A Narrative Review on the Clinical Relevance of Imaging the Circumventricular Brain Organs and Performing Their Anatomical and Histopathological Examination in Acute and Postacute COVID-19.

Autopsy followed by histopathological examination is foundational in clinical and forensic medicine for discovering and understanding pathological changes in disease, their underlying processes, and cause of death. Imaging technology has become increasingly important for advancing clinical research and practice, given its noninvasive, in vivo and ex vivo applicability. Medical and forensic autopsy can benefit greatly from advances in imaging technology that lead toward minimally invasive, whole-brain virtual autopsy.

Electrochemical Detection of Bisphenol A Based on Gold Nanoparticles/Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Applications on Glassy Carbon and Screen Printed Electrodes.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been classified as an endocrine-disrupting substance that may cause adverse effects on human health and the environment. The development of simple and sensitive electrochemical biosensors is crucial for the rapid and effective quantitative determination of BPA. This work presents a study on electrochemical sensors utilizing gold nanoparticle-modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT/AuNPs).

Investigating the structural network underlying brain-immune interactions using combined histopathology and neuroimaging: a critical review for its relevance in acute and long COVID-19.

Current views on immunity support the idea that immunity extends beyond defense functions and is tightly intertwined with several other fields of biology such as virology, microbiology, physiology and ecology. It is also critical for our understanding of autoimmunity and cancer, two topics of great biological relevance and for critical public health considerations such as disease prevention and treatment. Central to this review, the immune system is known to interact intimately with the nervous system and has been recently hypothesized to be involved not only in autonomic and limbic bio-behaviors but also in cognitive function.

Enhanced amygdala-anterior cingulate white matter structural connectivity in Sahaja Yoga Meditators.

Objective: To study the white matter connections between anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and amygdala as key regions of the frontal-limbic network that have been related to meditation.

Design: Twenty experienced practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation and twenty nonmeditators matched on age, gender and education level, were scanned using Diffusion Weighted Imaging, using a 3T scanner, and their white matter connectivity was compared using diffusion tensor imaging analyses.

Results: There were five white matter fiber paths in which meditators showed a larger number of tracts, two of them connecting the same area in both hemispheres: the left and right amygdalae and the left and right anterior insula; and the other three connecting left anterior cingulate with the right anterior insula, the right amygdala and the left amygdala.

Empathy Modulates the Activity of the Sensorimotor Mirror Neuron System during Pain Observation.

Aim: The aim of this study is to analyze the brain activity patterns during the observation of painful expressions and to establish the relationship between this activity and the scores obtained on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).

Methods: The study included twenty healthy, right-handed subjects (10 women). We conducted a task-based and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study.

Monitoring the neural activity associated with praying in Sahaja Yoga meditation.

Background: Sahaja Yoga Meditation draws on many religious traditions and uses a variety of techniques including Christian prayer to reach a state known as thoughtless awareness, or mental silence. While there are many studies on the neural correlates of meditation, few studies have focused on the neural correlates of praying. Thus, the aim of our research was to study the neural activity associated with the prayer practices in Sahaja Yoga Mediation, which have not been studied before, to explore effects beyond repetitive speech or "mantra effects".

Neurofunctional correlates of a neurorehabilitation system based on eye movements in chronic stroke impairment levels: A pilot study.

Introduction: Rehabilitation after a stroke is widely considered fundamental to improve secondary functional impairments. Accessible methods based on motor learning, motor transfer and virtual environments are necessary to help to improve stroke patients' quality of life.

Objectives: Continuing the line of our previous studies, this work investigated the effect of our new and innovative game-based virtual reality training using the control of virtual objects with gaze in three chronic stroke survivors.

Medial temporal lobe contributions to resting-state networks.

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) is a set of interconnected brain regions that have been shown to play a central role in behavior as well as in neurological disease. Recent studies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) have attempted to understand the MTL in terms of its functional connectivity with the rest of the brain. However, the exact characterization of the whole-brain networks that co-activate with the MTL as well as how the various sub-regions of the MTL are associated with these networks remains poorly understood.

