Modeling Grid Cell Distortions with a Grid Cell Calibration Mechanism.

The medial entorhinal cortex of rodents is known to contain grid cells that exhibit precise periodic firing patterns based on the animal's position, resulting in a distinct hexagonal pattern in space. These cells have been extensively studied due to their potential to unveil the navigational computations that occur within the mammalian brain and interesting phenomena such as so-called grid cell distortions have been observed. Previous neuronal models of grid cells assumed their firing fields were independent of environmental boundaries.

Feeling senseless sensations: a crossmodal EEG study of mismatched tactile and visual experiences in virtual reality.

To create highly immersive experiences in virtual reality (VR) it is important to not only include the visual sense but also to involve multimodal sensory input. To achieve optimal results, the temporal and spatial synchronization of these multimodal inputs is critical. It is therefore necessary to find methods to objectively evaluate the synchronization of VR experiences with a continuous tracking of the user.

The vestigial pinna-orienting system in humans briefly suppresses superior auricular muscle activity during reflexive orienting toward auditory stimuli.

The vestigial pinna-orienting system in humans is capable of increasing the activity of several auricular muscles in response to lateralized transient auditory stimuli. For example, transient increases in electromyographic activity in the posterior auricular muscle (PAM) to an attention-capturing stimulus have been documented. For the current study, surface electromyograms (EMGs) were recorded from the PAMs and superior auricular muscles (SAMs) of 10 normal-hearing participants.

The role of attention in immersion: The two-competitor model.

Currently, we face an exponentially increasing interest in immersion, especially sensory-driven immersion, mainly due to the rapid development of ideas and business models centered around a digital virtual universe as well as the increasing availability of affordable immersive technologies for education, communication, and entertainment. However, a clear definition of 'immersion', in terms of established neurocognitive concepts and measurable properties, remains elusive, slowing research on the human side of immersive interfaces. To address this problem, we propose a conceptual, taxonomic model of attention in immersion.

Adapting virus filtration to continuous processing: Effects of product and process variability on filtration performance.

Virus filtration (VF) is an important unit operation in the manufacture of biotherapeutics that provides robust removal of potential virus contaminants. Small virus removal can be impacted by the low operating pressures and potential depressurization events that are often associated with continuous operations where increased operational flexibility for higher loading at low flux and low pressure is required. In this study, we evaluated the impact of low flux (7 LMH) and pressure interruptions on minute virus of mice (MVM) removal.

Assessment of Vestigial Auriculomotor Activity to Acoustic Stimuli Using Electrodes In and Around the Ear.

Recently, it has been demonstrated that electromyographic (EMG) activity of auricular muscles in humans, especially the postauricular muscle (PAM), depends on the spatial location of auditory stimuli. This observation has only been shown using wet electrodes placed directly on auricular muscles. To move towards a more applied, out-of-the-laboratory setting, this study aims to investigate if similar results can be obtained using electrodes placed in custom-fitted earpieces.

Improvement in Parkinson Disease Symptoms After Treatment for COVID-19 with Monoclonal Antibodies.

Background: Parkinson disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor symptoms, such as bradykinesia, and non-motor symptoms, such as fatigue, which can be a particularly disabling feature of the disease.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review on a patient who reported improvement in baseline PD symptoms after COVID-19 treatment.

Results: The patient is a 76-year-old male with a six-year history of PD who developed a COVID-19 infection, underwent treatment with COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies, and experienced a remarkable improvement in his pre-COVID PD symptoms, most notably his gait and fatigue.

[New perspectives in orthopedics : Developments through neurotechnology and metaverse].

The combination of neurotechnology and metaverse holds high potentials for orthopedics, as it offers a broad spectrum of possibilities to overcome the limits of traditional medical care. The vision of a medical metaverse providing the infrastructure as a link for innovative technologies opens up new opportunities for therapy, medical collaborations and practical, personalized training for aspiring physicians. However, risks and challenges, such as security and privacy, health-related issues, acceptance by patients and doctors, as well as technical hurdles and access to the technologies, remain.

