Improved primary stability and load transfer of a customized osseointegrated transfemoral prosthesis compared to a commercial one.

Background: Transfemoral osseointegrated prostheses, like other uncemented prostheses experience the risk of aseptic loosening and post-operative periprosthetic fractures, with an incidence between 3% and 30%. To date, however, osseointegrated off-the-shelf prostheses are manufactured in a limited number of sizes, and some patients do not meet the strict eligibility criteria of commercial devices. A customized osseointegrated stem was developed and a pre-clinical in vitro investigation of the stem was performed, to evaluate its biomechanical performance.

Investigating the impact of the regularization parameter on EEG resting-state source reconstruction and functional connectivity using real and simulated data.

Accurate EEG source localization is crucial for mapping resting-state network dynamics and it plays a key role in estimating source-level functional connectivity. However, EEG source estimation techniques encounter numerous methodological challenges, with a key one being the selection of the regularization parameter in minimum norm estimation. This choice is particularly intricate because the optimal amount of regularization for EEG source estimation may not align with the requirements of EEG connectivity analysis, highlighting a nuanced trade-off.

Advantages of customization of osseointegrated implants in transfemoral amputees: a comparative analysis of surgical planning.

Background: Commercially available osseointegrated devices for transfemoral amputees are limited in size and thus fail to meet the significant anatomical variability in the femoral medullary canal. This study aimed to develop a customized osseointegrated stem to better accommodate a variety of femoral anatomies in transfemoral amputees than off-the-shelf stems. Customization is expected to enhance cortical bone preservation and increase the stem-bone contact area, which are critical for the long-term stability and success of implants.

A visual representation of the hand in the resting somatomotor regions of the human brain.

Hand visibility affects motor control, perception, and attention, as visual information is integrated into an internal model of somatomotor control. Spontaneous brain activity, i.e.

Rewiring the evolution of the human hand: How the embodiment of a virtual bionic tool improves behavior.

Humans are the most versatile tool users among animals. Accordingly, our manual skills evolved alongside the shape of the hand. In the future, further evolution may take place: humans may merge with their tools, and technology may integrate into our biology in a way that blurs the line between the two.

A statistical shape analysis for the assessment of the main geometrical features of the distal femoral medullary canal.

Statistical Shape Models (SSMs) are widely used in orthopedics to extract the main shape features from bone regions (e.g., femur).

Immersive Virtual Reality for Treatment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect via Eye-Tracking Biofeedback: RCT Protocol and Usability Testing.

About one-third of stroke survivors present unilateral spatial neglect (USN) that negatively impacts the rehabilitation outcome. We reported the study protocol and usability results of an eye-tracking (ET) biofeedback immersive virtual reality (iVR) protocol. Healthy controls and stroke patients with and without USN underwent a single session of the three iVR tasks.

Encoding Manual Dexterity through Modulation of Intrinsic α Band Connectivity.

The human hand possesses both consolidated motor skills and remarkable flexibility in adapting to ongoing task demands. However, the underlying mechanisms by which the brain balances stability and flexibility remain unknown. In the absence of external input or behavior, spontaneous (intrinsic) brain connectivity is thought to represent a prior of stored memories.

Mental health and transcatheter aortic valve replacement: A scoping systematic review.

Objective: To systematically review the literature on mental health symptoms before and after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and describe reported clinical associations with these symptoms.

Methods: Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines, we reviewed studies involving pre- or post-TAVR mental health assessments or psychiatric diagnoses.

Results: Eighteen studies were included.

Ultra-rapid Electrophilic Cysteine Arylation.

Rapid bond-forming reactions are crucial for efficient bioconjugation. We describe a simple and practical strategy for facilitating ultra-rapid electrophilic cysteine arylation. Using a variety of sulfone-activated pyridinium salts, this uncatalyzed reaction proceeds with exceptionally high rate constants, ranging from 9800 to 320,000 M·s, in pH 7.

The spatio-temporal architecture of everyday manual behavior.

In everyday activities, humans move alike to manipulate objects. Prior works suggest that hand movements are built by a limited set of basic building blocks consisting of a set of common postures. However, how the low dimensionality of hand movements supports the adaptability and flexibility of natural behavior is unknown.

Rapid Electrophilic Cysteine Arylation with Pyridinium Salts.

Here, we present a series of fluorinated cationic reagents that enable rapid arylation of cysteine under mild conditions compatible with proteins and peptides. The highly polarized C-F bond and attractive nucleophile-electrophile Coulombic interactions substantially accelerate cysteine arylation, leading to unusually high rate constants on the order of 100 M·s and allowing for equimolar labeling of substrates at micromolar concentrations. The synthetic modularity of this approach promotes the direct coupling of structurally diverse phenol-containing functional motifs to cysteine residues of biomacromolecules with high efficiency.

Concurrent subarachnoid haemorrhage and internal carotid artery dissection: a transcranial colour-coded sonography diagnosis.