Differences in regional gray matter volume predict the extent to which openness influences judgments of beauty and pleasantness of interior architectural spaces.

Hedonic evaluation of sensory objects varies from person to person. While this variability has been linked to differences in experience, little is known about why stimuli lead to different evaluations in different people. We used linear mixed-effects models to determine the extent to which the openness, contour, and ceiling height of interior spaces influenced the beauty and pleasantness ratings of 18 participants.

Resting State Functional Connectivity Associated With Sahaja Yoga Meditation.

Neuroscience research has shown that meditation practices have effects on brain structure and function. However, few studies have combined information on the effects on structure and function in the same sample. Long-term daily meditation practice produces repeated activity of specific brain networks over years of practice, which may induce lasting structural and functional connectivity (FC) changes within relevant circuits.

-Acetylaspartyl-Glutamate Metabolism in the Cingulated Cortices as a Biomarker of the Etiology in ASD: A H-MRS Model.

As brain functional resonance magnetic studies show an aberrant trajectory of neurodevelopment, it is reasonable to predict that the degree of neurochemical abnormalities indexed by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS) might also change according to the developmental stages and brain regions in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Since specific -Acetyl-aspartate (NAA) changes in children's metabolism have been found in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) but not in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), we analyzed whether the metabolites of ASD youths change between the cingulate cortices using H-MRS. l-glutamate (Glu) and l-Acetyl-aspartate (NAA) are products from the -Acetyl-aspartyl-glutamate (NAAG) metabolism in a reaction that requires the participation of neurons, oligodendrocytes, and astrocytes.

Music Style Not Only Modulates the Auditory Cortex, but Also Motor Related Areas.

The neuroscience of music has recently attracted significant attention, but the effect of music style on the activation of auditory-motor regions has not been explored. The aim of the present study is to analyze the differences in brain activity during passive listening to non-vocal excerpts of four different music genres (classical, reggaeton, electronic and folk). A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment was performed.

Larger whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A detailed area by area comparison.

Objectives: Our previous study showed that long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation (SYM) had around 7% larger grey matter volume (GMV) in the whole brain compared with healthy controls; however, when testing individual regions, only 5 small brain areas were statistically different between groups. Under the hypothesis that those results were statistically conservative, with the same dataset, we investigated in more detail the regional differences in GMV associated with the practice of SYM, with a different statistical approach.

Design: Twenty-three experienced practitioners of SYM and 23 healthy non-meditators matched on age, sex and education level, were scanned using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Diffuse optical tomography to measure functional changes during motor tasks: a motor imagery study.

The present work shows the spatial reliability of the diffuse optical tomography (DOT) system in a group of healthy subjects during a motor imagery task. Prior to imagery task performance, the subjects executed a motor task based on the finger to thumb opposition for motor training, and to corroborate the DOT spatial localization during the motor execution. DOT technology and data treatment allows us to distinguish oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin at the cerebral gyri level unlike the cerebral activations provided by fMRI series that were processed using different approaches.

Neurofunctional correlates of eye to hand motor transfer.

This work investigates the transfer of motor learning from the eye to the hand and its neural correlates by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a sensorimotor task consisting of the continuous tracking of a virtual target. In pretraining evaluation, all the participants (experimental and control group) performed the tracking task inside an MRI scanner using their right hand and a joystick. After which, the experimental group practiced an eye-controlled version of the task for 5 days using an eye tracking system outside the MRI environment.

Psychological and neural responses to architectural interiors.

People spend considerable time within built environments. In this study, we tested two hypotheses about the relationship between people and built environments. First, aesthetic responses to architectural interiors reduce to a few key psychological dimensions that are sensitive to design features.

Visual inputs decrease brain activity in frontal areas during silent lipreading.

Aim: The aim of the present work is to analyze the modulation of the brain activity within the areas involved in lipreading when an additional visual stimulus is included.

