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Distrustful Plantar Lesion-A Case Report regarding Angiosarcoma.
In this paper we present a Competitive Rate-Based Algorithm (CRBA) that approximates operation of a Competitive Spiking Neural Network (CSNN). CRBA is based on modeling of the competition between neurons during a sample presentation, which can be reduced to ranking of the neurons based on a dot product operation and the use of a discrete Expectation Maximization algorithm; the latter is equivalent to the spike time-dependent plasticity rule. CRBA's performance is compared with that of CSNN on the MNIST and Fashion-MNIST datasets. The results show that CRBA performs on par with CSNN, while using three orders of magnitude less computational time. Importantly, we show that the weights and firing thresholds learned by CRBA can be used to initialize CSNN's parameters that results in its much more efficient operation.A deep investigation of proprioceptive processes is necessary to understand the relationship between sensory afferent inputs and motor outcomes. In this work, we investigate whether and how perception of wrist position is influenced by the direction along which the movement occurs. Most previous studies have tested Joint Position Sense (JPS) through 1 degree of freedom (DoF) wrist movements, such as flexion/extension (FE) or radial/ulnar deviation (RUD). However, the wrist joint has 3-DoF and many activities of daily living produce combined movements, requiring at least 2-DoF wrist coordination. For this reason, in this study, target positions involved movement directions that combined wrist flexion or extension with radial or ulnar deviation. The chosen task was a robot-aided Joint Position Matching (JPM), in which blindfolded participants actively reproduced a previously passively assumed target joint configuration. The JPM performance of 20 healthy participants was quantified through measures of accuracy and precision, in terms of both perceived target direction and distance along each direction of movement. Twelve different directions of movement were selected and both hands tested. The left and right hand led to comparable results, both target extents and directions were differently perceived according to the target direction on the FE/RUD space. Moreover, during 2-DoF combined movements, subjects' perception of directions was impaired when compared to 1-DoF target movements. In summary, our results showed that human perception of wrist position on the FE/RUD space is symmetric between hands but not isotropic among movement directions.Starting from the early 2000s, paired associative stimulation (PAS) protocols have been used in humans to study brain connectivity in motor and sensory networks by exploiting the intrinsic properties of timing-dependent cortical plasticity. In the last 10 years, PAS have also been developed to investigate the plastic properties of complex cerebral systems, such as the frontal ones, with promising results. In the present work, we review the most recent advances of this technique, focusing on protocols targeting frontal cortices to investigate connectivity and its plastic properties, subtending high-order cognitive functions like memory, decision-making, attentional, or emotional processing. Overall, current evidence reveals that PAS can be effectively used to assess, enhance or depress physiological connectivity within frontal networks in a timing-dependent way, in turn modulating cognitive processing in healthy and pathological conditions.As a special occupational group, the working and living environments faced by seafarers are greatly different from those of land. It is easy to affect the psychological and physiological activities of seafarers, which inevitably lead to changes in the brain functional activities of seafarers. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the neural activity rules of seafarers' brain. In view of this, this paper studied the seafarers' brain alteration at the activated voxel level based on functional magnetic resonance imaging technology by comparing the differences in functional connectivities (FCs) between seafarers and non-seafarers. Firstly, the activated voxels of each group were obtained by independence component analysis, and then the distribution of these voxels in the brain and the common activated voxels between the two groups were statistically analyzed. Next, the FCs between the common activated voxels of the two groups were calculated and obtained the FCs that had significant differences between them through two-sample T-test. Finally, all FCs and FCs with significant differences (DFCs) between the common activated voxels were used as the features for the support vector machine to classify seafarers and non-seafarers. The results showed that DFCs between the activated voxels had better recognition ability for seafarers, especially for Precuneus_L and Precuneus_R, which may play an important role in the classification prediction of seafarers and non-seafarers, so that provided a new perspective for studying the specificity of neurological activities of seafarers.As automobile manufacturers have begun to design, engineer, and test autonomous driving systems of the future, brain imaging with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can provide unique insights about cognitive processes associated with evolving levels of autonomy implemented in the automobile. Modern fNIRS devices provide a portable, relatively affordable, and robust form of functional neuroimaging that allows researchers to investigate brain function in real-world environments. The trend toward "naturalistic neuroscience" is evident in the growing number of studies that leverage the methodological flexibility of fNIRS, and in doing so, significantly expand the scope of cognitive function that is accessible to observation via functional brain imaging (i.e., from the simulator to on-road