Publications by authors named "Neal Cohen"

Article Synopsis
  • The study explores relational memory, which involves binding different pieces of information into memory to guide actions and behaviors.
  • Experiments focused on how spatial memory is affected by the presence of distinct categories of stimuli during a reconstruction task, where participants had to remember and place items back in their original locations.
  • Results showed that participants made more errors when items belonged to the same category (within-category errors) compared to items from different categories (between-category errors), indicating that categorization can shape memory organization but may hinder task performance.
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Background: Ultrasound Guided Regional Anesthesia (UGRA) has become the standard for regional anesthesia practice, but there is not a standardized educational approach for training residents. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of an UGRA workshop utilizing the theoretical framework of embodied cognition for anesthesiology residents.

Methods: A workshop was developed consisting of didactics, scanning training on standardized patients (SPs) and anatomy reviews on prosected cadavers that focused on the most common UGRA procedures for the upper and lower extremity.

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Background: There is evidence that both omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) (eicosapentaenoic acid [EPA] and docosahexaenoic acid [DHA]) and cocoa flavanols can improve cognitive performance in both healthy individuals and in those with memory complaints. However, their combined effect is unknown.

Objectives: To investigate the combined effect of EPA/DHA and cocoa flavanols (OM3FLAV) on cognitive performance and brain structures in older adults with memory complaints.

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Background: Carotenoids are plant pigments with light filtering and antioxidant properties that deposit in human tissues, including retina and skin. Descriptive characteristics and covariates of carotenoid status in macula and skin have been examined in adults; however, similar studies in children are limited. Thus, this study aimed to delineate how factors of age, sex, race, weight status, and dietary carotenoid intake relate to macular and skin carotenoids in children.

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Humans use eye movements to build visual memories. We investigated how the contributions of specific viewing behaviors to memory formation evolve over individual study epochs. We used dyadic modeling to explain performance on a spatial reconstruction task based on interactions among two gaze measures: (a) the entropy of the scanpath and (b) the frequency of item-to-item gaze transitions.

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Lutein and zeaxanthin (L + Z) are carotenoids that accumulate in neural tissue and potentially confer benefits to cognition. Whereas cross-sectional studies have revealed positive associations between macular carotenoids (MC) and cognition, no studies have investigated whether L + Z supplementation impacts MC and cognition in childhood. Accordingly, the Integrated Childhood Ocular Nutrition Study aims to investigate the impact of L + Z supplementation over 9-months on academic abilities, attentional control, memory, and MC among preadolescent children.

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Please note that in the interim since this paper was accepted for publication, new governmental regulations, pertinent to the topic, have been approved for implementation. The reader is thus directed to this online addendum for additional relevant information: http://links.lww.

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Nutrition during the first years of life has a significant impact on brain development. This study characterized differences in brain maturation from birth to 6 months of life in infant macaques fed formulas differing in content of lutein, β-carotene, and other carotenoids using Magnetic Resonance Imaging to measure functional connectivity. We observed differences in functional connectivity based on the interaction of diet, age and brain networks.

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Introduction: Temporal order memory is a core cognitive function that underlies much of our behavior. The ability to bind together information within and across events, and to reconstruct that sequence of information, critically relies upon the hippocampal relational memory system. Recent work has suggested traumatic brain injury (TBI) may particularly impact hippocampally mediated relational memory.

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In Fall 2020, universities saw extensive transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among their populations, threatening health of the university and surrounding communities, and viability of in-person instruction. Here we report a case study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where a multimodal "SHIELD: Target, Test, and Tell" program, with other non-pharmaceutical interventions, was employed to keep classrooms and laboratories open. The program included epidemiological modeling and surveillance, fast/frequent testing using a novel low-cost and scalable saliva-based RT-qPCR assay for SARS-CoV-2 that bypasses RNA extraction, called covidSHIELD, and digital tools for communication and compliance.

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We aimed to determine whether consumption of a fermented dairy beverage containing probiotic microorganisms influences negative mood states, stress, and hippocampal memory performance in healthy adults. Adults (25-45 yrs, N = 26) free of gastrointestinal and mental illness were enrolled in a single-blind, randomized, controlled, crossover trial. Participants completed testing prior to and after 4-week consumption, with a 2-4 week washout between treatments of: (1) 8 oz of a dairy-based fermented beverage containing 25-30 billion colony forming units of live and active kefir cultures or (2) 8 oz isocaloric, non-fermented, 1% low-fat lactose-free dairy-based control beverage.

