BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and (...) 2019, 8252 participants (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide a number of measurements relevant to sport-related concussion (SRC) symptoms; however, most studies to date have used a single MRI modality and whole-brain exploratory analyses in attempts to localize concussion injury. This has resulted in highly variable findings across studies due to wide ranging symptomology, severity and nature of injury within studies. A multimodal MRI, symptom-guided region-of-interest (ROI) approach is likely to yield more consistent results. The functions of the cerebellum and (...) basal ganglia transcend many common concussion symptoms, and thus these regions, plus the white matter tracts that connect or project from them, constitute plausible ROIs for MRI analysis. We performed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), resting-state functional MRI, quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), and cerebral blood flow (CBF) imaging using arterial spin labeling (ASL), in youth aged 12-18 years following SRC, with a focus on the cerebellum, basal ganglia and white matter tracts. Compared to controls similar in age, sex and sport (N = 20), recent SRC youth (N = 29; MRI at 8 ± 3 days post injury) exhibited increased susceptibility in the cerebellum (p = 0.032), decreased functional connectivity between the caudate and each of the pallidum (p = 0.035) and thalamus (p = 0.021), and decreased diffusivity in the mid-posterior corpus callosum (p < 0.038); no changes were observed in recovered asymptomatic youth (N = 16; 41 ± 16 days post injury). For recent symptomatic-only SRC youth (N = 24), symptom severity was associated with increased susceptibility in the superior cerebellar peduncles (p = 0.011) and reduced activity in the cerebellum (p = 0.013). Fewer days between injury and MRI were associated with reduced cerebellar-parietal functional connectivity (p < 0.014), reduced activity of the pallidum (p = 0.002), increased CBF in the caudate (p = 0.005), and reduced diffusivity in the central corpus callosum (p < 0.05). Youth SRC is associated with acute cerebellar inflammation accompanied by reduced cerebellar activity and cerebellar-parietal connectivity, as well as structural changes of the middle regions of the corpus callosum accompanied by functional changes of the caudate, all of which resolve with recovery. Early MRI post-injury is important to establish objective MRI-based indicators for concussion diagnosis, recovery assessment and prediction of outcome. (shrink)

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the United States at a cost of $560–$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs about and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy (...) can be efficacious for CP. However, CBT generally does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been recognized as an effective, non-pharmacologic treatment for a variety of CP conditions. However, little is known about the neurologic mechanisms underlying ACT. We conducted an ACT intervention in women with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected pre- and post-ACT, and changes in functional connectivity were measured using Network-Based Statistics. Behavioral outcomes were measured using validated assessments such as the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the NIH Toolbox Neuro-QoLTM scales. Results suggest that, following the 4-week ACT intervention, participants exhibited reductions in brain activation within and between key networks including self-reflection, emotion, and cognitive control. These changes in connectivity strength were correlated with changes in behavioral outcomes including decreased depression and pain interference, and increased participation in social roles. This study is one of the first to demonstrate that improved function across the DMN, SN, and FPN may drive the positive outcomes associated with ACT. This study contributes to the emerging evidence supporting the use of neurophysiological indices to characterize treatment effects of alternative and complementary mind-body therapies. (shrink)

After severe brain injury, one of the key challenges for medical doctors is to determine the patient’s prognosis. Who will do well? Who will not do well? Physicians need to know this, and families need to do this too, to address choices regarding the continuation of life supporting therapies. However, current prognostication methods are insufficient to provide a reliable prognosis. -/- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) holds considerable promise for improving the accuracy of prognosis in acute brain (...) injury patients. Nonetheless, research on functional MRI in the intensive care unit context is ethically challenging. These studies raise several ethical issues that have not been addressed so far. In this article, Prof. Charles Weijer and his co-workers provide a framework for researchers and ethics committees to design and review these studies in an ethically sound way. (shrink)

Alcohol use disorder is a burden to society creating social and health problems. Detection of AUD and its effects on the brain are difficult to assess. This problem is enhanced by the comorbid use of other substances such as nicotine that has been present in previous studies. Recent machine learning algorithms have raised the attention of researchers as a useful tool in studying and detecting AUD. This work uses AUD and controls samples free of any other substance use to assess (...) the performance of a set of commonly used machine learning classifiers detecting AUD from resting state functional network connectivity derived from independent component analysis. The cohort used included 51 alcohol dependent subjects and 51 control subjects. Despite alcohol, none of the 102 subjects reported use of nicotine, cannabis or any other dependence or habit formation substance. Classification features consisted of whole brain rsFNC estimates undergoing a feature selection process using a random forest approach. Features were then fed to 10 different machine learning classifiers to be evaluated based on their classification performance. A neural network classifier showed the highest performance with an area under the curve of 0.79. Other good performers with similar AUC scores were logistic regression, nearest neighbor, and support vector machine classifiers. The worst results were obtained with Gaussian process and quadratic discriminant analysis. The feature selection outcome pointed to functional connections between visual, sensorimotor, executive control, reward, and salience networks as the most relevant for classification. We conclude that AUD can be identified using machine learning classifiers in the absence of nicotine comorbidity. (shrink)

Neurofibromatosis type 1 is associated with peripheral and central nervous system tumors. It is noteworthy that the regions in which these tumors frequently arise are the optic pathways and the brainstem. Thus, we decided to trace the procedure of diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging alterations along with Short-Wavelength Automated Perimetry examinations of the OPs after surgery and chemotherapy over 1 year, which enabled us to evaluate chemotherapy's efficacy in an NF1 patient with an OP tumor. In this study, a (...) 25-year-old woman with NF1 and left optic radiation glioma underwent surgery to remove the glioma. Immunohistochemistry revealed a Pilocytic Astrocytoma WHO grade I. Post-operation chemotherapy done using nine treatment cycles of administering Temozolomide for 5 days every 4 weeks. Applying the region of interest differential tractography method and SWAP four times every 3 months allowed us to follow the patient's visual acuity alterations longitudinally. The differential deterministic tractography method and statistical analyses enabled us to discover the white matter tracts anisotropy alterations over time. Furthermore, statistical analyses on the SWAP results along time illustrated possible alterations in visual acuity. Then, we could compare and associate the findings with the SWAP examinations and patient symptoms longitudinally. Statistical analyses of SWAP tests revealed a significant improvement in visual fields, and longitudinal differential tractography showed myelination and dense axonal packing in the left OR after 1 year of treatment. In this study, we examined an old hypothesis suggesting that chemotherapy is more effective than radiotherapy for NF1 patients with OP gliomas because of the radiation side effects on the visual field, cognition, and cerebrovascular complications. Our longitudinal clinical case study involving dMRI and SWAP on a single NF1-OPG patient showed that chemotherapy did not suppress the OP myelination over time. However, it should be noted that this is a clinical case study, and, therefore, the generalization of results is limited. Future investigations might focus on genetic-based imaging, particularly in more cases. Further, meta-analyses are recommended for giving a proper Field Of View to researchers as a subtle clue regarding precision medicine. (shrink)

Understanding the neural basis of schizophrenia (SZ) is important for shedding light on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying this mental disorder. Structural and functional alterations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) have been implicated in the neurobiology of SZ. However, the effective connectivity among them in SZ remains unclear. The current study investigated how neuronal pathways involving these regions were affected in first-episode SZ using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). (...) Forty-nine patients with a first-episode of psychosis and diagnosis of SZ—according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision—were studied. Fifty healthy controls (HCs) were included for comparison. All subjects underwent resting state fMRI. We used spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to estimate directed connections among the bilateral ACC, DLPFC, hippocampus, and MPFC. We characterized the differences using Bayesian parameter averaging (BPA) in addition to classical inference (t-test). In addition to common effective connectivity in these two groups, HCs displayed widespread significant connections predominantly involved in ACC not detected in SZ patients, but SZ showed few connections. Based on BPA results, SZ patients exhibited anterior cingulate cortico-prefrontal-hippocampal hyperconnectivity, as well as ACC-related and hippocampal-dorsolateral prefrontal-medial prefrontal hypoconnectivity. In summary, spectral DCM revealed the pattern of effective connectivity involving ACC in patients with first-episode SZ. This study provides a potential link between SZ and dysfunction of ACC, creating an ideal situation to associate mechanisms behind SZ with aberrant connectivity among these cognition and emotion-related regions. (shrink)

