Alert Hockey: An Endogenous Learning Game

We describe a video game designed with a subtle and implicit learning mechanism that tracks aggressive and negligent play then uses this data to reduce players abilities and their chance of winning against the computer. By converging the goals of game play with learning we argue the experience produced is both endogenous and outcome oriented. Sixty two participants between 12 and 14 years old played the game at least 15 times each. Both aggressive play and negligence measures were reduced during the study (F(2, 40) = 10.589, p = 0.0002). Implicit learning mechanisms like this have potential to provide specific learning outcomes at little expense to the enjoyment of interactive gameplay

Selective effects of a brain tumor on the metric representation of the hand: a pre- versus post-surgery comparison

Body representation disorders are complex, varied, striking and very incapacitating in most cases. Deficits of body representation have been described after lesions to multimodal and sensorimotor cortical areas. A few studies have reported the effects of tumors on the representation of the body, but little is known about the changes after tumor resection. Moreover, impact of brain lesions on the hand size representation has been investigated in few clinical cases. Hands are of special importance as no other body part has the ability for movement and interaction with the environment that the hands have, and we use them for a multitude of daily activities Studies with clinical population can add further knowledge into the way hands are represented. Here, we report a single case study of a patient (AM) who was an expert bodybuilder and underwent a surgery to remove a glioblastoma in the left posterior prefrontal and precentral cortex at the level of the hand’s motor region. Pre- (20 days) and post- (4 months) surgery assessment did not show any motor or cognitive impairments. A hand localization task was used, before and after surgery (12 months), to measure possible changes of the metric representation of his right hand. Results showed a modulation on the hand representation with an overall improvement after the surgery in the accuracy of the hand representation, especially on width dimension. These findings support the direct involvement of sensorimotor areas in the implicit representation of the body size and its relevance on defining specific size representation dimensions

Event-related alpha suppression in response to facial motion

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.While biological motion refers to both face and body movements, little is known about the visual perception of facial motion. We therefore examined alpha wave suppression as a reduction in power is thought to reflect visual activity, in addition to attentional reorienting and memory processes. Nineteen neurologically healthy adults were tested on their ability to discriminate between successive facial motion captures. These animations exhibited both rigid and non-rigid facial motion, as well as speech expressions. The structural and surface appearance of these facial animations did not differ, thus participants decisions were based solely on differences in facial movements. Upright, orientation-inverted and luminance-inverted facial stimuli were compared. At occipital and parieto-occipital regions, upright facial motion evoked a transient increase in alpha which was then followed by a significant reduction. This finding is discussed in terms of neural efficiency, gating mechanisms and neural synchronization. Moreover, there was no difference in the amount of alpha suppression evoked by each facial stimulus at occipital regions, suggesting early visual processing remains unaffected by manipulation paradigms. However, upright facial motion evoked greater suppression at parieto-occipital sites, and did so in the shortest latency. Increased activity within this region may reflect higher attentional reorienting to natural facial motion but also involvement of areas associated with the visual control of body effectors. © 2014 Girges et al

Covert Shift of Attention Modulates the Ongoing Neural Activity in a Reaching Area of the Macaque Dorsomedial Visual Stream

Background: Attention is used to enhance neural processing of selected parts of a visual scene. It increases neural responses to stimuli near target locations and is usually coupled to eye movements. Covert attention shifts, however, decouple the attentional focus from gaze, allowing to direct the attention to a peripheral location without moving the eyes. We tested whether covert attention shifts modulate ongoing neuronal activity in cortical area V6A, an area that provides a bridge between visual signals and arm-motor control. Methodology/Principal Findings: We performed single cell recordings from 3 Macaca Fascicularis trained to fixate straight-head, while shifting attention outward to a peripheral cue and inward again to the fixation point. We found that neurons in V6A are influenced by spatial attention. The attentional modulation occurs without gaze shifts and cannot be explained by visual stimulations. Visual, motor, and attentional responses can occur in combination in single neurons. Conclusions/Significance: This modulation in an area primarily involved in visuo-motor transformation for reaching may form a neural basis for coupling attention to the preparation of reaching movements. Our results show that cortical processes of attention are related not only to eye-movements, as many studies have shown, but also to arm movements, a finding that has been suggested by some previous behavioral findings. Therefore, the widely-held view that spatial attention is tightly intertwined with - and perhaps directly derived from - motor preparatory processes should be extended to a broader spectrum of motor processes than just eye movements

