Empowering neuroscience: Wireless power enables insights into neural behaviors in freely moving animals

ELSP

 

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Optimized multi-coil wireless power transfer for
experimental neuroscience settings with live animals: a
robust design methodology

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Credit: Benoit Gosselin/Université Laval

In a study published in the Neuroelectronics Journal, researchers from Laval University, the University of Bordeaux, and the CERVO Brain Research Centre introduced a safe and reliable wireless power transfer system for electrophysiological recording in freely moving laboratory mice. The design approach prioritized a lightweight and compact receiver coil, minimizing interference with the animals' natural behavior. The findings indicate that the system's design effectively balances power transfer efficiency and operational practicality, providing a robust platform for real-time neuronal activity monitoring, validated through continuous in-vivo recordings.

Electrophysiological recording and neural stimulation in freely moving laboratory mice offer significant potential for advancing neuroscience research, enabling the study of neural activities and brain functions in natural surroundings. Using wireless technologies and miniaturized devices, researchers can monitor and manipulate the electrical activity of neurons in real time while the animals engage in complex behaviors. However, the autonomy of a wireless system is often limited to a few minutes or a few hours due to size and weight constraints. To address this, a wireless link for continuous power transmission is essential to run practical experiments. Working with mice is challenging due to their small size and limited volume available, necessitating the use of very small and light electronics. It is also crucial to maintain the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) within safe limits to prevent heating and temperature rises that could interfere with physiological conditions and measurements.

This study developed an inductive wireless power transfer (WPT) system embedded within the homecage to power small bioinstruments such as an electrophysiology recording headstage equipped with a lightweight power receiver coil attached to the head of a laboratory mouse. The system includes a power amplifier injecting current into a primary coil, which produces magnetic flux. On the receiver side, the flux is induced into the receiver coil, providing current for a headstage and enabling continuous brain activity monitoring in freely moving mice. This eliminates the need for wires or tethered power sources, allowing mice to move naturally while recording their neural activity in real time.

By optimizing the power transfer link, the system achieves high efficiency without bulky equipment. The lightweight, compact design ensures the animals can move freely during experiments. The system operates at a frequency that transfers power efficiently while meeting safety standards, avoiding risks of overheating or tissue damage, even during extended use. This approach allows scientists to conduct longer, more complex experiments and observe behaviors that were previously difficult to study with traditional tethered systems. The wireless system enables continuous monitoring of brain activity in real time, offering exciting possibilities for more extensive and long-term neuroscience studies.

In an in-vivo experiment, the system successfully powered a device that recorded neural signals while the mouse moved freely within its cage. This marks a significant step forward for neuroscience, as it allows for real-time tracking of brain activity in a natural environment, offering more accurate insights into how the brain works during everyday behavior.

This advancement could pave the way for new treatments for brain disorders, as well as innovations in brain-machine interfaces and other neural technologies. It also opens up new possibilities for studying how the brain controls behavior in real-world settings, with potential applications in learning, memory research, and developing better therapies for neurological conditions.

This paper was published in Neuroelectronics Journal. Hayati H, Bilodeau G, Brochoire L, Gagnon-Turcotte G, Fossat P, De Koninck Y, and Gosselin B. Optimized multi-coil wireless power transfer for experimental neuroscience settings with live animals: a robust design methodology. Neuroelectronics 2024(1):0001.

 

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Journal

Neuroelectronics

DOI

10.55092/neuroelectronics20240003. 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Optimized multi-coil wireless power transfer for experimental neuroscience settings with live animals: a robust design methodology

Article Publication Date

20-Nov-2024

COI Statement

All experimental procedures were conducted in accordance with guidelines from the Canadian Council on Animal Care and were approved by the committee for animal protection of Université Laval (CPAUL). Approval date: 2022-05-09. Approval number: 2022-1001, VRR-22-1001.

 

Retrieve–Revise–Refine: A novel framework for retrieval of concise entailing legal article set

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

 

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Overall architecture of Retrieve–Revise–Refine framework.

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Credit: Nguyen Le Minh from JAIST.