BackgroundMild cognitive impairment is a common neurological disorder. Moxibustion has been shown to be effective in treating MCI, but its therapeutic mechanisms still remain unclear. This study mainly aimed to investigate the modulation effect of moxibustion treatment for patients with MCI by functional magnetic resonance imaging.MethodsA total of 47 patients with MCI and 30 healthy controls participated in resting-state fMRI imaging scans. Patients with MCI were randomly divided into true moxibustion group and sham moxibustion group. The degree centrality (...) approach was applied to distinguish altered brain functions. Correlation analysis was then performed to examine the relationships between the neuroimaging findings and clinical symptoms.ResultsCompared with HCs, patients with MCI mainly showed decreased DC in the left middle frontal cortex and bilateral middle cingulate cortex. After moxibustion treatment, the SHAM group had no significant DC findings, while TRUE group mainly showed significant increased DC in the bilateral MFC and MCC, as well as decreased DC in the left middle occipital cortex. Repeated measures analysis of variance showed significant interactions between the two groups of patients with MCI. In addition, the higher Mini-Mental State Examination score was significantly positively correlated with increased DC in the right MFC and left MCC after moxibustion treatment.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate that the potential value of moxibustion treatment on MCI, which adds new insights into the popular view that moxibustion treatment may slow cognitive decline in patients with MCI. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 155–158 Michel Serres. Biogea . Trans. Randolph Burks. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing. 2012. 200 pp. | ISBN 9781937561086 | $22.95 Conveying to potential readers the significance of a book puts me at risk of glad handing. It’s not in my interest to laud the undeserving, especially on the pages of this journal. This is not a sales pitch, but rather an affirmation of a necessary work on very troubled terms: human, earth, nature, and the problematic world we made. (...) It is this world that aspirates the silence (so to speak), and therefore the subject which, along with the development of the “made world” exports the excess augmentation of the cosmically missing, this silence of the natural, et cetera. Had we learned from Locke that lesson of “labor,” to consume what we need… but perhaps we need more than what matters? Serres’ Biogea has several functions on this manner, if it is indeed a book to be consumed. First, readers searching for novelistic entertainment have a place to dwell. Biogea deserves a place in your back pocket; biographical generosity and poetic fluidity should satisfy most textual fetishes. For lay philosophers who want to refresh their acumen, Biogea deserves a place on the book shelf, one already reads a sorely needed postmodern tune-up here. Serres’ style is clearly French; he leaves few cheese crumbs on his words, rather preciseness and breathing in the work give way to a sweeping manner that breaks the narrative line of sight. A circular narrative and anachronistic fragmentation of terms allows an abyssal atmosphere to swell, if only to pump into the book the externality of its broader text. Biogea aspires to a higher standard and the book, at times, is thinking this negentropic problem too. Univocal, the publisher, has crafted a book appropriate for the hands to hold and the translations are an achievement of an otherwise difficult writer to translate. Terms are the conditions of a broader text. It is important to note that Serres’ content is as much a thinking of terminal ports. There is a regard for the transportation technology of the written word. For me, this is the mark of genius, a craftiness that tells of a book device that I may trust. Serres is an accomplished thinker and a necessary voice to check the putative trendiness of anti-postmodernist and market-driven theory of endless cultural liquidation. Offering interventions on subjectivity as an open system we are given a chance to affirm the human, not merely to discard it, but to engage its poetic image emotion, the calibratory silent sense of the analogic world; the terms on which we base our efforts. 1 The human is the center of its own negation, constantly mediating it. Something deeper at stake appears in the work then, and it is quite obvious from the onset. Certainly, a book is an intensification of possible text and those who brought this actual book into existence have captured a rarity in regards to the subject matter and artistic accomplishment. I mentioned terms as conditions, so let us understand Biogea as bio-yea, a yes to bios . An affirmation of living and accepting presence for all of its defiance of images, words, and things temporal. Therefore Serres’ existence and its existants plays parts; out of linearity and still like a porous bone pumping blood it manufactures into the fleshy life it becomes. Starting from a man named silence chaos emerges, or the man “Old Taciturn” takes up a journey anticipating a great flood. In other words, a development akin to the one in Genesis. In dealing with this ancestral occupation, fusing Genesis with contemporary philosophical terms, Serres initiates this anachronistic fragmentation under the forming subjectivity of his own autobiography. This mutation in the open system is precisely one of Serres’ terms. There an abyss is at work, stated, but also measured by heels on the ground—the abyss dispatching earthen tensions, that which plays our tunes, that which we abide by and recognize in volcanoes, rivers, oceans, earthquakes and weaponry in the battles of the world. Set in later stages of the book, such tensions are harnessed through scientific principles in an attempt to unify the terms of natural force if only to terminate the world. Thus the elevation of the earth into the world is clearly set forth. Here already, and few pages in, a resonance is set forth under appellations such as the river Garonne, a subjectivity as much as it is inhuman, the river is the inhuman that makes us human. I get the sense that Serres is taking up a challenge issued by Wallace Stevens; namely, that the great poems of heaven and hell have been written, but that only the poem of the earth has resisted composition. 2 On this level we cannot avoid the killing factor of silence, given that our cognition blocks its pure, radical obliteration. Thus a silence of attunement to the earth is in a novel dialectic of the rithmic and rhythm. A technological world, a triumph of termination is set forth. If a text imposes its will given the reader who authorizes it, it is made to convey or convect a presupposition to a reader or its inhabitant(s). Text is therefore both, in-content, contenting, contentedness, and in reading it, a way to navigate self-destruction (dis-content). Here then would one note that the “inhuman” reveals itself, “an aperiodic rhythm of lovers and beloved…the sea as our friend…but as our enemy…maternal vivifying sea.” The sea is an open book, or vaginal birth canal, where the engagement of text comes forth: “…woman sea, open vulva.” One sees like the sea, but only after it, when the uninhabitable truth of inhabiting it switches the polarity of the sailors soul: “I was seeing like the sea” (9-11). In other words, we are invited to embrace the nonsense of the visible. At this point I am taken to Jean-François Lyotard’s work The Inhuman , specifically the first entry on negentropy that would be congruent with Serres’ thematic. 3 The human being exports, deports, or transplants its relation through text, through the system— and this is its sense or relation to silence, to music. Unaware of Serres’ proximity to this work, the concept of gender interrelation as regards a solar catastrophe runs clear. It would be, on this basis, that Serres references his peers, the other texts that, as mentioned above, are discarded in philosophy today. For students of philosophy what we have here is perhaps a gift, a needed project. If silence and death are at work, there is a political valence to deal with, and here, much like the domain of the text and the dominion of the reader, we confront the world of natural, fluid violence. The anti-postmodernist critique is in part based on a weak idea that the loss of ideology, of a world vision, motivates the “correlationist” project. 4 Serres seems to offer another way to view this when he notes that whereas persons “sometimes kill,” it is clearly “the collective” that “always kills” (17). What is the collective today, if not an organizing function we never see yet acts in its favor in the name of truth? One feels a sense of enigma here, if only to link to what Stevens remarked of communism as a “grubby faith,” providing this applies for capitalism as well, namely any ideology of progress overly interested in absolutes. Here we get the sense that the inhuman, silence, this type of killing, always killing, could not be matched by human-made, political dynamos. Or that if it comes to an equilibrium, a catastrophe is never too far from us to read with our heels. We are left to note that the forces of nature presuppose and permeate political systems, the more these systems obtain force, the more the system takes upon itself the proper name of nature that motivates its dissemination, albeit falsely. This note, that in an age of ecocide and technological captivity (sustainability and transparency) political regimes won’t grow our soul-learning ears any larger than our tongues, stands clear to us. The promise of technological desubjectification is here pushed aside. Regarding politics, Serres illustrates this fact: Where did this corpse come from? Who was it? Who killed it? I don’t know. I won’t try to find out. I refuse to get vengeance for it. And I only see Garonne. For our victims, today, are the rivers, too. Their waters have irrigated my life, enchanted my thought, invigorated my body; I’ve known them to be threatening, untamable, as dangerous as the sea when it rages. Yes, murderous. They decided to control their courses; dams, sometimes senseless, destroying sites and valleys, reduced entire populations to servile displacements; programs for the irrigation of thirsty farmland, often beneficial of course, completed their drying up.(22) Serres enters into his idea concerning the captivity of language from the natural into a world system: For thousands of years, we have been licking things with our tongues, covering and daubing them so as to appropriate things for ourselves. If language boils down to a convention, this convention took place between the speakers without consulting the thing named, become as a result the property of those who covered it in this way with their drawn or voiced productions. Malfeasance analyzes these acts of appropriation. Thus every inert object, every living thing as well, sleeps under the covers of signs, a little in the way that, today, a thousand posters shouting messages and ugly riots of color drown, with their filthy flood, the landscapes, or better, exclude them from perception because the meaning, almost nil, of this false language and these base images forms an irresistible source of attraction to our neurons and eyes. This appropriation covers the world’s beauty with ugliness. (38-39) Technological concealment coming to bear, we begin to get a sense of another commentary on the condition of sensing, driving home the necessity of a text dealing with such subject matter to be what its terms insist. Thus toward new openings: The new opening. As low beneath our feet as you like, the Biogea opens us to another space, high enough for us to be able to acquire a wisdom there, that of redeveloping this same place differently from our fathers, this place that’s still politically cut up by old hatreds, beneath the flood of tears and blood that we call history. Without this soft place, spiritually very old, but newly conceived in this way, without the juridical construction of a common good, opposed to our filthy ownership, I don’t see how our planet, hard, will survive. Hardness that depends on a softness, material belonging that depends on this temporary rented location (51). Serres enters into a summit on the content and the structure of his work. Archimedes is brought in with the concept of three volcanoes. Meaning fire, but as well earth, water, air. For it was Archimedes’ war machines that sought to lift the earth, thus bringing in the question of principles of science: “can a principle be invented while controlling its consequences?” (66-7). May the earth be put in a sentence, terminated by terminology, appellations, gone wild? By means of these element-dominating laws, this old physicist began to tear nature away from the ancient myths; by a strange return, today we’re plunging our successes back into the anxieties and terrors from which that ancient physics was born. Yes, our new history of science and technology is plunging, today, as though in a loop, into the fundamental human myths from which Empedocles’ first laws came. A major progression and a regression on the nether side of the origins. Consequently, the contemporary time requires that we try to return to that unity in which the principles of hate and love are at the same time human, living, inert and global. We will never attain a deontology of our knowledge and actions without thinking the subjective, the objective, the collective, and the cognitive all together simultaneously. Here, hate and love are the result of these four components.(71) Working then on the concept of fire-starting mirrors to the atomic annihilation of the Second War, Serres works into the subjectivity in question on the matter of rhythm—say rithmic— precisely at that point: Knowledge is changing today. The all-political is dying; the monarchy of the sciences said to be hard is coming to a close. The science of the things of the world will have to communicate just as much as the things of the world do, which do it much better than humans do, who don’t always want to do it. Let’s celebrate two changes this morning. The first one strikes a new blow to our narcissism. No, knowledge and the world don’t resemble our analytical enjoyments of refined cutting up, of endless debates and of exclusions full of hate. They, on the contrary, form a bloc and a sum, alliance and alloys. Uniting the fields of knowledge among themselves the way the things are connected among themselves, the second newness puts into place sets united by interlacing, webs and simplexes that combine with the things of the world, themselves combined, the combined knowledge that understands them.(130-1) Biogea closes on its opening flood thematic, approaching the initial telos of Genesis. Here the trees are brought into a position with atmosphere, the opaque abyssal reservoir, the tomb of the sun, sea in the polarity of the earthen heaven and hell. The poem of the earth then is silent but deadly, indeed, as funny as that phrase is, mainly a tomb gas. The meaning of the living and the non-meaning of things converge in the muteness of the world; this meaning and non-meaning plunge there and come out, the ultimate eddy. Mundus patet: through a fissure, through an opening, a fault, a cleft come noises, calls as small as these apertures. I’m listening, attentive, I’m translating, I’m advancing in the scaled-down meaning and science. Mundus patet: should the world open greatly, it will launch me into its silence. The totality remains silent. Knowledge expanded in elation. White origin of meaning, fountain of joy. (198) Final Remarks One test of a review is the long term trajectory the referee thinks the book will have. I see Serres’ text lending greatly into the vision of Biogea . In fact, in the vision of the novel inquiries of Stephen Jay Gould’s work there is something to be thought on the level of the individual and the species; namely, that humanity and its uniqueness is in its deferral, its thinking and naming, a thinking surrounded by silence that filters into everything, that pulls us through the world, the kinetic pulse we recognize, and all of that we cleave away in the base philosophical maxim of difference itself. Unique individuals are spatial creatures: we dwell, and we ought to get good at it. Yet this is an imaginative space that, if you are crazy enough to believe it, de-term-ine the conditions of its own terms. That is why we are not merely creating spaces on the acceleration of time, or so this ignoramus thinks, to accidentally transcend. Imagination already has this insatiable silence that we drink up and fail to manifest. Space is timeless. The imagination itself, shared by humans for themselves, their objects, and the species as a whole, is a non-defined space of relation; a whole human trajectory as part of nature, and part of worlds that are the other side of thinking nature, the consequence of it, at least our attempt to do so. Our survival is based on our deliberation, our caution, our natural deconstructive sense toward this silence that is already part of the song, sung, singing of this century without end. Good books will let us inhabit this space and recognize a form of life. Serres’ text moves toward dwelling, as noted, in masterful and accessible ways. The pitched battles are the falling replays of anemic and dead politics. As soon as we realize there is humanity, we may be able to enjoy the end of it, our inhuman capability of listening to silence. NOTES 1. See Michel Serres. The Parasite . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2007. 2. Wallace Stevens, “Imagination as Value” [ca. 1945], in Collected Poetry and Prose . New York: The Library of America. 1997. 724-39. 3. Jean-François Lyotard. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time . Trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1992. 4. See the introduction: Quentin Melliassoux. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency . Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Continuum. 2008. EDITOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on August 8, 2012. Substantial edits include block quotes from the book under review as well as the inclusion of comments from the author. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a new technique for the enhancing images. It will work on removing the noise contained in the image as well as improving its contrast based on three different enhancing transforms, we commence by embedding the image into a neutrosophic domain; where the image will be mapped in three different levels, a level of trueness, a level of falseness and a level of indeterminacy. Hence, we act separately on each level using the enhancement transforms. (...) Finally, we introduce a new analysis in the field of analysis and processing of images using the neutrosophic crisp set theory via Mat lab program where has been obtained three images, which helps in a new analysis to improve and retrieve images. (shrink)

