A key goal of social neuroscience is to understand the inter-brain neural relationship—the relationship between the neural activity of socially interacting individuals. Decades of research investigating this relationship have focused on the similarity in neural activity across brains. Here, we instead asked how neural activity differs between brains, and how that difference evolves alongside activity patterns shared between brains. Applying this framework to bats engaged in spontaneous social interactions revealed two complementary phenomena characterizing the inter-brain neural relationship: fast fluctuations of activity difference across brains unfolding in parallel with slow activity covariation across brains. A model reproduced these observations and generated multiple predictions that we confirmed using experimental data involving pairs of bats and a larger social group of bats. The model suggests that a simple computational mechanism involving positive and negative feedback could explain diverse experimental observations regarding the inter-brain neural relationship.

Social interactions occur in group settings and are mediated by communication signals that are exchanged between individuals, often using vocalizations. The neural representation of group social communication remains largely unexplored. We conducted simultaneous wireless electrophysiological recordings from the frontal cortices of groups of Egyptian fruit bats engaged in both spontaneous and task-induced vocal interactions. We found that the activity of single neurons distinguished between vocalizations produced by self and by others, as well as among specific individuals. Coordinated neural activity among group members exhibited stable bidirectional interbrain correlation patterns specific to spontaneous communicative interactions. Tracking social and spatial arrangements within a group revealed a relationship between social preferences and intra- and interbrain activity patterns. Combined, these findings reveal a dedicated neural repertoire for group social communication within and across the brains of freely communicating groups of bats.

Received 3 June 2014DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.249901© 2014 American Physical Society

Cisplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapeutic drug, has been used for over 30 years in a wide variety of cancers with varying degrees of success. In particular, cisplatin has been used to treat late stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) as the standard of care. However, therapeutic outcomes vary from patient to patient. Considerable efforts have been invested to identify biomarkers that can be used to predict cisplatin sensitivity in NSCLC. Here we reviewed current evidence for cisplatin sensitivity biomarkers in NSCLC. We focused on several key pathways, including nucleotide excision repair, drug transport and metabolism. Both expression and germline DNA variation were evaluated in these key pathways. Current evidence suggests that cisplatin-based treatment could be improved by the use of these biomarkers.

We use molecular dynamics with a first-principles-based shell model potential to study the electrocaloric effect (ECE) in lithium niobate, LiNbO(3), and find a giant electrocaloric effect along a line passing through the ferroelectric transition. With an applied electric field, a line of maximum ECE passes through the zero field ferroelectric transition, continuing along a Widom line at high temperatures with increasing fields, and along the instability that leads to homogeneous ferroelectric switching below T(c) with an applied field antiparallel to the spontaneous polarization. This line is defined as the minimum in the inverse capacitance under an applied electric field. We investigate the effects of pressure, temperature and an applied electric field on the ECE. The behavior we observe in LiNbO(3) should generally apply to ferroelectrics; we therefore suggest that the operating temperature for refrigeration and energy scavenging applications should be above the ferroelectric transition region to obtain a large electrocaloric response. The relationship between T(c), the Widom line, and homogeneous switching should be universal among ferroelectrics, relaxors, multiferroics, and the same behavior should be found under applied magnetic fields in ferromagnets.

Received 6 November 2012DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.209903© 2012 American Physical Society