Article
Clinical Neurology
Shijue Li, Haojie Zhang, Yan Leng, Di Lei, Qiuhua Yu, Kai Li, Minghui Ding, Wai Leung Ambrose Lo
Summary: This study aims to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the clinical benefits and neurophysiological changes of interlimb-coordinated intervention in patients with stroke. The findings of this study will provide insight into clinical decision-making and the future development of targeted neurorehabilitation protocols, ultimately improving gait and motor function in patients with stroke.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROLOGY
(2022)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Samuel A. Acuna, Mitchell E. Tyler, Darryl G. Thelen
Summary: This study investigated the neuromuscular complexity during gait in individuals with chronic balance deficits caused by a prior traumatic brain injury (TBI). The results showed decreased neuromuscular complexity in individuals with a prior TBI compared to controls. The individuals exhibited slower walking speeds, reduced performance on the Dynamic Gait Index, and altered control of the temporal activation of muscle synergies.
NEUROREHABILITATION AND NEURAL REPAIR
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Fangjing Yang, Fei Wang, Xingyi Ma, Mingjie Zhou, Su Jiang, Wendong Xu
Summary: This study investigates the long-term adaptations in the contralesional cortex after traumatic brain injury (TBI) using a mouse model and optogenetic mapping. The findings show that TBI does not affect the distribution of contralesional corticospinal neurons (CSNs), but alters their function, with labeled CSNs concentrated in the forelimb areas. This research provides new insights into utilizing contralesional cortical plasticity for improving motor control in TBI patients.
EXPERIMENTAL NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Claudia Corti, Niccolo Butti, Alessandra Bardoni, Sandra Strazzer, Cosimo Urgesi
Summary: This study investigated the difficulties in body processing in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI). They experienced difficulties in mental transformations of both body and object stimuli, displaying deficits in motor and visual imagery abilities.
Article
Neurosciences
Simon M. Danner, Courtney T. Shepard, Casey Hainline, Natalia A. Shevtsova, Ilya A. Rybak, David S. K. Magnuson
Summary: Thoracic spinal cord injury affects long propriospinal neurons that interconnect the cervical and lumbar enlargements, and these neurons are crucial for coordinating forelimb and hindlimb locomotor movements. Investigating locomotion over the full range of speeds can reveal otherwise hidden aspects of spinal locomotor control and post-injury recovery, which may not be fully exposed by studying recovery over a limited range of speeds.
EXPERIMENTAL NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Immunology
Kajal Bagri, Rahul Deshmukh
Summary: Vinpocetine may have neuroprotective potential in alleviating cognitive and motor impairments caused by traumatic brain injury. It exerts its effects through antioxidant activity and restoration of brain neurochemical levels under stressed conditions.
INFLAMMOPHARMACOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Lizhu Luo, Christelle Langley, Laura Moreno-Lopez, Keith Kendrick, David K. Menon, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis, Barbara J. Sahakian
Summary: This study examined the association between depressive symptoms in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients and altered resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fc) or voxel-based morphology in brain regions involved in emotional regulation and associated with depression. The results showed a positive association between depression scores and rs-fc between limbic regions and cognitive control regions, while there was a negative association between depression scores and rs-fc between limbic and frontal regions involved in emotion regulation. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying depression following TBI and can inform treatment decisions.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ana Filipa Isidro, Alexandra M. Medeiros, Isaura Martins, Dalila Neves-Silva, Leonor Saude, Cesar S. Mendes
Summary: The coordination required for complex motor programs depends on communication between the spinal cord and higher brain circuits. Spinal cord injuries disrupt this communication, leading to loss of coordination and limited recovery potential. To measure the effects of drugs or therapies, new tools are needed to accurately quantify gait and limb coordination. This study presents an updated version of the MouseWalker system, which combines a walkway and tracking software to provide detailed parameters and graphical outputs for analysis.
JOVE-JOURNAL OF VISUALIZED EXPERIMENTS
(2023)
Review
Medicine, General & Internal
Trevor S. Barss, Behdad Parhizi, Jane Porter, Vivian K. Mushahwar
Summary: Transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation has the potential to improve sensorimotor rehabilitation by modulating spinal cord circuitry non-invasively. It can alter excitability across multiple segments of the spinal cord with single-site stimulation, and multiple sites of stimulation can converge to facilitate spinal reflex and corticospinal networks. Further mechanistic research is needed to optimize targeted rehabilitation strategies and improve clinical outcomes.
