Real-time automated paging and decision support for critical laboratory abnormalities.

Background: For patients with critical laboratory abnormalities, timely clinical alerts with decision support could improve management and reduce adverse events.

Methods: The authors developed a real-time clinical alerting system for critical laboratory abnormalities. The system sent alerts to physicians as text messages to a smartphone or alphanumeric pager.

Utilizing virtual reality to improve the ecological validity of clinical neuropsychology: an FMRI case study elucidating the neural basis of planning by comparing the Tower of London with a three-dimensional navigation task.

Virtual reality (VR) was used to create an ecologically valid spatial-navigation task in hand with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to articulate the neural basis of planning behavior. A virtual version of a traditional planning measure, the Tower of London, was also developed to ascertain convergent and divergent validity in terms of planning behavior and functional neuroanatomy. This VR-fMRI case study experiment was performed at 3.

Convergent validity and sex differences in healthy elderly adults for performance on 3D virtual reality navigation learning and 2D hidden maze tasks.

This study assessed the convergent validity of a virtual environment (VE) navigation learning task, the Groton Maze Learning Test (GMLT), and selected traditional neuropsychological tests performed in a group of healthy elderly adults (n = 24). The cohort was divided equally between males and females to explore performance variability due to sex differences, which were subsequently characterized and reported as part of the analysis. To facilitate performance comparisons, specific "efficiency" scores were created for both the VE navigation task and the GMLT.

Age and dementia related differences in spatial navigation within an immersive virtual environment.

Background: Immersive virtual reality (VR) is an innovative tool that can allow study of human spatial navigation in a realistic but controlled environment. The purpose of this study was to examine age- and Alzheimer's disease-related differences in route learning and memory using VR.

Material/methods: The spatial memory task took place in a VR environment set up on a Computer Workstation.

Demonstrating the BlackBerry as a clinical communication tool: a pilot study conducted through the Centre for Innovation in Complex Care.

Canadians are living longer with chronic medical conditions, which have led to an increasing complexity and volume of care for hospitalized patients. Effective in-patient care depends on the effective coordination of care through rapid and efficient communication between various care providers. A delay in coordinating this care has downstream effects on other parts of the system, ultimately contributing to increased emergency department wait times.

Electrodermal recording and fMRI to inform sensorimotor recovery in stroke patients.

Background: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) appears to be useful for investigating motor recovery after stroke. Some of the potential confounders of brain activation studies, however, could be mitigated through complementary physiological monitoring.

Objective: To investigate a sensorimotor fMRI battery that included simultaneous measurement of electrodermal activity in subjects with hemiparetic stroke to provide a measure related to the sense of effort during motor performance.

Visually navigating a virtual world with real-world impairments: a study of visually and spatially guided performance in individuals with mild cognitive impairments.

In recent years, computer technology has evolved such that highly realistic virtual environments (VEs) can be used within a lab setting. Such VEs provide controlled ability to examine behavioral performance across different populations. The primary goal of this investigation was to examine the ability of mild cognitive impaired (MCI) participants to navigate effectively through a realistic, fictional virtual city.

A haptic force feedback device for virtual reality-fMRI experiments.

Simulation of real-world tasks using virtual reality (VR) and measurement of associated neural activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have potential utility in research and clinical stroke applications. However, development of fMRI-compatible sensory feedback technology is required. Presented here is the development of a prototype force feedback device for VR-fMRI.

Shared and differential neural substrates of copying versus drawing: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Copying and drawing-from-memory tasks are popular clinical tests to assess visuo-motor skills in neurological patients. The tasks share some motor and visual processes; however, they differ substantially in their cognitive demands. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify brain regions underlying processes involved in these tasks while avoiding confounds related to basic motor requirements, through use of a specially developed functional magnetic resonance imaging-compatible computer tablet.

Brain activity during a motor learning task: an fMRI and skin conductance study.

Measuring electrodermal activity (EDA) during fMRI is an effective means of studying the influence of task-related arousal, inferred from autonomic nervous system activity, on brain activation patterns. The goals of this study were: (1) to measure reliable EDA from healthy individuals during fMRI involving an effortful unilateral motor task, (2) to explore how EDA recordings can be used to augment fMRI data analysis. In addition to conventional hemodynamic modeling, skin conductance time series data were used as model waveforms to generate activation images from fMRI data.

Improving functional magnetic resonance imaging motor studies through simultaneous electromyography recordings.

Specially designed optoelectronic and data postprocessing methods are described that permit electromyography (EMG) of muscle activity simultaneous with functional MRI (fMRI). Hardware characterization and validation included simultaneous EMG and event-related fMRI in 17 healthy participants during either ankle (n = 12), index finger (n = 3), or wrist (n = 2) contractions cued by visual stimuli. Principal component analysis (PCA) and independent component analysis (ICA) were evaluated for their ability to remove residual fMRI gradient-induced signal contamination in EMG data.

An fMRI study of the Trail Making Test.

This study investigated the cerebral correlates of the Trail Making Test (TMT), used commonly as a measure of frontal lobe function. Such work sheds additional light on the known shortcomings of the TMT as a localizing instrument, as indicated, for example, by studies of patients with focal brain lesions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to record brain activity while participants performed the TMT using a custom-built, fiber-optic fMRI-compatible writing device, the "virtual stylus".

Optimizing the experimental design for ankle dorsiflexion fMRI.

Compared to motor studies of the upper limb, few experiments have sought a relationship between blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sensorimotor signals and the resulting lower limb output. In Experiment 1, using an fMRI simulator system, we determined the optimized experimental protocol based on two design types and four behavioral movement types during ankle dorsiflexion. Experiment 2 involved testing the BOLD sensitivity at 1.

A data glove with tactile feedback for FMRI of virtual reality experiments.

Virtual reality (VR) technology is increasingly recognized as a useful tool for the assessment and rehabilitation of neurologic and psychiatric disorders. The hope that VR can accurately mimic real-life events is also of great interest in basic neuroscience, to identify the brain activity that underlies complex behavior by combining VR with techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Toward these applications, in this study we designed and validated an fMRI-compatible data glove with a built-in vibratory stimulus device for tactile feedback during VR experiments.

A platform for combining virtual reality experiments with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

How the brain functions during behavioural tasks conducted in virtual reality (VR) remains largely unresolved. This issue is extremely important both in terms of establishing the benefits of VR through basic science, as well as for future optimization of tasks conducted in VR environments. Here, the authors describe their current work to develop a testing platform for conducting VR experiments that can be probed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity.