scholarly journals Author Correction: Graphene active sensor arrays for long-term and wireless mapping of wide frequency band epicortical brain activity

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Garcia-Cortadella ◽  
G. Schwesig ◽  
C. Jeschke ◽  
X. Illa ◽  
Anna L. Gray ◽  
...  
Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 2084
Author(s):  
Kostas Nizamis ◽  
Alkinoos Athanasiou ◽  
Sofia Almpani ◽  
Christos Dimitrousis ◽  
Alexander Astaras

Recent advances in the field of neural rehabilitation, facilitated through technological innovation and improved neurophysiological knowledge of impaired motor control, have opened up new research directions. Such advances increase the relevance of existing interventions, as well as allow novel methodologies and technological synergies. New approaches attempt to partially overcome long-term disability caused by spinal cord injury, using either invasive bridging technologies or noninvasive human–machine interfaces. Muscular dystrophies benefit from electromyography and novel sensors that shed light on underlying neuromotor mechanisms in people with Duchenne. Novel wearable robotics devices are being tailored to specific patient populations, such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, and amputated individuals. In addition, developments in robot-assisted rehabilitation may enhance motor learning and generate movement repetitions by decoding the brain activity of patients during therapy. This is further facilitated by artificial intelligence algorithms coupled with faster electronics. The practical impact of integrating such technologies with neural rehabilitation treatment can be substantial. They can potentially empower nontechnically trained individuals—namely, family members and professional carers—to alter the programming of neural rehabilitation robotic setups, to actively get involved and intervene promptly at the point of care. This narrative review considers existing and emerging neural rehabilitation technologies through the perspective of replacing or restoring functions, enhancing, or improving natural neural output, as well as promoting or recruiting dormant neuroplasticity. Upon conclusion, we discuss the future directions for neural rehabilitation research, diagnosis, and treatment based on the discussed technologies and their major roadblocks. This future may eventually become possible through technological evolution and convergence of mutually beneficial technologies to create hybrid solutions.


2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 2185-2197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer T. Coull ◽  
Bruno Nazarian ◽  
Franck Vidal

The temporal discrimination paradigm requires subjects to compare the duration of a probe stimulus to that of a sample previously stored in working or long-term memory, thus providing an index of timing that is independent of a motor response. However, the estimation process itself comprises several component cognitive processes, including timing, storage, retrieval, and comparison of durations. Previous imaging studies have attempted to disentangle these components by simply measuring brain activity during early versus late scanning epochs. We aim to improve the temporal resolution and precision of this approach by using rapid event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to time-lock the hemodynamic response to presentation of the sample and probe stimuli themselves. Compared to a control (color-estimation) task, which was matched in terms of difficulty, sustained attention, and motor preparation requirements, we found selective activation of the left putamen for the storage (“encoding”) of stimulus duration into working memory (WM). Moreover, increased putamen activity was linked to enhanced timing performance, suggesting that the level of putamen activity may modulate the depth of temporal encoding. Retrieval and comparison of stimulus duration in WM selectively activated the right superior temporal gyrus. Finally, the supplementary motor area was equally active during both sample and probe stages of the task, suggesting a fundamental role in timing the duration of a stimulus that is currently unfolding in time.


Author(s):  
Pallavi Gupta ◽  
Jahnavi Mundluru ◽  
Arth Patel ◽  
Shankar Pathmakanthan

Long-term meditation practice is increasingly recognized for its health benefits. Heartfulness meditation represents a quickly growing set of practices that is largely unstudied. Heartfulness is unique in that it is a meditation practice that focuses on the Heart. It helps individuals to connect to themselves and find inner peace. In order to deepen ones’ meditation, the element of Yogic Energy (‘pranahuti’) is used as an aid during meditation. The purpose of this study was to determine whether consistent EEG effects of Heartfulness meditation be observed in sixty experienced Heartfulness meditators, each of whom attended 6 testing sessions. In each session, participants performed three conditions: a set of cognitive tasks, Heartfulness guided relaxation, and Heartfulness Meditation. Participants during the cognitive portion were required to answer questions that tested their logical thinking (Cognitive Reflective Test) and creative thinking skills. (Random Associative Test) The order of condition was randomly counter balanced across six sessions. It was hypothesized that Heartfulness meditation would bring increased alpha (8-12Hz) brain activity during meditation and better cognitive task scores in sessions where the tasks followed meditation. Heartfulness meditation produces a significant decrease in brain activity (as indexed by higher levels of alpha during the early stages of meditation. As the meditation progressed deep meditative state (as indexed by higher levels of delta) were observed until the end of the condition.  This lead to the conclusion that Heartfulness Meditation produces a state that is clearly distinguishable from effortful problem solving. 