Validation of an elastic registration technique to estimate anatomical lung modification in Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Tomotherapy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The study of lung parenchyma anatomical modification is useful to estimate dose discrepancies during the radiation treatment of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) patients. We propose and validate a method, based on free-form deformation and mutual information, to elastically register planning kVCT with daily MVCT images, to estimate lung parenchyma modification during Tomotherapy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed 15 registrations between the planning kVCT and 3 MVCT images for each of the 5 NSCLC patients. Image registration accuracy was evaluated by visual inspection and, quantitatively, by Correlation Coefficients (CC) and Target Registration Errors (TRE). Finally, a lung volume correspondence analysis was performed to specifically evaluate registration accuracy in lungs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Results showed that elastic registration was always satisfactory, both qualitatively and quantitatively: TRE after elastic registration (average value of 3.6 mm) remained comparable and often smaller than voxel resolution. Lung volume variations were well estimated by elastic registration (average volume and centroid errors of 1.78% and 0.87 mm, respectively).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results demonstrate that this method is able to estimate lung deformations in thorax MVCT, with an accuracy within 3.6 mm comparable or smaller than the voxel dimension of the kVCT and MVCT images. It could be used to estimate lung parenchyma dose variations in thoracic Tomotherapy.</p

Impaired peripheral reaching and on-line corrections in patient DF: optic ataxia with visual form agnosia

An influential model of vision suggests the presence of two visual streams within the brain: a dorsal occipito-parietal stream which mediates action and a ventral occipito-temporal stream which mediates perception. One of the cornerstones of this model is DF, a patient with visual form agnosia following bilateral ventral stream lesions. Despite her inability to identify and distinguish visual stimuli, DF can still use visual information to control her hand actions towards these stimuli. These observations have been widely interpreted as demonstrating a double dissociation from optic ataxia, a condition observed after bilateral dorsal stream damage in which patients are unable to act towards objects that they can recognize. In Experiment 1, we investigated how patient DF performed on the classical diagnostic task for optic ataxia, reaching in central and peripheral vision. We replicated recent findings that DF is remarkably inaccurate when reaching to peripheral targets, but not when reaching in free vision. In addition we present new evidence that her peripheral reaching errors follow the optic ataxia pattern increasing with target eccentricity and being biased towards fixation. In Experiments 2 and 3, for the first time we examined DF’s on-line control of reaching using a double-step paradigm in fixation-controlled and free-vision versions of the task. DF was impaired when performing fast on-line corrections on all conditions tested, similarly to optic ataxia patients. Our findings question the long-standing assumption that DF’s dorsal visual stream is functionally intact and that her on-line visuomotor control is spared. In contrast, in addition to visual form agnosia, DF also has visuomotor symptoms of optic ataxia which are most likely explained by bilateral damage to the superior parietal occipital cortex. We thus conclude that patient DF can no longer be considered as an appropriate single-case model for testing the neural basis of perception and action dissociations

The anterior sylvian point as a reliable landmark for the anterior temporal lobectomy in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy: technical note, case series, and cadaveric dissection

