The Linux Foundation will host ToIP, a cross-industry effort to ensure more secure data handling over the Internet. This new foundation is an independent project enabling trustworthy exchange and verification of data between any two parties on the Internet. The ToIP Foundation will provide a robust common standard to instill confidence that data is coming from a trusted source.

In what could be a trial run for more of the same, Red Hat last week held a first-ever virtual technical summit to spread the word about its latest cloud tech offerings. CEO Paul Cormier welcomed online viewers to the conference, which attracted more than 80,000 virtual attendees. The company made several key announcements during the online gathering and highlighted customer innovations.

Microsoft has introduced a slew of new products, including the Surface Go 2, the Surface Book 3, Surface Headphones 2 and Surface Earbuds. Both the Surface Go 2 and the Surface Book 3 come in consumer and corporate versions. "The two products are very different," noted Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "The Go 2 is a high-value product -- the Surface Book 3 high innovation."

People have been giving presentations for thousands of years, from Moses with his stone tablets to Elon Musk revealing his grand plans to colonize Mars. While the elements of a great pitchman generally have remained the same over the past 5,000 years -- conviction, charisma, credibility -- today's successful presenters do more than just get in front of an audience and talk.

Does your customer relationship management strategy have what it takes to reach Generation Y? It's estimated that by 2021, an additional $394 billion in revenue could be gained from artificial intelligence adoption in CRM activities in the U.S. As companies grow and technology evolves at a faster-than-ever pace, collecting, storing and providing data is becoming a bigger and bigger task.

Contact tracing is a big job, like trying to drain an ocean with a teaspoon. It involves finding people who have been exposed to the coronavirus and testing them to determine if they are infected or are carriers. Public health officials then can take necessary steps to prevent the virus' spread. It's a perfect fit for CRM, and Salesforce's core technology is coming to the forefront.

You can reduce the story of CRM to a lot of things, especially its many component parts. Social networking, cloud computing and analytics are mentioned often. We don't need an exhaustive list, but if we stop there I think we miss a lot. To me CRM isn't about the parts, although like most people following the industry, I get a modicum of joy when a vendor adds something new to the toolbox.

02020-02-01: Fires along the Indus River

02020-02-04: Burn Scars in Australia

02020-02-08: Tropical Cyclone Damien

Speech by Mr Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, to the Basler Bankenforum, Basel, 5 September 2019.

Speech by Mr Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, at the Eurofi Financial Forum, Helsinki, 12 September 2019.

Speech by Mr Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, at the Founding Ceremony, Swiss Centre BIS Innovation Hub, Zurich, 8 October 2019.

Speech by Mr Fernando Restoy, Chairman, Financial Stability Institute, Bank for International Settlements, at the ASBA-BID-FELABAN XVI Banking public-private sector regional policy dialogue "Challenges and opportunities in the new financial ecosystem", Washington DC, 16 October 2019.

Speech by Mr Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the BIS, at the OECD-G20 High Level Policy Seminar, Paris, 11 September 2019.

Op-ed by Mr Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the BIS, published in Il Sole 24 Ore, 8 November 2019.

Speech by Mr Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the BIS, at the SUERF Annual Lecture Conference on "Populism, Economic Policies and Central Banking", SUERF/BAFFI CAREFIN Centre Conference, Milan, 8 November 2019.

Lecture by Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary and Economic Department, at the University of Zürich, Zürich, 19 November 2019.

Based on remarks by Mr Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Deputy General Manager of the BIS, with Jon Frost and Leonardo Gambacorta at the Santander International Banking Conference on "Banking on trust: Building confidence in the future", Madrid, 5 November 2019.

Original quotes from interview with Mr Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the BIS, in Germany's Boerzen-Zeitung, conducted by Mr Mark Schroers and published on 21 November 2019.

Lecture by Mr Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, at the Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 5 December 2019.

Exiting low inflation traps by "consensus": nominal wages and price stability - Speech by Luiz A Pereira da Silva and Benoît Mojon, based on the keynote speech at the Eighth High-level Policy Dialogue between the Eurosystem and Latin American Central Banks, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 28-29 November 2019.