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 3258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valery Gupalov ◽  
Alexander Kukaev ◽  
Sergey Shevchenko ◽  
Egor Shalymov ◽  
Vladimir Venediktov

The paper considers the construction of a piezoelectric accelerometer capable of measuring constant linear acceleration. A number of designs are proposed that make it possible to achieve high sensitivity with small dimensions and a wide frequency band (from 10−5 Hz). The finite element model of the proposed design was investigated, and its output characteristic and scale factor (36 mV/g) were obtained.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 711-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Young Ju Kim ◽  
Ji Sub Hwang ◽  
Bui Xuan Khuyen ◽  
Bui Son Tung ◽  
Ki Won Kim ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Ciria ◽  
Pandelis Perakakis ◽  
Antonio Luque-Casado ◽  
Daniel Sanabria

AbstractExtant evidence suggests that acute exercise triggers a tonic power increase in the alpha frequency band at frontal locations, which has been linked to benefits in cognitive function. However, recent literature has questioned such a selective effect on a particular frequency band, indicating a rather overall power increase across the entire frequency spectrum. Moreover, the nature of task-evoked oscillatory brain activity associated to inhibitory control after exercising, and the duration of the exercise effect, are not yet clear. Here, we investigate for the first time steady state oscillatory brain activity during and following an acute bout of aerobic exercise at two different exercise intensities (moderate-to-high and light), by means of a data-driven cluster-based approach to describe the spatio-temporal distribution of exercise-induced effects on brain function without prior assumptions on any frequency range or site of interest. We also assess the transient oscillatory brain activity elicited by stimulus presentation, as well as behavioural performance, in two inhibitory control (flanker) tasks, one performed after a short delay following the physical exercise and another completed after a rest period of 15’ post-exercise to explore the time course of exercise-induced changes on brain function and cognitive performance. The results show that oscillatory brain activity increases during exercise compared to the resting state, and that this increase is higher during the moderate-to-high intensity exercise with respect to the light intensity exercise. In addition, our results show that the global pattern of increased oscillatory brain activity is not specific to any concrete surface localization in slow frequencies, while in faster frequencies this effect is located in parieto-occipital sites. Notably, the exercise-induced increase in oscillatory brain activity disappears immediately after the end of the exercise bout. Neither transient (event-related) oscillatory activity, nor behavioral performance during the flanker tasks following exercise showed significant between-intensity differences. The present findings help elucidate the effect of physical exercise on oscillatory brain activity and challenge previous research suggesting improved inhibitory control following moderate-to-high acute exercise.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Richard Merrill ◽  
Mariam Taher Amin

Chronic pain changes brain connectivity, brainwaves, and volume, often resulting in disability, anxiety, and depression. Opioid pain relievers impair function, with risk of addiction. Music analgesia research suggests that music for long-term analgesia includes slow tempo, pleasantness, and self-choice. Hypothesis: individuals listening to self-chosen music with embedded beats ½ h twice a day, could show brainwave entrainment (BWE) at healthy frequencies of healthy descending pain modulatory system. BWE may change brain activity, restoring organization in DPMS altered by chronic pain. Volunteers with chronic pain >1 year participated in a study of 4 weeks of listening to one half hour of music twice a day, and four weeks of non-listening, reporting pain and analgesic use bi-weekly using visual analog scale (VAS) and 0–10 numerical pain scores (NPS), medication types, and dosage. Volunteers selected from 27 half-hour pieces of music in several genres in a mobile app. Isochronic beats were embedded in the music with tempo, key, and isochronic theta frequencies proportional, to enhance the brain’s perception of rhythmic patterns and harmonics. Mean NPS showed a 26% reduction (p = 0.018). Significantly, mean medication dosage declined by over 60% (p = 0.008). Double-blind studies, larger populations are needed in future.


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