Neuromodulation with Ultrasound: Hypotheses on the Directionality of Effects and a Community Resource.

Low-intensity Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS) is a promising non-invasive technique for deep-brain stimulation and focal neuromodulation. Research with animal models and computational modelling has raised the possibility that TUS can be biased towards enhancing or suppressing neural function. Here, we first conduct a systematic review of human TUS studies for perturbing neural function and alleviating brain disorders.

Processing of auditory novelty in human cortex during a semantic categorization task.

Auditory semantic novelty - a new meaningful sound in the context of a predictable acoustical environment - can probe neural circuits involved in language processing. Aberrant novelty detection is a feature of many neuropsychiatric disorders. This large-scale human intracranial electrophysiology study examined the spatial distribution of gamma and alpha power and auditory evoked potentials (AEP) associated with responses to unexpected words during performance of semantic categorization tasks.

Intracranial electrophysiology of spectrally degraded speech in the human cortex.

Introduction: Cochlear implants (CIs) are the treatment of choice for severe to profound hearing loss. Variability in CI outcomes remains despite advances in technology and is attributed in part to differences in cortical processing. Studying these differences in CI users is technically challenging.

Failure to breathe persists without air hunger or alarm following amygdala seizures.

Postictal apnea is thought to be a major cause of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). However, the mechanisms underlying postictal apnea are unknown. To understand causes of postictal apnea, we used a multimodal approach to study brain mechanisms of breathing control in 20 patients (ranging from pediatric to adult) undergoing intracranial electroencephalography for intractable epilepsy.

Characteristics Associated With Purchasing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Bottled Water Among US Households, 2015.

Background: Frequent intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) among US adults is a public health concern because it has been associated with increased risks for adverse health outcomes such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. In contrast, drinking plain water (such as tap, bottled, or unsweetened sparkling water) instead of drinking SSBs might provide health benefits by improving diet quality and helping prevent chronic diseases. However, there is limited information on estimated expenditures on SSBs or bottled water among US households.

Association Between County-Level Food Retail and Socioeconomic Environment and Nutritional Quality of Household Food Purchases, 2015.

Background: About 40 million Americans do not have easy access to affordable nutritious foods. Healthier foods are less likely to be available to those living in rural and/or lower-income communities.

Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the association between nutritional quality of household food purchases and county-level food retail environment; county-level demographic, health, and socioeconomic indicators; and household composition, demographic characteristics, and socioeconomic characteristics.

Comprehensive Review of Current Pain Management in Rib Fractures With Practical Guidelines for Clinicians.

Rib fractures are present in 15% of all traumas and 60% of patients with chest traumas. Rib fractures are not life-threatening in isolation, but they can be quite painful which leads to splinting and compromise of respiratory function. Splinting limits the ability of a patient to take a deep breath, which leads to atelectasis, atelectasis to poor secretion removal, and poor secretion removal leads to pneumonia.

Electrocorticography reveals the dynamics of famous voice responses in human fusiform gyrus.

Voice and face processing occur through convergent neural systems that facilitate speaker recognition. Neuroimaging studies suggest that familiar voice processing engages early visual cortex, including the bilateral fusiform gyrus (FG) on the basal temporal lobe. However, what role the FG plays in voice processing and whether it is driven by bottom-up or top-down mechanisms is unresolved.

Mapping effective connectivity of human amygdala subdivisions with intracranial stimulation.

The primate amygdala is a complex consisting of over a dozen nuclei that have been implicated in a host of cognitive functions, individual differences, and psychiatric illnesses. These functions are implemented through distinct connectivity profiles, which have been documented in animals but remain largely unknown in humans. Here we present results from 25 neurosurgical patients who had concurrent electrical stimulation of the amygdala with intracranial electroencephalography (electrical stimulation tract-tracing; es-TT), or fMRI (electrical stimulation fMRI; es-fMRI), methods providing strong inferences about effective connectivity of amygdala subdivisions with the rest of the brain.

Gamma Activation and Alpha Suppression within Human Auditory Cortex during a Speech Classification Task.