Acoustic overexposure, such as listening to loud music too often, results in noise-induced hearing loss. The pathologies of this prevalent sensory disorder begin within the ear at synapses of the primary auditory receptors, their postsynaptic partners and their supporting cells. The extent of noise-induced damage, however, is determined by overstimulation of primary auditory receptors, upstream of where the pathologies manifest. A systematic characterization of the electrophysiological function of the upstream primary auditory receptors is warranted to understand how noise exposure impacts on downstream targets, where the pathologies of hearing loss begin. Here, we used the experimentally-accessible locust ear (male, Schistocerca gregaria) to characterize a decrease in the auditory receptor's ability to respond to sound after noise exposure. Surprisingly, after noise exposure, the electrophysiological properties of the auditory receptors remain unchanged, despite a decrease in the ability to transduce sound. This auditory deficit stems from changes in a specialized receptor lymph that bathes the auditory receptors, revealing striking parallels with the mammalian auditory system.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Noise exposure is the largest preventable cause of hearing loss. It is the auditory receptors that bear the initial brunt of excessive acoustic stimulation, because they must convert excessive sound-induced movements into electrical signals, but remain functional afterward. Here we use the accessible ear of an invertebrate to, for the first time in any animal, characterize changes in auditory receptors after noise overexposure. We find that their decreased ability to transduce sound into electrical signals is, most probably, due to changes in supporting (scolopale) cells that maintain the ionic composition of the ear. An emerging doctrine in hearing research is that vertebrate primary auditory receptors are surprisingly robust, something that we show rings true for invertebrate ears too.

Mitochondrial fission catalyzed by dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) is necessary for mitochondrial biogenesis and maintenance of healthy mitochondria. However, excessive fission has been associated with multiple neurodegenerative disorders, and we recently reported that mice with smaller mitochondria are sensitized to ischemic stroke injury. Although pharmacological Drp1 inhibition has been put forward as neuroprotective, the specificity and mechanism of the inhibitor used is controversial. Here, we provide genetic evidence that Drp1 inhibition is neuroprotective. Drp1 is activated by dephosphorylation of an inhibitory phosphorylation site, Ser637. We identify Bβ2, a mitochondria-localized protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) regulatory subunit, as a neuron-specific Drp1 activator in vivo. Bβ2 KO mice of both sexes display elongated mitochondria in neurons and are protected from cerebral ischemic injury. Functionally, deletion of Bβ2 and maintained Drp1 Ser637 phosphorylation improved mitochondrial respiratory capacity, Ca²⁺ homeostasis, and attenuated superoxide production in response to ischemia and excitotoxicity in vitro and ex vivo. Last, deletion of Bβ2 rescued excessive stroke damage associated with dephosphorylation of Drp1 S637 and mitochondrial fission. These results indicate that the state of mitochondrial connectivity and PP2A/Bβ2-mediated dephosphorylation of Drp1 play a critical role in determining the severity of cerebral ischemic injury. Therefore, Bβ2 may represent a target for prophylactic neuroprotective therapy in populations at high risk of stroke.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT With recent advances in clinical practice including mechanical thrombectomy up to 24 h after the ischemic event, there is resurgent interest in neuroprotective stroke therapies. In this study, we demonstrate reduced stroke damage in the brain of mice lacking the Bβ2 regulatory subunit of protein phosphatase 2A, which we have shown previously acts as a positive regulator of the mitochondrial fission enzyme dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1). Importantly, we provide evidence that deletion of Bβ2 can rescue excessive ischemic damage in mice lacking the mitochondrial PKA scaffold AKAP1, apparently via opposing effects on Drp1 S637 phosphorylation. These results highlight reversible phosphorylation in bidirectional regulation of Drp1 activity and identify Bβ2 as a potential pharmacological target to protect the brain from stroke injury.

Knowledge about objects encompasses not only their prototypical features but also complex, atypical, semantic knowledge (e.g., "Pizza was invented in Naples"). This fMRI study of male and female human participants combines univariate and multivariate analyses to consider the cortical representation of this more complex semantic knowledge. Using the categories of food, people, and places, this study investigates whether access to spatially related geographic semantic knowledge (1) involves the same domain-selective neural representations involved in access to prototypical taste knowledge about food; and (2) elicits activation of neural representations classically linked to places when this geographic knowledge is accessed about food and people. In three experiments using word stimuli, domain-relevant and atypical conceptual access for the categories food, people, and places were assessed. Results uncover two principles of semantic representation: food-selective representations in the left insula continue to be recruited when prototypical taste knowledge is task-irrelevant and under conditions of high cognitive demand; access to geographic knowledge for food and people categories involves the additional recruitment of classically place-selective parahippocampal gyrus, retrosplenial complex, and transverse occipital sulcus. These findings underscore the importance of object category in the representation of a broad range of knowledge, while showing how the cross recruitment of specialized representations may endow the considerable flexibility of our complex semantic knowledge.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We know not only stereotypical things about objects (an apple is round, graspable, edible) but can also flexibly combine typical and atypical features to form complex concepts (the metaphorical role an apple plays in Judeo-Christian belief). In this fMRI study, we observe that, when atypical geographic knowledge is accessed about food dishes, domain-selective sensorimotor-related cortical representations continue to be recruited, but that regions classically associated with place perception are additionally engaged. This interplay between categorically driven representations, linked to the object being accessed, and the flexible recruitment of semantic stores linked to the content being accessed, provides a potential mechanism for the broad representational repertoire of our semantic system.

A prominent theory claims that the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is especially associated with embodied processes relevant to perspective-taking. In the present study, we use high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation to provide evidence that the rTPJ is causally associated with the embodied processes underpinning perspective-taking. Eighty-eight young human adults were stratified to receive either rTPJ or dorsomedial PFC anodal high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation in a sham-controlled, double-blind, repeated-measures design. Perspective-tracking (line-of-sight) and perspective-taking (embodied rotation) were assessed using a visuo-spatial perspective-taking task that required understanding what another person could see or how they see it, respectively. Embodied processing was manipulated by positioning the participant in a manner congruent or incongruent with the orientation of an avatar on the screen. As perspective-taking, but not perspective-tracking, is influenced by bodily position, this allows the investigation of the specific causal role for the rTPJ in embodied processing. Crucially, anodal stimulation to the rTPJ increased the effect of bodily position during perspective-taking, whereas no such effects were identified during perspective-tracking, thereby providing evidence for a causal role for the rTPJ in the embodied component of perspective-taking. Stimulation to the dorsomedial PFC had no effect on perspective-tracking or taking. Therefore, the present study provides support for theories postulating that the rTPJ is causally involved in embodied cognitive processing relevant to social functioning.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The ability to understand another's perspective is a fundamental component of social functioning. Adopting another perspective is thought to involve both embodied and nonembodied processes. The present study used high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) and provided causal evidence that the right temporoparietal junction is involved specifically in the embodied component of perspective-taking. Specifically, HD-tDCS to the right temporoparietal junction, but not another hub of the social brain (dorsomedial PFC), increased the effect of body position during perspective-taking, but not tracking. This is the first causal evidence that HD-tDCS can modulate social embodied processing in a site-specific and task-specific manner.

The cerebellum influences motor control through Purkinje target neurons, which transmit cerebellar output. Such output is required, for instance, for larval zebrafish to learn conditioned fictive swimming. The output cells, called eurydendroid neurons (ENs) in teleost fish, are inhibited by Purkinje cells and excited by parallel fibers. Here, we investigated the electrophysiological properties of glutamatergic ENs labeled by the transcription factor olig2. Action potential firing and synaptic responses were recorded in current clamp and voltage clamp from olig2⁺ neurons in immobilized larval zebrafish (before sexual differentiation) and were correlated with motor behavior by simultaneous recording of fictive swimming. In the absence of swimming, olig2⁺ ENs had basal firing rates near 8 spikes/s, and EPSCs and IPSCs were evident. Comparing Purkinje firing rates and eurydendroid IPSC rates indicated that 1-3 Purkinje cells converge onto each EN. Optogenetically suppressing Purkinje simple spikes, while preserving complex spikes, suggested that eurydendroid IPSC size depended on presynaptic spike duration rather than amplitude. During swimming, EPSC and IPSC rates increased. Total excitatory and inhibitory currents during sensory-evoked swimming were both more than double those during spontaneous swimming. During both spontaneous and sensory-evoked swimming, the total inhibitory current was more than threefold larger than the excitatory current. Firing rates of ENs nevertheless increased, suggesting that the relative timing of IPSCs and EPSCs may permit excitation to drive additional eurydendroid spikes. The data indicate that olig2⁺ cells are ENs whose activity is modulated with locomotion, suiting them to participate in sensorimotor integration associated with cerebellum-dependent learning.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The cerebellum contributes to movements through signals generated by cerebellar output neurons, called eurydendroid neurons (ENs) in fish (cerebellar nuclei in mammals). ENs receive sensory and motor signals from excitatory parallel fibers and inhibitory Purkinje cells. Here, we report electrophysiological recordings from ENs of larval zebrafish that directly illustrate how synaptic inhibition and excitation are integrated by cerebellar output neurons in association with motor behavior. The results demonstrate that inhibitory and excitatory drive both increase during fictive swimming, but inhibition greatly exceeds excitation. Firing rates nevertheless increase, providing evidence that synaptic integration promotes cerebellar output during locomotion. The data offer a basis for comparing aspects of cerebellar coding that are conserved and that diverge across vertebrates.

