Extraordinary progress in functional brain imaging, primarily advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging, now allows scientists to understand the neural systems serving reading and how these systems differ in dyslexic readers. Scientists now speak of the neural signature of dyslexia, a singular achievement that for the first time has made what was previously a hidden disability, now visi...

The tractable, layered architecture of the olfactory bulb (OB), and its function as a relay between odor input and higher cortical processing, makes it an attractive model to study how sensory information is processed at a synaptic and circuit level. The OB is also the recipient of strong neuromodulatory inputs, chief among them being the central cholinergic system. Cholinergic axons from the b...

This issue of the journal focuses on studies undertaken in adolescent populations around the world. Roger Hughes’ ‘In this issue’ piece highlights key findings in some of these studies. Particularly challenging is the persistence of undernutrition alongside overnutrition in South African children. The 2005 National Food Consumption Survey of South Africa results were presented at the South Afri...

Commentary Recent investigations of children with childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) have reliably demonstrated that CAE is not a syndrome free of cognitive or behavioral comorbidity. Particularly problematic is attentional impairment, not only because of attention's effects on cognitive and school performance but also due to its behavioral effects such as attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome...

Adaptive autonomous agents have to learn about the effects of their actions so as to be able to improve their performance and adapt to long term changes. The problem of correlating actions with changes in sensor data is O(n 2 ) and therefore computationally infeasible for any non-trivial application. We propose to make this problem more manageable by using focus of attention. In particular, we ...