scholarly journals Emerging of new bioartificial corticospinal motor synergies using a robotic additional thumb

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Rossi ◽  
Gionata Salvietti ◽  
Francesco Neri ◽  
Sara M. Romanella ◽  
Alessandra Cinti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Imagery ◽  
Primary Motor Cortex ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Peripersonal Space ◽  
Reasonable Assumption ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Healthy Humans ◽  
Motor Synergies ◽  
New Interactions ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIt is likely that when using an artificially augmented hand with six fingers, the natural five plus a robotic one, corticospinal motor synergies controlling grasping actions might be different. However, no direct neurophysiological evidence for this reasonable assumption is available yet. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation of the primary motor cortex to directly address this issue during motor imagery of objects’ grasping actions performed with or without the Soft Sixth Finger (SSF). The SSF is a wearable robotic additional thumb patented for helping patients with hand paresis and inherent loss of thumb opposition abilities. To this aim, we capitalized from the solid notion that neural circuits and mechanisms underlying motor imagery overlap those of physiological voluntary actions. After a few minutes of training, healthy humans wearing the SSF rapidly reshaped the pattern of corticospinal outputs towards forearm and hand muscles governing imagined grasping actions of different objects, suggesting the possibility that the extra finger might rapidly be encoded into the user’s body schema, which is integral part of the frontal-parietal grasping network. Such neural signatures might explain how the motor system of human beings is open to very quickly welcoming emerging augmentative bioartificial corticospinal grasping strategies. Such an ability might represent the functional substrate of a final common pathway the brain might count on towards new interactions with the surrounding objects within the peripersonal space. Findings provide a neurophysiological framework for implementing augmentative robotic tools in humans and for the exploitation of the SSF in conceptually new rehabilitation settings.

scholarly journals Effects of healthy ageing on activation pattern within the brain during movement and motor imagery: an fMRI study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Budhdeo ◽  
Jean-Claude Baron ◽  
Nikhil Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Motor Imagery ◽  
Primary Motor Cortex ◽  
Block Design ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Computer Interfaces ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Age Dependent ◽  
The Neural Networks ◽  
Shared Networks ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIntroductionMotor imagery (MI) has potential as an intervention to improve performance in neurological disease affecting the motor system and to modulate brain computer interfaces (BCI). We hypothesized that the shared networks of MI and executed movement (EM) would be affected by age. Understanding these changes is important in application of MI in neurological disorders.MethodsUsing tensor-independent component analysis (TICA), we mapped the neural networks involved during MI and EM in 31 healthy volunteers (ages 20-72), who were recruited and screened for their ability to perform imagery. We used an fMRI block-design with MI & rest and EM & rest.ResultsTICA defined 37 independent components (ICs). Eight remained after excluding ICs representing artifacts. These ICs accounted for 35% of variance. While all ICs had greater activation in EM than MI. Two ICs increased with greater age for EM only. These ICs contained a bilateral network of brain areas, including primary motor cortex and cerebellum.ConclusionThis study demonstrates the prominence of shared cerebral networks between MI and EM. There are age-dependent changes to EM activation, while MI activation appeared age independent. This strengthens the rationale for using MI to access the motor networks independent of age.

Experience Influences Brain Mechanisms of Watching Dance

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (supplement) ◽  
pp. 352-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seon Hee Jang ◽  
Frank E Pollick
Keyword(s):  
Motor Imagery ◽  
Visual Experience ◽  
Primary Motor Cortex ◽  
Action Observation ◽  
Brain Area ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Imagery Task ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Action Observation Network ◽  
Viewing Experience

