Computational mechanisms underlying the dynamics of physical and cognitive fatigue.

The willingness to exert effort for reward is essential but comes at the cost of fatigue. Theories suggest fatigue increases after both physical and cognitive exertion, subsequently reducing the motivation to exert effort. Yet a mechanistic understanding of how this happens on a moment-to-moment basis, and whether mechanisms are common to both mental and physical effort, is lacking.

The availability of non-instrumental information increases risky decision-making.

Contemporary models of decision-making under risk focus on estimating the final value of each alternative course of action. According to such frameworks, information that has no capacity to alter a future payoff (i.e.

An automatic analysis framework for FDOPA PET neuroimaging.

In this study we evaluate the performance of a fully automated analytical framework for FDOPA PET neuroimaging data, and its sensitivity to demographic and experimental variables and processing parameters. An instance of XNAT imaging platform was used to store the King's College London institutional brain FDOPA PET imaging archive, alongside individual demographics and clinical information. By re-engineering the historical Matlab-based scripts for FDOPA PET analysis, a fully automated analysis pipeline for imaging processing and data quantification was implemented in Python and integrated in XNAT.

First-in-human technique translation of oxygen-enhanced MRI to an MR Linac system in patients with head and neck cancer.

Background And Purpose: Tumour hypoxia is prognostic in head and neck cancer (HNC), associated with poor loco-regional control, poor survival and treatment resistance. The advent of hybrid MRI - radiotherapy linear accelerator or 'MR Linac' systems - could permit imaging for treatment adaptation based on hypoxic status. We sought to develop oxygen-enhanced MRI (OE-MRI) in HNC and translate the technique onto an MR Linac system.

Quantitative kinetic modelling and mapping of cerebral glucose transport and metabolism using glucoCESL MRI.

Chemical-exchange spin-lock (CESL) MRI can map regional uptake and utilisation of glucose in the brain at high spatial resolution (i.e sub 0.2 mm voxels).

Optimization of quantitative susceptibility mapping for regional estimation of oxygen extraction fraction in the brain.

Purpose: We sought to determine the degree to which oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) estimated using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) depends on two critical acquisition parameters that have a significant impact on acquisition time: voxel size and final echo time.

Methods: Four healthy volunteers were imaged using a range of isotropic voxel sizes and final echo times. The 0.

Uncertainty analysis of MR-PET image registration for precision neuro-PET imaging.

Accurate regional brain quantitative PET measurements, particularly when using partial volume correction, rely on robust image registration between PET and MR images. We argue here that the precision, and hence the uncertainty, of MR-PET image registration is mainly driven by the registration implementation and the quality of PET images due to their lower resolution and higher noise compared to the structural MR images. We propose a dedicated uncertainty analysis for quantifying the precision of MR-PET registration, centred around the bootstrap resampling of PET list-mode events to generate multiple PET image realisations with different noise (count) levels.

Dynamic PET image reconstruction utilizing intrinsic data-driven HYPR4D denoising kernel.

Purpose: Reconstructed PET images are typically noisy, especially in dynamic imaging where the acquired data are divided into several short temporal frames. High noise in the reconstructed images translates to poor precision/reproducibility of image features. One important role of "denoising" is therefore to improve the precision of image features.

A highly reproducible method for the measurement of [6-O-methyl- C]diprenorphine and its radio-metabolites based on solid-phase extraction and radio-high-pressure liquid chromatography.

Described here is a method for the measurement of the radio-metabolites of the positron emission tomography radiotracer [6-O-methyl- C]diprenorphine ([ C]diprenorphine) using in-line solid-phase extraction (SPE) combined with radio-high-pressure liquid chromatography analysis. We believe that this method offers a reliable and reproducible approach to [ C]diprenorphine metabolite analysis. In addition, different SPE stationary phases are assessed for their efficiency for loading, retention and elution of the parent molecule and its metabolites.

Dopamine and Glutamate in Antipsychotic-Responsive Compared With Antipsychotic-Nonresponsive Psychosis: A Multicenter Positron Emission Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study (STRATA).

The variability in the response to antipsychotic medication in schizophrenia may reflect between-patient differences in neurobiology. Recent cross-sectional neuroimaging studies suggest that a poorer therapeutic response is associated with relatively normal striatal dopamine synthesis capacity but elevated anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) glutamate levels. We sought to test whether these measures can differentiate patients with psychosis who are antipsychotic responsive from those who are antipsychotic nonresponsive in a multicenter cross-sectional study.

The Confidence Database.

Understanding how people rate their confidence is critical for the characterization of a wide range of perceptual, memory, motor and cognitive processes. To enable the continued exploration of these processes, we created a large database of confidence studies spanning a broad set of paradigms, participant populations and fields of study. The data from each study are structured in a common, easy-to-use format that can be easily imported and analysed using multiple software packages.

Raised visual contrast thresholds with intact attention and metacognition in functional motor disorder.

Functional motor disorders (FMDs) are distinguished by signs that lack congruence with recognised patterns of organic disease and show inconsistency over time. Their pathophysiology is poorly understood, but there is evidence that irregularities in perceptual and cognitive processing lie at the heart of these conditions. Here, we draw on a predictive coding account of functional neurological disorders to study perceptual decision-making in three groups: 20 patients with FMDs (14 with functional movements and 6 with functional weakness), 20 with phenotypically-matched organic motor disorders, and 20 age-matched healthy controls.