Neuroimaging is critical in the diagnosis and treatment of brain cancers; however, the first detection of tumors is a challenge. Detection techniques like image segmentation are heavily reliant on the segmented image’s resolution. Magnetic resonance imaging tumor segmentation has emerged as a new study area in the medical imaging field. This spongy and delicate mass of tissue is the brain. Stable conditions allow for patterns to enter and interact with each other. To put it simply, a tumor (...) is a mass of tissue that has grown unchecked by the natural mechanisms that keep it under control. When cells divide uncontrollably, they create a cancerous tumor. Brain tumors can be detected and segmented using a variety of methods. A new method for detecting brain tumors using MRI images is presented in this research. An innovative Woelfel filter is used for enhancement, and morphological segmentation approaches combined with anisotropic diffusion are used for segmentation. Segmentation of brain tumors can be accomplished using thresholding and morphological techniques, which are both effective. The tumor will be located and identified using morphological image processing. Image denoising refers to the process of removing artefacts such as noise and aliasing from digital images. Here MATLAB programming language is utilised as it incorporates all the toolboxes required for the application involved in the work. (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging is a noninvasive imaging tool that utilizes a strong magnetic field and radio frequency waves to visualize in great detail organs, soft tissue, and bone. Unlike conventional x-rays, there is no exposure to ionizing radiation and at most field strengths the procedure is considered safe for nearly every age group. Because it is non-invasive and possesses excellent spatial resolution, the use of MRI as a research tool has increased exponentially over the past decade. Uses (...) have ranged from add-ons to a clinical study to studies of brain development in typically developing children. In addition, a major effort has been made in recent years to use MRI to study brain function. Because the clinical utility of fMRI has not yet been realized, fMRI is still considered highly exploratory, and we cannot yet identify incidental findings of a functional nature. (shrink)

