Differential grey matter changes in sensorimotor cortex related to exceptional fine motor skills

Catching a glimpse of the bacterial gut community of companion animals: a canine and feline perspective

Dogs and cats have gained a special position in human society by becoming our principal companion animals. In this context, efforts to ensure their health and welfare have increased exponentially, with in recent times a growing interest in assessing the impact of the gut microbiota on canine and feline health. Recent technological advances have generated new tools to not only examine the intestinal microbial composition of dogs and cats, but also to scrutinize the genetic repertoire and associated metabolic functions of this microbial community. The application of high-throughput sequencing techniques to canine and feline faecal samples revealed similarities in their bacterial composition, with Fusobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes as the most prevalent and abundant phyla, followed by Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria. Although key bacterial members were consistently present in their gut microbiota, the taxonomic composition and the metabolic repertoire of the intestinal microbial population may be influenced by several factors, including diet, age and anthropogenic aspects, as well as intestinal dysbiosis. The current review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the multitude of factors which play a role in the modulation of the canine and feline gut microbiota and that of their human owners with whom they share the same environment.

Expertise-Level-Dependent Functionally Plastic Changes During Motor Imagery in Basketball Players

Motor imagery is the mental process of rehearsing or simulating a given action without overt movements. The aim of the present study is to examine plastic changes in relevant brain areas during motor imagery with increasing expertise level. Subjects (novices, intermediate and elite players) performed motor imagery of basketball throws under two experimental conditions (with-ball and without-ball). We found that all basketball players exhibited better temporal congruence (between motor imagery and motor execution) and higher vividness of motor imagery than novices. The vividness of motor imagery was higher for the with-ball than for the without-ball conditions in all three subject groups. The results from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed three different patterns of cortical activation. Activation in the left middle frontal gyrus increased and that in the left supplementary motor area decreased with increasing levels of motor expertise. Importantly, brain activation in the left postcentral gyrus was the highest in the intermediate players compared to both novices and elite players. For the elite group, these three areas showed higher activation in the without-ball condition than the with-ball condition, while the opposite trend was found in intermediate players. Our findings suggest that the level of motor expertise may be related to high-order brain functions that are linked to different activation patterns in different brain areas.