Gerald E. Loeb

The unique intellectual capabilities of Homo sapiens are often attributed to positive, physical evolutionary developments such as increased cranial capacity, upright posture, dexterous hands and an articulate oropharynx, despite the occurrence of similar features in other species that have not developed such capabilities. Humans are also unique, however, in lacking or ignoring instincts that define the social structures and behaviors of other animals. Genetically determined behaviors evolved to improve effectiveness in exploiting specific environmental niches. In nonhuman species, social structures, food choices, mating behaviors, child-rearing, etc. are driven strongly by pheromones and hormones and their neuronal targets, whose physiology evolves very slowly. Humans can rapidly invade new environments because they invent rather than inherit such behaviors, which cumulatively we call a culture. The invention of niche-specific social behaviors enables cultural evolution, which would otherwise be limited by the inflexibility of instinctual behavior. Suppression of instincts makes the invention and learning of cultures necessary, which imposes both an opportunity and a burden on individuals and societies. Cultural evolution enables human societies to invent, promulgate, compete and evolve their social structures in a generation or two rather than the hundreds of generations required for significant genetic evolution. Novel cultures and their social structures may conflict, however, with residual instincts. Such conflicts and their resolution will continue to constrain and drive cultural evolution.

Dentistry clinical training challenges have been reported in the transition from pre-clinical to clinical environment. This transition has provoked several adaptations to the dental school's curriculum in the US. Nowadays, with the integration of digital tools and artificial intelligence in the health system, the challenge is integrating these resources into the educational environment and clinical setting to take advantage of them and facilitate the translation of theoretical knowledge to applicability in real time while seeing patients. The American Dental Association (ADA) has recently approved two new specialties in dentistry; these are the disciplines of Orofacial Pain (OFP) and Oral Medicine (OM). These two disciplines are more commonly established in healthcare centers for education as hospitals and Universities therefore, the majority of the patients with OFP and OM conditions are seen by trainee providers (clinical …

The present invention provides an advancement in the art of cardiac pacemakers. The invention provides a novel and unobvious pacemaker system that comprises at least one pacemaker and that is, to a large extent, self-controlled, allows for long-term implantation in a patient, and minimizes current inconveniences and problems associated with battery life. The invention further includes a mechanism in which at least two pacemakers are implanted in a patient, and in which the pacemakers communicate with each other at the time of a given pacing or respiratory event, without any required external input, and adjust pacing parameters to respond to the patient's need for blood flow. The invention further provides a novel design for a pacemaker in which the pacemaker electrode is connected to the pacemaker body by a lead that is configured to allow the pacemaker to lie parallel to the epicardial surface and to …

Recent research has illuminated the complexity and importance of the thalamocortical system but it has been difficult to identify what computational functions it performs. Meanwhile, deep-learning artificial neural networks (ANNs) based on bio-inspired models of purely cortical circuits have achieved surprising success solving sophisticated cognitive problems associated historically with human intelligence. Nevertheless, the limitations and shortcomings of artificial intelligence (AI) based on such ANNs are becoming increasingly clear. This review considers how the addition of thalamocortical connectivity and its putative functions related to cortical attention might address some of those shortcomings. Such bio-inspired models are now providing both testable theories of biological cognition and improved AI technology, much of which is happening outside the usual academic venues.

We have constructed a highly structured note-taking system that is readily minable because it consists of objective data rather than free text and is free of identifiable, protected health information. Our objective observations automatically enter a backend database collected from patients who have attended our clinic for orofacial pain and oral medicine. We next added two Naive Bayesian algorithms into our encounter process to generate real-time diagnostic suggestions for each patient. The first is a standard Naive Bayesian Inference algorithm that provides the clinician with a dynamic, real-time list of possible diagnoses that the collected data support. The second is a Naive Bayesian Exploration algorithm that provides the clinician with a second list of the critical data that should be collected next to confirm or refute the suggested diagnoses. We are now comparing the algorithm-assisted note-taking system to notes created without the Bayesian algorithms. Our planned outcomes are reduced click burden and concordance between the clinician’s diagnosis and those predicted by the algorithms. This project aims to examine if an algorithm-based clinical decision-support system improves the efficiency and accuracy of the diagnostic process.

When humans reach to visual targets, extremely rapid (∼90 ms) target-directed responses can be observed in task-relevant proximal muscles. Such express visuomotor responses are inflexibly locked in time and space to the target and have been proposed to reflect rapid visuomotor transformations conveyed subcortically via the tecto-reticulo-spinal pathway. Previously, we showed that express visuomotor responses are sensitive to explicit cue-driven information about the target, suggesting that the express pathway can be modulated by cortical signals affording contextual prestimulus expectations. Here, we show that the express visuomotor system incorporates information about the physical hand-to-target distance and contextual rules during visuospatial tasks requiring different movement amplitudes. In one experiment, we recorded the activity from two shoulder muscles as 14 participants (6 females) reached …

Human manual dexterity relies critically on touch. Robotic and prosthetic hands are much less dexterous and make little use of the many tactile sensors available. We propose a framework modeled on the hierarchical sensorimotor controllers of the nervous system to link sensing to action in human-in-the-loop, haptically enabled, artificial hands.

Humans can produce “express” (∼100ms) arm muscle responses that are inflexibly locked in time and space to the presentation of a visual target, consistent with subcortical visuomotor transformations via the tecto-reticulo-spinal pathway. These express visuomotor responses are sensitive to explicit cue-driven expectations, but it is unclear at what stage of sensory-to-motor transformation such modulation occurs. Here, we recorded electromyographic activity from shoulder muscles as participants reached toward one of four virtual targets whose physical location was partially predictable from a symbolic cue. In an experiment in which targets could be veridically reached, express responses were inclusive of the biomechanical requirements for reaching the cued locations and not systematically modulated by cue validity. In a second experiment, movements were restricted to the horizontal plane so that the participants could perform only rightward or leftward reaches, irrespective of target position on the vertical axis. Express muscle responses were almost identical for targets that were validly cued in the horizontal direction, regardless of cue validity in the vertical dimension. Together, these findings suggest that the cue-induced enhancements of express responses are dominated by effects at the level of motor plans and not solely via facilitation of early visuospatial target processing. Notably, direct cortico-tectal and cortico-reticular projections exist that are well-placed to modulate pre-stimulus motor preparation state in subcortical circuits. Our results appear to reflect a neural mechanism by which contextually relevant motor plans can be stored …