scenarios). While more than a decade's worth of study in this field of fNIRS driving research has led to many interesting findings, the number of studies applying fNIRS during autonomous modes of operation is limited. To support future research that directly addresses this lack in autonomous driving research with fNIRS, we argue that a cogent distillation of the methods used to date will help facilitate and streamline this research of tomorrow. To that end, here we provide a methodological review of the existing fNIRS driving research, with the overarching goal of highlighting the current diversity in methodological approaches. We argue that standardization of these approaches will facilitate greater overlap of methods by researchers from all disciplines, which will, in-turn, allow for meta-analysis of future results. We conclude by providing recommendations for advancing the use of such fNIRS technology in furthering understanding the adoption of safe autonomous vehicle technology.Peak alpha frequency is known to vary not just between individuals, but also within an individual over time. While variance in this metric between individuals has been tied to working memory performance, less understood are how short timescale modulations of peak alpha frequency during task performance may facilitate behavior. This gap in understanding may be bridged by consideration of a key difference between individuals sex. Inconsistent findings in the literature regarding the relationship between peak alpha frequency and cognitive performance, as well as known sex-related-differences in peak alpha frequency and its modulation motivated our hypothesis that cognitive and neural processes underlying working memory-modulation of peak alpha frequency in particular-may differ based upon sex. Targeting sex as a predictive factor, we analyzed the EEG data of participants recorded while they performed four versions of a visual spatial working memory task. Elacestrant price A significant difference between groups was present females modulated peak alpha frequency more than males. Task performance did not differ by sex, yet a relationship between accuracy and peak alpha frequency was present in males, but not in females. These findings highlight the importance of considering sex as a factor in the study of oscillatory activity, particularly to further understanding of the neural mechanisms that underlie working memory.Previous research has demonstrated that regular exercise modulates motor cortical plasticity and cognitive function, but the influence of short-term high-intensity interval training (HIIT) remains unclear. In the present study, the effect of short-term HIIT on neuroplasticity and executive function was assessed in 32 sedentary females. Half of the participants undertook 2 weeks of HIIT. Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (ppTMS) was used to measure motor cortical plasticity via short intracortical inhibition (SICI) and intracortical facilitation (ICF). We further adapted the Stroop task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to evaluate executive function in the participants. The results indicated that, compared with the control group, the HIIT group exhibited decreased ICF. In the Stroop task, the HIIT group displayed greater activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) even though no significant difference in task performance was observed. These findings indicate that short-term HIIT may modulate motor cortical plasticity and executive function at the neural level.In the present study, we examine the interactive effect of vowels on Mandarin fricative sibilants using a passive oddball paradigm to determine whether the HEIGHT features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence preceding consonants with unspecified features. The stimuli are two pairs of Mandarin words ([sa] ∼ [ʂa] and [su] ∼ [ʂu]) contrasting in vowel HEIGHT ([LOW] vs. [HIGH]). Each word in the same pair was presented both as standard and deviant, resulting in four conditions (/standard/[deviant] /sa/[ʂa] ∼ /ʂa/[sa] and /su/[ʂu] ∼ /ʂu/[su]). In line with the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) model, asymmetric patterns of processing were found in the [su] ∼ [ʂu] word pair where both the MMN (mismatch negativity) and LDN (late discriminative negativity) components were more negative in /su/[ʂu] (mismatch) than in /ʂu/[su] (no mismatch), suggesting the spreading of the feature [HIGH] from the vowel [u] to [ʂ] on the surface. In the [sa] ∼ [ʂa] pair, however, symmetric negativities (for both MMN and LDN) were observed as there is no conflict between the surface feature [LOW] from [a] to [ʂ] and the underlying specified feature [LOW] of [s]. These results confirm that not all features are fully specified in the mental lexicon features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence surrounding unspecified segments.Humans and some animal species are able to learn stimulus-response (S-R) associations by observing others' behavior. It saves energy and time and avoids the danger of trying the wrong actions. Observational learning (OL) depends on the capability of mapping the actions of others into our own behaviors, processing outcomes, and combining this knowledge to serve our goals. Observational learning plays a central role in the learning of social skills, cultural knowledge, and tool use. Thus, it is one of the fundamental processes in which infants learn about and from adults (Byrne and Russon, 1998). In this paper, we review current methodological approaches employed in observational learning research. We highlight the important role of the prefrontal cortex and cognitive flexibility to support this learning process, develop a new neural working model of observational learning, illustrate how imitation relates to observational learning, and provide directions for future research.
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