Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Modern neural networks gave rise to major breakthroughs in several research areas. In neuroscience, we are witnessing a reappraisal of neural network theory and its relevance for understanding information processing in biological systems. The research presented in this book provides various perspectives on the use of artificial neural networks as models of neural information processing. We consider the biological plausibility of neural networks, performance improvements, spiking neural networks and the use of neural networks for understanding brain function.

brain imaging --- artificial neural networks --- deep learning --- neural information processing --- backpropagation --- spiking neural networks

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact

Science: general issues --- Neurosciences --- Brain --- Neuroscience --- collaboration --- brain imaging --- MRI --- fMRI --- EEG --- Genetics --- imaging genetics --- Software

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Astrocytes are key cellular partners to neurons in the brain. They play an important role in multiple processes such as neurotransmitter recycling, trophic support, antioxidant defense, ionic homeostasis, inflammatory modulation, neurovascular and neurometabolic coupling, neurogenesis, synapse formation and synaptic plasticity. In addition to their crucial involvement in normal brain physiology, it is well known that astrocytes adopt a reactive phenotype under most acute and chronic pathological conditions such as ischemia, trauma, brain cancer, epilepsy, demyelinating and neurodegenerative diseases. However, the functional impact of astrocyte reactivity is still unclear. During the last decades, the development of innovative approaches to study astrocytes has significantly improved our understanding of their prominent role in brain function and their contribution to disease states. In particular, new genetic tools, molecular probes, and imaging techniques that achieve high spatial and temporal resolution have revealed new insight into astrocyte functions in situ. This Research Topic provides a collection of cutting-edge techniques, approaches and models to study astrocytes in health and disease. It also suggests new directions to achieve discoveries on these fascinating cells.

Astrocytes. --- Neurons --- brain imaging --- transgenesis --- high-resolution imaging --- gene transfer --- Reactive astrocytes --- Electrophysiology --- neuron-astrocyte interactions --- In vivo analysis --- Physiology.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Myotonic dystrophies (DMs) are pleotropic multisystemic diseases. These dominantly transmitted repeat disorders affect multiple organs of the human body at all ages – from the newborns to the elderly. The present Research Topic represents a timely addition to the expanding body of evidence which aims to provide novel perspectives in our understanding of myotonic dystrophies. This collection of original contributions and standpoint reviews from multiple leading DM centres in Europe describes the state of the art for the characterization of the DMs diseases, the development of molecular strategies to target its multisystemic nature, and provides evidence of screening and testing novel therapeutic avenues.

brain imaging --- animal models --- phenotypes --- cell models --- myotonic dystrophy type 1 and type 2 --- DM2 --- DM1 --- CNS involvement --- multisystemic diseases --- repeat disorders

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Decades of brain imaging experiments have revealed important insights into the architecture of the human brain and the detailed anatomic basis for the neural dynamics supporting human cognition. However, technical restrictions of traditional brain imaging approaches including functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) severely limit participants' movements during experiments. As a consequence, our knowledge of the neural basis of human cognition is rooted in a dissociation of human cognition from what is arguably its foremost, and certainly its evolutionarily most determinant function, organizing our behavior so as to optimize its consequences in our complex, multi-scale, and ever-changing environment. The concept of natural cognition, therefore, should not be separated from our fundamental experience and role as embodied agents acting in a complex, partly unpredictable world. To gain new insights into the brain dynamics supporting natural cognition, we must overcome restrictions of traditional brain imaging technology. First, the sensors used must be lightweight and mobile to allow monitoring of brain activity during free participant movements. New hardware technology for electroencephalography (EEG) and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) allows recording electrical and hemodynamic brain activity while participants are freely moving. New data-driven analysis approaches must allow separation of signals arriving at the sensors from the brain and from non-brain sources (neck muscles, eyes, heart, the electrical environment, etc.). Independent component analysis (ICA) and related blind source separation methods allow separation of brain activity from non-brain activity from data recorded during experimental paradigms that stimulate natural cognition. Imaging the precisely timed, distributed brain dynamics that support all forms of our motivated actions and interactions in both laboratory and real-world settings requires new modes of data capture and of data processing. Synchronously recording participants’ motor behavior, brain activity, and other physiology, as well as their physical environment and external events may be termed mobile brain/body imaging ('MoBI'). Joint multi-stream analysis of recorded MoBI data is a major conceptual, mathematical, and data processing challenge. This Research Topic is one result of the first international MoBI meeting in Delmenhorst Germany in September 2013. During an intense workshop researchers from all over the world presented their projects and discussed new technological developments and challenges of this new imaging approach. Several of the presentations are compiled in this Research Topic that we hope may inspire new research using the MoBI paradigm to investigate natural cognition by recording and analyzing the brain dynamics and behavior of participants performing a wide range of naturally motivated actions and interactions.

Brain --- Neuroimaging. --- fNIRS --- EEG --- Body Imaging --- computational neuroscience --- neuroergonomics --- Wireless dry EEG Sensors --- Biomechanics --- Natural Cognition --- Gait rehabilitation --- Mobile Brain --- Brain Mapping --- Embodied Cognition --- Mobile Brain Imaging --- Wireless Sensing --- Imaging.