Ocular artifacts, including blinks and saccades, pose significant challenges in the analysis of electroencephalographic (EEG) data, often obscuring crucial neural signals. This tutorial provides a comprehensive guide to the most effective methods for correcting these artifacts, with a focus on algorithms designed for both laboratory and real-world settings. We review traditional approaches, such as regression-based techniques and Independent Component Analysis (ICA), alongside more advanced methods like Artifact Subspace Reconstruction (ASR) and deep learning-based algorithms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: In operational environments, human interaction and cooperation between individuals are critical to efficiency and safety. These states are influenced by individuals' cognitive and emotional states. Human factor research aims to objectively quantify these states to prevent human error and maintain constant performances, particularly in high-risk settings such as aviation, where human error and performance account for a significant portion of accidents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the context of electroencephalographic (EEG) signal processing, artifacts generated by ocular movements, such as blinks, are significant confounding factors. These artifacts overwhelm informative EEG features and may occur too frequently to simply remove affected epochs without losing valuable data. Correcting these artifacts remains a challenge, particularly in out-of-lab and online applications using wearable EEG systems (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of non-surgical periodontal treatment in the expression of chemokine receptors, in individuals with Periodontitis, associated or not with Diabetes. Pilot study, which included patients (n = 45) with Periodontitis, associated (n = 25) or not (n = 20) with Diabetes, submitted to the non-surgical periodontal treatment for one month. The expression of chemokine receptors CCR2, CCR5, and CX3CR1 at the mRNA level was evaluated in the peripheral mononuclear cells, as well as the expression of these receptors at the protein level was verified in monocyte subtypes (classical, intermediate, and non-classical monocytes).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground The facial nerve plays a crucial role in innervating the motor supply of facial muscles, enabling essential facial expressions that facilitate human communication. Defects or damages to this nerve can have significant consequences, leading to functional, emotional, and social difficulties caused by the immobility of facial muscles. Patients suffering from irreversible facial nerve palsy often experience functional symptoms such as eyelid closure defects, mouth deviation, and limited movement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhen assessing trainees' progresses during a driving training program, instructors can only rely on the evaluation of a trainee's explicit behavior and their performance, without having any insight about the training effects at a cognitive level. However, being able to drive does not imply knowing how to drive safely in a complex scenario such as the road traffic. Indeed, the latter point involves mental aspects, such as the ability to manage and allocate one's mental effort appropriately, which are difficult to assess objectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The current study aims to evaluate the effect of non-surgical periodontal treatment on the modulation of monocyte phenotype, in the presence or absence of diabetes.
Materials And Methods: The identification, quantification, and phenotypic characterization of monocyte subtypes (classical, intermediate, and non-classical) were performed by flow cytometry, at baseline and 1 month after the end of non-surgical periodontal treatment, in patients with periodontitis, associated or not with diabetes.
Results: There was an increase in non-classical monocytes after treatment and a reduction in intermediate monocytes, without differences for the classical subtype, regardless of the diabetes status.
Coordination of cell behaviour is key to a myriad of biological processes including tissue morphogenesis, wound healing, and tumour growth. As such, individual-based computational models, which explicitly describe inter-cellular interactions, are commonly used to model collective cell dynamics. However, when using individual-based models, it is unclear how descriptions of cell boundaries affect overall population dynamics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: To evaluate the lipid-lowering and antiplatelet combined strategies on the expression of the receptors CCR2, CCR5, and CX3CR1 and the percentage of CCR2, CCR5, and CX3CR1 cells in monocyte subtypes after acute myocardial infarction.
Methods: Prospective, randomized, open-label study, with blinded analyses of endpoints (PROBE, ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02428374, registration date: April 28, 2015).