• 
  
• 
  
• Researchers propose a novel three-stage framework, Retrieve–Revise–Refine, specifically designed to address the intricate challenge of legal article set retrieval, which focuses on retrieving a concise (i.e., precise and compact) set of entailing legal articles.
• Secondly, they rigorously evaluate the framework using two datasets, where they observe notable improvements in the macro F2 score, achieving increases of 3.17% and 4.24% over the previous state-of-the-art methods, respectively.
• Lastly, their comprehensive ablation studies and subsequent analysis provide valuable insights into the critical functions of each stage within the framework.　

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to redefine the boundaries of legal technology, offering promise in automating advanced tasks such as legal question answering and consultation. In the domain of statute law, a particularly principal challenge is the task of retrieving the concise set of entailing legal articles to a query, a task essential to enhancing these advanced applications. In this context, we refer to this task as entailing legal article set retrieval or, more briefly, legal article set retrieval.

The task of retrieving entailing legal article sets differs markedly from traditional information retrieval (IR) in two main aspects. Firstly, unlike the traditional IR which returns a ranked list of articles, the legal article set retrieval task seeks a concise set of articles. This level of specificity extends to the nature of the legal queries and legal articles themselves: they are inherently complex and steeped in specialized legal language, demanding a retrieval system with deeper legal reasoning and linking capacity. Secondly, while traditional IR efforts primarily involve ranking candidates by relevance, our task requires that the retrieved articles not just relate to but jointly entail the contents of a query or its negation. These characteristics set this task apart from the broader goals and methods of traditional IR tasks.

Previous research in legal article set retrieval has predominantly employed two approaches. The first approach combines classical IR models with fine-tuned language models (LMs), and then ensembles the retrieval results to consolidate the final retrieved sets. Meanwhile, the second approach uses classical IR models exclusively for preliminary candidate filtering, which prepares inputs for further LM fine-tuning; the final results are often ensembled from various fine-tuned LMs.

To address the task of legal article set retrieval, a team of researchers from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), led by Professor Le-Minh Nguyen and including doctoral students Chau Nguyen, proposed framework, called Retrieve–Revise–Refine. The framework is designed to pinpoint the concise set of legal articles that either entail a query or its negation, advancing the current understanding of this task. Furthermore, their approach leverages the unique advantages of combining both small LMs and large LMs to improve the accuracy of the articles retrieved (i.e., precision), while endeavoring to limit the loss in coverage (i.e., recall). The framework consists of three stages:

1. Retrieve: Maximizing the comprehensive retrieval of entailing articles using an ensemble of multiple small LMs, fine-tuned with various tailored strategies.

2. Revise: Large LMs are utilized to assess the validity of the query with respect to each combination of articles from the top retrieval results, aiming to derive a more compact subset of entailing legal articles.

3. Refine: Further distilling the outputs from the second stage, using insights derived from the small LMs’ predictions as refiners for the predictions of the large LMs.

As shown in the empirical results, their proposed framework achieved state-of-the-art results for the task across two datasets, showing improvements of 3.17% and 4.24%, respectively. Their study was published online in Information Processing & Management.

 

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Reference

Title of original paper:	Retrieve–Revise–Refine: A novel framework for retrieval of concise entailing legal article set
Authors:	Chau Nguyen*, Phuong Nguyen, Le-Minh Nguyen
Journal:	Information Processing & Management
DOI:	10.1016/j.ipm.2024.103949

 

                                           

About Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Founded in 1990 in Ishikawa prefecture, the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) was the first independent national graduate school in Japan. Now, after 30 years of steady progress, JAIST has become one of Japan’s top-ranking universities. JAIST strives to foster capable leaders with a state-of-the-art education system where diversity is key; about 40% of its alumni are international students. The university has a unique style of graduate education based on a carefully designed coursework-oriented curriculum to ensure that its students have a solid foundation on which to carry out cutting-edge research. JAIST also works closely both with local and overseas communities by promoting industry–academia collaborative research.

 

Funding information

This work is supported partly by AOARD grant FA23862214039.

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Journal

Information Processing & Management

DOI

10.1016/j.ipm.2024.103949 

Article Title

Retrieve–Revise–Refine: A novel framework for retrieval of concise entailing legal article set

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

 

Forestry Research indexed in PubMed Central

Maximum Academic Press

 

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Forestry Research

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Credit: Forestry Research

We are delighted to announce that the Forestry Research (www.maxapress.com/forres) is now indexed in PubMed Central® (PMC), which is a recognition by international authorities of the quality and academic level of articles published by the journal. Readers around the world can obtain all the articles of this journal since its inception free of charge in the PMC database at the following URL: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/journals/?term=9918863344406676.