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MEDICINE
(2022)
Article
Immunology
Emer Ryan, Lynne Kelly, Catherine Stacey, Dean Huggard, Eimear Duff, Danielle McCollum, Ann Leonard, Gerard Boran, Dermot R. Doherty, Turlough Bolger, Eleanor J. Molloy
Summary: This study demonstrates altered cytokine profiles and endotoxin responses in children with traumatic brain injury (TBI), including mild TBI. Children with mild TBI showed decreased levels of IL-8, IL-10, IL-17A, and TNF-alpha compared to controls, along with increased levels of IFN-gamma. In severe TBI, there was no significant IL-6 response to endotoxin, but an increase in IL-17A. These findings suggest immune dysfunction following TBI, especially in mild cases.
JOURNAL OF NEUROINFLAMMATION
(2022)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Rebecca E. Woodrow, Stefan Winzeck, Andrea Luppi, Isaac R. Kelleher-Unger, Lennart R. B. Spindler, J. T. Lindsay Wilson, Virginia F. J. Newcombe, Jonathan P. Coles, David K. Menon, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis
Summary: Chronic post-concussive symptoms are common after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and are difficult to predict or treat. The study found acute thalamic hyperconnectivity in mTBI, even without structural changes. These acute changes in thalamic connectivity can serve as early markers for persistent symptoms and have associations with specific emotional and cognitive symptoms.
Article
Neurosciences
Xuan Li, Xiaoyan Jia, Yuling Liu, Guanghui Bai, Yizhen Pan, Qiuyu Ji, Zhaoyi Mo, Wenpu Zhao, Yixin Wei, Shan Wang, Bo Yin, Jie Zhang, Lijun Bai
Summary: Traumatic brain injury disrupts the coordinated activity of the triple network and produces impairments across several cognitive domains. This study used brain network interaction index and dynamic functional connectivity to examine the time-varying cross-network interactions among the triple network in patients with mild TBI. The findings suggest that increased and more variable cross-network interactions are associated with more severe and multiple domains of cognitive impairments in mild TBI.
Article
Clinical Neurology
Brian E. Powers, Son T. Ton, Robert G. Farrer, Suhani Chaudhary, Russ P. Nockels, Gwendolyn L. Kartje, Shih-Yen Tsai
Summary: This study suggests that anti-Nogo-A antibody treatment may improve functional recovery by promoting axonal growth and neuronal plasticity in individuals with traumatic brain injury. The experiments conducted on rats showed significant improvement in motor deficits after receiving the treatment, indicating the potential efficacy of anti-Nogo-A Ab therapy for patients with TBI.
NEUROREHABILITATION AND NEURAL REPAIR
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Kento Nakagawa, Saeko Kawashima, Kazuki Fukuda, Nobuaki Mizuguchi, Tetsuro Muraoka, Kazuyuki Kanosue
Summary: Interlimb coordination involving cyclical movements of hand and foot in the sagittal plane is more difficult when the limbs move in opposite directions compared with the same direction. This study investigated the directional constraint on hand-foot coordination in motor imagery and found that the opposite directional movement took a significantly longer time than the same directional movement, suggesting that directional constraint occurs even in motor imagery.
FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Maryam Ghahramani, Billy Mason, Patrick Pearsall, Wayne Spratford
Summary: Interlimb coordination variability analysis can provide insights into higher order coordination and motor control. This study investigates how the interlimb coordination of healthy individuals changes in different unilateral functional tasks and whether leg dominance affects coordination variability. The results show that linear coordination variability was smaller in step-ups compared to sit-to-stands and continuous hops, while nonlinear coordination variability was larger in hops compared to step-ups and sit-to-stands. Leg dominance did not affect coordination variability in participants with no known injuries.
FRONTIERS IN BIOENGINEERING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
P. Van Ruitenbeek, T. Santos Monteiro, S. Chalavi, B. R. King, K. Cuypers, S. Sunaert, R. Peeters, S. P. Swinnen
Summary: The study proposes the Compensation Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis (CRUNCH) to explain the brain activity changes in healthy aging and task complexity. The findings suggest that all adults show increased brain activation with task complexity, older adults have more brain activation compared to younger adults at low complexity levels, and older adults are able to increase neural resources as task demands increase. These results indicate that older adults exhibit compensatory brain activation and maintain the capacity to adapt to task demands.
