Cognitive impairment and therapeutic response in resistant depression.

Objectives: Therapeutic response in depression is a major challenge since more than one third of patients are not in remission after two attempts of antidepressant treatment and will present a treatment-resistant depression. In order to better adapt therapeutic strategies for treatment-resistant patients, predictive indicators and markers of therapeutic response still need to be identified. In parallel, patients with depression exhibit disturbances in cognitive functioning.

Treatment of Chronic Refractory Pain by Combined Deep Brain Stimulation of the Anterior Cingulum and Sensory Thalamus (EMOPAIN Study): Rationale and Protocol of a Feasibility and Safety Study.

Background: Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) of the sensory thalamus has been proposed for 40 years to treat medically refractory neuropathic pain, but its efficacy remains partial and unpredictable. Recent pilot studies of DBS targeting the ACC, a brain region involved in the integration of the affective, emotional, and cognitive aspects of pain, may improve patients suffering from refractory chronic pain. ACC-DBS could be complementary to thalamic DBS to treat both the sensory-discriminative and the affective components of chronic pain, but the safety of combined DBS, especially on cognition and affects, has not been studied.

Artificial intelligence to evaluate postoperative pain based on facial expression recognition.

Background: Pain intensity evaluation by self-report is difficult and biased in non-communicating people, which may contribute to inappropriate pain management. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to evaluate pain intensity based on automated facial expression analysis has not been evaluated in clinical conditions.

Methods: We trained and externally validated a deep-learning system (ResNet-18 convolutional neural network) to identify and classify 2810 facial expressions of 1189 patients, captured before and after surgery, according to their self-reported pain intensity using numeric rating scale (NRS, 0-10).

One year double blind study of high vs low frequency subcallosal cingulate stimulation for depression.

Subcallosal Brodmann's Area 25 (Cg25) Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a new promising therapy for treatment resistant major depressive disorder (TR-MDD). While different DBS stimulating parameters may have an impact on the efficacy and safety of the therapy, there is no data to support a protocol for optimal stimulation parameters for depression. Here we present a prospective multi-center double-blind randomized crossed-over 13-month study that evaluated the effects of High (130 Hz) vs Low (20 Hz) frequency Cg25 stimulation for nine patients with TR-MDD.

Detection of activities of daily living impairment in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment using information and communication technology.

Background: One of the key clinical features of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is impairment in daily functioning. Patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) also commonly have mild problems performing complex tasks. Information and communication technology (ICT), particularly techniques involving imaging and video processing, is of interest in order to improve assessment.

Determinants of multiple semantic priming: a meta-analysis and spike frequency adaptive model of a cortical network.

Recall and language comprehension while processing sequences of words involves multiple semantic priming between several related and/or unrelated words. Accounting for multiple and interacting priming effects in terms of underlying neuronal structure and dynamics is a challenge for current models of semantic priming. Further elaboration of current models requires a quantifiable and reliable account of the simplest case of multiple priming resulting from two primes on a target.

Dopaminergic neuromodulation of semantic priming in a cortical network model.

Semantic priming between items stored and associated in memory underlies contextual recall. Response times to process a given target item are shorter when following presentation of a related prime item than when it is unrelated. The study of priming effects allows investigating the structure of semantic networks as a function of association strength and number of links relating the prime and target.