euroscience of Rule-Guided Behavior brings together, for the first time, the experiments and theories that have created the new science of rules. Rules are central to human behavior, but until now the field of neuroscience lacked a synthetic approach to understanding them. How are rules learned, retrieved from memory, maintained in consciousness and implemented? How are they used to solve problems and select among actions and activities? How are the various levels of rules represented in the brain, ranging from (...) simple conditional ones if a traffic light turns red, then stop to rules and strategies of such sophistication that they defy description? And how do brain regions interact to produce rule-guided behavior? These are among the most fundamental questions facing neuroscience, but until recently there was relatively little progress in answering them. It was difficult to probe brain mechanisms in humans, and expert opinion held that animals lacked the capacity for such high-level behavior. However, rapid progress in neuroimaging technology has allowed investigators to explore brain mechanisms in humans, while increasingly sophisticated behavioral methods have revealed that animals can and do use high-level rules to control their behavior. The resulting explosion of information has led to a new science of rules, but it has also produced a plethora of overlapping ideas and terminology and a field sorely in need of synthesis. In this book, Silvia Bunge and Jonathan Wallis bring together the worlds leading cognitive and systems neuroscientists to explain the most recent research on rule-guided behavior. Their work covers a wide range of disciplines and methods, including neuropsychology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, neurophysiology, electroencephalography, neuropharmacology, near-infrared spectroscopy, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. This unprecedented synthesis is a must-read for anyone interested in how complex behavior is controlled and organized by the brain. (shrink)

AimsAlcohol consumption could lead to a series of health problems and social issues. In the current study, we investigated the resting-state functional brain networks of healthy volunteers before and after drinking through graph-theory analysis, aiming to ascertain the effects of acute alcohol intake on topology and information processing mode of the functional brain networks.Materials and methodsThirty-three healthy volunteers were enrolled in this experiment. Each volunteer accepted alcohol breathalyzer tests followed by resting-state magnetic resonance imaging at three time points: (...) before drinking, 0.5 h after drinking, and 1 h after drinking. The data obtained were grouped based on scanning time into control group, 0.5-h group and 1-h group, and post-drinking data were regrouped according to breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) into relative low BrAC group (A group; 0.5-h data, n = 17; 1-h data, n = 16) and relative high BrAC group (B group; 0.5-h data, n = 16; 1-h data, n = 17). The graph-theory approach was adopted to construct whole-brain functional networks and identify the differences of network topological properties among all the groups.ResultsThe network topology of most groups was altered after drinking, with the B group presenting the most alterations. For global network measures, B group exhibited increased global efficiency, Synchronization, and decreased local efficiency, clustering coefficient, normalized clustering coefficient, characteristic path length, normalized characteristic path length, as compared to control group. Regarding nodal network measures, nodal clustering coefficient and nodal local efficiency of some nodes were lower in B group than control group. These changes suggested that the network integration ability and synchrony improved, while the segregation ability diminished.ConclusionThis study revealed the effects of acute alcohol intake on the topology and information processing mode of resting-state functional brain networks, providing new perceptions and insights into the effects of alcohol on the brain. (shrink)

Several studies showed evidence supporting the possibility of hand trajectory decoding from low-frequency electroencephalography. However, the decoding in the source space via source localization is scarcely investigated. In this study, we tried to tackle the problem of collinearity due to the higher number of signals in the source space by two folds: first, we selected signals in predefined regions of interest ; second, we applied dimensionality reduction techniques to each ROI. The dimensionality reduction techniques were computing the mean, principal component (...) analysis, and locality preserving projections. We also investigated the effect of decoding between utilizing a template head model and a subject-specific head model during the source localization. The results indicated that applying source-space decoding with PCA yielded slightly higher correlations and signal-to-noise ratios than the sensor-space approach. We also observed slightly higher correlations and SNRs when applying the subject-specific head model than the template head model. However, the statistical tests revealed no significant differences between the source-space and sensor-space approaches and no significant differences between subject-specific and template head models. The decoder with Mean and PCA utilizes information mainly from precuneus and cuneus to decode the velocity kinematics similarly in the subject-specific and template head models. (shrink)

Deficits in social cognition and more specifically in communication have an important impact on the real-life functioning of people with schizophrenia. In particular, patients have severe problems in communicative-pragmatics, for example, in correctly inferring the speaker’s communicative intention in everyday conversational interactions. This limit is associated with morphological and functional alteration of the left middle temporal gyrus, a cerebral area involved in various communicative processes, in particular in the distinction of ironic communicative intention from sincere and deceitful ones. We performed (...) an fMRI study on 20 patients with SZ and 20 matched healthy controls while performing a pragmatic task testing the comprehension of sincere, deceitful, and ironic communicative intentions. We considered the L-MTG as the region of interest. SZ patients showed difficulties in the correct comprehension of all types of communicative intentions and, when correctly answering to the task, they exhibited a higher activation of the L-MTG, as compared to HC, under all experimental conditions. This greater involvement of the L-MTG in the group of patients could depend on different factors, such as the increasing inferential effort required in correctly understanding the speaker’s communicative intentions, and the higher integrative semantic processes involved in sentence processing. Future studies with a larger sample size and functional connectivity analysis are needed to study deeper the specific role of the L-MTG in pragmatic processes in SZ, also in relation to other brain areas. (shrink)

Objective: Cognitive impairment is a common neurological complication in patients with end-stage renal disease undergoing maintenance hemodialysis. Brain network analysis based on graph theory is a promising tool for studying CI. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the changes of functional brain networks in patients on MHD with and without CI by using graph theory and further explore the underlying neuropathological mechanism of CI in these patients.Methods: A total of 39 patients on MHD and 25 healthy controls (...) matched for age, sex, and years of education were enrolled in the study. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and T1-weighted high-resolution anatomical data were obtained, and functional brain networks for each subject were constructed. The brain network parameters at the global and regional levels were calculated, and a one-way analysis of covariance was used to compare the differences across the three groups. The associations between the changed graph-theory parameters and cognitive function scores in patients on MHD were evaluated using Spearman correlation analysis.Results: Compared with HCs, the global parameters [sigma, gamma, and local efficiency ] in both patient groups decreased significantly. The clustering coefficient in patients with CI was significantly lower than that in the other two groups. The regional parameters were significantly lower in the right superior frontal gyrus, dorsolateral and gyrus rectus of patients with CI than those of patients without CI; however the nodal local efficiency in the left amygdala was significantly increased. The global Cp and regional parameters in the three brain regions were significantly correlated with the cognitive function scores.Conclusion: This study confirmed that the topology of the functional brain network was disrupted in patients on MHD with and without CI and the disruption of brain network was more severe in patients with CI. The abnormal brain network parameters are closely related to cognitive function in patients on MHD. (shrink)

Objective To assess parental permission for a neonate's research participation using the MacArthur competence assessment tool for clinical research (MacCAT-CR), specifically testing the components of understanding, appreciation, reasoning and choice. Study Design Quantitative interviews using study-specific MacCAT-CR tools. Hypothesis Parents of critically ill newborns would produce comparable MacCAT-CR scores to healthy adult controls despite the emotional stress of an infant with critical heart disease or the urgency of surgery. Parents of infants diagnosed prenatally would have higher MacCAT-CR scores than parents (...) of infants diagnosed postnatally. There would be no difference in MacCAT-CR scores between parents with respect to gender or whether they did or did not permit research participation. Participants Parents of neonates undergoing cardiac surgery who had made decisions about research participation before their neonate's surgery. Methods The MacCAT-CR. Results 35 parents (18 mothers; 17 fathers) of 24 neonates completed 55 interviews for one or more of three studies. Total scores: magnetic resonance imaging (mean 36.6, SD 7.71), genetics (mean 38.8, SD 3.44), heart rate variability (mean 37.7, SD 3.30). Parents generally scored higher than published subject populations and were comparable to published control populations with some exceptions. Conclusions The MacCAT-CR can be used to assess parental permission for neonatal research participation. Despite the stress of a critically ill neonate requiring surgery, parents were able to understand study-specific information and make informed decisions to permit their neonate's participation. (shrink)

