Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with bees p... more Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with bees performing very well and others at low rates. Here we investigated this behavioral heterogeneity and asked whether it is associated with particular gene expression patterns. Bees were individually conditioned in a sequential conditioning protocol involving several phases of olfactory learning and retention tests. The rate of CS+ odor learning was found to correlate highest with a cumulative performance score extracted from all learning and retention tests. The cumulative score was used to sort the tested bees into high and low performers. Microarray analysis of gene expression in the mushroom body area of the brains of these bees disclosed a list of genes, which were differentially expressed between the high and low performers. These candidate genes are implicated in diverse biological functions, such as neurotransmission, memory formation, cargo trafficking and development.
Honeybees have superior abilities to learn and discriminate between enormous number of odors with... more Honeybees have superior abilities to learn and discriminate between enormous number of odors with different carbon chain length and functional group. They learn odors outside the colony during foraging as well as inside the colony while communicating with the hive comrades. Bees can be trained to learn odors in the laboratory in simple and complex forms of learning assays using the popular conditioning paradigm namely, the olfactory conditioning of proboscis extension reflex (PER). I used the same olfactory PER conditioning assay and investigated the influences of different learning and memory related features on the overall performance of bees in complex form of olfactory learning. In addition, I recorded physiological responses from the olfactory neurons in honeybee brain to understand the olfactory coding in presence of the complex background odor used for adaptation. In the first chapter of this dissertation I investigated the role of olfaction in honeybees to detect the presenc...
Pathobiology of Parasitic Protozoa: Dynamics and Dimensions, 2023
The association between chronic and acute infections with cognitive decline has been established ... more The association between chronic and acute infections with cognitive decline has been established by considerable amount of evidences comprising laboratory level and cohort studies. Infections caused by protozoan parasites have a systemic impact on host, often linked to altered psychosocial behaviours. Neuroparasitology research gradually accumulated mechanistic understanding of the cognitive interface of parasite-host interaction. As revealed by clinical findings, cytokine-chemokine levels and direct neuroimaging of infections caused by neurotropic and non-neurotropic parasite factors like the shared molecular pathways, immunoinflammation affecting the central nervous system (CNS) and direct damage of CNS by parasitic invasion determine the association of the host cognition and parasitic infections. In this narrative, cognitive and neurological aspects of six important parasitic protozoan diseases, namely, toxoplasmosis, malaria, Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis and primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, have been discussed. The broader aim of the article is to emphasize significance of cognitive care in developing therapeutic strategies against the diseases.
COVID-19 pandemic in India: Chronological comparison of the regional heterogeneity in the progression of the pandemic and gaps in mitigation strategies, 2021
Abstract:
Background: The progressions of the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in ... more Abstract: Background: The progressions of the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in India were heterogeneous in different regions and their respective states and union territories. Our work aims to understand the major differences between the two waves and the mitigation strategies implemented during these waves. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of the temporal variations in new cases and fatalities in all the states of India was done for both the first wave (30th January 2020 to 31st January 2021) and second wave (1st February 2021 to 29th May 2021) of the pandemic. Variations in different epidemiological parameters, like case fatality ratio (CFR), cumulative case ratio (CCR), and cumulative death ratio (CDR) were quantified. Findings: The Southern and Western regions were the top contributors of cases and fatalities in both waves. The state of Punjab and Maharashtra reported the highest CFR (3.24 and 2.5 respectively) in the country during the first wave and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (2.6), and Punjab (2.25) reported the highest CFR during the second. Goa and Delhi respectively showed the highest CCR and CDR during the first wave, whereas Lakshadweep and Goa respectively reported the highest CCR and CDR in the second wave. Conclusion: The study comprehends the chronological heterogeneity in the patterns of pandemic progression and the severity of the second wave over all the states of the country, highlighting the major hotspot regions and some gaps in mitigation strategies.
The popular wildlife meat markets or 'bushmeat' markets, selling animal hosts with deadly zoonoti... more The popular wildlife meat markets or 'bushmeat' markets, selling animal hosts with deadly zoonotic viruses, such as bats, rodents, primates, civets, pangolins, and birds, have been identified for a long time, in the different continents, as places at high risk for zoonotic transmissions of viruses from the wildlife to humans, including the novel SARS-CoV-2 (1, 2,
The primary models of understanding human face recognition aim to understand not only facial iden... more The primary models of understanding human face recognition aim to understand not only facial identity information processing but also non-identity facial information processing. The present review discusses the major theoretical approaches in this regard and critically evaluates the existing empirical evidence in conjunction with the said models.
Human adults are endowed with the abilities to quickly
and accurately recognize the identity of o... more Human adults are endowed with the abilities to quickly and accurately recognize the identity of other human faces attributed to both configural processing (processing the relations among the facial features as a cognitive whole) and featural processing (independent processing of information of individual facial features) of faces. Human infants, like adults, also show significant capacity to recognize faces using both configural and featural modes of information processing from the first months of their lives. In this review, we have discussed the theories and evidences that unveil the cognitive and neural mechanisms that human infants employ for face recognition.
Ca 2+ imaging techniques were applied to investigate the neuronal behavior of projection neurons ... more Ca 2+ imaging techniques were applied to investigate the neuronal behavior of projection neurons in the honeybee antennal lobe (AL) to examine the effects of long-lasting adaptation on odorant coding. Responses to eight test odorants were measured before, during, and after an odor adaptation phase. Bees were exposed to the adapting odor for 30 min. Test odorant responses were only recorded from a sub-population of accessible glomeruli on the AL surface. Projection neurons, the output neurons of the antennal lobes, are projecting through the lateral, mediolateral, and medial AL tract to higher centers of the olfactory pathway. Due to our staining techniques, we primarily focused our study on projection neurons going through the lateral and medial tract. Test odorants comprised compounds with different functional groups (alcohol, aldehyde, ketone, and ester) representing floral and/or pheromone odorants. Strength and discriminability between combinatorial activity patterns induced by the test odorants were quantified. In two independent experiments, we investigated one group of animals adapted to a colony odor and another adapted to a synthetic odor. Within the experimental groups, we found test odorant responses either decreased or increased in AL projection neurons. Additionally, the discriminability between test odorant patterns became less distinct in the colony odor experiment and more distinct during adaptation in the synthetic mixture experiment. These results are interpreted as odor dependent adaptation effects, increasing or decreasing response strength and discriminability by altered neural coding mechanisms in the AL neuropile.
Body-image cognitive distortions and self-esteem are two socially important parameters which are ... more Body-image cognitive distortions and self-esteem are two socially important parameters which are reported to be associated with the skin color satisfaction in the young people. However, much of the research till date has been conducted on the populations of color in the color-stratified Western societies and on women, with contradictory results. To better understand the depths of associations between these parameters, we investigated whether greater skin color satisfaction is connected to lower body-image cognitive distortions and higher self-esteem among the young Indian men and women. Data were collected from 145 participants (male 73 and female 72), between ages 18 and 26 years. Results showed a general preference for lighter skin color among the participants with men, in our sample, expressed significant negative and positive associations of skin color satisfaction respectively with body-image cognitive distortions and self-esteem. However, skin color satisfaction is not a good predictor of self-esteem in our study, unlike the parameter body-image cognitive distortions. The findings are discussed in lights of self-perception and mental health of the young adult Indian men and women in a multi-colored society
Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with bees p... more Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with bees performing very well and others at low rates. Here we investigated this behavioral heterogeneity and asked whether it is associated with particular gene expression patterns. Bees were individually conditioned in a sequential conditioning protocol involving several phases of olfactory learning and retention tests. The rate of CS+ odor learning was found to correlate highest with a cumulative performance score extracted from all learning and retention tests. The cumulative score was used to sort the tested bees into high and low performers. Microarray analysis of gene expression in the mushroom body area of the brains of these bees disclosed a list of genes, which were differentially expressed between the high and low performers. These candidate genes are implicated in diverse biological functions, such as neurotransmission, memory formation, cargo trafficking and development.
Honeybees have superior abilities to learn and discriminate between enormous number of odors with... more Honeybees have superior abilities to learn and discriminate between enormous number of odors with different carbon chain length and functional group. They learn odors outside the colony during foraging as well as inside the colony while communicating with the hive comrades. Bees can be trained to learn odors in the laboratory in simple and complex forms of learning assays using the popular conditioning paradigm namely, the olfactory conditioning of proboscis extension reflex (PER). I used the same olfactory PER conditioning assay and investigated the influences of different learning and memory related features on the overall performance of bees in complex form of olfactory learning. In addition, I recorded physiological responses from the olfactory neurons in honeybee brain to understand the olfactory coding in presence of the complex background odor used for adaptation. In the first chapter of this dissertation I investigated the role of olfaction in honeybees to detect the presenc...
