Case Series: Cemiplimab and Nivolumab Immunotherapy as Promising Treatment in Advanced or Metastatic Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) is the second most common skin cancer. Surgery is usually curative; however, some locally advanced or metastatic CSCC may be unresectable. Current novel therapeutic options with immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) of programmed-death receptor 1 (PD-1) such as cemiplimab and nivolumab have demonstrated promising and sustained results with good tolerability in patients with CSCC.

Standardised images of novel objects created with generative adversarial networks.

An enduring question in cognitive science is how perceptually novel objects are processed. Addressing this issue has been limited by the absence of a standardised set of object-like stimuli that appear realistic, but cannot possibly have been previously encountered. To this end, we created a dataset, at the core of which are images of 400 perceptually novel objects.

When knowledge hurts: humans are willing to receive pain for obtaining non-instrumental information.

Humans and other animals value information that reduces uncertainty or leads to pleasurable anticipation, even if it cannot be used to gain tangible rewards or change outcomes. In exchange, they are willing to incur significant costs, sacrifice rewards or invest effort. We investigated whether human participants were also willing to endure pain-a highly salient and aversive cost-to obtain such information.

Acute exercise as a modifier of neocortical plasticity and aperiodic activity in the visual cortex.

Long-term potentiation (LTP) is a form of neuroplasticity commonly implicated in mechanistic models of learning and memory. Acute exercise can boost LTP in the motor cortex, and is associated with a shift in excitation/inhibition (E:I) balance, but whether this extends to other regions such as the visual cortex is unknown. We investigated the effect of a preceding bout of exercise on LTP induction and the E:I balance in the visual cortex using electroencephalography (EEG).

Evaluating UV absorbance reductions in landfill leachate for municipal sewage co-treatment through timed UV/electrooxidation.

Landfill leachate contains dissolved organic matter (DOM) exhibiting high ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm (UVA). The UVA limits leachate co-treatment with municipal sewage by hindering the downstream UV disinfection efficiency at wastewater treatment plants. Here, we alleviated the UVA by timing the radiation in a UV/electrooxidation (UV/EO) process to accelerate reactive species formation.

The availability of non-instrumental information increases risky decision-making.

Contemporary models of decision-making under risk focus on estimating the final value of each alternative course of action. According to such frameworks, information that has no capacity to alter a future payoff (i.e.

Hedonism as a motive for information search: biased information-seeking leads to biased beliefs.

Confirmation bias in information-search contributes to the formation of polarized echo-chambers of beliefs. However, the role of valence on information source selection remains poorly understood. In Experiment 1, participants won financial rewards depending on the outcomes of a set of lotteries.

Resonance as a Design Strategy for AI and Social Robots.

Resonance, a powerful and pervasive phenomenon, appears to play a major role in human interactions. This article investigates the relationship between the physical mechanism of resonance and the human experience of resonance, and considers possibilities for enhancing the experience of resonance within human-robot interactions. We first introduce resonance as a widespread cultural and scientific metaphor.

Heightened effort discounting is a common feature of both apathy and fatigue.

Apathy and fatigue have distinct aetiologies, yet can manifest in phenotypically similar ways. In particular, each can give rise to diminished goal-directed behaviour, which is often cited as a key characteristic of both traits. An important issue therefore is whether currently available approaches are capable of distinguishing between them.

Over the rainbow: Guidelines for meaningful use of colour maps in neurophysiology.

Visualization of complex data is commonplace in neurophysiology research. Here, we highlight specific perceptual issues related to the ongoing misuse of variations of the rainbow colour scheme, with a particular emphasis on time-frequency decompositions in electrophysiology as an illustrative example. We review the risks of biased interpretation of neurophysiological data in this context, and provide guidelines to improve the use of colour maps to visualise complex, multidimensional data in neurophysiology research.

Dissociable theta networks underlie the switch and mixing costs during task switching.

During task-switching paradigms, both event-related potentials and time-frequency analyses show switch and mixing effects at frontal and parietal sites. Switch and mixing effects are associated with increased power in broad frontoparietal networks, typically stronger in the theta band (~4-8 Hz). However, it is not yet known whether mixing and switch costs rely upon common or distinct networks.

Choosing increases the value of non-instrumental information.

Curiosity pervades all aspects of human behaviour and decision-making. Recent research indicates that the value of information is determined by its propensity to reduce uncertainty, and the hedonic value of the outcomes it predicts. Previous findings also indicate a preference for options that are freely chosen, compared to equivalently valued alternatives that are externally assigned.

Task-switching costs have distinct phase-locked and nonphase-locked EEG power effects.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) and total time-frequency power analyses have shown that performance costs during task switching are related to differential preparation to switch tasks (switch cost) and repeat the same task (mixing cost) during both proactive control (cue-to-target interval; CTI) and reactive control (post-target). The time-frequency EEG signal is comprised of both phase-locked activity (associated with stimulus-specific processes) and nonphase-locked activity (represents processes thought to persist over longer timeframes and do not contribute to the average ERP). In the present study, we used a cued task-switching paradigm to examine whether phase-locked and nonphase-locked power are differentially modulated by switch and mixing effects in intervals associated with the need for proactive control (CTI) and reactive control (post-target interval).

