A recent study has shown that, unusually, both the sensory and motor capabilities of an electric fish are omnidirectional. This matching of motor and sensory spaces helps the fish to hunt prey efficiently - particularly important given their energetically costly active sensory system.

Objective The Subtelomeric rearrangements are increasingly being investigated in cases of idiopathic intellectual disabilities (ID) and congenital abnormalities (CA) but have also been suspected to be responsible for unexplained recurrent miscarriage (RM). We have noticed a higher risk of subtelomeric translocations in association with CA and ID. Such rearrangements can go unnoticed through con...

background: in most mammals, sex is determined at the beginning of gestation by the constitution of the sex chromosomes, xy in males and xx in females. case: here we report an interesting case characterized by ambiguous genitalia and ovotestis in a newborn carrying an apparently female karyotype (46 xx). array comparative genomic hybridization (array-cgh) revealed an unbalanced rearrangement re...

Neural codes often seem tailored to the type of information they must carry. Here we contrast the encoding strategies for two different communication signals in electric fish and describe the underlying cellular and network properties that implement them. We compare an aggressive signal that needs to be quickly detected, to a courtship signal whose quality needs to be evaluated. The aggressive ...

Synchronous spiking of neural populations is hypothesized to play important computational roles in forming neural assemblies and solving the binding problem. Although the opposite phenomenon of desynchronization is well known from EEG studies, it is largely neglected on the neuronal level. We here provide an example of in vivo recordings from weakly electric fish demonstrating that, depending o...

A piezoelectric detector with a cylindrical shape is investigated for photoacoustic section imaging. Images are acquired by rotating a sample in front of the cylindrical detector. With its length exceeding the size of the imaging object, it works as an integrating sensor and therefore allows reconstructing section images with the inverse Radon transform. Prior to the reconstruction the Abel tra...

Fluorescence image analysis provides quantitative data on fluorescence in situ hybridization signals (FISH), immunofluorescence labelings, Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) expression and microarrays. It is a valuable tool for decision making in the fields of biology and medicine. The aim of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of fluorescence intensity measurements and standardization ...

Sensory systems often show remarkable sensitivities to small stimulus parameters. Weakly electric fish are able to resolve intensity differences of the order of 0.1% and timing differences of the order of nanoseconds during an electrical behavior, the jamming avoidance response. The neuronal origin of this extraordinary sensitivity is being studied within the exceptionally well understood centr...