Introduction: Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is one of the most prevalent forms of focal epilepsy in surgical series, particularly among adults. Over the decades, different surgical strategies have been developed to address drug-resistant epilepsy while safeguarding neurological and cognitive functions. Among these strategies, anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL), involving the removal of the temporal pole and mesial temporal structures, has emerged as a widely employed technique. Numerous modifications have been proposed to mitigate the risks associated with aphasia, cognitive issues, and visual field defects. Methods: Our approach is elucidated through intraoperative and cadaveric dissections, complemented by neuroradiological and cadaveric measurements of key anatomical landmarks. A retrospective analysis of patients with drug-resistant MTLE who were treated using our ATL technique at IRCCS Neuromed (Pozzilli) is presented. Results: A total of 385 patients were treated with our ATL subpial technique anatomically focused on the anterior Sylvian point (ASyP). The mean FU was 9.9 ± 5.4 years (range 1-24). In total, 84%of patients were free of seizures during the last follow-up, with no permanent neurological deficits. Transient defects were as follows: aphasia in 3% of patients, visual field defects in 2% of patients, hemiparesis in 2% of patients, and cognitive/memory impairments in 0.8% of patients. In cadaveric dissections, the ASyP was found at a mean distance from the temporal pole of 3.4 ± 0.2 cm (range 3-3.8) at the right side and 3.5 ± 0.2 cm (3.2-3.9) at the left side. In neuroimaging, the ASyP resulted anterior to the temporal horn tip in all cases at a mean distance of 3.2 ± 0.3 mm (range 2.7-3.6) at the right side and 3.5 ± 0.4 mm (range 2.8-3.8) at the left side. Discussion: To the best of our knowledge, this study first introduces the ASyP as a reliable and reproducible cortical landmark to perform the ATL to overcome the patients' variabilities, the risk of Meyer's loop injury, and the bias of intraoperative measurements. Our findings demonstrate that ASyP can be a safe cortical landmark that is useful in MTLE surgery because it is constantly present and is anterior to risky temporal regions such as temporal horn and language networks

Extradural Motor Cortex Stimulation might improve episodic and working memory in patients with Parkinson\u2019s disease

Electric Extradural Motor Cortex Stimulation (EMCS) is a neurosurgical procedure suggested for treatment of patients with advanced Parkinson\u2019s disease (PD). We report two PD patients treated by EMCS, who experienced worsening of motor symptoms and cognition 5 years after surgery, when EMCS batteries became discharged. One month after EMCS restoration, they experienced a subjective improvement of motor symptoms and cognition. Neuropsychological assessments were carried out before replacement of batteries (off-EMCS condition) and 6 months afterward (on-EMCS condition). As compared to off-EMCS condition, in on-EMCS condition both patients showed an improvement on tasks of verbal episodic memory and backward spatial short-term/working memory task, and a decline on tasks of selective visual attention and forward spatial short-term memory. These findings suggest that in PD patients EMCS may induce slight beneficial effects on motor symptoms and cognitive processes involved in verbal episodic memory and in active manipulation of information stored in working memory

Intraoperative Local Field Potential Beta Power and Three-Dimensional Neuroimaging Mapping Predict Long-Term Clinical Response to Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson Disease: A Retrospective Study

background: directional deep brain stimulation (DBS) leads allow a fine-tuning control of the stimulation field, however, this new technology could increase the DBS programming time because of the higher number of the possible combinations used in directional DBS than in standard nondirectional electrodes. neuroimaging leads localization techniques and local field potentials (LFPs) recorded from DBS electrodes implanted in basal ganglia are among the most studied biomarkers for DBS programing. objective: this study aimed to evaluate whether intraoperative LFPs beta power and neuroimaging reconstructions correlate with contact selection in clinical programming of DBS in patients with Parkinson disease (PD). materials and methods: In this retrospective study, routine intraoperative LFPs recorded from all contacts in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) of 14 patients with PD were analyzed to calculate the beta band power for each contact. neuroimaging reconstruction obtained through brainlab elements planning software detected contacts localized within the STN. clinical DBS programming contact scheme data were collected after one year from the implant. statistical analysis evaluated the diagnostic performance of LFPs beta band power and neuroimaging data for identification of the contacts selected with clinical programming. we evaluated whether the most effective contacts identified based on the clinical response after one year from implant were also those with the highest level of beta activity and localized within the STN in neuroimaging reconstruction. results: LFPs beta power showed a sensitivity of 67%, a negative predictive value (NPV) of 84%, a diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 2.7 in predicting the most effective contacts as evaluated through the clinical response. neuroimaging reconstructions showed a sensitivity of 62%, a NPV of 77%, a DOR of 1.20 for contact effectivity prediction. the combined use of the two methods showed a sensitivity of 87%, a NPV of 87%, a DOR of 2.7 for predicting the clinically more effective contacts. conclusions: the combined use of LFPs beta power and neuroimaging localization and segmentations predict which are the most effective contacts as selected on the basis of clinical programming after one year from implant of DBS. the use of predictors in contact selection could guide clinical programming and reduce time needed for it