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Article Synopsis
  • High macular pigment optical density (MPOD) is linked to better eye health and cognitive function, but how genetics influence MPOD in children is less understood.
  • In a secondary analysis of the FK2 trial involving children aged 7-9, researchers measured MPOD and analyzed genetic variants related to lutein and zeaxanthin accumulation.
  • Results showed that certain genetic variations (specifically in BCO1 and CD36) were associated with significantly lower MPOD levels in children, with one variant remaining significant even after controlling for dietary intake.
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Docosahexaenoic acid is the main long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the brain and accounts for 30-40% of fatty acids in the grey matter of the human cortex. Although the influence of docosahexaenoic acid on memory function is widely researched, its association with brain volumes is under investigated and its association with spatial navigation is virtually unknown. This is despite the fact that spatial navigation deficits are a new cognitive fingerprint for symptomatic and asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease.

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Standard anatomical atlases are common in neuroimaging because they facilitate data analyses and comparisons across subjects and studies. The purpose of this study was to develop a standardized human brain atlas based on the physical mechanical properties (i.e.

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How daily physical activity and sedentary time relate to human judgement and functional connectivity (FC) patterns that support them remains underexplored. We investigated the relationships between accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time to decision-making competence (DMC) in young adults using a comprehensive Adult-Decision Making Competence battery. We applied graph theory measures of global and local efficiency to test the mediating effects of FC in cognitively salient brain networks (fronto-parietal; dorsal attention, DAN; ventral attention; and default mode), assessed from the resting-state fMRI.

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Memory deficits are a common and frequently-cited consequence of moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, we know less about how TBI influences relational memory, which allows the binding of the arbitrary elements of experience and the flexible use and recombination of relational representations in novel situations. Relational memory is of special interest for individuals with TBI, given the vulnerability of the hippocampus to injury mechanisms, as well as a growing body of literature establishing the role of relational memory in flexible and goal-directed behavior.

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The hippocampus is necessary for binding and reconstituting information in relational memory. These essential memory functions are supported by the distinct cytoarchitecture of the hippocampal subfields. Magnetic resonance elastography is an emerging tool that provides sensitive estimates of microstructure vis-à-vis tissue mechanical properties.

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Article Synopsis
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) measures brain chemistry, revealing how factors like cardiorespiratory fitness and body composition impact it.
  • The concentration of N-acetyl aspartic acid (NAA) serves as a marker for neuron health and its ratio to creatine (NAA/Cr) is linked to fitness and body fat.
  • A study shows that the NAA/Cr ratio in white matter is mainly influenced by body fat percentage, indicating that body composition plays a significant role in axonal integrity and its connection to physical fitness among young adults.
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Background: Fluid intelligence (G) is a critical cognitive ability that is predictive of real-world outcomes, and it has been a persistent aim to characterize its neural architecture.

Procedure: We advance our prior research by applying latent class analysis to evaluate individual differences in the neural and cognitive foundations of G over the course of a 16-week randomized, multi-modal intervention trial in neurologically healthy, younger adults (N = 424).

Results: Controlling for pre-intervention ability, three latent classes described individual performance at post-intervention and one group (n = 71) showed greater gains in visuospatial reasoning and high performance at post-intervention.

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Since Tulving proposed a distinction in memory between semantic and episodic memory, considerable effort has been directed towards understanding their similar and unique features. Of particular interest has been the extent to which semantic and episodic memory have a shared dependence on the hippocampus. In contrast to the definitive evidence for the link between hippocampus and episodic memory, the role of the hippocampus in semantic memory has been a topic of considerable debate.

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Relational memory improves during middle childhood and adolescence, yet the neural correlates underlying those improvements are debated. Although memory for spatial, temporal, and other associative relations requires the hippocampus, it is not established whether within-individual changes in hippocampal structure contribute to memory improvements from middle childhood into adolescence. Here, we investigated how structural changes in hippocampal head, body, and tail subregions predict improvements in the capacity to remember item-space, item-time, and item-item relations.

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Objective: Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have been utilized to study the cognitive implications of health-related behaviors, although many questions remain regarding the neural correlates underlying the cognition and adiposity relationship in childhood. Specifically, it is unknown whether excess fat mass is associated with the neural correlates of motor preparation and activation. The present work examined interrelationships between adiposity and ERPs that index inhibition, stimulus evaluation, and motor planning.

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