The present study introduces a new method to measure contrast detection thresholds before and after adaptation to contrast. A sinusoidal testing grating increased contrast at a constant rate from an initial subthreshold level. Subjects indicated when the grating was just visible, which terminated its presentation. The stimulus contrast at the time of response was taken as a measure of relative ...

Humans routinely segregate a complex acoustic scene into different auditory streams, through the extraction of bottom-up perceptual cues and the use of top-down selective attention. To determine the neural mechanisms underlying this process, neural responses obtained through magnetoencephalography (MEG) were correlated with behavioral performance in the context of an informational masking parad...

Research on the supramolecular buildup of eumelanin has gained high momentum in the last years. Several new aspects regarding the involved structures and mechanisms have been established, which has led to a better understanding of the entire process. This review intends to provide a clearly laid-out summary of previous and new findings regarding structures, mechanisms, and controllability. With...

We often look at and sometimes reach for visible targets. Looking at a target is fast and relatively easy. By comparison, reaching for an object is slower and is associated with a larger cost. We hypothesized that, as a result of these differences, abrupt visual onsets may drive the circuits involved in saccade planning more directly and with less intermediate regulation than the circuits invol...

The neurons in the intermediate layers of the monkey superior colliculus (SC) that discharge before saccadic eye movements can be divided into at least two types, burst and buildup neurons, and the differences in their characteristics are compatible with different functional contributions of the two cell types. It has been suggested that a spread of activity across the population of the buildup...

A simple quasi-analytic model is developed for the dynamics of electron cloud generated by synchrotron radiation of the beam in the LHC beam pipe. The model allows to obtain a multipacting condition for the LHC parameters, takes into account the space charge effect and predicts an equilibrium density of the electrons. Based on this model, we find the electron lifetime and estimate the energy de...