The study of dance has been helpful to advance our understanding of how human brain networks of action observation are influenced by experience. However previous studies have not examined the effect of extensive visual experience alone: for example, an art critic or dance fan who has a rich experience of watching dance but negligible experience performing dance. To explore the effect of pure visual experience we performed a single experiment using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to compare the neural processing of dance actions in 3 groups: a) 14 ballet dancers, b) 10 experienced viewers, c) 12 novices without any extensive dance or viewing experience. Each of the 36 participants viewed short 2-second displays of ballet derived from motion capture of a professional ballerina. These displays represented the ballerina as only points of light at the major joints. We wished to study the action observation network broadly and thus included two different types of display and two different tasks for participants to perform. The two different displays were: a) brief movies of a ballet action and b) frames from the ballet movies with the points of lights connected by lines to show a ballet posture. The two different tasks were: a) passively observe the display and b) imagine performing the action depicted in the display. The two levels of display and task were combined factorially to produce four experimental conditions (observe movie, observe posture, motor imagery of movie, motor imagery of posture). The set of stimuli used in the experiment are available for download after this paper. A random effects ANOVA was performed on brain activity and an effect of experience was obtained in seven different brain areas including: right Temporoparietal Junction (TPJ), left Retrosplenial Cortex (RSC), right Primary Somatosensory Cortex (S1), bilateral Primary Motor Cortex (M1), right Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC), right Temporal Pole (TP). The patterns of activation were plotted in each of these areas (TPJ, RSC, S1, M1, OFC, TP) to investigate more closely how the effect of experience changed across these areas. For this analysis, novices were treated as baseline and the relative effect of experience examined in the dancer and experienced viewer groups. Interpretation of these results suggests that both visual and motor experience appear equivalent in producing more extensive early processing of dance actions in early stages of representation (TPJ and RSC) and we hypothesise that this could be due to the involvement of autobiographical memory processes. The pattern of results found for dancers in S1 and M1 suggest that their perception of dance actions are enhanced by embodied processes. For example, the S1 results are consistent with claims that this brain area shows mirror properties. The pattern of results found for the experienced viewers in OFC and TP suggests that their perception of dance actions are enhanced by cognitive processes. For example, involving aspects of social cognition and hedonic processing – the experienced viewers find the motor imagery task more pleasant and have richer connections of dance to social memory. While aspects of our interpretation are speculative the core results clearly show common and distinct aspects of how viewing experience and physical experience shape brain responses to watching dance.

TEORI KECERDASAN, PENDIDIKAN ANAK, DAN KOMUNIKASI DALAM KELUARGA

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muskinul Fuad
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Intelligences ◽  
Educational Activity ◽  
Howard Gardner ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Family ◽  
Education Today ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Spatial Logics

The education system in Indonesia emphasize on academic intelligence, whichincludes only two or three aspects, more than on the other aspects of intelligence. For thatreason, many children who are not good at academic intelligence, but have good potentials inother aspects of intelligence, do not develop optimally. They are often considered and labeledas "stupid children" by the existing system. This phenomenon is on the contrary to the theoryof multiple intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner, who argues that intelligence is theability to solve various problems in life and produce products or services that are useful invarious aspects of life.Human intelligence is a combination of various general and specific abilities. Thistheory is different from the concept of IQ (intelligence quotient) that involves only languageskills, mathematical, and spatial logics. According to Gardner, there are nine aspects ofintelligence and its potential indicators to be developed by each child born without a braindefect. What Gardner suggested can be considered as a starting point to a perspective thatevery child has a unique individual intelligence. Parents have to treat and educate theirchildren proportionally and equitably. This treatment will lead to a pattern of education that isfriendly to the brain and to the plurality of children’s potential.More than the above points, the notion that multiple intelligences do not just comefrom the brain needs to be followed. Humans actually have different immaterial (spiritual)aspects that do not refer to brain functions. The belief in spiritual aspects and its potentialsmeans that human beings have various capacities and they differ from physical capacities.This is what needs to be addressed from the perspective of education today. The philosophyand perspective on education of the educators, education stakeholders, and especially parents,are the first major issue to be addressed. With this step, every educational activity andcommunication within the family is expected to develop every aspect of children'sintelligence, especially the spiritual intelligence.

scholarly journals Bio-Inspired Modality Fusion for Active Speaker Detection

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3397
Author(s):  
Gustavo Assunção ◽  
Nuno Gonçalves ◽  
Paulo Menezes
Keyword(s):  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Validation Process ◽  
Detection Approach ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Speaker Detection ◽  
The One ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Fusion Ability

Human beings have developed fantastic abilities to integrate information from various sensory sources exploring their inherent complementarity. Perceptual capabilities are therefore heightened, enabling, for instance, the well-known "cocktail party" and McGurk effects, i.e., speech disambiguation from a panoply of sound signals. This fusion ability is also key in refining the perception of sound source location, as in distinguishing whose voice is being heard in a group conversation. Furthermore, neuroscience has successfully identified the superior colliculus region in the brain as the one responsible for this modality fusion, with a handful of biological models having been proposed to approach its underlying neurophysiological process. Deriving inspiration from one of these models, this paper presents a methodology for effectively fusing correlated auditory and visual information for active speaker detection. Such an ability can have a wide range of applications, from teleconferencing systems to social robotics. The detection approach initially routes auditory and visual information through two specialized neural network structures. The resulting embeddings are fused via a novel layer based on the superior colliculus, whose topological structure emulates spatial neuron cross-mapping of unimodal perceptual fields. The validation process employed two publicly available datasets, with achieved results confirming and greatly surpassing initial expectations.