Pathobiology of Parasitic Protozoa: Dynamics and Dimensions, 2023
The association between chronic and acute infections with cognitive decline has been established ... more The association between chronic and acute infections with cognitive decline has been established by considerable amount of evidences comprising laboratory level and cohort studies. Infections caused by protozoan parasites have a systemic impact on host, often linked to altered psychosocial behaviours. Neuroparasitology research gradually accumulated mechanistic understanding of the cognitive interface of parasite-host interaction. As revealed by clinical findings, cytokine-chemokine levels and direct neuroimaging of infections caused by neurotropic and non-neurotropic parasite factors like the shared molecular pathways, immunoinflammation affecting the central nervous system (CNS) and direct damage of CNS by parasitic invasion determine the association of the host cognition and parasitic infections. In this narrative, cognitive and neurological aspects of six important parasitic protozoan diseases, namely, toxoplasmosis, malaria, Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis and primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, have been discussed. The broader aim of the article is to emphasize significance of cognitive care in developing therapeutic strategies against the diseases.
COVID-19 pandemic in India: Chronological comparison of the regional heterogeneity in the progression of the pandemic and gaps in mitigation strategies, 2021
Abstract:
Background: The progressions of the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in ... more Abstract: Background: The progressions of the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in India were heterogeneous in different regions and their respective states and union territories. Our work aims to understand the major differences between the two waves and the mitigation strategies implemented during these waves. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of the temporal variations in new cases and fatalities in all the states of India was done for both the first wave (30th January 2020 to 31st January 2021) and second wave (1st February 2021 to 29th May 2021) of the pandemic. Variations in different epidemiological parameters, like case fatality ratio (CFR), cumulative case ratio (CCR), and cumulative death ratio (CDR) were quantified. Findings: The Southern and Western regions were the top contributors of cases and fatalities in both waves. The state of Punjab and Maharashtra reported the highest CFR (3.24 and 2.5 respectively) in the country during the first wave and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (2.6), and Punjab (2.25) reported the highest CFR during the second. Goa and Delhi respectively showed the highest CCR and CDR during the first wave, whereas Lakshadweep and Goa respectively reported the highest CCR and CDR in the second wave. Conclusion: The study comprehends the chronological heterogeneity in the patterns of pandemic progression and the severity of the second wave over all the states of the country, highlighting the major hotspot regions and some gaps in mitigation strategies.
The popular wildlife meat markets or 'bushmeat' markets, selling animal hosts with deadly zoonoti... more The popular wildlife meat markets or 'bushmeat' markets, selling animal hosts with deadly zoonotic viruses, such as bats, rodents, primates, civets, pangolins, and birds, have been identified for a long time, in the different continents, as places at high risk for zoonotic transmissions of viruses from the wildlife to humans, including the novel SARS-CoV-2 (1, 2,
The primary models of understanding human face recognition aim to understand not only facial iden... more The primary models of understanding human face recognition aim to understand not only facial identity information processing but also non-identity facial information processing. The present review discusses the major theoretical approaches in this regard and critically evaluates the existing empirical evidence in conjunction with the said models.
Human adults are endowed with the abilities to quickly
and accurately recognize the identity of o... more Human adults are endowed with the abilities to quickly and accurately recognize the identity of other human faces attributed to both configural processing (processing the relations among the facial features as a cognitive whole) and featural processing (independent processing of information of individual facial features) of faces. Human infants, like adults, also show significant capacity to recognize faces using both configural and featural modes of information processing from the first months of their lives. In this review, we have discussed the theories and evidences that unveil the cognitive and neural mechanisms that human infants employ for face recognition.
Ca 2+ imaging techniques were applied to investigate the neuronal behavior of projection neurons ... more Ca 2+ imaging techniques were applied to investigate the neuronal behavior of projection neurons in the honeybee antennal lobe (AL) to examine the effects of long-lasting adaptation on odorant coding. Responses to eight test odorants were measured before, during, and after an odor adaptation phase. Bees were exposed to the adapting odor for 30 min. Test odorant responses were only recorded from a sub-population of accessible glomeruli on the AL surface. Projection neurons, the output neurons of the antennal lobes, are projecting through the lateral, mediolateral, and medial AL tract to higher centers of the olfactory pathway. Due to our staining techniques, we primarily focused our study on projection neurons going through the lateral and medial tract. Test odorants comprised compounds with different functional groups (alcohol, aldehyde, ketone, and ester) representing floral and/or pheromone odorants. Strength and discriminability between combinatorial activity patterns induced by the test odorants were quantified. In two independent experiments, we investigated one group of animals adapted to a colony odor and another adapted to a synthetic odor. Within the experimental groups, we found test odorant responses either decreased or increased in AL projection neurons. Additionally, the discriminability between test odorant patterns became less distinct in the colony odor experiment and more distinct during adaptation in the synthetic mixture experiment. These results are interpreted as odor dependent adaptation effects, increasing or decreasing response strength and discriminability by altered neural coding mechanisms in the AL neuropile.
