The Role of Personalization in the User Experience, Preferences and Engagement with Virtual Reality Environments for Relaxation.

Unlabelled: Virtual Reality Environments (VREs) are widely deployed in mental health treatments, often associated with relaxation techniques. The personalization of natural VR-based scenarios is a key element that can further facilitate users' sense of presence and relaxation. This study explored the role of VREs' personalization in the user experience with an environment supporting relaxation, by deploying mixed methods.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a condition also known as Chemical Sensitivity (CS), Chemical Intolerance (CI), Idiopathic Environmental Illness (IEI) and Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance (TILT), is an acquired multifactorial syndrome characterized by a recurrent set of debilitating symptoms. The symptoms of this controversial disorder are reported to be induced by environmental chemicals at doses far below those usually harmful to most persons. They involve a large spectrum of organ systems and typically disappear when the environmental chemicals are removed.

Concomitant recovery from left spatial neglect and inflammatory dysfunction of white-matter pathways in a case of acute disseminated encephalo-myelitis (ADEM).

Spatial neglect is an invalidating neuropsychological syndrome characterized by the inability of paying attention to the side of space contralateral to a unilateral brain damage. Recent studies have suggested that lesion of white-matter pathways plays an important role in producing spatial neglect by causing a widespread functional breakdown of the network of cortical and subcortical structures that regulates orienting of spatial attention. Nonetheless, this conclusion is largely based on the study of patients who suffer combined grey and white matter damage and should be better corroborated by the study of cases with selective or predominant white matter dysfunction.

Olfactory asymmetric dysfunction in early Parkinson patients affected by unilateral disorder.

Introduction: Parkinson's disease (PD) often first presents with asymmetric motor symptoms. A number of studies have now established that sensory deficits can also be similarly asymmetric. It is well established that PD is associated with marked olfactory dysfunction, but whether this too present asymmetrically is a currently contentious question.

Test-retest reliability and validity of the Sniffin' TOM odor memory test.

Few attempts have been made to develop an olfactory test that captures episodic retention of olfactory information. Assessment of episodic odor memory is of particular interest in aging and in the cognitively impaired as both episodic memory deficits and olfactory loss have been targeted as reliable hallmarks of cognitive decline and impending dementia. Here, 96 healthy participants (18-92 years) and an additional 19 older people with mild cognitive impairment were tested (73-82 years).

From blindsight to blindsmell: a mini review.

This mini-review briefly documents the phenomenon of blindsight and investigates evidence for a comparable state in olfaction. Blindsight evokes an appropriate response to a visual stimulus without any conscious visual experience or awareness of that event. For olfaction, we describe many routine aspects of perception that may occur without conscious awareness, arguably paralleling key aspects of blindsight.

An observational retrospective/horizontal study to compare oxygen-ozone therapy and/or global postural re-education in complicated chronic low back pain.

Acute low back pain (LBP) is the fifth most common reason for physician visits and about nine out of ten adults experience back pain at some point in their life. In a large number of patients LBP is associated with disc herniation (DH). Recently, oxygen-ozone (O2O3) therapy has been used successfully in the treatment of LBP, reducing pain after the failure of other conservative treatments.

The influence of short-term memory on standard discrimination and cued identification olfactory tasks.

Background: Amongst the techniques to assess olfactory functions, discrimination and cued identification are those most prone to the influence of odour short-term memory (STM). Discrimination task requires participants to detect the odd one out of three presented odourants. As re-smelling is not permitted, an un-intended STM load may generate, even though the task purports to assess discrimination ability.

Odour perception following bilateral damage to the olfactory bulbs: a possible case of blind smell.

Introduction: Unconsciously detected chemicals may affect human behaviour (Kirk-Smith et al., 1983; Stern and McClintock, 1998; Zucco et al., 2009), likeability judgements (Li et al.

Odour recognition memory and odour identification in patients with mild and severe major depressive disorders.

Olfactory deficits, in detection, recognition and identification of odorants have been documented in ageing and in several neurodegenerative and psychiatric conditions. However, olfactory abilities in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) have been less investigated, and available studies have provided inconsistent results. The present study assessed odour recognition memory and odour identification in two groups of 12 mild MDD patients (M age 41.

Odor-evoked autobiographical memories: age and gender differences along the life span.

Odors are powerful in bringing back old and vivid memories bearing emotional content. This inherent hedonic property of olfactory stimuli makes this sensory modality particularly suitable for studying autobiographical memory. In the present work, adolescents (first experiment), young adults (second experiment), and elderly (third experiment) of both sexes were asked to smell 10 familiar odorants and to report if these odorants evoked personal autobiographical memories or referential memories (i.

Labeling, identification, and recognition of wine-relevant odorants in expert sommeliers, intermediates, and untrained wine drinkers.

In this study we examined the development of wine expertise. We asked four groups--untrained wine drinkers, second- and third-level trainee sommeliers, and professional sommeliers--to engage in a range of olfactory tasks to assess perceptual and semantic aspects of expertise. These tasks included identification, recognition, and description of a range of domain-specific and common odour stimuli, including wines.

Cognitive factors in odor detection, odor discrimination, and odor identification tasks.

The purpose of this study was to determine cognitive correlates of olfactory performance across three different tasks. A total of 170 men and women (30-87 years of age) were assessed in olfactory sensitivity, discrimination, and identification. Also, participants were tested in a range of cognitive tests covering executive functioning, semantic memory, and episodic memory.

Discriminating between organic and psychological determinants of multiple chemical sensitivity: a case study.

Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is a controversial disorder characterized by a diverse set of debilitating symptoms purportedly induced by environmental chemicals. Many cases of putative MCS are believed to have a strong psychogenic component, making it difficult to differentiate between organic and psychogenic causes. In this case report we describe a procedure that can aid in this differentiation.

Cross-modal interactions between olfaction and vision when grasping.

This study used kinematics to investigate the integration between vision and olfaction during grasping movements. Participants were requested to smell an odorant and then grasp an object presented in central vision. The results indicate that if the target was small (e.

Olfactory deficits in patients affected by minimal hepatic encephalopathy: a pilot study.

Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) is the earliest stage of hepatic encephalopathy and is associated with changes in cognitive functions, in electrophysiological parameters, and in cerebral neurochemical/neurotransmitter homeostasis. MHE can be observed in patients with cirrhosis who have no clinical evidence of hepatic encephalopathy (HE). At present, no data are available on a possible olfactory dysfunction in such a syndrome, although the pathophysiology of HE may alter olfactory functions since some of the neurotransmitters impaired in the syndrome are involved in the transmission of olfactory information.

Olfactory deficits in HIV-infected patients with and without AIDS dementia complex.

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of HIV infection on odour memory. Recognition and identification olfactory tests were administered to six groups of patients defined according to a decrease in cellular immunity: asymptomatic HIV seropositive (HIV+), symptomatic HIV+, HIV+ AIDS, and three groups with a mild, moderate, and severe degree of dementia (AIDS dementia complex [ADC]). Consistent with the literature, the general results show that HIV infection is associated with a decrease in olfactory ability.