Navigation often requires movement in three-dimensional (3D) space. Recent studies have postulated two different models for how head direction (HD) cells encode 3D space: the rotational plane hypothesis and the dual-axis model. To distinguish these models, we recorded HD cells in female rats while they traveled different routes along both horizontal and vertical surfaces from an elevated platform to the top of a cuboidal apparatus. We compared HD cell preferred firing directions (PFDs) in different planes and addressed the issue of whether HD cell firing is commutative—does the order of the animal's route affect the final outcome of the cell's PFD? Rats locomoted a direct or indirect route from the floor to the cube top via one, two, or three vertical walls. Whereas the rotational plane hypothesis accounted for PFD shifts when the animal traversed horizontal corners, the cell's PFD was better explained by the dual-axis model when the animal traversed vertical corners. Responses also followed the dual-axis model (1) under dark conditions, (2) for passive movement of the rat, (3) following apparatus rotation, (4) for movement around inside vertical corners, and (5) across a 45° outside vertical corner. The order in which the animal traversed the different planes did not affect the outcome of the cell's PFD, indicating that responses were commutative. HD cell peak firing rates were generally equivalent along each surface. These findings indicate that the animal's orientation with respect to gravity plays an important role in determining a cell's PFD, and that vestibular and proprioceptive cues drive these computations.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Navigating in a three-dimensional (3D) world is a complex task that requires one to maintain a proper sense of orientation relative to both local and global cues. Rodent head direction (HD) cells have been suggested to subserve this sense of orientation, but most HD cell studies have focused on navigation in 2D environments. We investigated the responses of HD cells as rats moved between multiple vertically and horizontally oriented planar surfaces, demonstrating that HD cells align their directional representations to both local (current plane of locomotion) and global (gravity) cues across several experimental conditions, including darkness and passive movement. These findings offer critical insights into the processing of 3D space in the mammalian brain.

We can adapt flexibly to environment changes and search for the most appropriate rule to a context. The orbital prefrontal cortex (PFo) has been associated with decision making, rule generation and maintenance, and more generally has been considered important for behavioral flexibility. To better understand the neural mechanisms underlying the flexible behavior, we studied the ability to generate a switching signal in monkey PFo when a strategy is changed. In the strategy task, we used a visual cue to instruct two male rhesus monkeys either to repeat their most recent choice (i.e., stay strategy) or to change it (i.e., shift strategy). To identify the strategy switching-related signal, we compared nonswitch and switch trials, which cued the same or a different strategy from the previous trial, respectively. We found that the switching-related signal emerged during the cue presentation and it was combined with the strategy signal in a subpopulation of cells. Moreover, the error analysis showed that the activity of the switch-related cells reflected whether the monkeys erroneously switched or not the strategy, rather than what was required for that trial. The function of the switching signal could be to prompt the use of different strategies when older strategies are no longer appropriate, conferring the ability to adapt flexibly to environmental changes. In our task, the switching signal might contribute to the implementation of the strategy cued, overcoming potential interference effects from the strategy previously cued. Our results support the idea that ascribes to PFo an important role for behavioral flexibility.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We can flexibly adapt our behavior to a changing environment. One of the prefrontal areas traditionally associated with the ability to adapt to new contingencies is the orbital prefrontal cortex (PFo). We analyzed the switching related activity using a strategy task in which two rhesus monkeys were instructed by a visual cue either to repeat or change their most recent choice, respectively using a stay or a shift strategy. We found that PFo neurons were modulated by the strategy switching signal, pointing to the importance of PFo in behavioral flexibility by generating control over the switching of strategies.