To avoid post-neurosurgical language deficits, intraoperative mapping of the language function in the brain can be complemented with preoperative mapping with functional magnetic resonance imaging. The validity of an fMRI “language localizer” paradigm crucially depends on the choice of an optimal language task and baseline condition. This study presents a new fMRI “language localizer” in Russian using overt sentence completion, a task that comprehensively engages the language function by involving both production and comprehension at the word and sentence (...) level. The paradigm was validated in 18 neurologically healthy volunteers who participated in two scanning sessions, for estimating test–retest reliability. For the first time, two baseline conditions for the sentence completion task were compared. At the group level, the paradigm significantly activated both anterior and posterior language-related regions. Individual-level analysis showed that activation was elicited most consistently in the inferior frontal regions, followed by posterior temporal regions and the angular gyrus. Test–retest reliability of activation location, as measured by Dice coefficients, was moderate and thus comparable to previous studies. Test–retest reliability was higher in the frontal than temporo-parietal region and with the most liberal statistical thresholding compared to two more conservative thresholding methods. Lateralization indices were expectedly left-hemispheric, with greater lateralization in the frontal than temporo-parietal region, and showed moderate test-retest reliability. Finally, the pseudoword baseline elicited more extensive and more reliable activation, although the syllable baseline appears more feasible for future clinical use. Overall, the study demonstrated the validity and reliability of the sentence completion task for mapping the language function in the brain. The paradigm needs further validation in a clinical sample of neurosurgical patients. Additionally, the study contributes to general evidence on test–retest reliability of fMRI. (shrink)

Background: We were finding volunteers for functional magnetic resonance imaging studies with abnormalities requiring referral surprisingly frequently. The bioethics surrounding the incidental findings are not straightforward and every imaging institution will encounter this situation in their normal volunteers. Yet the implications for the individuals involved may be profound. Should all participants have review of their imaging by an expert and who should be informed? Methods: The normal volunteers that were imaged with magnetic resonance (MR) which were (...) reviewed by a consultant neuroradiologist. All participants completed a volunteer consent form in addition to a standard departmental MR safety screening form. The volunteer screening form requires the general practitioner details to be completed and asks the participant to consider closely the possibility and implications of finding an unexpected but potentially serious abnormality before signing. Results: 525 different individuals were scanned as normal volunteers, the mean age was 35-years and 330 were males. Of these 525, 46 had definite significant abnormalities (8.8%), mean age 50-years. Conclusion: We have found a high rate of incidental abnormalities amongst individuals participating in imaging studies at our institution. It is our current practice to inform the research study participant of the findings, counsel them and inform their primary care physician. We think that it is advisable for researchers utilising MR imaging of the brain to have access to trained neuroradiologists, a protocol in place to deal with this problem and take consent in a way that allows the participant to realise the possibility of an abnormal finding. (shrink)

Producing and interpreting functional brain data is part of the negotiation we imagine our brain. To take a closer look at the idea of brain imaging as a form of visual knowledge, it is necessary to put the research of today into a historical context. In my article I will point to a specific approach of functional imaging which depends on historical shifts entangled with the visual aspect of producing pictures of the brain. I will bring out the interaction (...) of issues like techniques, models and historical assumptions of the brain and link them with the way the brain images are presented. The aesthetic dimensions (Rancière) in the pictures are also questions of ethics and normativity. (shrink)

Ethical debates over the use of mental health knowledge and practice at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility have mostly revolved around military clinicians sharing detainee medical information with interrogators, falsifying death certificates in interrogations, and disagreements over whether the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” violated bioethical principles to do no harm. However, debates over the use of magnetic resonance imaging in the mental health evaluations of detainees have received little attention. This paper provides the first known (...) analysis of such debates over MRI use in the case of Abd al-Rahim al- Nashiri. Through a close reading of open-source legal documents such as defense motions, prosecution motions, judge rulings, and al-Nashiri’s mental health evaluation, debates over MRI use become interpretive contests over the very meanings of mental illness and the extent to which MRI results can verify whether he was tortured in CIA custody. Such work can revitalize interest in the neuroethics of national security. (shrink)

Blood is a vital body fluid and can be instrumental in identifying various pathological conditions. Nowadays, a lot of people are suffering from COVID-19 and every country has its own limited testing capacity. Consequently, a system is required to help doctors analyze a patient’s blood structure including COVID-19. Therefore, in this paper, we extracted and selected blood features by proposing a new feature extraction and selection method named stepwise linear discriminant analysis. SWLDA emphasizes on picking confined features from blood structure (...) images and discerning its class based on reversion value such as partial F value. SWLDA begins with picking an equivalence comprising the sole finest X variable and then puts in effort to add more Xs individually, providing the situations are adequate. The process of adding and picking is based on F value to determine which variable would be entered. Then, the picked or the default F-to-enter value is compared with the uppermost partial F value. After this step, the forward addition or backward removal begins and whether the partial test values for all the predictor variables already in the line are estimated is known. Then, the comparison is made between the lowermost partial test value and preselected or defaulting consequence levels such as F0. Finally, the system is trained by employing support vector machine to label the blood images. The performance of the proposed approach is assessed by employing 8 different datasets of blood structures. It is assured that the proposed method has achieved significant results under different blood structure images including COVID-19. (shrink)

IntroductionCerebral visual impairment is an important cause of visual impairment in western countries. Perinatal hypoxic-ischemic damage is the most frequent cause of CVI but CVI can also be the result of a genetic disorder. The majority of children with CVI have cerebral palsy and/or developmental delay. Early diagnosis is crucial; however, there is a need for consensus on evidence based diagnostic tools and referral criteria. The aim of this study is to develop guidelines for diagnosis and referral in CVI according (...) to the grade method.Patients and MethodsWe developed the guidelines according to the GRADE method 5 searches on CVI were performed in the databases Medline, Embase, and Psychinfo, each with a distinct topic.ResultsBased on evidence articles were selected on five topics: 1. Medical history and CVI-questionnaires 23. 2. Ophthalmological and orthoptic assessment 37. 3. Neuropsychological assessment 5. 4. Neuroradiological evaluation and magnetic resonance imaging 9. 5. Genetic assessment 5.ConclusionIn medical history taking, prematurity low birth weight and APGAR Scores are important. Different questionnaires are advised for children under the age of 3 years, older children and for specific risk groups. In ophthalmological examination, eye movements, specially saccades, accommodation, crowding, contrast sensitivity and visual fields should be evaluated. OCT can show objective signs of trans-synaptic degeneration and abnormalities in fixation and saccades can be measured with eye tracking. Screening of visual perceptive functioning is recommended and can be directive for further assessment. MRI findings in CVI in Cerebral Palsy can be structured in five groups: Brain maldevelopment, white and gray matter lesions, postnatal lesions and a normal MRI. In children with CVI and periventricular leukomalacia, brain lesion severity correlates with visual function impairment. A differentiation can be made between cortical and subcortical damage and related visual function impairment. Additional assessments can be necessary to complete the diagnosis of CVI and/or to reveal the etiology. (shrink)

Rapid technological advances have produced a variety of novel techniques that allow a comprehensive assessment of brain function to be combined with detailed information about brain structure and connectivity. Any assessment that is based on exhibited behavior after brain injury will be prone to error for a number of reasons. These questions are explored in the context of recent studies in both healthy populations and brain injured patients that have sought to investigate covert awareness through the use of functional neuroimaging. (...) Those circumstances in which functional magnetic resonance imaging data can be used to infer awareness in the absence of a behavioral response are contrasted with those circumstances in which it cannot. This distinction is fundamental for understanding and interpreting patterns of brain activity following acute brain injury and has implications for clinical care, diagnosis, prognosis, and medicolegal decision-making after serious brain injury. (shrink)

