Alleviating Freezing of Gait using phase-dependent tactile biofeedback.

In this feasibility study, we present a novel, wearable prototype of tactile biofeedback to alleviate gait disturbances, such as freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease. We designed and tested a phase-dependent tactile biofeedback system that can be easily worn on the feet, with a simple switch to turn it on or off. Preliminary validation was performed in 8 subjects with Parkinson's disease who show freezing during a turning in place test.

Validity and reliability of an IMU-based method to detect APAs prior to gait initiation.

Anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) prior to gait initiation have been largely studied in traditional, laboratory settings using force plates under the feet to characterize the displacement of the center of pressure. However clinical trials and clinical practice would benefit from a portable, inexpensive method for characterizing APAs. Therefore, the main objectives of this study were (1) to develop a novel, automatic IMU-based method to detect and characterize APAs during gait initiation and (2) to measure its test-retest reliability.

Short interferon and ribavirin treatment for HCV genotype 2 or 3 infection: NORDynamIC trial and real-life experience.

Objective: Interferon-free therapy for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is costly, and therefore patients with advanced fibrosis are prioritized. Although coupled with considerable side effects, a large proportion of genotype 2/3 infected patients achieve a sustained virological response (SVR) following interferon-based therapy. The present study evaluates experimental clinical trial and verifying real-life data with the aim of identifying patients with a high likelihood of favorable outcome following short interferon-based treatment.

Upper limb joint angle tracking with inertial sensors.

Wearable inertial systems have recently been used to track human movement in and outside of the laboratory. Continuous monitoring of human movement can provide valuable information relevant to individual's level of physical activity and functional ability. Traditionally, orientation has been calculated by integrating the angular velocity from gyroscopes.

Mobility Lab to Assess Balance and Gait with Synchronized Body-worn Sensors.

This paper is a commentary to introduce how rehabilitation professionals can use a new, body-worn sensor system to obtain objective measures of balance and gait. Current assessments of balance and gait in clinical rehabilitation are largely limited to subjective scales, simple stop-watch measures, or complex, expensive machines not practical or largely available. Although accelerometers and gyroscopes have been shown to accurately quantify many aspects of gait and balance kinematics, only recently a comprehensive, portable system has become available for clinicians.

Efficient encoding of vocalizations in the auditory midbrain.

An important question in sensory neuroscience is what coding strategies and mechanisms are used by the brain to detect and discriminate among behaviorally relevant stimuli. There is evidence that sensory systems migrate from a distributed and redundant encoding strategy at the periphery to a more heterogeneous encoding in cortical structures. It has been hypothesized that heterogeneity is an efficient encoding strategy that minimizes the redundancy of the neural code and maximizes information throughput.

Multiharmonic tracking using marginalized particle filters.

Man-made and natural systems often generate signals with multi-harmonic components, and the accurate estimation of the harmonically related components of these signals is critical for various applications. The posterior distribution of frequency estimates for this class of signal is multi-model--posing a challenge for frequency tracking algorithms which may lock onto a super or sub harmonic of the fundamental frequency. We propose a multi-harmonic tracker based on a sequential Monte Carlo method (SMCM) which can account for the multi-modality of the posterior distribution to track the harmonically related components of a signal more accurately than a tracker based on local linearization.

Stimulus design for auditory neuroethology using state space modeling and the extended Kalman smoother.

A new method for designing vocalization based stimuli for experiments in auditory neurophysiology is described. This analysis-synthesis technique leverages a state space statistical signal model and the extended Kalman smoother for tracking the frequency, amplitude, and phase information of harmonically related components in recorded vocalizations. Using the same state space model, these parameters can then be used to synthesize the vocalizations and random or deterministic variants of the vocalizations.

Responses to social vocalizations in the inferior colliculus of the mustached bat are influenced by secondary tuning curves.

Neurons in the inferior colliculus (IC) of the mustached bat integrate input from multiple frequency bands in a complex fashion. These neurons are important for encoding the bat's echolocation and social vocalizations. The purpose of this study was to quantify the contribution of complex frequency interactions on the responses of IC neurons to social vocalizations.