Human ventral temporal cortex (VTC) is critical for visual recognition. It is thought that this ability is supported by large-scale patterns of activity across VTC that contain information about visual categories. However, it is unknown how category representations in VTC are organized at the submillimeter scale and across cortical depths. To fill this gap in knowledge, we measured BOLD responses in medial and lateral VTC to images spanning 10 categories from five domains (written characters, bodies, faces, places, and objects) at an ultra-high spatial resolution of 0.8 mm using 7 Tesla fMRI in both male and female participants. Representations in lateral VTC were organized most strongly at the general level of domains (e.g., places), whereas medial VTC was also organized at the level of specific categories (e.g., corridors and houses within the domain of places). In both lateral and medial VTC, domain-level and category-level structure decreased with cortical depth, and downsampling our data to standard resolution (2.4 mm) did not reverse differences in representations between lateral and medial VTC. The functional diversity of representations across VTC partitions may allow downstream regions to read out information in a flexible manner according to task demands. These results bridge an important gap between electrophysiological recordings in single neurons at the micron scale in nonhuman primates and standard-resolution fMRI in humans by elucidating distributed responses at the submillimeter scale with ultra-high-resolution fMRI in humans.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Visual recognition is a fundamental ability supported by human ventral temporal cortex (VTC). However, the nature of fine-scale, submillimeter distributed representations in VTC is unknown. Using ultra-high-resolution fMRI of human VTC, we found differential distributed visual representations across lateral and medial VTC. Domain representations (e.g., faces, bodies, places, characters) were most salient in lateral VTC, whereas category representations (e.g., corridors/houses within the domain of places) were equally salient in medial VTC. These results bridge an important gap between electrophysiological recordings in single neurons at a micron scale and fMRI measurements at a millimeter scale.

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a multifunctional protein that signals through the MET receptor. HGF stimulates cell proliferation, cell dispersion, neuronal survival, and wound healing. In the inner ear, levels of HGF must be fine-tuned for normal hearing. In mice, a deficiency of HGF expression limited to the auditory system, or an overexpression of HGF, causes neurosensory deafness. In humans, noncoding variants in HGF are associated with nonsyndromic deafness DFNB39. However, the mechanism by which these noncoding variants causes deafness was unknown. Here, we reveal the cause of this deafness using a mouse model engineered with a noncoding intronic 10 bp deletion (del10) in Hgf. Male and female mice homozygous for del10 exhibit moderate-to-profound hearing loss at 4 weeks of age as measured by tone burst auditory brainstem responses. The wild type (WT) 80 mV endocochlear potential was significantly reduced in homozygous del10 mice compared with WT littermates. In normal cochlea, endocochlear potentials are dependent on ion homeostasis mediated by the stria vascularis (SV). Previous studies showed that developmental incorporation of neural crest cells into the SV depends on signaling from HGF/MET. We show by immunohistochemistry that, in del10 homozygotes, neural crest cells fail to infiltrate the developing SV intermediate layer. Phenotyping and RNAseq analyses reveal no other significant abnormalities in other tissues. We conclude that, in the inner ear, the noncoding del10 mutation in Hgf leads to developmental defects of the SV and consequently dysfunctional ion homeostasis and a reduction in the EP, recapitulating human DFNB39 nonsyndromic deafness.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Hereditary deafness is a common, clinically and genetically heterogeneous neurosensory disorder. Previously, we reported that human deafness DFNB39 is associated with noncoding variants in the 3'UTR of a short isoform of HGF encoding hepatocyte growth factor. For normal hearing, HGF levels must be fine-tuned as an excess or deficiency of HGF cause deafness in mouse. Using a Hgf mutant mouse with a small 10 bp deletion recapitulating a human DFNB39 noncoding variant, we demonstrate that neural crest cells fail to migrate into the stria vascularis intermediate layer, resulting in a significantly reduced endocochlear potential, the driving force for sound transduction by inner ear hair cells. HGF-associated deafness is a neurocristopathy but, unlike many other neurocristopathies, it is not syndromic.

