Neurons statistics

Bjaalie JG, Diggle PJ, Nikundiwe A, Karagiille T, Brodal P (1991) Spatial segregation between populations of ponto-cerebellar neurons statistical analysis of multivariate spatial interactions. Anat. Rec., 231, 510-523. 

Braitenberg, V. and Schiiz, A. Cortex Statistics and Geometry of Neuronal Connectivity, 2nd edn. Berlin, Springer, 1998. 

The group mind of termites is a machine for forming statistical assessments after sensing the surrounding environment. Perhaps termites find answers to their lives questions in the same way a computer determines statistical outcomes given a variety of input, or the way that our brains neurons collectively come to decisions as a result of chemically weighting a variety of input signals. 

We then evaluated the neuronal cell loss on sections stained for the neuronal marker NeuN. Staining revealed a marked reduction of NeuN+ cells in CA1 starting from day 4 that persisted at later time-points (Fig. 4). Some patchy cell loss was seen also in CA2, CA3, and CA4 (arrows in Fig. 4), while DG and subiculum did not exhibit cell loss. Statistical analysis of the number of NeuN+ cells in frames placed in proximal, middle, and distal CA1 demonstrated a significant reduction of positive cells in all postischemic monkeys (Fig. 5, left column). Despite some reduction of... 

Reference [34] followed by several groups ([49, 51] to name a few) inspired from this statistical approach initiated in physics by Maxwell to develop a similar theory applied to the description of a neural population. Basically a neural population is described by its population density p(w,t) where w is the state of a neuron (scalar in the case of the LIF model, a vector containing the state variables in the case of... 

Several extensions of this statistical formalism are possible and would allow taking into account more physiological and neuroanatomic features. For example, most of neural network models consider that every neuron receives exactly the same input current from the electrode, however in the case of DBS neurons do not receive the same current depending of their position with respect to the electrode [12]. This consideration is the first element in favor of adding a spatial state variable to the population density. Another example that goes in favor of this idea is the fact that peculiar features of small-world networks should be included. This class of complex networks was recently formalized [66] and some recent studies... 

Currently, there is a commonly expressed view that decreased cortical volume in schizophrenia is the result of a reduction of cortical neuropil, presumably due to an atrophy of neural dendrites and axons (e.g., (Selemon and Goldman-Rakic, 1999)). A direct prediction of this model is that neuron density should be increased in proportion to the decrease in cortical volume. While there is some evidence for increased density in the prefrontal cortex (Selemon et al., 1995, 2003), there are also a number of negative findings (Akbarian et al., 1995 Cotter et al., 2002 Cullen et al., 2006 Thune et al., 2001). In auditory areas, the available studies have not shown an altered neuron density, even with hemispheric comparisons (Beasley et al., 2005 Cotter et al., 2004 Smiley et al., 2002). An alternative hypothesis is that reduced cortical volume is accompanied by a loss of neuron number, but this issue remains to be addressed in the auditory cortex. In other brain areas, there is some evidence for decreased neuron number, although the differences are often subtle and statistically nonsignificant (Benes et al., 1986 Dorph-Petersen et al., 2007 Stark et al., 2004 Thune et al., 2001). Changes in total cell number in the cerebral cortex have been difficult to determine, because these measurements require a clearly identified reference volume. 

Citalopram is a racemic bicyclic phthalane derivative and is a highly selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor with minimal effects on noradrenaline and dopamine neuronal reuptake. Inhibition of 5-HT re-uptake by citalopram is primarily due to escitalopram, the active S-enantiomer of citalopram (1). One would expect escitalopram to be twice as potent as citalopram but otherwise not to differ significantly from the racemic mixture. However, escitalopram is marketed as being more efficacious than citalopram because, it is argued, the inactive R-isomer present in the racemate actually inhibits binding of the S-enantiomer to its site of action, the serotonin transporter. In some, but not all, clinical trials escitalopram has been statistically superior to citalopram in terms of speed of onset of therapeutic action and improvement on depression rating scales. The clinical significance of these differences is debatable (2). 

Chemometrics is a branch of science and technology dealing with the extraction of useful information from multidimensional measurement data using statistics and mathematics. It is applied in numerous scientific disciplines, including the analysis of food [313-315]. The most common techniques applied to multidimensional analysis include principal components analysis (PCA), factor analysis (FA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), canonical discriminant function analysis (DA), cluster analysis (CA) and artificial neurone networks (ANN). 

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