The Experts below are selected from a list of 186 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Leo Zeilig - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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From exile to the thick of the struggle: Ruth First and the problems of national liberation, international sanctions and revolutionary agency
Review of African Political Economy, 2014Co-Authors: Leo ZeiligAbstract:Much of Ruth First's work examined the projects for radical transformation of Africa's political economy. She was aware of the failures of independence, writing in 1970 that decolonisation had been little more than ‘a bargaining process with cooperative African elites’. But she remained an enthusiastic advocate of some of these ‘projects’ on the continent. In 1977 she moved to Maputo to contribute to the socialist transformation of the country. This paper looks at First's contribution to the critical appraisal of independence in Africa and her own commitment to the transition to socialism in Mozambique. In this commitment are many of First's greatest strengths, but also some limitations and contradictions. The paper also presents a biographical account of Ruth First's astute enquiries into the development of capitalism in Southern Africa and the Two-Stage Theory of revolution.
Matti Mintz - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Inhibition of the amygdala central nucleus by stimulation of cerebellar output in rats: a putative mechanism for extinction of the conditioned fear response.
The European journal of neuroscience, 2014Co-Authors: Ari Magal, Matti MintzAbstract:The amygdala and the cerebellum serve two distinctively different functions. The amygdala plays a role in the expression of emotional information, whereas the cerebellum is involved in the timing of discrete motor responses. Interaction between these two systems is the basis of the Two-Stage Theory of learning, according to which an encounter with a challenging event triggers fast classical conditioning of fear-conditioned responses in the amygdala and slow conditioning of motor-conditioned responses in the cerebellum. A third stage was hypothesised when an apparent interaction between amygdala and cerebellar associative plasticity was observed: an adaptive rate of cerebellum-dependent motor-conditioned responses was associated with a decrease in amygdala-dependent fear-conditioned responses, and was interpreted as extinction of amygdala-related fear-conditioned responses by the cerebellar output. To explore this hypothesis, we mimicked some components of classical eyeblink conditioning in anesthetised rats by applying an aversive periorbital pulse as an unconditioned stimulus and a train of pulses to the cerebellar output nuclei as a cerebellar neuronal-conditioned response. The central amygdala multiple unit response to the periorbital pulse was measured with or without a preceding train to the cerebellar output nuclei. The results showed that activation of the cerebellar output nuclei prior to periorbital stimulation produced diverse patterns of inhibition of the amygdala response to the periorbital aversive stimulus, depending upon the nucleus stimulated, the laterality of the nucleus stimulated, and the stimulus interval used. These results provide a putative extinction mechanism of learned fear behavior, and could have implications for the treatment of pathologies involving abnormal fear responses by using motor training as therapy.
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Amygdala conditioning modulates sensory input to the cerebellum.
Neurobiology of learning and memory, 2010Co-Authors: Aryeh H. Taub, Matti MintzAbstract:Localization of emotional learning in the amygdala and discrete motor learning in the cerebellum provides empirical means to study the mechanisms mediating the interaction between fast emotional and slow motor learning. Behavioral studies have demonstrated that fear conditioning facilitates the motor conditioning. The present study tests the hypothesis that the amygdala output induces this facilitation by increasing the salience of the conditioned stimulus (CS) representation in the pontine nucleus (PN) input to the cerebellum. Paired trials of CS-US (unconditioned stimulus) were applied to anesthetized rats, a condition that allows for amygdala-based fear conditioning but not cerebellar-based motor conditioning. Multiple unit recordings in the PN served to assess the salience of the CS. Results showed that CS-US conditioning increased the PN-reactivity to the CS. Lidocaine-induced reversible inactivation of the amygdala prevented the facilitatory effect of conditioning on the PN-reactivity to the CS. These findings suggest that the amygdala-based conditioned responses reach the PN and increase the salience of the CS signal there, perhaps facilitating cerebellar conditioning. This facilitatory effect of the amygdala may be conceptualized under the 'Two-Stage Theory of learning', which predicts that emotional learning in the first stage accelerates the motor learning in the second stage. We hereby demonstrate the physiological mechanism through which fast emotional learning in the first stage facilitates slow cerebellar learning in the second stage.
