OBJECTIVE In the past few decades, several studies have reported the physiological effects of listening to music. The physiological effects of different music types on different people are different. In the present study, we aimed to examine the effects of listening to traditional Persian music on electrocardiogram (ECG) signals in young women. METHODS Twenty-two healthy females participated ...

The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural correlates of language acquisition in a realistic learning environment. Japanese native speakers were trained in a miniature version of German prior to fMRI scanning. During scanning they listened to (1) familiar sentences, (2) sentences including a novel sentence structure, and (3) sentences containin...

Protocadherin-15 (Pcdh15) is a component of the tip-links, the extracellular filaments that gate hair cell mechano-electrical transduction channels in the inner ear. There are three Pcdh15 splice isoforms (CD1, CD2 and CD3), which only differ by their cytoplasmic domains; they are thought to function redundantly in mechano-electrical transduction during hair-bundle development, but whether any ...

Visuo-spatial skills are believed to be enhanced in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This meta-analysis tests the current state of evidence for Figure Disembedding, Block Design, Mental Rotation and Navon tasks in ASD and neurotypicals. Block Design (d = 0.32) and Figure Disembedding (d = 0.26) showed superior performance for ASD with large heterogeneity that is unaccounted for. No clear diffe...

As Roy Richard Grinker,1 an anthropologist and a father of an autistic girl, points out, despite autism being “a terrible, lifelong disorder”, it is “a better time than ever to be autistic” because a person with this diagnosis has access to more services and opportunities than ever before. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of problems to be solved and questions to be answered. One of them (mo...

Improvements in digital amplification, cochlear implants, and other innovations have extended the potential for improving hearing function; yet, there remains a need for further hearing improvement in challenging listening situations, such as when trying to understand speech in noise or when listening to music. Here, we review evidence from animal and human models of plasticity in the brain's a...

As Roy Richard Grinker [1], an anthropologist and a father of an autistic girl, points out, despite autism being “a terrible, lifelong disorder”, it is “a better time than ever to be autistic” because a person with this diagnosis has access to more services and opportunities than ever before. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of problems to be solved and questions to be answered. One of them ...

A new spectral processing technique designed for application in the on-line detection and classification of arc-welding defects is presented in this paper. A noninvasive fiber sensor embedded within a TIG torch collects the plasma radiation originated during the welding process. The spectral information is then processed in two consecutive stages. A compression algorithm is first applied to the...

BACKGROUND Autism is a common, severe and highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder in children, affecting up to 100 children per 10,000. The MET gene has been regarded as a promising candidate gene for this disorder because it is located within a replicated linkage interval, is involved in pathways affecting the development of the cerebral cortex and cerebellum in ways relevant to autism pa...

As Roy Richard Grinker [1], an anthropologist and a father of an autistic girl, points out, despite autism being “a terrible, lifelong disorder”, it is “a better time than ever to be autistic” because a person with this diagnosis has access to more services and opportunities than ever before. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of problems to be solved and questions to be answered. One of them ...