Serial virus filtration: A case study evaluating the product-dependent impact of control strategies on process efficiency.

The production of biopharmaceutical products carries an inherent risk of contamination by adventitious viruses. Historically, these manufacturing processes have incorporated a dedicated virus filtration step to ensure product safety. However, challenging process conditions can lead to passage of small viruses to the permeate pool and an overall decrease in the desired virus logarithmic reduction value (LRV) for the process.

Lagrangian Motion Magnification with Landmark-Prior and Sparse PCA for Facial Microexpressions and Micromovements.

Video motion magnification methods are motion visualization techniques that aim to magnify subtle and imper-ceptibly small motions in videos. They fall into two main groups where Eulerian methods work on the pixel grid with implicit motion information and Lagrangian methods use explicitly estimated motion and modify point trajectories. The motion in high framerate videos of faces can contain a wide variety of information that ranges from microexpressions over pulse or respiratory rate to cues on speech and affective state.

Motion Sickness related Route Profiling for Evaluation of the Sensory Conflict in Real-Driving Studies.

The risk for passengers of an automated vehicle to suffer from motion sickness symptoms increases while performing non-driving tasks. Motion sickness, whether at sea, in the air, in a car or in virtual reality, has been studied for years, but the specific motion patterns of different vehicles and the individual physiology of passengers complicate the definition of general applicable models. Technical progress in vehicles, e.

Speech Tracking in Complex Auditory Scenes with Differentiated In- and Out-Field-Of-View Processing in Hearing Aids.

In naturalistic auditory scenes, relevant information is rarely concentrated at a single location, but rather unpredictably scattered in- and out-field-of-view (in-/out-FOV). Although the parsing of a complex auditory scene is a fairly simple job for a healthy human auditory system, the uncertainty represents a major issue in the development of effective hearing aid (HA) processing strategies. Whereas traditional omnidirectional microphones (OM) amplify the complete auditory scene without enhancing signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) between in- and out-FOV streams, directional microphones (DM) may greatly increase SNR at the cost of preventing HA users to perceive out-FOV information.

Leveraging Mobile-Based Sensors for Clinical Research to Obtain Activity and Health Measures for Disease Monitoring, Prevention, and Treatment.

Clinical researchers are using mobile-based sensors to obtain detailed and objective measures of the activity and health of research participants, but many investigators lack expertise in integrating wearables and sensor technologies effectively into their studies. Here, we describe the steps taken to design a study using sensors for disease monitoring in older adults and explore the benefits and drawbacks of our approach. In this study, the Geriatric Acute and Post-acute Fall Prevention Intervention (GAPcare), we created an iOS app to collect data from the Apple Watch's gyroscope, accelerometer, and other sensors; results of cognitive and fitness tests; and participant-entered survey data.

Strategies to Ensure Continuity of Care Using Telemedicine with Older Adults during COVID-19: A Qualitative Study of Physicians in Primary Care and Geriatrics.

Our objective was to interview primary care physicians (PCPs) and geriatricians on their experiences using telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine strategies used to maintain continuity of care with their patients, ages 65 and older. Using purposive sampling, we selected physicians based on community size (metro/suburban/rural) and practice setting (academic/community) and conducted semi-structured interviews via Zoom (mean: 30 minutes). Interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed using framework analysis.

Software for non-parametric image registration of 2-photon imaging data.

Functional 2-photon microscopy is a key technology for imaging neuronal activity. The recorded image sequences, however, can contain non-rigid movement artifacts which requires high-accuracy movement correction. Variational optical flow (OF) estimation is a group of methods for motion analysis with established performance in many computer vision areas.

Telehealth was beneficial during COVID-19 for older Americans: A qualitative study with physicians.