Does cognitive control ability mediate the relationship between reward-related mechanisms, impulsivity, and maladaptive outcomes in adolescence and young adulthood?

Neurobiological models explain increased risk-taking behaviours in adolescence and young adulthood as arising from staggered development of subcortical reward networks and prefrontal control networks. In this study, we examined whether individual variability in impulsivity and reward-related mechanisms is associated with higher level of engagement in risky behaviours and vulnerability to maladaptive outcomes and whether this relationship is mediated by cognitive control ability. A community sample of adolescents, young adults, and adults (age = 15-35 years) completed self-report measures and behavioural tasks of cognitive control, impulsivity, and reward-related mechanisms, and self-reported level of maladaptive outcomes.

Frontal theta predicts specific cognitive control-induced behavioural changes beyond general reaction time slowing.

Investigations into the neurophysiological underpinnings of control suggest that frontal theta activity is increased with the need for control. However, these studies typically show this link by reporting associations between increased theta and RT slowing - a process that is contemporaneous with cognitive control but does not strictly reflect the specific use of control. In this study, we assessed frontal theta responses that underpinned the switch cost in task switching - a specific index of cognitive control that does not rely exclusively on RT slowing.

Neurosurgery and Medical Management of Severe Head Injury.

Management of the patient with moderate to severe brain injury in any environment can be time consuming and resource intensive. In the austere or hostile environment, the challenges to deliver care to this patient population are magnified. These guidelines have been developed by acknowledging commonly recognized recommendations for neurosurgical and neuro-critical care patients and augmenting those evaluations and interventions based on the experience of neurosurgeons, trauma surgeons, and intensivists who have delivered care during recent coalition conflicts.

Resting State Electroencephalography and Sports-Related Concussion: A Systematic Review.

Sports-related concussion is associated with a range of short-term functional deficits that are commonly thought to recover within a two-week post-injury period for most, but certainly not all, persons. Resting state electroencephalography (rs-EEG) may prove to be an affordable, accessible, and sensitive method of assessing severity of brain injury and rate of recovery after a concussion. This article presents a systematic review of rs-EEG in sports-related concussion.

Event-Related Potential Responses to Task Switching Are Sensitive to Choice of Spatial Filter.

Event-related potential (ERP) studies using the task-switching paradigm show that multiple ERP components are modulated by activation of proactive control processes involved in preparing to repeat or switch task and reactive control processes involved in implementation of the current or new task. Our understanding of the functional significance of these ERP components has been hampered by variability in their robustness, as well as their temporal and scalp distribution across studies. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of choice of reference electrode or spatial filter on the number, timing and scalp distribution of ERP elicited during task-switching.

Dynamics of cognitive control: Theoretical bases, paradigms, and a view for the future.

Cognitive control (with the closely related concepts of attention control and executive function) encompasses the collection of processes that are involved in generating and maintaining appropriate task goals and suppressing task goals that are no longer relevant, as well as the way in which current goal representations are used to modify attentional biases to improve task performance. Here, we provide a comprehensive but nonexhaustive review of this complex literature, with an emphasis on the contributions made by techniques for studying human brain function. The review is divided into five sections: (a) overview and historical perspective of cognitive control, its subcomponent processes, and its neural substrate; (b) most common types of tasks used to assess and/or manipulate the level of control; (c) main research findings obtained with various imaging methodologies, with a focus on ERP data, and briefer overviews of oscillatory (event-related spectral perturbations) and fMRI data; (d) major theories of cognitive control; and (e) discussion of open questions regarding how to integrate the various dimensions of control, as well as the faster versus slower temporal dynamics informing this complex and multifaceted concept.

Frontoparietal theta oscillations during proactive control are associated with goal-updating and reduced behavioral variability.

Low frequency oscillations in the theta range (4-8Hz) are increasingly recognized as having a crucial role in flexible cognition. Such evidence is typically derived from studies in the context of reactive (stimulus-driven) control processes. However, little research has explored the role of theta oscillations in preparatory control processes.

An information theory account of late frontoparietal ERP positivities in cognitive control.

ERP research on task switching has revealed distinct transient and sustained positive waveforms (latency circa 300-900 ms) while shifting task rules or stimulus-response (S-R) mappings. However, it remains unclear whether such switch-related positivities show similar scalp topography and index context-updating mechanisms akin to those posed for domain-general (i.e.

Age-related decline in task switching is linked to both global and tract-specific changes in white matter microstructure.

Task-switching performance relies on a broadly distributed frontoparietal network and declines in older adults. In this study, they investigated whether this age-related decline in task switching performance was mediated by variability in global or regional white matter microstructural health. Seventy cognitively intact adults (43-87 years) completed a cued-trials task switching paradigm.

Contextually sensitive power changes across multiple frequency bands underpin cognitive control.

Flexible control of cognition bestows a remarkable adaptability to a broad range of contexts. While cognitive control is known to rely on frontoparietal neural architecture to achieve this flexibility, the neural mechanisms that allow such adaptability to context are poorly understood. In the current study, we quantified contextual demands on the cognitive control system via a priori estimation of information across three tasks varying in difficulty (oddball, go/nogo, and switch tasks) and compared neural responses across these different contexts.