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Eric Cito Becman, Larissa Driemeier, Oron Levin, Stephan Swinnen, Arturo Forner-Cordero
Summary: This study investigates the impact of training and testing condition differences on the predictions of a convolutional neural network (CNN) for myoelectric simultaneous and proportional control (SPC). A dataset of electromyogram (EMG) signals and joint angular accelerations recorded during a star drawing task was utilized. CNNs were trained using specific combinations of motion amplitude and frequency and tested under different combinations. The predictive performance was evaluated using normalized root mean squared error (NRMSE), correlation, and linear regression slope. The results showed that the predictive performance declined differently depending on the increase or decrease of confounding factors. Correlation decreased as the factors decreased, while slope deteriorated when the factors increased. NRMSE worsened in both increasing and decreasing factor scenarios. The study suggests that differences in EMG signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between training and testing may affect the noise robustness of the CNNs' learned internal features, leading to worse correlations. Additionally, the inability of the networks to predict accelerations outside the training range may contribute to slope deterioration. These findings provide opportunities for developing strategies to mitigate the negative impact of confounding factors on myoelectric SPC devices.
IEEE JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL AND HEALTH INFORMATICS
(2023)
Article
Physiology
Wilhelmina E. Radstake, Steven Jillings, Steven Laureys, Athena Demertzi, Stefan Sunaert, Angelique Van Ombergen, Floris L. Wuyts
Summary: This study aimed to investigate whether fighter pilots, who are exposed to frequent g-level transitions and high g-levels, show differential functional characteristics compared to matched controls, indicative of neuroplasticity. The results showed altered functional connectivity in the brains of fighter pilots, suggesting adaptive coping strategies to altered sensorimotor demands during flight.
FRONTIERS IN PHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Amirhossein Rasooli, Hamed Zivari Adab, Peter Van Ruitenbeek, Akila Weerasekera, Sima Chalavi, Koen Cuypers, Oron Levin, Thijs Dhollander, Ronald Peeters, Stefan Sunaert, Dante Mantini, Stephan P. Swinnen
Summary: Aging is associated with changes in the central nervous system and leads to reduced life quality. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy and diffusion MRI were used to investigate the age-related differences in the CNS underlying motor performance deficits. The study found that aging was associated with increased reaction time, reduced fiber density (FD), and N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) concentration in the sensorimotor voxel. Both FD and NAA mediated the association between age and reaction time, and NAA concentration mediated the association between age and FD in the sensorimotor voxel. The decrease in NAA concentration may result in reduced axonal fiber density, which ultimately accounts for the response slowness of older participants.
Article
Neurosciences
Weronika Potok, Alain Post, Valeriia Beliaeva, Marc Bachinger, Antonino Mario Cassara, Esra Neufeld, Rafael Polania, Daniel Kiper, Nicole Wenderoth
Summary: Transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) has been shown to improve visual perception by enhancing visual contrast detection in the primary visual cortex (V1). However, it is unclear if tRNS can also enhance contrast detection in the retina. In this study, we found that tRNS decreased visual contrast detection threshold in V1 but not in the retina. The effects of tRNS were replicated within the same experimental session but not in a separate session, and there were no consistent additive effects of V1 and retina stimulation.
Article
Neurosciences
Weronika Potok, Onno van der Groen, Sahana Sivachelvam, Marc Bachinger, Flavio Frohlich, Laszlo B. B. Kish, Nicole Wenderoth
Summary: Stochastic resonance refers to the phenomenon where the transmission of signals in a nonlinear system is enhanced by the presence of additive noise. In the nervous system, nonlinear properties exist at different levels and seem to contribute to stochastic resonance. This study demonstrates that high-frequency, deterministic, periodic signals can yield resonance-like effects and improve visual contrast detection, suggesting that similar mechanisms can emerge when deterministic electrical waveforms are applied.
JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Correction
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Elke Lathouwers, Ahmed Radwan, Jeroen Blommaert, Lara Stas, Bruno Tassignon, Sabine D. Allard, Filip De Ridder, Elisabeth De Waele, Nicole Hoornaert, Patrick Lacor, Rembert Mertens, Maarten Naeyaert, Hubert Raeymaekers, Lucie Seyler, Anne-Marie Vanbinst, Lien Van Liedekerke, Jeroen Van Schependom, Peter Van Schuerbeek, Steven Provyn, Bart Roelands, Marie Vandekerckhove, Romain Meeusen, Stefan Sunaert, Guy Nagels, Johan De Mey, Kevin De Pauw
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Elke Lathouwers, Ahmed Radwan, Jeroen Blommaert, Lara Stas, Bruno Tassignon, Sabine D. Allard, F. De Ridder, E. De Waele, N. Hoornaert, P. Lacor, R. Mertens, Maarten Naeyaert, Hubert Raeymaekers, Lucie Seyler, A. M. Vanbinst, Lien Van Liedekerke, Jeroen Van Schependom, Peter Van Schuerbeek, Steven Provyn, Bart Roelands, Marie Vandekerckhove, R. Meeusen, Stefan Sunaert, G. Nagels, J. De Mey, Kevin De Pauw
Summary: COVID-19 can have negative impacts on the quality of life and induce neurological sequelae. This study reveals differences in structural brain connectivity and cognitive performance between former hospitalised COVID-19 patients and healthy controls.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Oncology
Michelle Melis, Gwen Schroyen, Jeroen Blommaert, Nicolas Leenaerts, Ann Smeets, Katleen Van Der Gucht, Stefan Sunaert, Sabine Deprez
Summary: Cognitive impairment is a common issue after cancer treatment, and it negatively affects the quality of life for cancer survivors. This study investigated the potential of a mindfulness-based intervention to impact the mechanisms of cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI). Breast cancer survivors with cognitive complaints were assigned to a mindfulness, physical training, or waitlist control group. The results showed that physical training had the most pronounced effects on functional network organization and biomarkers of inflammation, which are believed to be involved in CRCI.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Sarah Nadine Meissner, Marc Bachinger, Sanne Kikkert, Jenny Imhof, Silvia Missura, Manuel Carro Dominguez, Nicole Wenderoth
Summary: The study shows that humans can gain voluntary control of their arousal state through pupil-based biofeedback, which modulates activity in the locus coeruleus and other brainstem structures. This finding has important implications for behavioral and clinical applications, particularly related to stress and anxiety disorders.
NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
(2023)
Article
Pediatrics
Bouwien Smits-Engelsman, Dane Coetzee, Ludvik Valtr, Evi Verbecque
Summary: This study examines sex-related differences in raw item scores on the MABC-2, using a large dataset collected from different regions worldwide, and explores whether there is an interaction effect between sex and the sample's origin (European versus African). The study performs a secondary analysis on anonymized data of 7654 children, finding that sex-related differences are present in all age bands. Girls outperform boys in manual dexterity and balance items, especially in the European sample, while these differences are less pronounced in the African sample. Separate norms for boys and girls, as well as geographical regions, are necessary.
Meeting Abstract
Neurosciences
Thomas Vande Casteele, Maarten Laroy, Margot Van Cauwenberge, Michel Koole, Patrick Dupont, Stefan Sunaert, Jan Van den Stock, Filip Bouckaert, Koen Van Laere, Louise Emsell, Mathieu Vandenbulcke
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY
(2023)
Meeting Abstract
Urology & Nephrology
Anugrah Santoso, Stefan Sunaert, Dirk De Ridder
JOURNAL OF UROLOGY
(2023)
Meeting Abstract
Urology & Nephrology
A. D. Santoso, S. Sunaert, D. De Ridder
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Nicolas Leenaerts, Thomas Vaessen, Stefan Sunaert, Jenny Ceccarini, Elske Vrieze
Summary: Studies show that negative affect can trigger binge eating in patients with bulimia nervosa. Important factors in this relationship are craving and negative urgency. This study aims to explore the relations between negative affect, craving, rash action, and binge eating in daily life, and whether craving and rash action mediate the relationship between negative affect and binge eating. The results suggest that negative affect can lead to binge eating through rash action and craving, but can also lead to dietary restriction.
JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND CLINICAL SCIENCE
(2023)