Juvenile-onset Neuronal Ceroid-Lipofuscinosis in Rambouillet Sheep

1994 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Edwards ◽  
R. W. Storts ◽  
J. R. Joyce ◽  
J. M. Shelton ◽  
C. S. Menzies
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Neuronal Degeneration ◽  
Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis ◽  
Disease Process ◽  
Autosomal Recessive Inheritance ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Juvenile Onset ◽  
Ceroid Lipofuscinosis ◽  
Disease States ◽  
The Brain

Two, 8-month-old Rambouillet half-sister ewes with signs of visual loss and decreased mentation were examined. Ewe No. 1 was necropsied at 10 months of age, and alter being held under observation for a further 6 months, ewe No. 2 was necropsied at 16 months of age. At that time, the ewe was blind and severely depressed. Both ewes had deposition of an autofluorescent lipopigment, identified as ceroid-lipofuscin, in neurons of the brain, spinal cord, eye, and dorsal root ganglia. The disease process was progressive and characterized by deposition of lipopigment with neuronal degeneration and severe fibrillary aslrogliosis. This progressive loss of neurons in the older ewe led to severe retinal degeneration. No pigment was observed in cells outside of the nervous system and eye. Controlled breeding studies have shown that this disease has an autosomal, recessive inheritance. The disease referred to here as juvenile-onset neuronal ceroid-lipofuscinosis of Rambouillet sheep is unlike the majority of the hereditary ceroid-lipofuscinoses that occur in human beings and animals in that only the nervous system is affected. Therefore, this disease could serve as an excellent model for the study of lipopigment deposition that affects the nervous system as a result of various disease states and during aging.

Differential energetic response of brain vs. skeletal muscle upon glycemic variations in healthy humans

2008 ◽  
Vol 294 (1) ◽  
pp. R12-R16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin M. Oltmanns ◽  
Uwe H. Melchert ◽  
Harald G. Scholand-Engler ◽  
Maria C. Howitz ◽  
Bernd Schultes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Skeletal Muscle ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Resonance Spectroscopy ◽  
Energy Status ◽  
High Energy Phosphate ◽  
Available Energy ◽  
Healthy Humans ◽  
High Energy Phosphate Metabolism ◽  
The Brain

The brain regulates all metabolic processes within the organism, and therefore, its energy supply is preserved even during fasting. However, the underlying mechanism is unknown. Here, it is shown, using 31P-magnetic resonance spectroscopy that during short periods of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, the brain can rapidly increase its high-energy phosphate content, whereas there is no change in skeletal muscle. We investigated the key metabolites of high-energy phosphate metabolism as rapidly available energy stores by 31P MRS in brain and skeletal muscle of 17 healthy men. Measurements were performed at baseline and during dextrose or insulin-induced hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. During hyperglycemia, phosphocreatine (PCr) concentrations increased significantly in the brain ( P = 0.013), while there was a similar trend in the hypopglycemic condition ( P = 0.055). Skeletal muscle content remained constant in both conditions ( P > 0.1). ANOVA analyses comparing changes from baseline to the respective glycemic plateau in brain (up to +15%) vs. muscle (up to −4%) revealed clear divergent effects in both conditions ( P < 0.05). These effects were reflected by PCr/Pi ratio ( P < 0.05). Total ATP concentrations revealed the observed divergency only during hyperglycemia ( P = 0.018). These data suggest that the brain, in contrast to peripheral organs, can activate some specific mechanisms to modulate its energy status during variations in glucose supply. A disturbance of these mechanisms may have far-reaching implications for metabolic dysregulation associated with obesity or diabetes mellitus.

