically organized neuronal maps. We showed, by using a learning rule involving spike timing dependant plasticity, that neuronal maps in the output layer can be trained to recognize natural photographs of faces. Not only was the model able to generalize to novel views of the same faces, it was also remarkably resistant to image noise and reductions in contrast.

Action Potentials↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Cold agglutinin activity is common among human monoclonal IgM Rh system antibodies using the V4-34 heavy chain variable gene segment.

BACKGROUND: The V4-34 gene segment is commonly used by human monoclonal IgM alloantibodies against blood group antigens and by cold-reactive red cell autoantibodies with anti-I or anti-i specificity. This study was conducted to determine whether cold agglutinin activity is found among the V4-34-encoded alloantibodies. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Fifty-four human IgM monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs) against Rh system antigens were tested for cold agglutinin activity against red cells lacking the relevant Rh system antigen and for reactivity with tissue I and/or i antigens using immunohistochemistry. The findings were correlated with the utilization of the V4-34 segment as determined in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with an antibody (9G4) that is specific for this gene product and were also correlated with other serologic properties. RESULTS: Of the MoAbs, 59 percent were 9G4-positive. Of the 9G4-positive subset, 16 and 44 percent agglutinated native adult (express I) and cord (express i) cells, respectively, at 4 degrees C; these levels rose to 84 and 94 percent, respectively, with the use of papain-treated cells. The red cell antigens recognized at 4 degrees C were cleaved by endo-beta-galactosidase, which is consistent with their being I and i. Of the 9G4-positive subset, 53 percent bound to tissue i antigen. These reactivities were not found among 9G4-negative MoAbs. Endo-beta-galactosidase treatment of red cells enhanced Rh system antibody agglutination by 9G4-negative MoAbs. CONCLUSION: Anti-I/i reactivity is common among IgM Rh system MoAbs and is shown only by the V4-34-encoded subset. This finding has implications for the use of MoAbs for Rh system typing of blood.

Agglutinins↗