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Neuropsychologia Sep 2021Charitable giving depends on individuals' abilities to make altruistic decisions. Previous studies suggest that altruism involves recruitment of neural resources in...
Charitable giving depends on individuals' abilities to make altruistic decisions. Previous studies suggest that altruism involves recruitment of neural resources in regions including social processing, reward/reinforcement learning, emotional response, and cognition. Despite evolutionary and social benefits to altruism, we know that humans do not always engage in altruistic behavior, like charitable giving. Understanding the underlying processes leading to decisions to donate is vital to improve prosocial community engagement. The present study examined how characteristics of the charitable giving opportunity influence an individual's decision to give and the neural engagement underlying these features. Twenty-nine participants subjectively rated ten charities on their value, effectiveness, and the subject's personal chance of donating. Participants then completed an fMRI task requiring them to decide to donate to certain charities given the probability of the donation helping, their personal preference for the charity, and whether the donation came at cost to themselves. There was a significant reduction in donating when the probability of helping was low versus high, and subjects were significantly less likely to donate to their lowest-rated charities. Further, probability of a donation being helpful and how much the subject favored a charity moderated PCC and left IFG engagement. Interestingly, reward neurocircuitry did not demonstrate similar sensitivity to these variations. These results may suggest individuals engage motivated reasoning to justify failure to donate, while donations are driven by emotion mentalizing that focuses on the welfare of others. This may provide valuable insight into how to engage individuals in altruistic giving.
Topics: Altruism; Charities; Emotions; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Reward
PubMed: 34271001
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107957 -
Journal of Translational Medicine Jul 2021Appropriate structural and material properties are essential for finite-element-modeling (FEM). In knee FEM, structural information could extract through 3D-imaging, but...
BACKGROUND
Appropriate structural and material properties are essential for finite-element-modeling (FEM). In knee FEM, structural information could extract through 3D-imaging, but the individual subject's tissue material properties are inaccessible.
PURPOSE
The current study's purpose was to develop a methodology to estimate the subject-specific stiffness of the tibiofemoral joint using finite-element-analysis (FEA) and MRI data of knee joint with and without load.
METHODS
In this study, six Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) datasets were acquired from 3 healthy volunteers with axially loaded and unloaded knee joint. The strain was computed from the tibiofemoral bone gap difference (ΔmBGFT) using the knee MR images with and without load. The knee FEM study was conducted using a subject-specific knee joint 3D-model and various soft-tissue stiffness values (1 to 50 MPa) to develop subject-specific stiffness versus strain models.
RESULTS
Less than 1.02% absolute convergence error was observed during the simulation. Subject-specific combined stiffness of weight-bearing tibiofemoral soft-tissue was estimated with mean values as 2.40 ± 0.17 MPa. Intra-subject variability has been observed during the repeat scan in 3 subjects as 0.27, 0.12, and 0.15 MPa, respectively. All subject-specific stiffness-strain relationship data was fitted well with power function (R = 0.997).
CONCLUSION
The current study proposed a generalized mathematical model and a methodology to estimate subject-specific stiffness of the tibiofemoral joint for FEM analysis. Such a method might enhance the efficacy of FEM in implant design optimization and biomechanics for subject-specific studies. Trial registration The institutional ethics committee (IEC), Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, approved the study on 20th September 2017, with reference number P-019; it was a pilot study, no clinical trail registration was recommended.
Topics: Biomechanical Phenomena; Finite Element Analysis; Humans; India; Knee Joint; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Pilot Projects
PubMed: 34281578
DOI: 10.1186/s12967-021-02977-1 -
Frontiers in Physiology 2018Electroencephalogram (EEG) registration as a direct measure of brain activity has unique potentials. It is one of the most reliable and predicative indicators when...
Electroencephalogram (EEG) registration as a direct measure of brain activity has unique potentials. It is one of the most reliable and predicative indicators when studying human cognition, evaluating a subject's health condition, or monitoring their mental state. Unfortunately, standard signal acquisition procedures limit the usability of EEG devices and narrow their application outside the lab. Emerging sensor technology allows gel-free EEG registration and wireless signal transmission. Thus, it enables quick and easy application of EEG devices by users themselves. Although a main requirement for the interpretation of an EEG is good signal quality, there is a lack of research on this topic in relation to new devices. In our work, we compared the signal quality of six very different EEG devices. On six consecutive days, 24 subjects wore each device for 60 min and completed tasks and games on the computer. The registered signals were evaluated in the time and frequency domains. In the time domain, we examined the percentage of artifact-contaminated EEG segments and the signal-to-noise ratios. In the frequency domain, we focused on the band power variation in relation to task demands. The results indicated that the signal quality of a mobile, gel-based EEG system could not be surpassed by that of a gel-free system. However, some of the mobile dry-electrode devices offered signals that were almost comparable and were very promising. This study provided a differentiated view of the signal quality of emerging mobile and gel-free EEG recording technology and allowed an assessment of the functionality of the new devices. Hence, it provided a crucial prerequisite for their general application, while simultaneously supporting their further development.