Disorders of consciousness (DOC) raise profound scientific, clinical, ethical, and philosophical issues. Growing knowledge on fundamental principles of brain organization in healthy individuals offers new opportunities for a better understanding of residual brain function in DOCs. We here discuss new perspectives derived from a recently proposed scheme of brain organization underlying consciousness in healthy individuals. In this scheme, thalamo-cortical networks can be divided into two, often antagonistic, global systems: (i) a system of externally oriented, sensory-motor networks (the ‘‘extrinsic’’ system); and (...) (ii) a system of inward-oriented networks (the ‘‘intrinsic’’ or default system). According to this framework, four distinct mental states would be possible that could be relevant for understanding DOCs. In normal healthy volunteers and locked-in syndrome patients, a state of high functionality of both the extrinsic and intrinsic or default systems is expected — associated with full awareness of environment and self. In this case, mental imagery tasks combined with fMRI can be used to detect covert awareness in patients that are unable to communicate. According to the framework, two complementary states of system imbalance are also possible, in which one system is in a hyperfunctional state, while the other is hypoactive. Extrinsic system hyperfunction is expected to lead to a state of total sensory-motor ‘‘absorption’’ or ‘‘lost self.’’ In contrast, intrinsic or default system hyperfunction is expected to lead to a state of complete detachment from the external world. A state where both extrinsic and intrinsic systems are hypofunctional is predicted to lead to markedly impaired consciousness as seen in DOCs. Finally, we review the potential use of ultra-slow fluctuations in BOLD signal as a tool for assessing the functional integrity of extrinsic and intrinsic systems during ‘‘resting state’’ fMRI acquisitions.. (shrink)

BackgroundFear of abandonment and aloneness play a key role in the clinical understanding interpersonal and attachment-specific problems in patients with borderline personality disorder and has been investigated in previous functional Magnet Resonance Imaging studies. The aim of the present study was to examine how different aspects of attachment representations are processed in BPD, by using for the first time an fMRI attachment paradigm including personalized core sentences from the participants’ own attachment stories. We hypothesized that BPD patients would show (...) increased functional involvement of limbic brain regions associated with fear and pain when presented personalized attachment relevant stimuli representing loneliness compared to healthy controls.MethodsWe examined the attachment classifications of 26 female BPD patients and 26 female HC using the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System. We used an fMRI-adapted attachment paradigm to investigate the neural correlates of attachment. All participants were presented three personalized sentences extracted from their AAP attachment narrative, combined with standardized AAP pictures representing being alone or in interactive attachment situations.ResultsAs expected, the classification of unresolved attachment was significantly greater in BPD compared to HC. BPD patients showed increased fMRI-activation in brain areas associated with fear, pain, and hyperarousal than HC when presented with personalized attachment-relevant alone stimuli. In particular, pictures with monadic attachment situations induced greater anterior medial cingulate cortex, anterior insula, amygdala, thalamus and superior temporal gyrus activation in the patient group.ConclusionThe results point to increased fMRI-activation in areas processing emotional distress and painful experiences in BPD patients. In particular, the emotional cascade reflecting attachment distress was evoked by combining monadic pictures, representing abandonment and aloneness, with the patients’ personalized narrative material. Our results confirmed and replicated previous results that illustrate once again the high relevance of aloneness and feelings of abandonment for BPD in the context of attachment trauma. Moreover, our results support the hypothesis of hypermentalization in response to attachment distress as a core feature of social-cognitive impairment in BPD associated with common treatment implications across different therapeutic orientations. (shrink)

Perception of temporal patterns is fundamental to normal hearing, speech, motor control, and music. Certain types of pattern understanding are unique to humans, such as musical rhythm. Although human responses to musical rhythm are universal, there is much we do not understand about how rhythm is processed in the brain. Here, I consider findings from research into basic timing mechanisms and models through to the neuroscience of rhythm and meter. A network of neural areas, including motor regions, is regularly implicated (...) in basic timing as well as processing of musical rhythm. However, fractionating the specific roles of individual areas in this network has remained a challenge. Distinctions in activity patterns appear between "automatic" and "cognitively controlled" timing processes, but the perception of musical rhythm requires features of both automatic and controlled processes. In addition, many experimental manipulations rely on participants directing their attention toward or away from certain stimulus features, and measuring corresponding differences in neural activity. Many temporal features, however, are implicitly processed whether attended to or not, making it difficult to create controlled baseline conditions for experimental comparisons. The variety of stimuli, paradigms, and definitions can further complicate comparisons across domains or methodologies. Despite these challenges, the high level of interest and multitude of methodological approaches from different cognitive domains (including music, language, and motor learning) have yielded new insights and hold promise for future progress. (shrink)

Neurofeedback is a complex learning scenario, as the task consists of trying out mental strategies while processing a feedback signal that signifies activation in the brain area to be self-regulated and acts as a potential reward signal. In an attempt to dissect these subcomponents, we obtained whole-brain networks associated with efficient self-regulation in two paradigms: parallel, where the task was performed concurrently, combining feedback with strategy execution; and serial, where the task was performed consecutively, separating feedback processing from strategy execution. (...) Twenty participants attempted to control their anterior midcingulate cortex using functional magnetic resonance imaging NF in 18 sessions over 2 weeks, using cognitive and emotional mental strategies. We analyzed whole-brain fMRI activations in the NF training runs with the largest aMCC activation for the serial and parallel paradigms. The equal length of the strategy execution and the feedback processing periods in the serial paradigm allows a description of the two task subcomponents with equal power. The resulting activation maps were spatially correlated with functionally annotated intrinsic connectivity brain maps. Brain activation in the parallel condition correlates with the basal ganglia network, the cingulo-opercular network, and the frontoparietal control network ; brain activation in the serial strategy execution condition with the default mode network, the FPCN, and the visual processing network; while brain activation in the serial feedback processing condition predominantly with the CON, the DMN, and the FPCN. Additional comparisons indicate that BG activation is characteristic to the parallel paradigm, while supramarginal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus activations are characteristic to the serial paradigm. The multifaceted view of the subcomponents allows describing the cognitive processes associated with strategy execution and feedback processing independently in the serial feedback task and as combined processes in the multitasking scenario of the conventional parallel feedback task. (shrink)

Naturalistic stimuli, including movie, music, and speech, have been increasingly applied in the research of neuroimaging. Relative to a resting-state or single-task state, naturalistic stimuli can evoke more intense brain activities and have been proved to possess higher test–retest reliability, suggesting greater potential to study adaptive human brain function. In the current research, naturalistic functional magnetic resonance imaging (N-fMRI) has been a powerful tool to record brain states under naturalistic stimuli, and many efforts have been devoted to study (...) the high-level semantic features from spatial or temporal representations via N-fMRI. However, integrating both spatial and temporal characteristics of brain activities for better interpreting the patterns under naturalistic stimuli is still underexplored. In this work, a novel hybrid learning framework that comprehensively investigates both the spatial (via Predictive Model) and the temporal [via convolutional neural network (CNN) model] characteristics of the brain is proposed. Specifically, to focus on certain relevant regions from the whole brain, regions of significance (ROS), which contain common spatial activation characteristics across individuals, are selected via the Predictive Model. Further, voxels of significance (VOS), whose signals contain significant temporal characteristics under naturalistic stimuli, are interpreted via one-dimensional CNN (1D-CNN) model. In this article, our proposed framework is applied onto the N-fMRI data during naturalistic classical/pop/speech audios stimuli. The promising performance is achieved via the Predictive Model to differentiate the different audio categories. Especially for distinguishing the classic and speech audios, the accuracy of classification is up to 92%. Moreover, spatial ROS and VOS are effectively obtained. Besides, temporal characteristics of the high-level semantic features are investigated on the frequency domain via convolution kernels of 1D-CNN model, and we effectively bridge the “semantic gap” between high-level semantic features of N-fMRI and low-level acoustic features of naturalistic audios in the frequency domain. Our results provide novel insights on characterizing spatiotemporal patterns of brain activities via N-fMRI and effectively explore the high-level semantic features under naturalistic stimuli, which will further benefit the understanding of the brain working mechanism and the advance of naturalistic stimuli clinical application. (shrink)

Recent magnetic resonance imaging and pathological studies have indicated that axonal loss is a major contributor to disease progression in multiple sclerosis. 1 H magnetic resonance spectroscopy, through measurement of N -acetyl aspartate, a neuronal marker, provides a unique tool to investigate this. Patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis have few lesions on conventional MRI, suggesting that changes in normal appearing white matter, such as axonal loss, may be particularly relevant to disease progression in this group. (...) To test this hypothesis NAWM was studied with MRS, measuring the concentration of N -acetyl derived groups. Single-voxel MRS using a water-suppressed PRESS sequence was carried out in 24 patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis and in 16 age-matched controls. Ratios of metabolite to creatine concentration were calculated in all subjects, and absolute concentrations were measured in 18 patients and all controls. NA/Cr was significantly lower in NAWM in patients than in controls, as was the absolute concentration of NA. There was no significant difference in the absolute concentration of creatine between the groups. This study supports the hypothesis that axonal loss occurs in NAWM in primary progressive multiple sclerosis and may well be a mechanism for disease progression in this group. (shrink)