Background: Individuals aged 65 and older face unique barriers to adoption of telehealth, and the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has provided a "natural experiment" in how to meet the health needs of older patients remotely. Physician perspectives on practical considerations surrounding telehealth adoption, motivations of use, and reasons for nonuse are necessary to inform the future of healthcare delivery. The objective is to understand the experiences of physicians using telemedicine for older patients.

Virus filter scalability: Demonstration of consistent viral clearance across laboratory and manufacturing scales.

Virus removal filtration processes in biopharmaceutical manufacturing are developed, optimized and validated for viral clearance using laboratory scale filters. Thus, the scalability of these filters is critical for accurately extrapolating filtration performance and reliably extending viral clearance to manufacturing scale. Virus removal filter manufacturers generally validate scalability of filtration performance based on various filtration parameters, and virus removal capability is extended to manufacturing scale filters using inert, size-appropriate particles such as gold nanoparticles to avoid the risks associated with using mammalian viruses in large feed volumes.

Multimodal data acquisition at SARS-CoV-2 drive through screening centers: Setup description and experiences in Saarland, Germany.

SARS-CoV-2 drive through screening centers (DTSC) have been implemented worldwide as a fast and secure way of mass screening. We use DTSCs as a platform for the acquisition of multimodal datasets that are needed for the development of remote screening methods. Our acquisition setup consists of an array of thermal, infrared and RGB cameras as well as microphones and we apply methods from computer vision and computer audition for the contactless estimation of physiological parameters.

Derivation and Validation of a Predictive Algorithm for Long-Term Care Admission or Death.

Objectives: Older veterans prefer to remain in their homes and communities as long as possible. Although targeted delivery of home- and community-based services for veterans might delay long-term care placement, often, access to these services is inconsistently organized or delayed. To aid in early recognition of veterans at high risk for long-term care placement or death, we developed and validated a predictive algorithm, "Choose Home.

The Geriatric Acute and Post-Acute Fall Prevention Intervention (GAPcare) II to Assess the Use of the Apple Watch in Older Emergency Department Patients With Falls: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study.

Background: Falls are a common problem among older adults that lead to injury, emergency department (ED) visits, and institutionalization. The Apple Watch can detect falls and alert caregivers and clinicians that help is needed; the device could also be used to objectively collect data on gait, fitness, and falls as part of clinical trials. However, little is known about the ease of use of this technology among older adult ED patients, a population at high risk of recurrent falls.

Speech induced binaural beats: Electrophysiological assessment of binaural interaction.

This paper introduces and evaluates a speech signal manipulation scheme that generates transient speech induced binaural beats (SBBs). These SBBs can only be perceived when different signals are presented dichotically (to both ears). Event-related potentials were recorded in 22 normal-hearing subjects.

Fast variational alignment of non-flat 1D displacements for applications in neuroimaging.

Background: In the context of signal analysis and pattern matching, alignment of 1D signals for the comparison of signal morphologies is an important problem. For image processing and computer vision, 2D optical flow (OF) methods find wide application for motion analysis and image registration and variational OF methods have been continuously improved over the past decades.

New Method: We propose a variational method for the alignment and displacement estimation of 1D signals.

Modeling flux in tangential flow filtration using a reverse asymmetric membrane for Chinese hamster ovary cell clarification.

Tangential flow filtration is advantageous for bioreactor clarification as the permeate stream could be introduced directly to the subsequent product capture step. However, membrane fouling coupled with high product rejection has limited its use. Here, the performance of a reverse asymmetric hollow fiber membrane where the more open pore structure faces the feed stream and the barrier layer faces the permeate stream has been investigated.

Time-Multiplexed Illumination for simultaneous Structural and Functional Voltage Sensitive Dye Recordings with a single Photo Sensor.

The in-vivo optical imaging of the cortical surface provides the ability to record different types of biophysiological signals, e.g., structural information, intrinsic signals, like blood oxygenation coupled reflection changes as well as extrinsic properties of voltage sensitive probes, like fluorescent voltage-sensitive dyes.