PubMed Central® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM). In keeping with NLM's legislative mandate to collect and preserve the biomedical literature, PMC is part of the NLM collection, which also includes NLM's extensive print and licensed electronic journal holdings and supports contemporary biomedical and health care research and practice as well as future scholarship.

About the journal

Forestry Research (www.maxapress.com/forres) (e-ISSN 2767-3812) is an open access, online-only journal devoted to publishing original research articles, methods, reviews, and perspectives in forest science. The journal focuses on major forest species, including but not limited to timber, ornamental, economic, and ecological trees. Economic trees include those that bear fruit, nuts, oilseeds, and various biomaterials, while ecological trees include those that serve various ecological functions, such as windbreaks in farm fields, soil erosion prevention, and anti-desertification. However, only highly impactful research on ornamental, economic, and ecological trees will be considered.

Submit your manuscript: 

https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/forres

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Journal

Forestry Research

Article Title

Forestry Research Indexed in PubMed Central

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

Caregivers experience decline in well-being

University of Zurich

New research from the University of Zurich, based on data from more than 28,000 caregivers in three countries, shows that the longer individuals spend caring for loved ones, the more their well-being suffers, regardless of the caregiving context. These findings underscore the need for policy discussions to alleviate the burden of informal care.

The prevalence of informal caregiving continues to rise globally, bringing abrupt changes to caregivers' lives. But how does caregiving affect their well-being? Past research offers conflicting views: some suggest it enhances well-being by providing a sense of purpose, while others report declines due to emotional strain.

To address this, a new study from the University of Zurich (UZH) analyzed data from 28,663 caregivers, who contributed 281,884 observations across panel studies in the Netherlands, Germany, and Australia. The results show a consistent drop in life satisfaction and emotional health, with an increase in loneliness and anxiety – particularly for women.

Well-being suffers over time

“The results of our analyses showed a decline in well-being in the years following the start of caregiving,” explains co-author Michael Krämer from the Department of Psychology at UZH. “These declines were consistent across different aspects of well-being – life satisfaction, emotional experiences, depression/anxiety, and loneliness – and were more pronounced and longer lasting for women than for men.”

The researchers also explored how time spent caregiving affected well-being. They found that the more time people spent on caregiving tasks, the more their well-being suffered, regardless of gender.

The study further examined factors like caregiving intensity, the relationship between caregivers and recipients, and full-time employment. Surprisingly, these factors had little influence on the overall decline in well-being, suggesting that caregivers face similar challenges across different contexts.

Mitigating the negative impact on caregivers

“While these findings highlight the stress caregiving can bring, individual experiences may differ,” says Krämer. “There are other aspects of psychological well-being, such as finding a sense of purpose, that we couldn’t assess with these data.” Some caregivers may even find meaning in their role.

Overall, the findings are consistent with stress theory and show the potential decline in well-being that often accompanies informal caregiving. Women appear to be particularly vulnerable, likely because they tend to take on more intensive responsibilities for close family members. These findings highlight the need for policies that reduce the reliance on informal care, such as improved access to formal long-term care or blended care solutions that could mitigate the negative effects on caregivers.

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Journal

Psychological Science

DOI

10.1177/09567976241279203 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Well-Being Costs of Informal Caregiving

Article Publication Date

25-Nov-2024

 

New model combines data to improve typhoon forecasting

\

Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

 

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HAIYAN-I, about to take off for an observation mission

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Credit: Liu Zhenyu

Over the past few decades, because of the frequent number of typhoons making landfall in South China, the Guangzhou Institute of Tropical and Marine Meteorology has developed a model, called CMA-TRAMS, to provide operational forecasting products for typhoons.

Years of research carried out by scientists has led to the point where we know that assimilating unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and atmospheric sounding data can enhance the typhoon forecasting capabilities of numerical models. However, in practical operations, the scarcity of such data over ocean regions restricts further improvement in operational typhoon forecasting.

