Gender bias in academia: A lifetime problem that needs solutions

Summary:

Despite increased awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia and a growing number of initiatives to address issues of diversity, change is slow, and inequalities remain. A major source of inequity is gender bias, which has a substantial negative impact on the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of underrepresented groups in science. Here, we argue that gender bias is not a single problem but manifests as a collection of distinct issues that impact researchers’ lives. We disentangle these facets and propose concrete solutions that can be adopted by individuals, academic institutions, and society.

Authors:

• Anaïs Llorens

• Athina Tzovara

• Ludovic Bellier

• Ilina Bhaya-Grossman

• Aurélie Bidet-Caulet

• William K Chang

• Zachariah R Cross

• Rosa Dominguez-Faus

• Adeen Flinker

• Yvonne Fonken

• Mark A Gorenstein

• Chris Holdgraf

• Colin W Hoy

• Maria V Ivanova

• Richard T Jimenez

• Soyeon Jun

• Julia WY Kam

• Celeste Kidd

• Enitan Marcelle

• Deborah Marciano

• Stephanie Martin

• Nicholas E Myers

• Karita Ojala

• Anat Perry

• Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas

• Stephanie K Riès

• Ignacio Saez

• Ivan Skelin

• Katarina Slama

• Brooke Staveland

• Danielle S Bassett

• Elizabeth A Buffalo

• Adrienne L Fairhall

• Nancy J Kopell

• Laura J Kray

• Jack J Lin

• Anna C Nobre

• Dylan Riley

• Anne-Kristin Solbakk

• Joni D Wallis

• Xiao-Jing Wang

• Shlomit Yuval-Greenberg

• Sabine Kastner

• Robert T Knight

• Nina F Dronkers

Date: 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.06.002

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Slow wave-spindle coupling during sleep predicts language learning and associated oscillatory activity

Abstract:

Language is one of the most defining human capabilities, involving the coordination of brain networks that generalise the meaning of linguistic units of varying complexity. On a neural level, neocortical slow waves and thalamic spindles during sleep facilitate the reactivation of newly encoded memory traces, manifesting in distinct oscillatory activity during retrieval. However, it is currently unknown if the effect of sleep on memory extends to the generalisation of the mechanisms that subserve sentence comprehension. We address this question by analysing electroencephalogram data recorded from 36 participants during an artificial language learning task and an 8hr nocturnal sleep period. We found that a period of sleep was associated with increased alpha/beta synchronisation and improved behavioural performance. Cross-frequency coupling analyses also revealed that spindle-slow wave coupling predicted the consolidation of varying word order permutations, which was associated with distinct patterns of task-related oscillatory activity during sentence processing. Taken together, this study presents converging behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for a role of sleep in the consolidation of higher order language learning and associated oscillatory neuronal activity.

Authors:

• Zachariah R Cross

• Randolph F Helfrich

• Mark J Kohler

• Andrew W Corcoran

• Scott Coussens

• Lena Zou-Williams

• Matthias Schlesewsky

• M Gareth Gaskell

• Robert T Knight

• Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky

Date: 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.13.948539

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