Oxygen-enhanced MRI Is Feasible, Repeatable, and Detects Radiotherapy-induced Change in Hypoxia in Xenograft Models and in Patients with Non-small Cell Lung Cancer.

Purpose: Hypoxia is associated with poor prognosis and is predictive of poor response to cancer treatments, including radiotherapy. Developing noninvasive biomarkers that both detect hypoxia prior to treatment and track change in tumor hypoxia following treatment is required urgently.

Experimental Design: We evaluated the ability of oxygen-enhanced MRI (OE-MRI) to map and quantify therapy-induced changes in tumor hypoxia by measuring oxygen-refractory signals in perfused tissue (perfused Oxy-R).

[18F]fluorothymidine and [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose PET Imaging Demonstrates Uptake and Differentiates Growth in Neurofibromatosis 2 Related Vestibular Schwannoma.

Objective: To investigate whether [F]fluorothymidine (FLT) and/or [F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) can differentiate growth in neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2) related vestibular schwannomas (VS) and to evaluate the importance of PET scanner spatial resolution on measured tumor uptake.

Methods: Six NF2 patients with 11 VS (4 rapidly growing, 7 indolent), were scanned with FLT and FDG using a high-resolution research tomograph (HRRT, Siemens) and a Siemens Biograph TrueV PET-CT, with and without resolution modeling image reconstruction. Mean, maximum, and peak standardised uptake values (SUV) for each tumor were derived and the intertumor correlation between FDG and FLT uptake was compared.

Sustained conscious access to incidental memories in RSVP.

In visual search of natural scenes, differentiation of briefly fixated but task-irrelevant distractor items from incidental memory is often comparable to explicit memorization. However, many characteristics of incidental memory remain unclear, including the capacity for its conscious retrieval. Here, we examined incidental memory for faces in either upright or inverted orientation using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP).

Conscious access in the near absence of attention: critical extensions on the dual-task paradigm.

Whether conscious perception requires attention remains a topic of intense debate. While certain complex stimuli such as faces and animals can be discriminated outside the focus of spatial attention, many simpler stimuli cannot. Because such evidence was obtained in involving no measure of subjective insight, it remains unclear whether accurate discrimination of unattended complex stimuli is the product of automatic, unconscious processing, as in blindsight, or is accessible to consciousness.

Acute and chronic changes in brain activity with deep brain stimulation for refractory depression.

Deep brain stimulation is a potential option for patients with treatment-refractory depression. Deep brain stimulation benefits have been reported when targeting either the subgenual cingulate or ventral anterior capsule/nucleus accumbens. However, not all patients respond and optimum stimulation-site is uncertain.

Data-driven mapping of hypoxia-related tumor heterogeneity using DCE-MRI and OE-MRI.

Purpose: Previous work has shown that combining dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI and oxygen-enhanced (OE)-MRI binary enhancement maps can identify tumor hypoxia. The current work proposes a novel, data-driven method for mapping tissue oxygenation and perfusion heterogeneity, based on clustering DCE/OE-MRI data.

Methods: DCE-MRI and OE-MRI were performed on nine U87 (glioblastoma) and seven Calu6 (non-small cell lung cancer) murine xenograft tumors.

Incorporating HYPR de-noising within iterative PET reconstruction (HYPR-OSEM).

HighlY constrained back-PRojection (HYPR) is a post-processing de-noising technique originally developed for time-resolved magnetic resonance imaging. It has been recently applied to dynamic imaging for positron emission tomography and shown promising results. In this work, we have developed an iterative reconstruction algorithm (HYPR-OSEM) which improves the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in static imaging (i.

Deep brain stimulation of the periaqueductal gray releases endogenous opioids in humans.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the periaqueductal gray (PAG) is used in the treatment of severe refractory neuropathic pain. We tested the hypothesis that DBS releases endogenous opioids to exert its analgesic effect using [C]diprenorphine (DPN) positron emission tomography (PET). Patients with de-afferentation pain (phantom limb pain or Anaesthesia Dolorosa (n=5)) who obtained long-lasting analgesic benefit from DBS were recruited.

Impact of point spread function modelling and time of flight on FDG uptake measurements in lung lesions using alternative filtering strategies.

Background: The use of maximum standardised uptake value (SUVmax) is commonplace in oncology positron emission tomography (PET). Point spread function (PSF) modelling and time-of-flight (TOF) reconstructions have a significant impact on SUVmax, presenting a challenge for centres with defined protocols for lesion classification based on SUVmax thresholds. This has perhaps led to the slow adoption of these reconstructions.

Maintaining a politicised climate of opinion? Examining how political framing and journalistic logic combine to shape speaking opportunities in UK elite newspaper reporting of climate change.

This article explores the importance of issue politicisation and mediation for the reporting of climate change in UK elite newspapers. Specifically, this investigates how journalistic logic mediates political framing to produce commentaries on and discussion about climate change in the news. In analysing elite newspaper coverage over time in this case, the article shows that (1) various frames introduce the issue as a legitimate problem within coverage and that (2) the news stories these inform are opened to specific commentaries according to 'elite journalistic logic'.