Based on these considerations, China’s National Meteorological Observation Centre has promoted a new generation of operational sounding systems called “Beidou”. Compared to traditional sounding balloons, the Beidou system provides more segments of high-level observation data. Combined with the data from the new-generation HAIYAN-I UAV, the data sources over the ocean during landfalling typhoons have been greatly enriched.

On this basis, the CMA-TRAMS team conducted an assimilation forecast experiment with observations that targeted Typhoon Haikui, which occurred in 2023. The results showed that, with the new assimilated data, the forecast landing point of Haiku was significantly closer to reality, which is published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters recently.

"This experiment marks the first attempt to assimilate both Beidou sounding data and UAV data into an operational forecast system for South China, and the results suggest it represents a good start," says Dr. Sheng Hu, one of the corresponding authors of the study.

The other corresponding author, Dr Xuefen Zhang, adds "Promoting the integration of new observation data into operational forecasting models is crucial. We hope to continue conducting such operational assimilation experiments to ultimately serve frontline operational forecasts."

In the future, the CMA-TRAMS team plan to conduct further targeted observations of typhoons in the South China Sea and increase the application of observational data in the assimilation process. Ultimately, they hope to provide higher-quality typhoon forecasts for the South China region.

 

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Journal

Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

DOI

10.1016/j.aosl.2024.100555 

 

Predicting the weather: New meteorology estimation method aids building efficiency

Balancing environmental conditions with energy-saving performance

Osaka Metropolitan University

 

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Incorporating environmental factors into building efficiency assessments is necessary as the effects of climate change increase.

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Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University

Due to the growing reality of global warming and climate change, there is increasing uncertainty around meteorological conditions used in energy assessments of buildings. Existing methods for generating meteorological data do not adequately handle the interdependence of meteorological elements, such as solar radiation, air temperature, and absolute humidity, which are important for calculating energy usage and efficiency.

To address this challenge, a research team at Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Human Life and Ecology—comprising Associate Professor Jihui Yuan, Professor Emeritus Kazuo Emura, Dr. Zhichao Jiao, and Associate Professor Craig Farnham—developed an innovative evaluation method. This method utilizes a statistical model to represent the interdependence of multiple factors, facilitating the generation of probabilistic meteorological data.

The researchers modeled the temperature, solar radiation, and humidity at noon each day, and then gradually expanded this to 24 hours and 365 days to generate a year’s worth of meteorological data. The most notable aspect of this method is that it takes into account the interdependence of meteorological variables and improves the accuracy of building energy simulations. Their generated data was almost identical to the original data set, proving the method’s accuracy.

“We hope this method will lead to the promotion of energy-efficient building design that can respond to various weather conditions,” stated Professor Yuan.

The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

###

About OMU 

Established in Osaka as one of the largest public universities in Japan, Osaka Metropolitan University is committed to shaping the future of society through the “Convergence of Knowledge” and the promotion of world-class research. For more research news, visit https://www.omu.ac.jp/en/ and follow us on social media: X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

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Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-75498-8 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Multivariate stochastic generation of meteorological data for building simulation through interdependent meteorological processes

DUH OH!

Brain test shows that crabs process pain

ANIMAL TESTING IS TORTURE

 News Release 26-Nov-2024
University of Gothenburg

 

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Electrodes measuring brain activity were attached to a shore crab, which was then subjected to mechanical and chemical stimuli.

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Credit: Eleftherios Kasiouras

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg are the first to prove that painful stimuli are sent to the brain of shore crabs providing more evidence for pain in crustaceans. EEG style measurements show clear neural reactions in the crustacean's brain during mechanical or chemical stimulation.

In the search for a better welfare of animals that we humans kill for food, researchers at the University of Gothenburg have chosen to focus on decapod crustaceans. This includes shellfish delicacies such as prawns, lobsters, crabs and crayfish that we both catch wild and farm. Currently, shellfish are not covered by animal welfare legislation in EU, but this might be about to change. For a good reason, according to researchers.

“We need to find less painful ways to kill shellfish if we are to continue eating them. Because now we have scientific evidence that they both experience and react to pain,” says Lynne Sneddon, zoophysiologist at the University of Gothenburg.

