scholarly journals tDCS modulates effective connectivity during motor command following; a potential therapeutic target for disorders of consciousness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Aloi ◽  
Roya Jalali ◽  
Penelope Tilsley ◽  
R. Chris Miall ◽  
Davinia Fernández-Espejo
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Effective Connectivity ◽  
Motor Command ◽  
Disorders Of Consciousness ◽  
Motor Deficits ◽  
Potential Therapeutic Target ◽  
Motor Responses ◽  
Cathodal Tdcs ◽  
Command Following

AbstractTranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is attracting increasing interest as a potential therapeutic route for unresponsive patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC). However, research to date has had mixed results. Here, we propose a new direction by directly addressing the mechanisms underlying lack of responsiveness in PDOC, and using these to define our targets and the success of our intervention in the healthy brain first. We used fMRI to characterise the effects of tDCS on brain activity and dynamics during command following, a task typically used to clinically assess awareness. Anodal tDCS over M1 and cathodal tDCS over the cerebellum led to long-range changes in thalamo-cortical coupling associated with the ability to produce motor responses to command. This suggests that tDCS may allow PDOC patients to overcome the motor deficits at the root of their reduced responsiveness, improving their rehabilitation options and quality of life as a result.

scholarly journals The Neural Basis of Vivid Memory Is Patterned on Perception

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (9) ◽  
pp. 1867-1883 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley R. Buchsbaum ◽  
Sabrina Lemire-Rodger ◽  
Candice Fang ◽  
Hervé Abdi
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Sensory Perception ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Short Video ◽  
Initial Perception ◽  
Experiential Quality ◽  
High Degree

When we have a rich and vivid memory for a past experience, it often feels like we are transported back in time to witness once again this event. Indeed, a perfect memory would exactly mimic the experiential quality of direct sensory perception. We used fMRI and multivoxel pattern analysis to map and quantify the similarity between patterns of activation evoked by direct perception of a diverse set of short video clips and the vivid remembering, with closed eyes, of these clips. We found that the patterns of distributed brain activation during vivid memory mimicked the patterns evoked during sensory perception. Using whole-brain patterns of activation evoked by perception of the videos, we were able to accurately classify brain patterns that were elicited when participants tried to vividly recall those same videos. A discriminant analysis of the activation patterns associated with each video revealed a high degree (explaining over 80% of the variance) of shared representational similarity between perception and memory. These results show that complex, multifeatured memory involves a partial reinstatement of the whole pattern of brain activity that is evoked during initial perception of the stimulus.

scholarly journals Delta band activity contributes to the identification of command following in disorder of consciousness

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Rivera-Lillo ◽  
Emmanuel A. Stamatakis ◽  
Tristan A. Bekinschtein ◽  
David K. Menon ◽  
Srivas Chennu
Keyword(s):  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Disorder Of Consciousness ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Electrical Brain Activity ◽  
Delta Band ◽  
Delta Modulation ◽  
Command Following ◽  
Band Activity

AbstractThe overt or covert ability to follow commands in patients with disorders of consciousness is considered a sign of awareness and has recently been defined as cortically mediated behaviour. Despite its clinical relevance, the brain signatures of the perceptual processing supporting command following have been elusive. This multimodal study investigates the temporal spectral pattern of electrical brain activity to identify features that differentiated healthy controls from patients both able and unable to follow commands. We combined evidence from behavioural assessment, functional neuroimaging during mental imagery and high-density electroencephalography collected during auditory prediction, from 21 patients and 10 controls. We used a penalised regression model to identify command following using features from electroencephalography. We identified seven well-defined spatiotemporal signatures in the delta, theta and alpha bands that together contribute to identify DoC subjects with and without the ability to follow command, and further distinguished these groups of patients from controls. A fine-grained analysis of these seven signatures enabled us to determine that increased delta modulation at the frontal sensors was the main feature in command following patients. In contrast, higher frequency theta and alpha modulations differentiated controls from both groups of patients. Our findings highlight a key role of spatiotemporally specific delta modulation in supporting cortically mediated behaviour including the ability to follow command. However, patients able to follow commands nevertheless have marked differences in brain activity in comparison with healthy volunteers.

