Effect of Phosphorus-Doping on Electrochemical Performance of Silicon Negative Electrodes in Lithium-Ion Batteries.

The effect of phosphorus (P)-doping on the electrochemical performance of Si negative electrodes in lithium-ion batteries was investigated. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy was used to observe changes in surface morphology. Surface crystallinity and the phase transition of Si negative electrodes before and after a charge-discharge cycle were investigated by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Li insertion energy into Si was also calculated based on computational chemistry. The results showed that a low P concentration of 124 ppm has a meaningful influence on the electrochemical properties of a Si negative electrode; the cycle performance is improved by P-doping of Si. P-doping suppresses the changes in the surface morphology of a Si negative electrode and the phase transition during a charge-discharge cycle. Li insertion energy increases with an increase in the P concentration; Li insertion into P-doped Si is energetically unfavorable, which indicates that the crystal lattice of Si shrinks as a result of the replacement of some Si atoms with smaller P atoms, and therefore, it is more difficult to insert Li into P-doped Si. These results reveal that suppression of the phase transition reduces the large change in the volume of Si and prevents a Si negative electrode from disintegrating, which helps to improve the otherwise poor cycle performance of a Si electrode.

Phase reset affects auditory-visual simultaneity judgment.

We continuously receive the external information from multiple sensors simultaneously. The brain must judge a source event of these sensory informations and integrate them. It is thought that judging the simultaneity of such multisensory stimuli is an important cue when we discriminate whether the stimuli are derived from one event or not. Although previous studies have investigated the correspondence between an auditory-visual (AV) simultaneity perceptions and the neural responses, there are still few studies of this. Electrophysiological studies have reported that ongoing oscillations in human cortex affect perception. Especially, the phase resetting of ongoing oscillations has been examined as it plays an important role in multisensory integration. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of phase resetting for the judgment of AV simultaneity judgement tasks. The subjects were successively presented with auditory and visual stimuli with intervals that were controlled as [Formula: see text] and they were asked to report whether they perceived them simultaneously or not. We investigated the effects of the phase of ongoing oscillations on simultaneity judgments with AV stimuli with SOAs in which the detection rate of asynchrony was 50 %. It was found that phase resetting at the beta frequency band in the brain area that related to the modality of the following stimulus occurred after preceding stimulus onset only when the subjects perceived AV stimuli as simultaneous. This result suggested that beta phase resetting occurred in areas that are related to the subsequent stimulus, supporting perception multisensory stimuli as simultaneous.

Computational simulation: astrocyte-induced depolarization of neighboring neurons mediates synchronous UP states in a neural network.

Although recent reports have suggested that synchronous neuronal UP states are mediated by astrocytic activity, the mechanism responsible for this remains unknown. Astrocytic glutamate release synchronously depolarizes adjacent neurons, while synaptic transmissions are blocked. The purpose of this study was to confirm that astrocytic depolarization, propagated through synaptic connections, can lead to synchronous neuronal UP states. We applied astrocytic currents to local neurons in a neural network consisting of model cortical neurons. Our results show that astrocytic depolarization may generate synchronous UP states for hundreds of milliseconds in neurons even if they do not directly receive glutamate release from the activated astrocyte.

Analysis of chaotic oscillations induced in two coupled Wilson-Cowan models.

Although it is known that two coupled Wilson-Cowan models with reciprocal connections induce aperiodic oscillations, little attention has been paid to the dynamical mechanism for such oscillations so far. In this study, we aim to elucidate the fundamental mechanism to induce the aperiodic oscillations in the coupled model. First, aperiodic oscillations observed are investigated for the case when the connections are unidirectional and when the input signal is a periodic oscillation. By the phase portrait analysis, we determine that the aperiodic oscillations are caused by periodically forced state transitions between a stable equilibrium and a stable limit cycle attractors around the saddle-node and saddle separatrix loop bifurcation points. It is revealed that the dynamical mechanism where the state crosses over the saddle-node and saddle separatrix loop bifurcations significantly contributes to the occurrence of chaotic oscillations forced by a periodic input. In addition, this mechanism can also give rise to chaotic oscillations in reciprocally connected Wilson-Cowan models. These results suggest that the dynamic attractor transition underlies chaotic behaviors in two coupled Wilson-Cowan oscillators.