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Balance dysfunction in childhood anxiety: findings and theoretical approach
Journal of anxiety disorders, 2004Co-Authors: Orit Erez, Carlos R. Gordon, Jonathan Sever, Avi Sadeh, Matti MintzAbstract:A recent special issue of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, reviewed the experimental and clinical findings related to comorbidity of balance disorders and anxiety [J. Anxiety Disord. 15 (2001) 1.]. The studies mentioned in that issue were based mostly on adult subjects but prevalence of balance disorders in childhood anxiety is yet to be established. We have tested a small sample of children diagnosed for general or separation anxiety disorder and a control group of normal children. Extensive neurological examination revealed no clinically relevant vestibular impairment. Nevertheless, detailed questionnaires and balance tests confirmed an excessive sensitivity of anxiety disordered children to balance-challenging situations. Moreover, balance-challenging tasks triggered more balance mistakes and slower performance in anxiety versus control children. These findings support the notion of subclinical balance disorder in childhood anxiety. Results are discussed in terms of the Two-Stage Theory of learning, which predicts that anxiety disorder may be an offshoot of lasting balance dysfunction.
Ewa Wender-ozegowska - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Utility of biochemical tests in prediction, diagnostics and clinical management of preeclampsia: a review.
Archives of medical science : AMS, 2020Co-Authors: Jakub Kornacki, Ewa Wender-ozegowskaAbstract:The most widely accepted Theory for the development of preeclampsia is the "Two-Stage Theory". An imbalance between antiangiogenic and proangiogenic factors is considered the link between the two stages. Nowadays, an increasing amount of data is available on the use of measurements of serum concentrations of these factors in the prediction, diagnosis and management of preeclampsia. The most useful, modern biochemical test that may help in making crucial clinical decisions in patients with preeclampsia is the sFlt-1/PlGF (soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1/placental growth factor) ratio. The aim of this review is to present the current use of different biochemical tests in the prediction, diagnosis and management of preeclampsia. Development of these diagnostic methods in recent years and a belief in their ground-breaking role in modern management of preeclampsia make this review especially important.
Jakub Kornacki - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Utility of biochemical tests in prediction, diagnostics and clinical management of preeclampsia: a review.
Archives of medical science : AMS, 2020Co-Authors: Jakub Kornacki, Ewa Wender-ozegowskaAbstract:The most widely accepted Theory for the development of preeclampsia is the "Two-Stage Theory". An imbalance between antiangiogenic and proangiogenic factors is considered the link between the two stages. Nowadays, an increasing amount of data is available on the use of measurements of serum concentrations of these factors in the prediction, diagnosis and management of preeclampsia. The most useful, modern biochemical test that may help in making crucial clinical decisions in patients with preeclampsia is the sFlt-1/PlGF (soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1/placental growth factor) ratio. The aim of this review is to present the current use of different biochemical tests in the prediction, diagnosis and management of preeclampsia. Development of these diagnostic methods in recent years and a belief in their ground-breaking role in modern management of preeclampsia make this review especially important.
Anh Nguyen-xuan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Reasoning about conditional promises and warnings: darwinian algorithms, mental models, relevance judgements or pragmatic schemas?
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 1992Co-Authors: Guy Politzer, Anh Nguyen-xuanAbstract:It is proposed that reasoning about social contracts, such as conditional promises and warnings, is under the control of a compound schema made of two pragmatic schemas (Cheng & Holyoak, 1985), expressing an obligation and a permission. Two experiments were run using thematic versions of the Wason selection task in which the rule and the core of the scenario were kept constant and the point of view of the actor (e.g. promisor or promisee) was varied. The results supported the predictions (including the occurrence of a correct pattern of response that consists of all four cards) and falsified predictions derived from Cosmides' (1989) Theory of social exchange. The mental models Theory and Evans' Two-Stage Theory of reasoning are also discussed in the light of the present results.