Body-image cognitive distortions and self-esteem are two socially important parameters which are ... more Body-image cognitive distortions and self-esteem are two socially important parameters which are reported to be associated with the skin color satisfaction in the young people. However, much of the research till date has been conducted on the populations of color in the color-stratified Western societies and on women, with contradictory results. To better understand the depths of associations between these parameters, we investigated whether greater skin color satisfaction is connected to lower body-image cognitive distortions and higher self-esteem among the young Indian men and women. Data were collected from 145 participants (male 73 and female 72), between ages 18 and 26 years. Results showed a general preference for lighter skin color among the participants with men, in our sample, expressed significant negative and positive associations of skin color satisfaction respectively with body-image cognitive distortions and self-esteem. However, skin color satisfaction is not a good predictor of self-esteem in our study, unlike the parameter body-image cognitive distortions. The findings are discussed in lights of self-perception and mental health of the young adult Indian men and women in a multi-colored society
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Background: The progressions of the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in India were heterogeneous in different regions and their respective states and union territories. Our work aims to understand the major differences between the two waves and the mitigation strategies implemented during these waves.
Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of the temporal variations in new cases and fatalities in all the states of India was done for both the first wave (30th January 2020 to 31st January 2021) and second wave (1st February 2021 to 29th May 2021) of the pandemic. Variations in different epidemiological parameters, like case fatality ratio (CFR), cumulative case ratio (CCR), and cumulative death ratio (CDR) were quantified.
Findings: The Southern and Western regions were the top contributors of cases and fatalities in both waves. The state of Punjab and Maharashtra reported the highest CFR (3.24 and 2.5 respectively) in the country during the first wave and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (2.6), and Punjab (2.25) reported the highest CFR during the second. Goa and Delhi respectively showed the highest CCR and CDR during the first wave, whereas Lakshadweep and Goa respectively reported the highest CCR and CDR in the second wave.
Conclusion: The study comprehends the chronological heterogeneity in the patterns of pandemic progression and the severity of the second wave over all the states of the country, highlighting the major hotspot regions and some gaps in mitigation strategies.
and accurately recognize the identity of other human
faces attributed to both configural processing (processing
the relations among the facial features as a cognitive
whole) and featural processing (independent processing
of information of individual facial features) of faces. Human infants, like adults, also show significant capacity
to recognize faces using both configural and featural modes
of information processing from the first months of their lives.
In this review, we have discussed the theories and
evidences that unveil the cognitive and neural mechanisms
that human infants employ for face recognition.
Books
Background: The progressions of the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in India were heterogeneous in different regions and their respective states and union territories. Our work aims to understand the major differences between the two waves and the mitigation strategies implemented during these waves.
Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of the temporal variations in new cases and fatalities in all the states of India was done for both the first wave (30th January 2020 to 31st January 2021) and second wave (1st February 2021 to 29th May 2021) of the pandemic. Variations in different epidemiological parameters, like case fatality ratio (CFR), cumulative case ratio (CCR), and cumulative death ratio (CDR) were quantified.
Findings: The Southern and Western regions were the top contributors of cases and fatalities in both waves. The state of Punjab and Maharashtra reported the highest CFR (3.24 and 2.5 respectively) in the country during the first wave and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (2.6), and Punjab (2.25) reported the highest CFR during the second. Goa and Delhi respectively showed the highest CCR and CDR during the first wave, whereas Lakshadweep and Goa respectively reported the highest CCR and CDR in the second wave.
Conclusion: The study comprehends the chronological heterogeneity in the patterns of pandemic progression and the severity of the second wave over all the states of the country, highlighting the major hotspot regions and some gaps in mitigation strategies.
and accurately recognize the identity of other human
faces attributed to both configural processing (processing
the relations among the facial features as a cognitive
whole) and featural processing (independent processing
of information of individual facial features) of faces. Human infants, like adults, also show significant capacity
to recognize faces using both configural and featural modes
of information processing from the first months of their lives.
In this review, we have discussed the theories and
evidences that unveil the cognitive and neural mechanisms
that human infants employ for face recognition.