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Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Jun 2024Wearable in-ear electroencephalographic (EEG) devices hold significant promise for advancing brain monitoring technologies into everyday applications. However, despite...
Wearable in-ear electroencephalographic (EEG) devices hold significant promise for advancing brain monitoring technologies into everyday applications. However, despite the current availability of several in-ear EEG devices in the market, there remains a critical need for robust validation against established clinical-grade systems. In this study, we carried out a detailed examination of the signal performance of a mobile in-ear EEG device from Naox Technologies. Our investigation had two main goals: firstly, evaluating the hardware circuit's reliability through simulated EEG signal experiments and, secondly, conducting a thorough comparison between the in-ear EEG device and gold-standard EEG monitoring equipment. This comparison assesses correlation coefficients with recognized physiological patterns during wakefulness and sleep, including alpha rhythms, eye artifacts, slow waves, spindles, and sleep stages. Our findings support the feasibility of using this in-ear EEG device for brain activity monitoring, particularly in scenarios requiring enhanced comfort and user-friendliness in various clinical and research settings.
Topics: Electroencephalography; Humans; Wearable Electronic Devices; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Brain; Sleep; Monitoring, Physiologic; Wakefulness
PubMed: 38931756
DOI: 10.3390/s24123973 -
Journal of Clinical Medicine Jun 2024Hair dyeing is widely performed around the world. Chemical and thermal burns can result from the components present in brightening and coloring products, as well as the... (Review)
Review
Hair dyeing is widely performed around the world. Chemical and thermal burns can result from the components present in brightening and coloring products, as well as the application process. We present a case of a chemical burn after applying hair dye and review the literature on similar cases, the composition of hair dyes, their mechanism of action, and the process of burns. The patient was a 17-year-old girl, who presented to the Dermatology Clinic with a 13 × 10 cm ulcer on the scalp after hair dyeing in a hairdressing salon. General and local treatment was applied, with particular emphasis on specialized dressings. The ulcer site was replaced by an area of scarring after 11 months of treatment. Based on the presented case and the review of the literature, we conclude that hair dye treatments warrant careful attention for potential scalp complications. The diagnostic and therapeutic approach demands a multidisciplinary effort, with ongoing patient-doctor cooperation throughout the treatment, which may complicate and span several months.
PubMed: 38930071
DOI: 10.3390/jcm13123542 -
Foods (Basel, Switzerland) Jun 2024Packaging design is pivotal in motivating consumer decisions, as a key communication tool from creation to purchase. Currently, the interpretation and evaluation of...
Packaging design is pivotal in motivating consumer decisions, as a key communication tool from creation to purchase. Currently, the interpretation and evaluation of packaging's impact are shifting toward non-traditional methods. This pilot study evaluated the packaging perception of York Ham and Turkey Breast products. The event-related potential (ERP) technique, the methodology priming words (positive and negative), and target images (original and modified packaging) were applied. A total of 23 participants were sampled using a 32-channels scalp elastic electrode cap and viewed 200 trials of word-image matching. Participants responded whether the images and adjectives matched or not, using the two groups of images. The results demonstrate an N400 effect in the parietal area. This region was observed to show evidence of cognitive processing related to congruency or incongruency, by contrasting the priming and target of this study. The evaluation positioned the York Ham packaging as the best rated. The findings show a relevant contribution to ERPs and research related to the food packaging perception.
PubMed: 38928817
DOI: 10.3390/foods13121876 -
International Journal of Molecular... Jun 2024Aging (senescence) is an unavoidable biological process that results in visible manifestations in all cutaneous tissues, including scalp skin and hair follicles....
Aging (senescence) is an unavoidable biological process that results in visible manifestations in all cutaneous tissues, including scalp skin and hair follicles. Previously, we evaluated the molecular function of adenosine in promoting alopecia treatment in vitro. To elucidate the differences in the molecular mechanisms between minoxidil (MNX) and adenosine, gene expression changes in dermal papilla cells were examined. The androgen receptor (AR) pathway was identified as a candidate target of adenosine for hair growth, and the anti-androgenic activity of adenosine was examined in vitro. In addition, ex vivo examination of human hair follicle organ cultures revealed that adenosine potently elongated the anagen stage. According to the severity of alopecia, the ratio of the two peaks (terminal hair area/vellus hair area) decreased continuously. We further investigated the adenosine hair growth promoting effect in vivo to examine the hair thickness growth effects of topical 5% MNX and the adenosine complex (0.75% adenosine, 1% penthenol, and 2% niacinamide; APN) in vivo. After 4 months of administration, both the MNX and APN group showed significant increases in hair density (MNX + 5.01% ( < 0.01), APN + 6.20% ( < 0.001)) and thickness (MNX + 5.14% ( < 0.001), APN + 10.32% ( < 0.001)). The inhibition of AR signaling via adenosine could have contributed to hair thickness growth. We suggest that the anti-androgenic effect of adenosine, along with the evaluation of hair thickness distribution, could help us to understand hair physiology and to investigate new approaches for drug development.
Topics: Alopecia; Humans; Male; Receptors, Androgen; Adenosine; Hair Follicle; Signal Transduction; Minoxidil; Female; Animals; Hair
PubMed: 38928239
DOI: 10.3390/ijms25126534 -
Biology Jun 2024Cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) indicate that noise degrades auditory neural encoding, causing decreased peak amplitude and increased peak latency. Different...
Cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) indicate that noise degrades auditory neural encoding, causing decreased peak amplitude and increased peak latency. Different types of noise affect CAEP responses, with greater informational masking causing additional degradation. In noisy conditions, attention can improve target signals' neural encoding, reflected by an increased CAEP amplitude, which may be facilitated through various inhibitory mechanisms at both pre-attentive and attentive levels. While previous research has mainly focused on inhibition effects during attentive auditory processing in noise, the impact of noise on the neural response during the pre-attentive phase remains unclear. Therefore, this preliminary study aimed to assess the auditory gating response, reflective of the sensory inhibitory stage, to repeated vowel pairs presented in background noise. CAEPs were recorded via high-density EEG in fifteen normal-hearing adults in quiet and noise conditions with low and high informational masking. The difference between the average CAEP peak amplitude evoked by each vowel in the pair was compared across conditions. Scalp maps were generated to observe general cortical inhibitory networks in each condition. Significant gating occurred in quiet, while noise conditions resulted in a significantly decreased gating response. The gating function was significantly degraded in noise with less informational masking content, coinciding with a reduced activation of inhibitory gating networks. These findings illustrate the adverse effect of noise on pre-attentive inhibition related to speech perception.
PubMed: 38927323
DOI: 10.3390/biology13060443 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Jun 2024Engaging the retrieval state (Tulving, 1983) impacts processing and behavior (Long & Kuhl, 2019, 2021; Smith, Moore, & Long, 2022), but the extent to which top-down...
Engaging the retrieval state (Tulving, 1983) impacts processing and behavior (Long & Kuhl, 2019, 2021; Smith, Moore, & Long, 2022), but the extent to which top-down factors - explicit instructions and goals -vs. bottom-up factors - stimulus properties such as repetition and similarity - jointly or independently induce the retrieval state is unclear. Identifying the impact of bottom-up and top-down factors on re-trieval state engagement is critical for understanding how control of task-relevant vs. task-irrelevant brain states influence cognition. We conducted between-subjects recognition memory tasks on male and fe-male human participants in which we varied test phase goals. We recorded scalp electroencephalography and used an independently validated mnemonic state classifier (Long, 2023) to measure retrieval state engagement as a function of top-down task goals (recognize old vs. detect new items) and bottom-up stimulus repetition (hits vs. correct rejections). We find that whereas the retrieval state is engaged for hits regardless of top-down goals, the retrieval state is only engaged during correct rejections when the top- down goal is to recognize old items. Furthermore, retrieval state engagement is greater for low compared to high confidence hits when the task goal is to recognize old items. Together, these results suggest that top-down demands to recognize old items induce the retrieval state independent from bottom-up factors, potentially reflecting the recruitment of internal attention to enable access of a stored representation. Both top-down goals and automatic bottom-up influences may lead us into a retrieval brain state -awhole- brain pattern of activity that supports our ability to remember the past. Here we tested the extent to which top-down vs. bottom-up factors independently influence the retrieval state by manipulating participants' goals and stimulus repetition during a memory test. We find that in response to the top-down goal to recognize old items, the retrieval state is engaged for both old and new probes, suggesting that top- down and bottom-up factors independently engage the retrieval state. Our interpretation is that top-down demands recruit internal attention in service of the attempt to access a stored representation.
PubMed: 38926086
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0452-24.2024 -
Physics in Medicine and Biology Jun 2024Despite the widespread use and technical improvement of cochlear implant (CI) devices over past decades, further research into the bioelectric bases of CI stimulation is...
OBJECTIVE
Despite the widespread use and technical improvement of cochlear implant (CI) devices over past decades, further research into the bioelectric bases of CI stimulation is still needed. Various stimulation modes implemented by different CI manufacturers coexist, but their true clinical benefit remains unclear, probably due to the high inter-subject variability reported, which makes the prediction of CI outcomes and the optimal fitting of stimulation parameters challenging. A highly detailed full head model that includes a cochlea and an electrode array is developed in this study to emulate intracochlear voltages and extracochlear current pathways through the head in CI stimulation.
APPROACH
Simulations based on the finite element method were conducted under monopolar, bipolar, tripolar, and partial tripolar modes, as well as for apical, medial, and basal electrodes. Variables simulated included: intracochlear voltages, electric field (EF) decay, electric potentials at the scalp and extracochlear currents through the head. To better understand CI side effects such as facial nerve stimulation, caused by spurious current leakage out from the cochlea, special emphasis is given to the analysis of the EF over the facial nerve.
MAIN RESULTS
The model reasonably predicts EF magnitudes and trends previously reported in CI users. New relevant extracochlear current pathways through the head and brain tissues have been identified. Simulated results also show differences in the magnitude and distribution of the EF through different segments of the facial nerve upon different stimulation modes and electrodes, dependent on nerve and bone tissue conductivities.
SIGNIFICANCE
Full head models prove useful tools to model intra and extracochlear EFs in CI stimulation. Our findings could prove useful in the design of future experimental studies to contrast FNS mechanisms upon stimulation of different electrodes and CI modes. The full-head model developed is freely available for the CI community for further research and use.
PubMed: 38925131
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6560/ad5c38 -
Dermatologic Surgery : Official... Jun 2024
PubMed: 38924507
DOI: 10.1097/DSS.0000000000004294 -
Skin Research and Technology : Official... Jul 2024
Topics: Humans; Male; Cross-Sectional Studies; Alopecia; Hair; Adult; Middle Aged; Young Adult; Scalp
PubMed: 38924143
DOI: 10.1111/srt.13771 -
The Journal of Dermatology Jun 2024
PubMed: 38923602
DOI: 10.1111/1346-8138.17344