Methods: The experiment consisted of two fMRI runs (lipreading_only and lipreading+picture) where two conditions were considered in each one (oral speech sentences condition [OSS] and oral speech syllables condition [OSSY]).

Results: During lipreading-only, higher activity in the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) was identified for OSS than OSSY; during lipreading+picture, apart from the left MTG, higher activity was also present in the supplementary motor area (SMA), the left precentral gyrus (PreCG) and the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG).

Is it necessary to show virtual limbs in action observation neurorehabilitation systems?

Introduction: Action observation neurorehabilitation systems are usually based on the observation of a virtual limb performing different kinds of actions. In this way, the activity in the frontoparietal Mirror Neuron System is enhanced, which can be helpful to rehabilitate stroke patients. However, the presence of limbs in such systems might not be necessary to produce mirror activity, for example, frontoparietal mirror activity can be produced just by the observation of virtual tool movements.

Developmental grey matter changes in superior parietal cortex accompany improved transitive reasoning.

The neural basis of developmental changes in transitive reasoning in parietal regions was examined, using voxel-based morphometry. Young adolescents and adults performed a transitive reasoning task, subsequent to undergoing anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans. Behaviorally, adults reasoned more accurately than did the young adolescents.

The relationship between amplitude of low frequency fluctuations and gray matter volume of the mirror neuron system: Differences between low disability multiple sclerosis patients and healthy controls.

The study of the relationship between function and structure of the brain could be particularly interesting in neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS). The aim of the present work is to identify differences of the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) in the mirror neuron system (MNS) between MS patients and healthy controls and to study the relationship between ALFF and the gray matter volume (GMV) of the regions that belong to the MNS. Relapsing-remitting MS patients with minor disability were compared to healthy controls (HC) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), anatomic T1 weighted images and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Gray Matter and Functional Connectivity in Anterior Cingulate Cortex are Associated with the State of Mental Silence During Sahaja Yoga Meditation.

Some meditation techniques teach the practitioner to achieve the state of mental silence. The aim of this study was to investigate brain regions that are associated with their volume and functional connectivity (FC) with the depth of mental silence in long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. Twenty-three long-term practitioners of this meditation were scanned using Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Comparing diffuse optical tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging signals during a cognitive task: pilot study.

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) measures concentration changes in both oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin providing three-dimensional images of local brain activations. A pilot study, which compares both DOT and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) volumes through t-maps given by canonical statistical parametric mapping (SPM) processing for both data modalities, is presented. The DOT series were processed using a method that is based on a Bayesian filter application on raw DOT data to remove physiological changes and minimum description length application index to select a number of singular values, which reduce the data dimensionality during image reconstruction and adaptation of DOT volume series to normalized standard space.

The Mirror Neuron System in Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Patients with Low Disability.

To study the visuospatial/visuoperceptive function using a mirror neuron system (MNS) based approach in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and a healthy control group. Two task-based fMRIs (an execution task and an observation task) and one resting-fMRI were performed in a group of MS patients (n = 24) and a group of healthy controls (n = 15). The execution and observation tasks consisted of the performance or observation of the index-thumb opposition task.

The mirror neuron system also rests.

The mirror neuron system (MNS) is a brain network that has been associated with the understanding of the actions performed by others. The main areas of the brain that are considered as belonging to the MNS are the rostral part of the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Many studies have tried to focus on the relationship between the regions belonging to the MNS, but a little consideration has been given to the study of the MNS in resting conditions.

Subarachnoid hemorrhage and visuospatial and visuoperceptive impairment: disruption of the mirror neuron system.

Nearly 20 % of patients who suffer a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) still display cognitive impairment even a year after follow-up. Visuospatial and visuoperceptive domains may be impaired in this cognitive impairment and may not have been fully studied in these patients. Furthermore, these cognitively impaired domains have been associated with activity in the so-called mirror neuron system (MNS).