Several research groups have previously conducted a number of observational studies on crustaceans where they have been subjected to mechanical impact, electric shocks or acids to soft tissues such as the antennae. These crustaceans have reacted by touching the exposed area or trying to avoid the danger in repeated experiments, leading researchers to assume that they feel pain.

 Pain receptors in the soft tissues

The researchers at the University of Gothenburg are the first to carry out neurobiological studies by measuring the activity in the brain of a shore crab, through an EEG style measurement.

“We could see that the crab has some kind of pain receptors in its soft tissues, because we recorded an increase in brain activity when we applied a potentially painful chemical, a form of vinegar, to the crab's soft tissues. The same happened when we applied external pressure to several of the crab's body parts,” says Eleftherios Kasiouras, PhD student at the University of Gothenburg and lead author of the study published in the journal Biology.

The activity of the central nervous system in the brain was measured in the crab when the soft tissues of claws, antennae and legs were subjected to some form of stress. The responses show that shore crabs must have some form of pain signalling to the brain from these body parts. The pain response was shorter and more powerful in the case of physical stress than in the case of chemical stress, which lasted longer.

Allowed to cut up alive

“It is a given that all animals need some kind of pain system to cope by avoiding danger. I don't think we need to test all species of crustaceans, as they have a similar structure and therefore similar nervous systems. We can assume that shrimps, crayfish and lobsters can also send external signals about painful stimuli to their brain which will process this information,” says Eleftherios Kasiouras.

The researchers point out that we need to find more humane ways to handle and even kill crustaceans. At present, it is allowed to cut up a crustacean alive, unlike the mammals we eat.

“We need more research to find less painful ways to kill shellfish,” says Lynne Sneddon.

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg are the first to prove that painful stimuli are sent to the brain of shore crabs providing more evidence for pain in crustaceans. EEG style measurements show clear neural reactions in the crustacean's brain during mechanical or chemical stimulation.

In the search for a better welfare of animals that we humans kill for food, researchers at the University of Gothenburg have chosen to focus on decapod crustaceans. This includes shellfish delicacies such as prawns, lobsters, crabs and crayfish that we both catch wild and farm. Currently, shellfish are not covered by animal welfare legislation in EU, but this might be about to change. For a good reason, according to researchers.

“We need to find less painful ways to kill shellfish if we are to continue eating them. Because now we have scientific evidence that they both experience and react to pain,” says Lynne Sneddon, zoophysiologist at the University of Gothenburg.

Several research groups have previously conducted a number of observational studies on crustaceans where they have been subjected to mechanical impact, electric shocks or acids to soft tissues such as the antennae. These crustaceans have reacted by touching the exposed area or trying to avoid the danger in repeated experiments, leading researchers to assume that they feel pain.

 Pain receptors in the soft tissues

The researchers at the University of Gothenburg are the first to carry out neurobiological studies by measuring the activity in the brain of a shore crab, through an EEG style measurement.

“We could see that the crab has some kind of pain receptors in its soft tissues, because we recorded an increase in brain activity when we applied a potentially painful chemical, a form of vinegar, to the crab's soft tissues. The same happened when we applied external pressure to several of the crab's body parts,” says Eleftherios Kasiouras, PhD student at the University of Gothenburg and lead author of the study published in the journal Biology.

The activity of the central nervous system in the brain was measured in the crab when the soft tissues of claws, antennae and legs were subjected to some form of stress. The responses show that shore crabs must have some form of pain signalling to the brain from these body parts. The pain response was shorter and more powerful in the case of physical stress than in the case of chemical stress, which lasted longer.

Allowed to cut up alive

“It is a given that all animals need some kind of pain system to cope by avoiding danger. I don't think we need to test all species of crustaceans, as they have a similar structure and therefore similar nervous systems. We can assume that shrimps, crayfish and lobsters can also send external signals about painful stimuli to their brain which will process this information,” says Eleftherios Kasiouras.

The researchers point out that we need to find more humane ways to handle and even kill crustaceans. At present, it is allowed to cut up a crustacean alive, unlike the mammals we eat.

“We need more research to find less painful ways to kill shellfish,” says Lynne Sneddon.

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Journal

Biology

DOI

10.3390/biology13110851 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Putative Nociceptive Responses in a Decapod Crustacean: The Shore Crab (Carcinus maenas)

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