Parametric Description of EEG Profiles for Assessment of Sleep Architecture in Disorders of Consciousness

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (03) ◽  
pp. 1850049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Zieleniewska ◽  
Anna Duszyk ◽  
Piotr Różański ◽  
Marcin Pietrzak ◽  
Marta Bogotko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Matching Pursuit ◽  
Disorders Of Consciousness ◽  
Sleep Architecture ◽  
Quality Of Sleep ◽  
Software Environment ◽  
Continuous Description ◽  
Matching Pursuit Decomposition ◽  
Parametric Description ◽  
Eeg Recordings

We propose a fully parametric approach to the assessment of sleep architecture, based upon the classical electroencephalographic criteria, applicable also to the recordings of patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). Sleep spindles and slow waves are automatically detected from the matching pursuit decomposition of overnight EEG recordings. Their evolution can be presented in the form of EEG profiles, yielding a continuous description of sleep architecture, compatible with the classical criteria used in sleep staging. We propose assessment of these EEG profiles by five parameters, which can be combined by a linear classifier, assessing the quality of sleep architecture. Proposed methodology is evaluated on 59 overnight EEG recordings from 19 patients from a hospital for children with severe brain damage, in relation to their behavioral diagnosis according to the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised. Presented results indicate robustness of the proposed approach, which may serve as a valuable aid in diagnosis of DOC patients. Complete software environment for computing and presentation of EEG profiles is freely available from http://svarog.pl .

scholarly journals Differing Spontaneous Brain Activity in Healthy Adults with Two Different Body Constitutions: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 951
Author(s):  
Ching-Hsiung Liu ◽  
Yen-Ying Kung ◽  
Tzu-Chen Yeh ◽  
Pei-Shan Hsu ◽  
Ching-Ju Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Spontaneous Brain Activity ◽  
Body Constitution ◽  
Postcentral Gyrus

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners assess body constitution (BC) as a treatment basis for maintaining body homeostasis. We investigated patterns in spontaneous brain activity in different BC groups using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) and determined the relationship between these patterns and quality of life (QOL). Thirty-two healthy individuals divided into two groups (body constitution questionnaire (BCQ)-gentleness [BCQ-G] and BCQ-deficiency [BCQ-D]) based on the body constitution questionnaire (BCQ) underwent rsfMRI to analyze regional homogeneity (ReHo) and the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF). The World Health Organization Quality of Life Instruments (brief edition) scale was used to evaluate the QOL. The BCQ-G group (n = 18) had significantly greater ReHo values in the right postcentral gyrus and lower ALFF values in the brainstem than the BCQ-D group (n = 14). In the BCQ-D group, decreased ReHo of the postcentral gyrus correlated with better physiological functioning; increased ALFF in the brainstem correlated with poor QOL. BCQ-subgroup analysis revealed a nonsignificant correlation between ReHo and Yang deficiency/phlegm and stasis (Phl & STA). Nonetheless, the BCQ-D group showed a positive correlation between ALFF and Phl & STA in the parahippocampus. This study identified differences between BCQ-G and BCQ-D types of healthy adults based on the rsfMRI analysis. The different BCQ types with varied brain endophenotypes may elucidate individualized TCM treatment strategies.

scholarly journals Latinxs with HIV: Depressive Cognitive Alterations as a Precursor to Cardio-Motor Deficits

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-22
Author(s):  
Aneesah Hyder ◽  
Martin Rosario
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Cardiovascular Health ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Motor Deficits ◽  
Cultural Challenges ◽  
Cardiovascular Assessment ◽  
Health Related ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cognitive Alterations

HIV is a debilitating infection that often presents with health-related complications, further reducing quality of life. Of the most common comorbidities accompanying HIV is depression, which can induce cognitive alterations alongside those resulting from the virus. Latinxs are disproportionately susceptible to both afflictions and face innumerable challenges in the identification and diagnosis of depression. Consequently, HIV-infected Latinxs may experience additional cognitive symptomatology from the simultaneous prevalence of depression and HIV, potentially affecting their gait and cardiovascular profiles. This study aimed to determine the impact of depression on cardio-motor components in HIV-infected Latinxs. Records of 291 stable HIV+ participants were collected from La Perla de Gran Precio Community Center, analyzed for depression, and respectively allocated to the depression group (70) and the group without depression (221). Cardio-motor values were obtained by conducting the Ross treadmill test, a submaximal cardiovascular assessment. An ANOVA revealed similarities in cardiomotor profiles between groups, alluding to the absence of depression-induced modifications to gait and cardiovascular health. Community exercise and cardiopulmonary intervention programs are beneficial to the quality of life in this population during all stages of HIV. However, HIV-infected Latinxs with depression face acute cultural challenges, causing diagnoses and treatment oversights and deficiencies for those who are suffering. Public health efforts should aim to remove barriers facing this population to ultimately reduce the inflated prevalence of both afflictions. Future research should focus on the crucial differentiation of Latinx depressive symptoms from those identical in HIV prior to reinvestigating cardiomotor alterations.