The dynamics of information flow within the auditory cortical hierarchy associated with speech processing and the emergence of hemispheric specialization remain incompletely understood. To study these questions with high spatiotemporal resolution, intracranial recordings in 29 human neurosurgical patients of both sexes were obtained while subjects performed a semantic classification task. Neural activity was recorded from posteromedial portion of Heschl's gyrus (HGPM) and anterolateral portion of Heschl's gyrus (HGAL), planum temporale (PT), planum polare, insula, and superior temporal gyrus (STG).

Human intracranial recordings reveal distinct cortical activity patterns during invasive and non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation.

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is being used increasingly to treat a wide array of diseases and disorders. This growth is driven in part by the putative ability to stimulate the nerve non-invasively. Despite decades of use and a rapidly expanding application space, we lack a complete understanding of the acute effects of VNS on human cortical neurophysiology.

Arousal State-Dependence of Interactions Between Short- and Long-Term Auditory Novelty Responses in Human Subjects.

In everyday life, predictable sensory stimuli are generally not ecologically informative. By contrast, novel or unexpected stimuli signal ecologically salient changes in the environment. This idea forms the basis of the predictive coding hypothesis: efficient sensory encoding minimizes neural activity associated with predictable backgrounds and emphasizes detection of changes in the environment.

Association between the Nutritional Quality of Household At-Home Food Purchases and Chronic Diseases and Risk Factors in the United States, 2015.

Lower diet quality is a leading preventable risk factor for obesity and chronic diseases. This study assesses differences in the nutritional quality of at-home food purchases, using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2015 and its components, among households with and without a member reporting type 2 diabetes (T2D), cardiovascular disease (CVD), obesity, and/or smoking. We use the 2015 IRI Consumer Network nationally representative household food purchase scanner data, combined with the IRI MedProfiler and the USDA's Purchase-to-Plate Crosswalk datasets.

The Clinical Role and Activity of Advanced Clinicians in the Out-of-Hospital Environment.

Recent evolution of the EMS system has resulted in an increased role for specially trained advanced clinicians (physicians, physician assistants, and registered nurses) in out-of-hospital field response. Despite this expansion into the out-of-hospital environment there is a lack of data regarding the actual clinical roles and activity of these clinicians in the United States. We seek to describe the clinical roles of advanced clinicians in the field through description of skills used during both 9-1-1 field responses and interfacility transports in the state of Pennsylvania.

Learning nonnative speech sounds changes local encoding in the adult human cortex.

Adults can learn to identify nonnative speech sounds with training, albeit with substantial variability in learning behavior. Increases in behavioral accuracy are associated with increased separability for sound representations in cortical speech areas. However, it remains unclear whether individual auditory neural populations all show the same types of changes with learning, or whether there are heterogeneous encoding patterns.

Cortical Responses to Vowel Sequences in Awake and Anesthetized States: A Human Intracranial Electrophysiology Study.

Elucidating neural signatures of sensory processing across consciousness states is a major focus in neuroscience. Noninvasive human studies using the general anesthetic propofol reveal differential effects on auditory cortical activity, with a greater impact on nonprimary and auditory-related areas than primary auditory cortex. This study used intracranial electroencephalography to examine cortical responses to vowel sequences during induction of general anesthesia with propofol.

Common fronto-temporal effective connectivity in humans and monkeys.

Human brain pathways supporting language and declarative memory are thought to have differentiated substantially during evolution. However, cross-species comparisons are missing on site-specific effective connectivity between regions important for cognition. We harnessed functional imaging to visualize the effects of direct electrical brain stimulation in macaque monkeys and human neurosurgery patients.

Electrophysiology of the Human Superior Temporal Sulcus during Speech Processing.

The superior temporal sulcus (STS) is a crucial hub for speech perception and can be studied with high spatiotemporal resolution using electrodes targeting mesial temporal structures in epilepsy patients. Goals of the current study were to clarify functional distinctions between the upper (STSU) and the lower (STSL) bank, hemispheric asymmetries, and activity during self-initiated speech. Electrophysiologic properties were characterized using semantic categorization and dialog-based tasks.

A human amygdala site that inhibits respiration and elicits apnea in pediatric epilepsy.

BACKGROUNDSeizure-induced inhibition of respiration plays a critical role in sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). However, the mechanisms underlying seizure-induced central apnea in pediatric epilepsy are unknown.METHODSWe studied 8 pediatric patients with intractable epilepsy undergoing intracranial electroencephalography.