Birth asphyxia is the most common single cause of death in term newborn infants. The majority of deaths in developed countries follow decisions to withdraw intensive care. Recent technological advances, particularly the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, may affect the process of prognostication and decision-making. There is little existing evidence about how prognosis is determined in newborn infants and how this relates to treatment withdrawal decisions.An exploratory qualitative study was performed using in-depth semi-structured interviews (...) with a sample of ten neonatologists from tertiary intensive care units in the UK. Participants were purposively selected to ensure a range of experience and type of unit. They were asked about the process of prognostication for infants with birth asphyxia and decisions about treatment withdrawal. Interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed.MRI played a significant role in decision-making about life-sustaining treatment for a number of clinicians. Clinicians did not identify particular ethical concerns related to MRI, though wider discussion revealed issues relating to uncertainty around predictions, the timing of prognostication and decision-making, and difficulty in predicting quality of life. (shrink)

Objective: Atypical patterns of language lateralization due to early reorganizational processes constitute a challenge in the pre-surgical evaluation of patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. There is no consensus on an optimal analysis method used for the identification of language dominance in MEG. This study examines the concordance between MEG source localization of beta power desynchronization and fMRI with regard to lateralization and localization of expressive and receptive language areas using a visual verb generation task.Methods: Twenty-five patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy, including six (...) patients with atypical language lateralization, and ten right-handed controls obtained MEG and fMRI language assessment. Fourteen patients additionally underwent the Wada test. We analyzed MEG beta power desynchronization in sensor (controls) and source space (patients and controls). Beta power decrease between 13 and 35 Hz was localized applying Dynamic Imaging of Coherent Sources Beamformer technique. Statistical inferences were grounded on cluster-based permutation testing for single subjects.Results: Event-related desynchronization of beta power in MEG was seen within the language-dominant frontal and temporal lobe and within the premotor cortex. Our analysis pipeline consistently yielded left language dominance with high laterality indices in controls. Language lateralization in MEG and Wada test agreed in all 14 patients for inferior frontal, temporal and pari... (shrink)

PurposeTo investigate spontaneous brain activity in patients with dry eye and healthy control using the fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuation technique with the aim of elucidating the relationship between the clinical symptoms of DE and changes in brain function.Material and MethodsA total of 28 patients with DE and 28 matched healthy volunteers were enrolled. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were performed in both groups. Then all subjects were required to complete a comprehensive Hospital Anxiety and Depression (...) Scale. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to evaluate the differences in fALFF values between the two groups and their diagnostic value. Linear correlations between HADS and fALFF values in different brain regions of DE patients were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient.ResultsPatients with DE had significantly higher fALFF values in the left calcarine sulcus than the HC group, while fALFF values in the bilateral middle frontal gyrus and right MFG/right inferior frontal gyrus were significantly lower in DE patients than in HC group. fALFF values had a high diagnostic value for differentiating patients with DE from the HC group. Right MFG and right MFG/IFG were significantly correlated with HADS values.ConclusionOur study found that DE mainly involved functional disorders in the brain areas of the left CS, bilateral MFG and right MFG/right IFG, which helped us to find possible clinical features of DE disease and reflected the potential pathological mechanism of DE. (shrink)

AimTo examine the association of body mass index (BMI) [kg/m2] and its classifications (underweight [BMI < 18.5], normal [18.5 ≤ BMI < 25], overweight [25 ≤ BMI < 30], and obese [BMI ≥ 30]) with brain structure in individuals with a wide range of BMI group.Materials and methodsThe participants included 382 right-handed individuals (mean age: 46.9 ± 14.3 years, 142 men and 240 women). The intelligence quotient was assessed using the Japanese Adult Reading Test. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and diffusion tensor (...) imaging (DTI) were performed to analyze the association of BMI and its classifications with gray and white matter structures, respectively.ResultsAccording to VBM, BMI was significantly and negatively correlated with the bilateral cerebellum exterior volumes. In group comparisons, the right cerebellum exterior volume was significantly lower in the overweight or obese group than in the underweight or normal group, while the bilateral cuneus and calcarine cortex, left cuneus, and left precuneus volume was significantly lower in the underweight group than in the non-underweight group. Sex-related stratification analyses for VBM revealed that BMI was significantly and negatively correlated with the bilateral cerebellum exterior volumes only in women. In group comparisons, the left cerebellum exterior volume was significantly lower in obese women than in non-obese women. The left thalamus proper and the right cerebellum exterior volumes were significantly lower in overweight or obese group than in underweight or normal group in men and women, respectively. The bilateral cuneus and calcarine cortex, left cuneus and carcarine cortex, and bilateral cuneus volume was significantly lower in underweight men than in non-underweight men. In contrast, there were no notable findings on DTI.ConclusionOur results suggest association of continuous BMI, being overweight or obese, and being underweight with decreased gray matter volume in individuals with a wide range of BMI group. Furthermore, sex-related differences are seen in the association of BMI and its classifications with regional gray matter volume reductions. Abnormally high or low BMIs may have a negative influence on regional gray matter volumes. (shrink)

Schizophrenia is considered as a self-disorder with disordered local synchronous activation. Previous studies have reported widespread dyssynchrony of local activation in patients with SZ, which may be one of the crucial physiological mechanisms of SZ. To further verify this assumption, this work used a surface-based two-dimensional regional homogeneity approach to compare the local neural synchronous spontaneous oscillation between patients with SZ and healthy controls, instead of the volume-based regional homogeneity approach described in previous study. Ninety-seven SZ patients and (...) 126 HC were recruited to this study, and we found the SZ showed abnormal 2dReHo across the cortical surface. Specifically, at the global level, the SZ patients showed significantly reduced global 2dReHo; at the vertex level, the foci with increased 2dReHo in SZ were located in the default mode network, frontoparietal network, and limbic network ; however, foci with decreased 2dReHo were located in the somatomotor network, auditory network, and visual network. Additionally, this work found positive correlations between the 2dReHo of bilateral rectus and illness duration, as well as a significant positive correlation between the 2dReHo of right orbital inferior frontal gyrus with the negative scores of the positive and negative syndrome scale in the SZ patients. Therefore, the 2dReHo could provide some effective features contributed to explore the pathophysiology mechanism of SZ. (shrink)

Mechanistic explanations satisfy widely held norms of explanation: the ability to manipulate and answer counterfactual questions about the explanandum phenomenon. A currently debated issue is whether any nonmechanistic explanations can satisfy these explanatory norms. Weiskopf argues that the models of object recognition and categorization, JIM, SUSTAIN, and ALCOVE, are not mechanistic yet satisfy these norms of explanation. In this article I argue that these models are mechanism sketches. My argument applies recent research using model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging, (...) a novel neuroimaging method whose significance for current debates on psychological models and mechanistic explanation has yet to be explored. (shrink)

There are a limited number of neuroimaging investigations into motor control of the lumbopelvic musculature. Most investigation examining motor control of the lumbopelvic musculature utilize transcranial magnetic stimulation and focus primarily on the motor cortex. This has resulted in a dearth of knowledge as it relates to how other regions of the brain activate during lumbopelvic movement. Additionally, task-based functional connectivity during lumbopelvic movements has not been well elucidated. Therefore, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine (...) brain activation and ROI-to-ROI task-based functional connectivity in 19 healthy individuals during the performance of three lumbopelvic movements: modified bilateral bridge, left unilateral bridge, and right unilateral bridge. The whole brain analysis found robust, bilateral activation within the motor regions of the brain during the bilateral bridge task, and contralateral activation of the motor regions during unilateral bridging tasks. Furthermore, the ROI-to-ROI analysis demonstrated significant connectivity of a motor network that included the supplemental motor area, bilateral precentral gyrus, and bilateral cerebellum regardless of the motor task performed. These data suggest that while whole brain activation reveals unique patterns of activation across the three tasks, functional connectivity is very similar. As motor control of the lumbopelvic area is of high interest to those studying low back pain, this study can provide a comparison for future research into potential connectivity changes that occur in individuals with LBP. (shrink)

