Reaching for Butterflies

Intimidating butterflies.

Many butterfly species feature two or four conspicuously coloured eyespots on their wings; the most commonly heard explanation for these markings is that they are used to intimidate predators. However, this explanation has stood, until recently, on the flimsiest of empirical foundations. Now, Adrian Vallin and colleagues have demonstrated empirically the effectiveness of these signals in dissua...

Parietal modules for reaching.

Optic ataxia (OA) is classically defined as a deficit of visually guided movements that follows lesions of the posterior part of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Since the formalisation of the double stream of visual information processing [Milner, A. D., & Goodale, M. A. (1995). The visual brain in action. Oxford: Oxford University Press] and the use of OA as an argument in favour of the i...

Reaching for the Stars

REACHing for chemical safety.

Background: We consider the problem of identifying the dynamic interactions in biochemical networks from noisy experimental data. Typically, approaches for solving this problem make use of an estimation algorithm such as the well-known linear Least-Squares (LS) estimation technique. We demonstrate that when time-series measurements are corrupted by white noise and/or drift noise, more accurate ...

Reaching for Answers

The exact function of motor cortex continues to be an enigma. In this issue of Neuron, present provocative data showing that microstimulation of the precentral cortex evokes complex movements, and conclude that the motor and premotor cortex together may form a single map of complex postures.