PubMed: 29491841
DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2018.00098 -
Annals of Clinical and Translational... Dec 2019We examined the effects of slow-pulsed transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) in suppressing epileptiform discharges in seven adults with refractory epilepsy. An... (Clinical Trial)
Clinical Trial
We examined the effects of slow-pulsed transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) in suppressing epileptiform discharges in seven adults with refractory epilepsy. An MRI-based realistic head model was constructed for each subject and co-registered with 256-channel dense EEG (dEEG). Interictal spikes were localized, and TES targeted the cortical source of each subject's principal spike population. Targeted spikes were suppressed in five subject's (29/35 treatment days overall), and nontargeted spikes were suppressed in four subjects. Epileptiform activity did not worsen. This study suggests that this protocol, designed to induce long-term depression (LTD), is safe and effective in acute suppression of interictal epileptiform discharges.
Topics: Adult; Drug Resistant Epilepsy; Electroencephalography; Electrophysiological Phenomena; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Process Assessment, Health Care; Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation; Young Adult
PubMed: 31709777
DOI: 10.1002/acn3.50934 -
Neurobiology of Stress Feb 2017Human psychological stress is the major environmental risk factor for major depression and certain of the anxiety disorders. Psychological stressors often occur in the... (Review)
Review
Human psychological stress is the major environmental risk factor for major depression and certain of the anxiety disorders. Psychological stressors often occur in the context of the adult social environment, and they or the memory formed of them impact on the individual across an extended period, thereby constituting chronic psychosocial stress (CPS). Psychosocial stressors often involve loss to the individual, such as the ending of a social relationship or the onset of interpersonal conflict leading to loss of social control and predictability. Given the difficulty in studying the etio-pathophysiological processes mediating between CPS and brain and behavior pathologies in human, considerable effort has been undertaken to study manipulations of the social environment that constitute adulthood chronic psychosocial stressors in other mammals. The majority of such research has been conducted in rodents; the focus for a considerable time period was on rats and more recently both rats and mice have been investigated, the latter species in particular providing the opportunity for essential gene x chronic psychosocial stressor interaction studies. Key studies in the tree shrew demonstrate that this approach should not be limited to rodents, however. The animal adult CPS paradigms are based on resident-intruder confrontations. These are typified by the intruder-subject's brief proximate interactions with and attacks by, and otherwise continuous distal exposure to, the resident stressor. In contrast to humans where cognitive capacities are such that the stressor pertains in its physical absence, the periods of continuous distal exposure are apparently essential in these species. Whilst the focus of this review is on the stressor rather than the stress response, we also describe some of the depression- and anxiety disorder-relevant effects on behavior, physiology and brain structure-function of chronic psychosocial stressors, as well as evidence for the predictive validity of such models in terms of chronic antidepressant efficacy. Nonetheless, there are limitations in the methods used to date, most importantly the current emphasis on studying CPS in males, despite the much higher disorder prevalence in women compared to men. Future studies will need to address these limitations.
PubMed: 28229112
DOI: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2016.10.001 -
International Journal of Clinical and... 2015Q-angle measurement procedure have not been well standardised. There is a lack of consensus about subject position and knee flexion angle while measuring the Q-angle....
PURPOSE
Q-angle measurement procedure have not been well standardised. There is a lack of consensus about subject position and knee flexion angle while measuring the Q-angle. Morover Q-angle value which obtained in a single position is a static value and gives an information about the subject's current position. The aim of this study is to obtain a more significant parameter which includes different postures (supine, standing, sitting) and different knee flexion angles instead of a single Q-angle in a fixed position. At the same time this parameter must be functional and dynamic,not a static value like Q-angle. We named this parameter as ΔQ.
METHODS
Our study was applied on case and control groups. All subjects in both groups were male. Case group was consisted of 14 subjects who had patellofemoral pain. Control group was consisted of 14 subjects who had normal knees and normal lower extremities with no reported knee problems. We obtained 3 different Q-angle values and 3 different ΔQ values for each subject in both groups. Pearson correlation analysis was used for investigation of continuous variables in normal distribution, Spearman correlation analysis was used in abnormal distribution. t test was used in the comparison of values. Logistic regression analysis(forward conditional mod) was used for detecting of determinants of pain.
RESULTS
ΔQ1s of both groups were found as the only statistical significant predictive value for patellofemoral pain.
CONCLUSION
There is not an agreement about a standardised q-angle measurement procedure in the literature. Moreover, present procedures provide information about a single and fixed position. In this situation Q-angles which obtained in these fixed positions are static values. We think that we can overcome these problems with this new value. ΔQ contains multiple q-angles and gives information about all. Also it is a dynamic value for being oriented to position change. Therefore, ΔQ is an useful indicator for evaluating patellofemoral pain.
PubMed: 26379982
DOI: No ID Found -
Journal of Vision Feb 2022Convolved images are often used to simulate the effect of ocular aberrations on image quality, where the retinal image is simulated by convolving the stimulus with the...