Chemokine receptors are fundamental in many processes related to cardiovascular diseases, such as monocyte migration to vessel walls, cell adhesion, and angiogenesis, among others. Even though many experimental studies have shown the utility of blocking these receptors or their ligands in the treatment of atherosclerosis, the findings in clinical research are still poor. Thus, in the current review we aimed to describe some promising results concerning the blockade of chemokine receptors as therapeutic targets in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and also to discuss some challenges that need to be overcome before using these strategies in clinical practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPancreatic cancer is the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The outcomes in patients with pancreatic cancer remain unsatisfactory. In the current review, we summarize the genetic and epigenetic architecture of metastatic pancreatic cancer beyond the BRCA mutations, focusing on the genetic alterations and the molecular pathology in pancreatic cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Significant concerns have been raised about the "mental health crisis" on college campuses, with attention turning to what colleges can do beyond counseling services to address students' mental health and well-being. We examined whether primarily first-year (89.1%) undergraduate students (651) who enrolled in the Art and Science of Human Flourishing (ASHF), a novel academic and experiential for-credit elective course on human flourishing, would demonstrate improved mental health and strengthen skills, perspectives, and behaviors associated with flourishing relative to students who did not enroll in this course.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe maintenance of tissue and organ structures during dynamic homeostasis is often not well understood. In order for a system to be stable, cell renewal, cell migration and cell death must be finely balanced. Moreover, a tissue's shape must remain relatively unchanged.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTechnologies like passive brain-computer interfaces (BCI) can enhance human-machine interaction. Anyhow, there are still shortcomings in terms of easiness of use, reliability, and generalizability that prevent passive-BCI from entering real-life situations. The current work aimed to technologically and methodologically design a new gel-free passive-BCI system for out-of-the-lab employment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDriver's stress affects decision-making and the probability of risk occurrence, and it is therefore a key factor in road safety. This suggests the need for continuous stress monitoring. This work aims at validating a stress neurophysiological measure-a Neurometric-for out-of-the-lab use obtained from lightweight EEG relying on two wet sensors, in real-time, and without calibration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnnu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc
November 2021
Despite the technological advancements, the employment of passive brain computer interface (BCI) out of the laboratory context is still challenging. This is largely due to methodological reasons. On the one hand, machine learning methods have shown their potential in maximizing performance for user mental states classification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe dorsolateral striatum (DLS) is involved in addiction, reward, and alcohol related behaviors. The DLS primarily receives excitatory inputs which are gated by post-synaptic AMPA receptors. We antagonized AMPA receptors in the DLS to investigate how such modulation affects binge-like alcohol drinking in male and female C57BL/6J mice and whether an associated alcohol drinking history alters dorsomedial striatum (DMS) and DLS AMPA receptor expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This study explores whether variability in the implementation of an undergraduate course on human flourishing is differentially associated with student outcomes.
Participants: 101 students in the "Art and Science of Human Flourishing" course across three large, public, R1 universities in Fall 2018 participated in the study.
Methods: Formative course data included researcher observations of weekly class pedagogy, students' weekly meditation practice logs and end-of-course assessments, and pre/post surveys measuring changes in participating students' outcomes related to flourishing (e.
Multicellular tissues are the building blocks of many biological systems and organs. These tissues are not static, but dynamically change over time. Even if the overall structure remains the same there is a turnover of cells within the tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the last decade, a series of analyses failed to identify predictive biomarkers of resistance/susceptibility for anti-angiogenic drugs in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). We conducted an exploratory preplanned analysis of serum pro-angiogenic factors (SErum aNgiogenesis-cenTRAL) in 72 mCRC patients enrolled in the phase II CENTRAL (ColorEctalavastiNTRiAlLdh) trial, with the aim to identify potential predictive factors for sensitivity/resistance to first line folinic acid-fluorouracil-irinotecan regimen (FOLFIRI) plus bevacizumab.
Methods: First-line FOLFIRI/bevacizumab patients were prospectively assessed for the following circulating pro-angiogenic factors, evaluated with ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay)-based technique at baseline and at every cycle: Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), stromal derived factor-1 (SDF-1), placental derived growth factor (PlGF), fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2), monocyte chemotactic protein-3 (MCP-3), interleukin-8 (IL-8).
Cancer Chemother Pharmacol
November 2019
Purpose: There is no consensus on the use of cetuximab in elderly patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. To this end, a survey was carried in 17 Italian oncology centers.
Methods: The centers answered a 29-item questionnaire structured as follows: (i) demographic characteristics; (ii) medical history; (iii) assessment of RAS/BRAF mutations and DPD/UGT polymorphism before treatment; (iv) treatment schemes and side effects; (v) geriatric assessment and customization of treatment.