scholarly journals ERP CORE: An Open Resource for Human Event-Related Potential Research

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily S. Kappenman ◽  
Jaclyn Farrens ◽  
Wendy Zhang ◽  
Andrew X Stewart ◽  
Steven J Luck
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Experiment Control ◽  
Related Potentials

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are noninvasive measures of human brain activity that index a range of sensory, cognitive, affective, and motor processes. Despite their broad application across basic and clinical research, there is little standardization of ERP paradigms and analysis protocols across studies. To address this, we created ERP CORE (Compendium of Open Resources and Experiments), a set of optimized paradigms, experiment control scripts, data processing pipelines, and sample data (N = 40 neurotypical young adults) for seven widely used ERP components: N170, mismatch negativity (MMN), N2pc, N400, P3, lateralized readiness potential (LRP), and error-related negativity (ERN). This resource makes it possible for researchers to 1) employ standardized ERP paradigms in their research, 2) apply carefully designed analysis pipelines and use a priori selected parameters for data processing, 3) rigorously assess the quality of their data, and 4) test new analytic techniques with standardized data from a wide range of paradigms.

scholarly journals Altered effective connectivity in migraine patients during emotional stimuli: a multi-frequency magnetoencephalography study

2022 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Ren ◽  
Qun Yao ◽  
Minjie Tian ◽  
Feng Li ◽  
Yueqiu Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Effective Connectivity ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Primary Headache ◽  
Clustering Coefficient ◽  
Frequency Range ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Emotional Modulation ◽  
Gamma Frequency ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract Background Migraine is a common and disabling primary headache, which is associated with a wide range of psychiatric comorbidities. However, the mechanisms of emotion processing in migraine are not fully understood yet. The present study aimed to investigate the neural network during neutral, positive, and negative emotional stimuli in the migraine patients. Methods A total of 24 migraine patients and 24 age- and sex-matching healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Neuromagnetic brain activity was recorded using a whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) system upon exposure to human facial expression stimuli. MEG data were analyzed in multi-frequency ranges from 1 to 100 Hz. Results The migraine patients exhibited a significant enhancement in the effective connectivity from the prefrontal lobe to the temporal cortex during the negative emotional stimuli in the gamma frequency (30–90 Hz). Graph theory analysis revealed that the migraine patients had an increased degree and clustering coefficient of connectivity in the delta frequency range (1–4 Hz) upon exposure to positive emotional stimuli and an increased degree of connectivity in the delta frequency range (1–4 Hz) upon exposure to negative emotional stimuli. Clinical correlation analysis showed that the history, attack frequency, duration, and neuropsychological scales of the migraine patients had a negative correlation with the network parameters in certain frequency ranges. Conclusions The results suggested that the individuals with migraine showed deviant effective connectivity in viewing the human facial expressions in multi-frequencies. The prefrontal-temporal pathway might be related to the altered negative emotional modulation in migraine. These findings suggested that migraine might be characterized by more universal altered cerebral processing of negative stimuli. Since the significant result in this study was frequency-specific, more independent replicative studies are needed to confirm these results, and to elucidate the neurocircuitry underlying the association between migraine and emotional conditions.

scholarly journals Sleep in children with microcephaly due to Zika virus infection: a systematic review

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuele Mariano de Souza Santos ◽  
Monique Carla da Silva Reis ◽  
Antonio Lucas Ferreira Feitosa ◽  
Andréa Monteiro Correia Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Virus Infection ◽  
Zika Virus ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Common Finding ◽  
Infant Sleep ◽  
Quality Of Sleep ◽  
Sleep Questionnaire ◽  
Zika Virus Infection

ABSTRACT Objective: To review the literature on sleep changes and brain function in children with microcephaly due to Zika virus. Method: Systematic review conducted in the databases MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, EMBASE, LILACS, and SciELO and the grey databases Google Scholar and OpenGrey. Results: Ten Brazilian primary studies with observational research design were included. These were published between 2017 and 2020 with 516 children with microcephaly due to Zika virus infection aged 4 months to 4 years. Out of these, 4 investigated qualitative aspects of sleep using the questionnaires Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire or Infant Sleep Questionnaire and 6 investigated changes in brain activities during sleep using the Electroencephalogram or Video-Electroencephalogram exams. The children’s quality of sleep was not compromised in most studies. Changes in brain activity during sleep were frequent, with epileptogenic activity being a common finding among the studies. Conclusion: The quality of sleep of children with microcephaly due to Zika virus has shown to be similar to that of children with typical development and the presented behavioral changes may be related to changes in electric brain activity.

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