Convolved images are often used to simulate the effect of ocular aberrations on image quality, where the retinal image is simulated by convolving the stimulus with the point spread function derived from the subject's aberrations. However, some studies have shown that convolved images are perceived far more degraded than the same image blurred with optical defocus. We hypothesized that the positive interactions between the monochromatic and chromatic aberrations in the eye are lost in the convolution process. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated optical and visual quality with natural optics and with convolved images (on-bench, computer simulations, and visual acuity [VA] in subjects) using a polychromatic adaptive optics system with monochromatic (555 nm) and polychromatic light (WL) illumination. The subject's aberrations were measured using a Hartmann Shack system and were used to convolve the visual stimuli, using Fourier optics. The convolved images were seen through corrected optics. VA with convolved stimuli was lower than VA through natural aberrations, particularly in WL (by 26% in WL). Our results suggest that the systematic decrease in visual performance with visual acuity and retinal image quality by simulation with convolved stimuli appears to be primarily associated with a lack of favorable interaction between chromatic and monochromatic aberrations in the eye.
Topics: Humans; Optics and Photonics; Photic Stimulation; Retina; Vision, Ocular; Visual Acuity
PubMed: 35179553
DOI: 10.1167/jov.22.2.12 -
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 2021Given the rapid development of light weight EEG devices which we have witnessed the past decade, it is reasonable to ask to which extent neuroscience could now be taken...
Given the rapid development of light weight EEG devices which we have witnessed the past decade, it is reasonable to ask to which extent neuroscience could now be taken outside the lab. In this study, we have designed an EEG paradigm well suited for deployment "in the wild." The paradigm is tested in repeated recordings on 20 subjects, on eight different occasions (4 in the laboratory, 4 in the subject's own home). By calculating the inter subject, intra subject and inter location variance, we find that the inter location variation for this paradigm is considerably less than the inter subject variation. We believe the paradigm is representative of a large group of other relevant paradigms. This means that given the positive results in this study, we find that if a research paradigm would benefit from being performed in less controlled environments, we expect limited problems in doing so.
PubMed: 33679356
DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2021.565244 -
Social Cognitive and Affective... Nov 2023Subject's own name (SON) is widely used in both daily life and the clinic. Event-related potential (ERP)-based studies have previously detected several ERP components...
Subject's own name (SON) is widely used in both daily life and the clinic. Event-related potential (ERP)-based studies have previously detected several ERP components related to SON processing; however, as most of these studies used SON as a deviant stimulus, it was not possible to determine whether these components were SON-specific. To identify SON-specific ERP components, we adopted a passive listening task with EEG data recording involving 25 subjects. The auditory stimuli were a SON, a friend's name (FN), an unfamiliar name (UN) selected from other subjects' names and seven different unfamiliar names (DUNs). The experimental settings included Equal-probabilistic, Frequent-SON, Frequent-FN and Frequent-UN conditions. The results showed that SON consistently evoked a frontocentral SON-related negativity (SRN) within 210-350 ms under all conditions, which was not detected with the other names. Meanwhile, a late positive potential evoked by SON was found to be affected by stimulus probability, showing no significant difference between the SON and the other names in the Frequent-SON condition, or between the SON and a FN in the Frequent-UN condition. Taken together, our findings indicated that the SRN was a SON-specific ERP component, suggesting that distinct neural mechanism underly the processing of a SON.
Topics: Humans; Electroencephalography; Acoustic Stimulation; Evoked Potentials; Names; Probability
PubMed: 37952232
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsad066 -
Translational Vision Science &... Mar 2021This study quantifies retinal vascular blood flow affected by unilateral central or branch retinal vein occlusion (CRVO or BRVO). We created a new, unitless metric for...
PURPOSE
This study quantifies retinal vascular blood flow affected by unilateral central or branch retinal vein occlusion (CRVO or BRVO). We created a new, unitless metric for the severity of these diseases-relative blood flow (RBF)-and contextualized it with subject demographics, ocular presentation, and systemic conditions. Finally, we explored its efficacy as a predictor of future outcomes.
METHODS
Data were collected from 20 control subjects and 32 clinically diagnosed CRVO (n = 15) or BRVO (n = 17) patients. We used laser speckle flowgraphy to quantify blood flow as mean blur rate and present RBF as the ratio between the blood flow in a subject's diseased and undiseased eyes. Because of our demonstration that blood flow has high intrapatient (between eyes and over time) but low interpatient correlation in eyes of healthy subjects, any differences between eyes can be attributed to the disease. These data were correlated with subject demographics and disease characteristics.
RESULTS
In CRVO and BRVO eyes, average blood flow decreased by 26% and 7%, respectively. In CRVO, occlusion duration, central macular thickness, intraocular pressure, diabetes, previous laser and injection treatments, and injection within three months after measurement were significantly associated with RBF. In BRVO, no significant associations with RBF were found.
CONCLUSIONS
Blood flow in CRVO and BRVO was reduced compared to the unaffected fellow eye in most patients. RBF was useful in determining the severity of RVOs and predicting future treatment needs.
TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE
RBF is a promising new and informative metric for quantifying the severity of unilateral RVOs.
Topics: Forecasting; Hemodynamics; Humans; Retina; Retinal Vein Occlusion
PubMed: 34003949
DOI: 10.1167/tvst.10.3.15