We report the case of a young woman affected by an aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) and numerous anatomic abnormalities. A Transcranial Colour-Coded Duplex Sonography, performed with the aim of monitoring the vasospasm, showed a non-pulsatile flow with loss of sharp systolic peak and lowering of mean flow velocities in the right extracranial Internal Carotid Artery (ICA) and all its intra-cranial branches. This event suggested a possible concomitant acute right ICA sub-occlusion with a lack of collateral circulation.

Design of a custom-made device for real-time optical measurement of differential mineral concentrations in three-dimensional scaffolds for bone tissue engineering.

Monitoring bone tissue engineered (TEed) constructs during their maturation is important to ensure the quality of applied protocols. Several destructive, mainly histochemical, methods are conventionally used to this aim, requiring the sacrifice of the investigated samples. This implies (i) to plan several scaffold replicates, (ii) expensive and time consuming procedures and (iii) to infer the maturity level of a given tissue construct from a cognate replica.

Cross-α/β polymorphism of PSMα3 fibrils.

The formation of ordered cross-β amyloid protein aggregates is associated with a variety of human disorders. While conventional infrared methods serve as sensitive reporters of the presence of these amyloids, the recently discovered amyloid secondary structure of cross-α fibrils presents new questions and challenges. Herein, we report results using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy to monitor the aggregation of one such cross-α-forming peptide, phenol soluble modulin alpha 3 (PSMα3).

Spectral signature of attentional reorienting in the human brain.

As we move in the environment, attention shifts to novel objects of interest based on either their sensory salience or behavioral value (reorienting). This study measures with magnetoencephalography (MEG) different properties (amplitude, onset-to-peak duration) of event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) of oscillatory activity during a visuospatial attention task designed to separate activity related to reorienting vs. maintaining attention to the same location, controlling for target detection and response processes.

Early EEG responses to pre-electoral survey items reflect political attitudes and predict voting behavior.

Self-reports are conventionally used to measure political preferences, yet individuals may be unable or unwilling to report their political attitudes. Here, in 69 participants we compared implicit and explicit methods of political attitude assessment and focused our investigation on populist attitudes. Ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from future voters while they completed a survey that measured levels of agreement on different political issues.

Effects of cognitive workload on heart and locomotor rhythms coupling.

Different physiological signals could be coupled under specific conditions, in some cases related to pathologies or reductions in system complexity. Cardiac-locomotor synchronization (CLS) has been one of the most investigating coupling. The influence of a cognitive task on walking was investigated in dual-task experiments, but how different cognitive tasks may influence CLS has poorly been investigated.

Inkjet-printed fully customizable and low-cost electrodes matrix for gesture recognition.

The use of surface electromyography (sEMG) is rapidly spreading, from robotic prostheses and muscle computer interfaces to rehabilitation devices controlled by residual muscular activities. In this context, sEMG-based gesture recognition plays an enabling role in controlling prosthetics and devices in real-life settings. Our work aimed at developing a low-cost, print-and-play platform to acquire and analyse sEMG signals that can be arranged in a fully customized way, depending on the application and the users' needs.

Corrigendum: Major Stress-Related Symptoms During the Lockdown: A Study by the Italian Society of Psychophysiology and Cognitive Neuroscience.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.

Major Stress-Related Symptoms During the Lockdown: A Study by the Italian Society of Psychophysiology and Cognitive Neuroscience.

The clinical effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are now the subject of numerous studies worldwide. But what are the effects of the quarantine imposed by the states that implemented the measures of lockdown? The present research aims to explore, in a preliminary way, the major stress-related symptoms during the lockdown, due to Covid-19, in the Italian population. Subjects were asked to fill out a survey, that traced a line identifying the most relevant psychophysiological symptoms that took into account factors such as perceived stress, body perception, perceived pain, quality of sleep, perceptive variations (i.

Temporal modes of hub synchronization at rest.

The brain is a dynamic system that generates a broad repertoire of perceptual, motor, and cognitive states by the integration and segregation of different functional domains represented in large-scale brain networks. However, the fundamental mechanisms underlying brain network integration remain elusive. Here, for the first time to our knowledge, we found that in the resting state the brain visits few synchronization modes defined as clusters of temporally aligned functional hubs.

The impact of multisensory integration and perceptual load in virtual reality settings on performance, workload and presence.

Real-world experience is typically multimodal. Evidence indicates that the facilitation in the detection of multisensory stimuli is modulated by the perceptual load, the amount of information involved in the processing of the stimuli. Here, we used a realistic virtual reality environment while concomitantly acquiring Electroencephalography (EEG) and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) to investigate how multisensory signals impact target detection in two conditions, high and low perceptual load.

Multi-band MEG signatures of BOLD connectivity reorganization during visuospatial attention.

The functional architecture of the resting brain, as measured with the blood oxygenation level-dependent functional connectivity (BOLD-FC), is slightly modified during task performance. In previous work, we reported behaviorally relevant BOLD-FC modulations between visual and dorsal attention regions when subjects performed a visuospatial attention task as compared to central fixation (Spadone et al., 2015).