Minds and brains: angels, humans, and brutes

1982 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-315
Author(s):  
Mortimer J. Adler
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Animal Behavior ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Conceptual Thought ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Fine Print

✓ In his 1982 Cushing oration, a distinguished philosopher, author, and discerning critic presents a distillate of his phenomenally wide range of personal experience and his familiarity with the great books and teachers of the present and the past. He explores the differences and relationships between human beings, brute animals, and machines. Knowledge of the brain and nervous system contribute to the explanation of all aspects of animal behavior, intelligence, and mentality, but cannot completely explain human conceptual thought.

scholarly journals A Computational Intelligence Paradigm with Human Computer Interface Learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2S) ◽  
pp. 384-389
Keyword(s):  
Review Paper ◽  
Electronic Devices ◽  
Computer Interface ◽  
Human Computer Interface ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Advance Technology ◽  
Physically Challenged ◽  
Lock In ◽  
External Communications ◽  
The Brain

The cognitive Science is the leading technology which works on the principle of Neuroscience. Human Computer Interface is a challenging approach in neurosciences, which is the leading method to handle the brain activities to control external communications with the electronic devices for physically challenged human beings. The various HCI applications are developed with this advance technology. This helps in various patients which are physically challenged or facing the lock in syndrome, a condition where limbs are not functioning to full extent. Therefore, this paper is the review paper to the various EEG signal classification techniques using different taxonomy with techniques like linear, nonlinear, stableubstable, static-discriminant to design various HCI applications.

scholarly journals State of the art olfactometers. Different types

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Pathological Conditions ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Clinical Diagnoses ◽  
Human Use ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Very High ◽  
Human Olfaction

The complexity of human olfaction is very high and the importance of being able to measure it directly, objectively and qualitatively has led experts to search for mechanisms that can be applied. Human beings use this sense, which is one of the oldest, to recognize danger and distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant odors. Smells are mixtures of molecules that, at different concentrations in the inhaled air, stimulate the olfactory area and are recognized at the brain level. Therefore, there is a coding and decoding system. Human olfactometer techniques use equipment designed to be able to measure its intensity and quality of volatile substances. If we are able to measure this sense, we will be able to know its variations and be able to make clinical diagnoses in normal and pathological conditions and diagnose the losses that occur in certain infectious, degenerative diseases, traumatic processes and other variants. For many years, systems have been developed that can measure subjective olfaction in humans, as well as objective forms, but it is also true that there is no equipment available that is fast, simple handling and that can be applied in daily clinical services. Aim of the Study Present the recent achievements in olfactometer technology; Elaborate the scientific articles about olfactometry published mainly in the last 10 years; To gather the information published in the last years in relation to the usefulness, existence in the market and purposes of equipment that can measure the odors, what we will call the Smell-o-meter or olfactometer for human use. Material and Methods: In the first part of this research we will gather most of the information existing so far in international bibliography, as well as the achievements and utilities obtained to date. Following, we will analyze all the new concepts related to smell-o-meters devices that exist on the market and assess the possibility, based on what has been done so far, to seek new practical systems for application in the medical field.

scholarly journals Controlling an Anatomical Robot Hand Using the Brain-Computer Interface Based on Motor Imagery

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
H. M. K. K. M. B. Herath ◽  
W.R. de Mel
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Motor Imagery ◽  
Primary Motor Cortex ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Disabled Persons ◽  
World Health ◽  
Robot Hand ◽  
Hand Model ◽  
Handicapped People ◽  
Flexion And Extension

More than one billion people face disabilities worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In Sri Lanka, there are thousands of people suffering from a variety of disabilities, especially hand disabilities, due to the civil war in the country. The Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka reports that by 2025, the number of people with disabilities in Sri Lanka will grow by 24.2%. In the field of robotics, new technologies for handicapped people are now being built to make their lives simple and effective. The aim of this research is to develop a 3-finger anatomical robot hand model for handicapped people and control (flexion and extension) the robot hand using motor imagery. Eight EEG electrodes were used to extract EEG signals from the primary motor cortex. Data collection and testing were performed for a period of 42 s timespan. According to the test results, eight EEG electrodes were sufficient to acquire the motor imagery for flexion and extension of finger movements. The overall accuracy of the experiments was found at 89.34% (mean = 22.32) at the 0.894 precision. We also observed that the proposed design provided promising results for the performance of the task (grab, hold, and release activities) of hand-disabled persons.

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