Association between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptom severity and white matter integrity moderated by in-scanner head motion.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common and debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder associated with various negative life impacts. The manifestation of ADHD is very heterogeneous, and previous investigations on neuroanatomical alterations in ADHD have yielded inconsistent results. We investigated the mediating effect of in-scanner head motion and ADHD hyperactivity severity on motion-corrected fractional anisotropy (FA) using diffusion tensor imaging in the currently largest sample (n = 739) of medication-naïve children and adolescents (age range 5-22 years).

Decomposing the role of alpha oscillations during brain maturation.

Childhood and adolescence are critical stages of the human lifespan, in which fundamental neural reorganizational processes take place. A substantial body of literature investigated accompanying neurophysiological changes, focusing on the most dominant feature of the human EEG signal: the alpha oscillation. Recent developments in EEG signal-processing show that conventional measures of alpha power are confounded by various factors and need to be decomposed into periodic and aperiodic components, which represent distinct underlying brain mechanisms.

Working Memory Training Effects on White Matter Integrity in Young and Older Adults.

Objectives: Working memory is essential for daily life skills like reading comprehension, reasoning, and problem-solving. Healthy aging of the brain goes along with working memory decline that can affect older people's independence in everyday life. Interventions in the form of cognitive training are a promising tool for delaying age-related working memory decline, yet the underlying structural plasticity of white matter is hardly studied.

Towards free 3D end-point control for robotic-assisted human reaching using binocular eye tracking.

Eye-movements are the only directly observable behavioural signals that are highly correlated with actions at the task level, and proactive of body movements and thus reflect action intentions. Moreover, eye movements are preserved in many movement disorders leading to paralysis (or amputees) from stroke, spinal cord injury, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and muscular dystrophy among others. Despite this benefit, eye tracking is not widely used as control interface for robotic interfaces in movement impaired patients due to poor human-robot interfaces.

"Wink to grasp" - comparing eye, voice & EMG gesture control of grasp with soft-robotic gloves.

The ability of robotic rehabilitation devices to support paralysed end-users is ultimately limited by the degree to which human-machine-interaction is designed to be effective and efficient in translating user intention into robotic action. Specifically, we evaluate the novel possibility of binocular eye-tracking technology to detect voluntary winks from involuntary blink commands, to establish winks as a novel low-latency control signal to trigger robotic action. By wearing binocular eye-tracking glasses we enable users to directly observe their environment or the actuator and trigger movement actions, without having to interact with a visual display unit or user interface.

Ectoparasite loads in sympatric urban populations of the northern white-breasted and the European hedgehog.

We investigated abundance and prevalence of ticks and fleas infesting urban populations of two species of hedgehogs: the northern white-breasted hedgehog (Erinaceus roumanicus) and the European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus). The hedgehogs were captured in the city of Poznań (western Poland) over the period of 4 years. Both species of hedgehogs were infested with the castor bean tick (Ixodes ricinus), the hedgehog tick (Ixodes hexagonus), and the hedgehog flea (Archeopsylla erinacei).

Infestation of urban populations of the Northern white-breasted hedgehog, Erinaceus roumanicus, by Ixodes spp. ticks in Poland.

Infestation by the nest-dwelling Ixodes hexagonus Leach and the exophilic Ixodes ricinus (Linnaeus) (Ixodida: Ixodidae) on the Northern white-breasted hedgehog, Erinaceus roumanicus (Erinaceomorpha: Erinaceidae), was investigated during a 4-year study in residential areas of the city of Poznań, west-central Poland. Of 341 hedgehogs, 303 (88.9%) hosted 10 061 Ixodes spp.

Helminths of hedgehogs, Erinaceus europaeus and E. roumanicus from Poznań region, Poland--coprological study.

Fecal samples from the hedgehogs, Erinaceus europaeus (15 samples) and E. roumanicus (44 samples) collected in the Poznań region of Poland were examined. Endoparasites were isolated using Sheather's flotation technique.