Reduced oxygen supply to the prefrontal cortex during the Stroop task in migraine patients with aura: A preliminary functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.

The role of the cerebrovascular system in migraine pathogenesis is critical. Several studies have demonstrated alterations in the regional cerebral blood flow that persist during headache-free intervals. In the present study, we aimed to measure the prefrontal hemodynamic responses to the cognitive task in interictal episodic migraineurs.

The Pitfalls and Perspectives of Assessing Olfactory Function via Optical Brain Imaging.

Olfaction is critical for maintaining daily life activities. It is crucial to measure olfactory performance for the diagnosis and treatment of certain neurodegenerative diseases. Moreover, impairments and a lack of quality in the olfactory system may indicate the early diagnosis of some diseases such as Parkinson's.

The Influence of Acute Sprint Interval Training on the Cognitive Performance of Male Basketball Players: An Investigation of Expertise-Related Differences.

Highly developed cognitive abilities are an important prerequisite for reaching elite athletic levels. This study aimed to investigate the effect of an acute sprint interval training (SIT) session on the cognitive performance of amateur and elite players. Eighteen amateur and ten elite male basketball players were included in this study.

The Effects of Virtual Reality Nonphysical Mental Training on Balance Skills and Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Activity in Healthy Adults.

Context: Athletic skills such as balance are considered physical skills. However, these skills may not just improve by physical training, but also by mental training. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mental training programs on balance skills and hemodynamic responses of the prefrontal cortex.

Hemodynamic changes in athletes' brains: is there any adaptation?

This study compared the hemodynamic changes in the prefrontal cortex during sprint interval training (SIT) and recovery periods in sedentary and athletes. SIT was performed on a cycling ergometer on 12 male athletes and 9 sedentary participants. A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device was used to record the hemodynamic changes of the prefrontal cortex throughout the protocol.

Electrophysiological Recordings from the Olfactory Epithelium and Human Brain in Response to Stimulation with HLA Related Peptides.

In many species, social communication and mate choice are influenced by olfactory cues associated with the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). It has been reported that humans also respond to olfactory signals related to the human MHC-equivalent, the Human Leucocyte Antigen (HLA)-System, and exhibit an olfactory-mediated preference for potential mating partners with a dissimilar, disassortative, HLA-type compared to their own. The aim of this study was to investigate whether HLA-associated peptides, presented as volatile cues, elicit neuronal responses at the receptors in the human olfactory epithelium and can be consciously perceived.

Central Nervous System Processing of Floral Odor and Mother's Milk Odor in Infants.

Newborns have a functioning sense of smell at birth, which appears to be highly significant for feeding and bonding. Still, little is known about the cerebral odor processing in this age group. Studies of olfactory function relied mostly on behavioral, autonomic, and facial responses of infants.

Smells Influence Perceived Pleasantness but Not Memorization of a Visual Virtual Environment.

The present study aimed to investigate whether the perception of still scenes in a virtual environment in congruent versus incongruent condition can be influenced by odors. Ninety healthy participants were divided into three groups, including two experimental virtual reality (VR) environments: a rose garden, an orange basket, and a control condition. In each VR condition, participants were exposed to a rose odor, an orange odor, or no odor, resulting in congruent, incongruent, and control conditions.

Sleep Is a Refreshing Process: An fNIRS Study.

Sleep is a very critical process that constitutes up to one third of daytime of a healthy adult. It is known to be an active period where body and brain is refreshed for the next day. It is both part of a larger cycle, i.

Deaf adolescents have bigger responses for somatosensory and visual stimulations.

The functions of the sensory systems on disabled people have been one of the most investigated topics in brain research. In these studies, mostly visual stimuli had been employed while investigating the deaf participants. Limited number of electrophysiological studies revealed better visual sensory processing in deaf participants.

Auditory brain oscillatory responses in drug-naïve patients with Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder affecting the function of dopaminergic cells in basal ganglia. Besides the motor symptoms, tremor, and dysfunction of sensory systems. In the literature, there was limited studies which investigates the basic sensorial processing in PD.

The impact of musical experience on neural sound encoding performance.

In this study, 64-channel single trial auditory brain oscillations (STABO) have been firstly analyzed by using complexity metrics to observe the effect of musical experience on brain functions. Experimental data was recorded from eyes-opened volunteers during listening the musical chords by piano. Complexity estimation methods were compared to each other for classification of groups (professional musicians and non-musicians) by using both classifiers (support vector machine (SVM), Naive Bayes (NB)) and statistical tests (one-way ANOVA) with respect to electrode locations.

Brain asymmetry in directing attention during dichotic listening test: An fNIRS study.

In a classical dichotic listening paradigm, besides auditory brain asymmetry, cognitive functions such as attention and conflict resolution play a major role. The aim of this study is to reveal the possible haemodynamic mechanisms of higher attentional performance in prefrontal cortex during dichotic listening test. Twenty-six healthy participants underwent a dichotic listening task in three sessions; non-forced attention, attention focused to right ear, and attention focused to left ear.

Electro-olfactogram Responses Before and After Aversive Olfactory Conditioning in Humans.

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether repetitive aversive odor conditioning induced changes at the level of the peripheral olfactory system in humans. A total of 51 volunteers participated. A pair of indistinguishable odor enantiomers [(+)-rose oxide and (-)-rose oxide] were used as stimuli.

Indistinguishable odour enantiomers: Differences between peripheral and central-nervous electrophysiological responses.

The ability of humans to discriminate enantiomeric odour pairs is substance -specific. Current literature suggests that psychophysical discrimination of odour enantiomers mainly depends on the peripheral processing at the level of the olfactory sensory neurons (OSN). To study the influence of central processing in discrimination, we investigated differences in the electrophysiological responses to psychophysically indistinguishable (+)- and (-)- rose oxide enantiomers at peripheral and central-nervous levels in humans.

Acute Supramaximal Exercise Increases the Brain Oxygenation in Relation to Cognitive Workload.

Single bout of exercise can improve the performance on cognitive tasks. However, cognitive responses may be controversial due to different type, intensity, and duration of exercise. In addition, the mechanism of the effect of acute exercise on brain is still unclear.

Assessing Olfactory Function in Parkinson's Disease via Entropy Analysis of Chemosensory Event Related Potentials.

The relationship between Parkinson's disease (PD) and olfactory dysfunction has been investigated via psychophysical and electrophysiological assessments. Despite the increasing number of electrophysiological studies focusing on olfactory function, there are still some limitations to observe the chemosensory event-related potentials (CSERP), which are electrophysiological responses of the brain to olfactory and trigeminal stimulations, because of the low sensitivity (low signal-to-noise ratio). Recent studies attempted to establish new techniques to increase the sensitivity for evaluating the CSERP and brain responsiveness.

Olfactory dysfunction in children with Kallmann syndrome: relation of smell tests with brain magnetic resonance imaging.

Objective: Kallmann syndrome (KS) is a genetic disorder with the distinctive features of hyposmia or anosmia and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. Though hyposmia/anosmia can be evaluated by both objective and subjective smell tests, there is no study comparing these two methods in KS. The aim of the present case series was to discuss the results of objective and subjective smell tests and compare them to volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).