Mobile Health Application and Hypertension Management in Rural, Middle-Aged Adults: A Quality Improvement Project.

Over 29% of the adult population in the United States are diagnosed with hypertension, and rates are significantly higher in those adults who live in rural areas. Hypertension is recognized as the most prevalent comorbidity and modifiable risk factor leading to premature death. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to determine if using a mobile phone-based health application called Medisafe could enhance medication adherence and improve blood pressure control in rural-dwelling adults.

Comparing Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), Electroencephalography (EEG), and Magneto-encephalography (MEG) Seizure Localizations in Pediatric Cases of Laser Ablation.

Intractable epilepsy may have a more severe effect on children in comparison to adults because the motor, sensorial, and cognitive functions of children are still undergoing development. For this same reason, however, children maintain a greater potential for recovery from intractable epilepsy because of the remaining cerebral plasticity. Thus, after 2 unsuccessful antiepileptic medications, surgical intervention is recommended.

An MRI-compatible force sensor for measuring differential isometric precision grip force.

Investigating neural correlates of fine motor control in a magnetically sensitive environment requires special considerations in sensor design. Our application requires measurement of forefinger and thumb forces during precision grip in a relatively low (<; 20 N) force range. This work describes the design, characterization and performance evaluation of an MR-compatible precision grip sensor that independently measures forefinger and thumb forces.

Passive language mapping with magnetoencephalography in pediatric patients with epilepsy.

Object: Functional mapping is important for determining surgical candidacy and also in epilepsy surgery planning. However, in young children and uncooperative patients, language mapping has been particularly challenging despite the advances in performing noninvasive functional studies. In this study the authors review a series of children with epilepsy who underwent language mapping with magnetoencephalography (MEG) while sedated or sleeping, to determine receptive language localization for presurgical evaluation.

Benign rolandic epilepsy -- perhaps not so benign: use of magnetic source imaging as a predictor of outcome.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate children with benign rolandic epilepsy, a childhood epilepsy characterized by centrotemporal/rolandic spike-wave discharges with infrequent partial seizures that may secondarily generalize. Recently, some investigators have questioned whether benign rolandic epilepsy is indeed "benign" or whether long-term cognitive outcome may be adversely affected. We initiated an ongoing study to identify children with benign rolandic epilepsy.

Corpus callosotomy: a palliative therapeutic technique may help identify resectable epileptogenic foci.

Corpus callosotomy has a long history as a palliative treatment for intractable epilepsy. Identification of a single epileptogenic zone is critical to performing successful resective surgery. We describe three patients in which corpus callosotomy allowed recognition of unapparent seizure foci, leading to subsequent successful resection.

Time-locked brain activity associated with emotion: a pilot MEG study.

Objective: To examine the time course of brain activation in response to emotionally evocative pictures.

Methods And Procedures: Regions of the brain involved in the processing of affective stimuli in response to picture sets rated unpleasant, pleasant and affectively neutral, as well as the order of activation of each region, were investigated using magnetoencephalography in 10 normal adult volunteers.

Results: Spatiotemporal maps were found consisting of two basic components.

Functional neuroimaging with MEG: normative language profiles.

The reliability of language-specific brain activation profiles was assessed using Magnetoencephalography (MEG) in five experiments involving ninety-seven normal volunteers of both genders ranging in age from seven to eighty-four years. MEG data were analyzed with a fully automated method to eliminate subjective judgments in the process of deriving the activation profiles. Across all experiments, profiles were characterized by significant bilateral activity centered in the superior temporal gyrus, and in activity lateralized to the left middle temporal gyrus.

One measure, one meaning: multiple measures, clearer meaning.

This paper tries to make three points. First, current constructs in personality and psychopathology are based on the restrictive evidence contained in self-reports. As a result, heterogeneous categories of individuals are assigned to the same category.

EEG asymmetry, power, and temperament in children.

Measures of EEG spectral power, lateral asymmetry in the frontal and parietal areas, and social behavior with an examiner were analyzed on 166 children, 10 to 12 years old, who were participating in a longitudinal study of the temperamental contributions to social behavior. Loss of 8- to 13-Hz power (alpha band) on the right, compared with the left, frontal area (right frontal active) was most prevalent among children who were classified as high reactive at 4 months and were highly fearful at 14 and 21 months. Second, greater frontal power in the 14- to 30-Hz band (beta) at rest was correlated with the tendency to be right frontal active.

Temperamental contributions to the affect family of anxiety.

The discovery of pharmacologic interventions that mute the intensity of anxiety and guilt in some individuals has been a benevolent gift to those who suffer from these disabling states. Although some commentators have wondered about the social consequences of large numbers of asymptomatic persons taking these drugs, few have questioned the advantages for the smaller group of anguished patients. It is likely, however, that, during the next century, scientists will discover a drug that eliminates the feeling components of guilt and remorse while leaving intact the semantic knowledge that certain acts are ethically improper.

Infant temperament and the brainstem auditory evoked response in later childhood.

Brainstem auditory evoked responses (BAERs) were evaluated on 10-12-year-old children (N = 56) who had been classified as high or low reactive to unfamiliar stimuli at 4 months of age. BAER measurement was selected because high reactive infants tend to become inhibited or fearful young children, and adult introverts have a faster latency to wave V of the BAER than do extroverts. Children previously classified as high reactive at 4 months had larger wave V components than did low reactive children, a finding that possibly suggests greater excitability in projections to the inferior colliculus.

Emotional reactions in children: verbal, physiological, and behavioral responses to affective pictures.

Many studies have shown a consistent pattern in adults' responses to affective pictures and there is growing evidence of gender differences, as well. Little is known, though, about children's verbal, behavioral, and physiological responses to affective pictures. Two experiments investigated children's responses to pictures.

Probing affective pictures: attended startle and tone probes.

Reflexive eyeblinks to a startle probe vary with the pleasantness of affective pictures, whereas the corresponding P300 varies with emotional arousal. The impact of attention to the probe on these effects was examined by varying task and probe type. Probes were either nonstartling tones or startling noises presented during affective picture viewing.