Although the etiology of schizophrenia is still unknown, it is accepted to be a neurodevelopmental disorder that results from the interaction of genetic vulnerabilities and environmental insults. Although schizophrenia's pathophysiology is still unclear, postmortem studies point toward a dysfunction of cortical interneurons as a central element. It has been suggested that alterations in parvalbumin-positive interneurons in schizophrenia are the consequence of a deficient signaling through NMDARs. Animal studies demonstrated that early postnatal ablation of the NMDAR in corticolimbic interneurons induces neurobiochemical, physiological, behavioral, and epidemiological phenotypes related to schizophrenia. Notably, the behavioral abnormalities emerge only after animals complete their maturation during adolescence and are absent if the NMDAR is deleted during adulthood. This suggests that interneuron dysfunction must interact with development to impact on behavior. Here, we assess in vivo how an early NMDAR ablation in corticolimbic interneurons impacts on mPFC and ventral hippocampus functional connectivity before and after adolescence. In juvenile male mice, NMDAR ablation results in several pathophysiological traits, including increased cortical activity and decreased entrainment to local gamma and distal hippocampal theta rhythms. In addition, adult male KO mice showed reduced ventral hippocampus-mPFC-evoked potentials and an augmented low-frequency stimulation LTD of the pathway, suggesting that there is a functional disconnection between both structures in adult KO mice. Our results demonstrate that early genetic abnormalities in interneurons can interact with postnatal development during adolescence, triggering pathophysiological mechanisms related to schizophrenia that exceed those caused by NMDAR interneuron hypofunction alone.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT NMDAR hypofunction in cortical interneurons has been linked to schizophrenia pathophysiology. How a dysfunction of GABAergic cortical interneurons interacts with maturation during adolescence has not been clarified yet. Here, we demonstrate in vivo that early postnatal ablation of the NMDAR in corticolimbic interneurons results in an overactive but desynchronized PFC before adolescence. Final postnatal maturation during this stage outspreads the impact of the genetic manipulation toward a functional disconnection of the ventral hippocampal-prefrontal pathway, probably as a consequence of an exacerbated propensity toward hippocampal-evoked depotentiation plasticity. Our results demonstrate a complex interaction between genetic and developmental factors affecting cortical interneurons and PFC function.

The detection and segmentation of meaningful figures from their background is one of the primary functions of vision. While work in nonhuman primates has implicated early visual mechanisms in this figure–ground modulation, neuroimaging in humans has instead largely ascribed the processing of figures and objects to higher stages of the visual hierarchy. Here, we used high-field fMRI at 7 Tesla to measure BOLD responses to task-irrelevant orientation-defined figures in human early visual cortex (N = 6, four females). We used a novel population receptive field mapping-based approach to resolve the spatial profiles of two constituent mechanisms of figure–ground modulation: a local boundary response, and a further enhancement spanning the full extent of the figure region that is driven by global differences in features. Reconstructing the distinct spatial profiles of these effects reveals that figure enhancement modulates responses in human early visual cortex in a manner consistent with a mechanism of automatic, contextually driven feedback from higher visual areas.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT A core function of the visual system is to parse complex 2D input into meaningful figures. We do so constantly and seamlessly, both by processing information about visible edges and by analyzing large-scale differences between figure and background. While influential neurophysiology work has characterized an intriguing mechanism that enhances V1 responses to perceptual figures, we have a poor understanding of how the early visual system contributes to figure–ground processing in humans. Here, we use advanced computational analysis methods and high-field human fMRI data to resolve the distinct spatial profiles of local edge and global figure enhancement in the early visual system (V1 and LGN); the latter is distinct and consistent with a mechanism of automatic, stimulus-driven feedback from higher-level visual areas.

It has been proposed that people can generate probabilistic predictions at multiple levels of representation during language comprehension. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG), in combination with representational similarity analysis, to seek neural evidence for the prediction of animacy features. In two studies, MEG and EEG activity was measured as human participants (both sexes) read three-sentence scenarios. Verbs in the final sentences constrained for either animate or inanimate semantic features of upcoming nouns, and the broader discourse context constrained for either a specific noun or for multiple nouns belonging to the same animacy category. We quantified the similarity between spatial patterns of brain activity following the verbs until just before the presentation of the nouns. The MEG and EEG datasets revealed converging evidence that the similarity between spatial patterns of neural activity following animate-constraining verbs was greater than following inanimate-constraining verbs. This effect could not be explained by lexical-semantic processing of the verbs themselves. We therefore suggest that it reflected the inherent difference in the semantic similarity structure of the predicted animate and inanimate nouns. Moreover, the effect was present regardless of whether a specific word could be predicted, providing strong evidence for the prediction of coarse-grained semantic features that goes beyond the prediction of individual words.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Language inputs unfold very quickly during real-time communication. By predicting ahead, we can give our brains a "head start," so that language comprehension is faster and more efficient. Although most contexts do not constrain strongly for a specific word, they do allow us to predict some upcoming information. For example, following the context of "they cautioned the...," we can predict that the next word will be animate rather than inanimate (we can caution a person, but not an object). Here, we used EEG and MEG techniques to show that the brain is able to use these contextual constraints to predict the animacy of upcoming words during sentence comprehension, and that these predictions are associated with specific spatial patterns of neural activity.