Single neurons in the thalamus and subthalamic nucleus process cardiac and respiratory signals in humans.

Visceral signals are constantly processed by our central nervous system, enable homeostatic regulation, and influence perception, emotion, and cognition. While visceral processes at the cortical level have been extensively studied using non-invasive imaging techniques, very few studies have investigated how this information is processed at the single neuron level, both in humans and animals. Subcortical regions, relaying signals from peripheral interoceptors to cortical structures, are particularly understudied and how visceral information is processed in thalamic and subthalamic structures remains largely unknown.

Interoceptive rhythms in the brain.

Sensing internal bodily signals, or interoception, is fundamental to maintain life. However, interoception should not be viewed as an isolated domain, as it interacts with exteroception, cognition and action to ensure the integrity of the organism. Focusing on cardiac, respiratory and gastric rhythms, we review evidence that interoception is anatomically and functionally intertwined with the processing of signals from the external environment.

Human primary motor cortex indexes the onset of subjective intention in brain-machine-interface mediated actions.

Self-initiated behavior is accompanied by the experience of willing our actions. Here, we leverage the unique opportunity to examine the full intentional chain - from will (W) to action (A) to environmental effects (E) - in a tetraplegic person fitted with a primary motor cortex (M1) brain machine interface (BMI) generating hand movements via neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES). This combined BMI-NMES approach allowed us to selectively manipulate each element of the intentional chain (W, A, and E) while performing extra-cellular recordings and probing subjective experience.

Sense of agency for intracortical brain-machine interfaces.

Intracortical brain-machine interfaces decode motor commands from neural signals and translate them into actions, enabling movement for paralysed individuals. The subjective sense of agency associated with actions generated via intracortical brain-machine interfaces, the neural mechanisms involved and its clinical relevance are currently unknown. By experimentally manipulating the coherence between decoded motor commands and sensory feedback in a tetraplegic individual using a brain-machine interface, we provide evidence that primary motor cortex processes sensory feedback, sensorimotor conflicts and subjective states of actions generated via the brain-machine interface.

Thought consciousness and source monitoring depend on robotically controlled sensorimotor conflicts and illusory states.

Thought insertion (TI) is characterized by the experience that certain thoughts, occurring in one's mind, are not one's own, but the thoughts of somebody else and suggestive of a psychotic disorder. We report a robotics-based method able to investigate the behavioral and subjective mechanisms of TI in healthy participants. We used a robotic device to alter body perception by providing online sensorimotor stimulation, while participants performed cognitive tasks implying source monitoring of mental states attributed to either oneself or another person.

Enhancing analgesic spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain with personalized immersive virtual reality.

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an approved treatment for truncal and limb neuropathic pain. However, pain relief is often suboptimal and SCS efficacy may reduce over time, requiring sometimes the addition of other pain therapies, stimulator revision, or even explantation. We designed and tested a new procedure by combining SCS with immersive virtual reality (VR) to enable analgesia in patients with chronic leg pain.

Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for altered interoceptive bodily processing in chronic pain.

Whereas impaired multisensory processing of bodily stimuli and distorted body representation are well-established in various chronic pain disorders, such research has focused on exteroceptive bodily cues and neglected bodily signals from the inside of the body (or interoceptive signals). Extending existing basic and clinical research, we investigated for the first time interoception and its neurophysiological correlates in patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). In three different experiments, including a total of 36 patients with CRPS and 42 aged-gender matched healthy controls, we measured interoceptive sensitivity (heart beat counting task, HBC) and neural responses to heartbeats (heartbeat evoked potentials, HEPs).

Early Urinary Biomarkers in Pediatric Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD): No Evidence in the Interest of Urinary Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (uNGAL).

Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) is increasingly diagnosed during childhood by the presence of renal cysts in patients with a positive familial history. No curative treatment is available and early detection and diagnosis confronts pediatricians with the lack of early markers to decide whether to introduce renal-protective agents and prevent the progression of renal failure. Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (NGAL) is a tubular protein that has been recently proposed as an early biomarker of renal impairment in the ADPKD adult population.

Heartbeat-enhanced immersive virtual reality to treat complex regional pain syndrome.

Objectives: To develop and test a new immersive digital technology for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) that combines principles from mirror therapy and immersive virtual reality and the latest research from multisensory body processing.

Methods: In this crossover double-blind study, 24 patients with CRPS and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were immersed in a virtual environment and shown a virtual depiction of their affected limb that was flashing in synchrony (or in asynchrony in the control condition) with their own online detected heartbeat (heartbeat-enhanced virtual reality [HEVR]). The primary outcome measures for pain reduction were subjective pain ratings, force strength, and heart rate variability (HRV).

Virtual reality improves embodiment and neuropathic pain caused by spinal cord injury.

Objective: To investigate changes in body ownership and chronic neuropathic pain in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) using multisensory own body illusions and virtual reality (VR).

Methods: Twenty patients with SCI with paraplegia and 20 healthy control participants (HC) participated in 2 factorial, randomized, repeated-measures design studies. In the virtual leg illusion (VLI), we applied asynchronous or synchronous visuotactile stimulation to the participant's back (either immediately above the lesion level or at the shoulder) and to the virtual legs as seen on a VR head-mounted display.

Binaural beats increase interhemispheric alpha-band coherence between auditory cortices.

Binaural beats (BBs) are an auditory illusion occurring when two tones of slightly different frequency are presented separately to each ear. BBs have been suggested to alter physiological and cognitive processes through synchronization of the brain hemispheres. To test this, we recorded electroencephalograms (EEG) at rest and while participants listened to BBs or a monaural control condition during which both tones were presented to both ears.

Facial blindsight.

Blindsight denotes unconscious residual visual capacities in the context of an inability to consciously recollect or identify visual information. It has been described for color and shape discrimination, movement or facial emotion recognition. The present study investigates a patient suffering from cortical blindness whilst maintaining select residual abilities in face detection.

Neurofeedback training of alpha-band coherence enhances motor performance.

Objective: Neurofeedback training of motor cortex activations with brain-computer interface systems can enhance recovery in stroke patients. Here we propose a new approach which trains resting-state functional connectivity associated with motor performance instead of activations related to movements.

Methods: Ten healthy subjects and one stroke patient trained alpha-band coherence between their hand motor area and the rest of the brain using neurofeedback with source functional connectivity analysis and visual feedback.

Impairment of semantic memory after basal forebrain and fornix lesion.

Semantic memory impairment is classically associated with lesion of the anterior temporal lobe. We report the case of a patient with severe semantic knowledge impairment and anterograde amnesia after bilateral ischemic lesion of the fornix and of the basal forebrain following surgical clipping of an aneurysm of the anterior communicating artery. Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) showed a temporal hypometabolism.