With the development of artificial intelligence technologies, it is possible to use computer to read digital medical images. Because Alzheimer’s disease has the characteristics of high incidence and high disability, it has attracted the attention of many scholars, and its diagnosis and treatment have gradually become a hot topic. In this paper, a multimodal diagnosis method for AD based on three-dimensional shufflenet and principal component analysis network is proposed. First, the data on structural magnetic resonance imaging (...) and functional magnetic resonance imaging are preprocessed to remove the influence resulting from the differences in image size and shape of different individuals, head movement, noise, and so on. Then, the original two-dimensional ShuffleNet is developed three-dimensional, which is more suitable for 3D sMRI data to extract the features. In addition, the PCANet network is applied to the brain function connection analysis, and the features on fMRI data are obtained. Next, kernel canonical correlation analysis is used to fuse the features coming from sMRI and fMRI, respectively. Finally, a good classification effect is obtained through the support vector machines method classifier, which proves the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that companies who use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans for lie detection encounter the same basic ethical stumbling blocks as commercial companies that market traditional polygraphs. Markets in traditional voluntary polygraphs are common and fail to elicit much uproar among ethicists. Thus, for consistency, if markets in polygraphs are ethically unproblematic, markets using fMRIs for lie detection are equally as acceptable. Furthermore, while I acknowledge two substantial differences between the ethical concerns involving (...) polygraphs and fMRI lie detection, I argue that these concerns can be overcome and do not lead to the conclusion that markets in fMRI lie detection are ethically dubious. It is my conclusion that voluntary markets in fMRI lie detection can be justified by consumer autonomy and should be allowed to persist. (shrink)

The article examines epistemological and ontological underpinnings of reasearch performed by means of magnetic resonance imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging. It takes as its guiding line the important distinction between instruments and apparatuses drawn by Rom Harré. According to Harré, instruments such as barometers or thermometers do not cause the states they measure into existence. Apparatuses, in contradistinction, cause material states into existence to begin with, whereby theses states are subsequently processed according to suitable methods. (...) Thus, when the objects of examination are subjected to 2 or more Tesla in fMRI, a strength of magnetic field never occuring in earthly nature, technical means literally create the states to be examined. Close examination of the functioning of MRI and fMRI indicates that brain states, e.g., are not simply read, or perceived as degrees of temperature are read on scale. Hence, one does not see any mental funtion when looking at fMRI outputs, for the visible output has been semantically processed on the basis of invisible quantum mechanical processes that have undergone translations into digital data caused by the fMRI device itself. (shrink)

Against the medical and social models of disability are two newer proposals. Elizabeth Barnes’ Minority Body proposes that it is the bodies which are advocated for and included in the disability rights movement which are rightfully called “disabled.” Savulescu and Kahane’s Welfarist approach proposes that disability is intrinsically tied to the effects of bodily states on welfare. They put the need for a consistent and relatively simple normative theory above accounting for standard case judgements about who is and (...) is not disabled or looking at all to membership of the disabled community. I argue that Barnes’ theory offers the best response to issues with the dominant models of disability. Further, I argue that the Welfarist theory operates in a space removed from the wishes and lived experiences of disabled people – separating ‘disability’ from activism entirely – to its detriment. Doing so compromises its explanatory power, over-generalizes the concept and prevents the insertion of meaningful boundaries. Barnes’ ‘solidarity thesis’ soundly conceptualizes disability whilst making room for activist voices. The centering of activist projects makes it stronger. (shrink)

Fluorescence microscopy is a powerful tool used in scientific and medical research, but it is inextricably linked to phototoxicity. Neglecting phototoxicity can lead to erroneous or inconclusive results. Recently, several reports have addressed this issue, but it is still underestimated by many researchers, even though it can lead to cell death. Phototoxicity can be reduced by appropriate microscopic techniques and carefully designed experiments. This review focuses on recent strategies to reduce phototoxicity in microscopic imaging of living cells and tissues. (...) We describe digital image processing and new hardware solutions. We point out new modifications of microscopy methods and hope that this review will interest microscopy hardware engineers. Our aim is to underscore the challenges and potential solutions integral to the design of microscopy systems. Simultaneously, we intend to engage biologists, offering insight into the latest technological advancements in imaging that can enhance their understanding and practice. (shrink)

The use of magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain structure and function has become increasingly common among neuroscientists, psychologists, and even economists in recent years. Yet, despite this increase in use, relatively little attention has been paid to the issue of incidental fndings. The current paper discusses these issues, and anticipates the future of incidental fndings in the context of other neuroimaging tools currently being used to investigate the living brain.

Knill, Kersten, & Mamassian (Chapter 6) provide an interesting discussion of how the Bayesian formulation can be used to help investigate human vision. In their view, computational theories can be based on an ideal observer that uses Bayesian inference to make optimal use of available information. Four factors are important here: the image information used, the output structures estimated, the priors assumed (i.e., knowledge about the structure of the world), and the likelihood function used (i.e., knowledge about the (...) projection of the world onto the sensors). Knill & Kersten argue that such a framework not only helps analyze a perceptual task, but can also help investigators to define it. Two examples are provided (the interpretation of surface contour and the perception of moving shadows) to show how this approach can be used in practice. As the authors admit, most (if not all) perceptual processes are ill-suited to a "strong" Bayesian approach based on a single consistent model of the world. Instead, they argue for a "weak" variant that assumes Bayesian inference to be carried out in modules of more limited scope. But how weak is "weak"? Are such approaches suitable for only a few relatively low-level tasks, or can they be applied more generally? Could a weak Bayesian approach, for example, explain how we would recognize the return of Elvis Presley? The formal modelling of human perception To help get a fix on things, it is useful to examine the fate of an earlier attempt to formalize human perception: the application of information theory. It was once hoped that this theory—a close cousin of the Bayesian formulation—would provide a way to uncover information-handling laws that were largely independent of physical implementation. In this approach, the human nervous system was assumed to have.. (shrink)

Disorders of consciousness pose a substantial ethical challenge to clinical decision making, especially regarding the use of life-sustaining medical treatment. For these decisions it is paramount to know whether the patient is aware or not. Recent brain research has been striving to assess awareness by using mainly functional magnetic resonance imaging. We review the neuroscientific evidence and summarize the potential and problems of the different approaches to prove awareness. Finally, we formulate the crucial ethical questions and outline (...) the different articles in this special issue on disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

In the case of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) imaging, image processing is crucial. In the medical industry, MRI images are commonly used to analyze and diagnose tumor growth in the body. A number of successful brain tumor identification and classification procedures have been developed by various experts. Existing approaches face a number of obstacles, including detection time, accuracy, and tumor size. Early detection of brain tumors improves options for treatment and patient survival rates. Manually segmenting brain (...) tumors from a significant number of MRI data for brain tumor diagnosis is a tough and time-consuming task. Automatic image segmentation of brain tumors is required. The objective of this study is to evaluate the degree of accuracy and simplify the medical picture segmentation procedure used to identify the type of brain tumor from MRI results. Additionally, this work suggests a novel method for identifying brain malignancies utilizing the Bagging Ensemble with K-Nearest Neighbor (BKNN) in order to raise the KNN’s accuracy and quality rate. For image segmentation, a U-Net architecture is utilized first, followed by a bagging-based k-NN prediction algorithm for classification. The goal of employing U-Net is to improve the accuracy and uniformity of parameter distribution in the layers. Each decision tree is fitted on a little different training dataset during classification, and the bagged decision trees are effective since each tree has minor differences and generates slightly different skilled predictions. The overall classification accuracy was up to 97.7 percent, confirming the efficiency of the suggested strategy for distinguishing normal and pathological tissues from brain MR images; this is greater than the methods that are already in use. (shrink)

Using medical imaging techniques, such as fMRI, the stimulation of certain acupuncture points can be shown to correlate with activity in corresponding regions of the brain. Identical activity is also seen if the acupoint is stimulated with a pulse of ultrasound rather than a needle. This article reviews the advantages offered by ultrasonic acupuncture and the impact on the practice of acupuncture.