The effect of terbium doping on the electrical, optical and light emission properties of sputtered indium tin oxide thin films was investigated. The films were prepared by radio frequency dual magnetron sputtering, maintaining a high optical transmittance in the ultraviolet and visible spectral regions, and a low electrical resistivity ranging from 5×10−3 Ω·cm to 0.3 Ω·cm. Terbium-related luminescence is achieved after annealing at 470 ◦C in air at atmospheric pressure. Electrical resistivity and optical transmittance were measured after each annealing step to evaluate the compromise between the achieved light emission intensity, electrical and optical properties. Additionally, temperature dependence of Tb-related luminescence quenching was assessed by temperature-dependent photoluminescence measurements, from 83 K to 533 K, under non-resonant excitation. Thermal quenching activation energies suggest an effective energy transfer mechanism from the ITO host to the rare-earth ions. This indirect excitation mechanism was modeled using a spherical potential-well and a tight-binding one-band approximation approaches, describing a short-range charge trapping process and subsequent formation of bound excitons to rare-earth ion clusters.

Neuromodulators, such as neuropeptides, can regulate and reconfigure neural circuits to alter their output, affecting in this way animal physiology and behavior. The interplay between the activity of neuronal circuits, their modulation by neuropeptides, and the resulting behavior, is still poorly understood. Here, we present a quantitative framework to study the relationships between the temporal pattern of activity of peptidergic neurons and of motoneurons during Drosophila ecdysis behavior, a highly stereotyped motor sequence that is critical for insect growth. We analyzed, in the time and frequency domains, simultaneous intracellular calcium recordings of peptidergic CCAP (crustacean cardioactive peptide) neurons and motoneurons obtained from isolated central nervous systems throughout fictive ecdysis behavior induced ex vivo by Ecdysis triggering hormone. We found that the activity of both neuronal populations is tightly coupled in a cross-frequency manner, suggesting that CCAP neurons modulate the faster oscillation of motoneurons. To explore this idea further, we used a probabilistic logistic model to show that calcium dynamics in CCAP neurons can predict the oscillation of motoneurons, both in a simple model and in a conductance-base model capable of simulating many of the observed neural dynamics features. Finally, we developed an algorithm to quantify the motor behavior observed in videos of pupal ecdysis, and compared their features to the patterns of neuronal calcium activity recorded ex vivo . We found that the motor activity of the intact animal is more regular than the motoneuronal activity recorded from the ex vivo preparations during fictive ecdysis behavior; the analysis of movement patterns also allowed us to identify a new post-ecdysis phase.

Neuromodulators, such as neuropeptides, can regulate and reconfigure neural circuits to alter their output, affecting in this way animal physiology and behavior. The interplay between the activity of neuronal circuits, their modulation by neuropeptides, and the resulting behavior, is still poorly understood. Here, we present a quantitative framework to study the relationships between the temporal pattern of activity of peptidergic neurons and of motoneurons during Drosophila ecdysis behavior, a highly stereotyped motor sequence that is critical for insect growth. We analyzed, in the time and frequency domains, simultaneous intracellular calcium recordings of peptidergic CCAP (crustacean cardioactive peptide) neurons and motoneurons obtained from isolated central nervous systems throughout fictive ecdysis behavior induced ex vivo by Ecdysis triggering hormone. We found that the activity of both neuronal populations is tightly coupled in a cross-frequency manner, suggesting that CCAP neurons modulate the frequency of motoneuron firing. To explore this idea further, we used a probabilistic logistic model to show that calcium dynamics in CCAP neurons can predict the oscillation of motoneurons, both in a simple model and in a conductance-base model capable of simulating many features of the observed neural dynamics. Finally, we developed an algorithm to quantify the motor behavior observed in videos of pupal ecdysis, and compared their features to the patterns of neuronal calcium activity recorded ex vivo. We found that the motor activity of the intact animal is more regular than the motoneuronal activity recorded from ex vivo preparations during fictive ecdysis behavior; the analysis of the patterns of movement also allowed us to identify a new post-ecdysis phase.