When neuromodulation met control theory.

The brain is a highly complex physical system made of assemblies of neurons that work together to accomplish elaborate tasks such as motor control, memory and perception. How these parts work together has been studied for decades by neuroscientists using neuroimaging, psychological manipulations, and neurostimulation. Neurostimulation has gained particular interest, given the possibility to perturb the brain and elicit a specific response.

Ultrasound-Assisted and Ultrasound-Guided Thoracentesis: An Educational Review.

Thoracentesis is one of the most important invasive procedures in the clinical setting. Particularly, thoracentesis can be relevant in the evaluation of a new diagnosed pleural effusion, thus allowing for the collection of pleural fluid so that laboratory tests essential to establish a diagnosis can be performed. Furthermore, thoracentesis is a maneuver that can have therapeutic and palliative purposes.

Exploring Motor Network Connectivity in State-Dependent Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: A Proof-of-Concept Study.

State-dependent non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) informed by electroencephalography (EEG) has contributed to the understanding of NIBS inter-subject and inter-session variability. While these approaches focus on local EEG characteristics, it is acknowledged that the brain exhibits an intrinsic long-range dynamic organization in networks. This proof-of-concept study explores whether EEG connectivity of the primary motor cortex (M1) in the pre-stimulation period aligns with the Motor Network (MN) and how the MN state affects responses to the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of M1.

A survey on hydration and use of plastic water bottles among Italian health sector workers.

Background: Modena's Local Health Authority (AUSL) is a public service with more than 5,000 employees. In its facilities, drinking water is available as tap water. However, disposable plastic bottles are also widely used, thus increasing plastic waste.

A bicoherence approach to analyze multi-dimensional cross-frequency coupling in EEG/MEG data.

We introduce a blockwise generalisation of the Antisymmetric Cross-Bicoherence (ACB), a statistical method based on bispectral analysis. The Multi-dimensional ACB (MACB) is an approach that aims at detecting quadratic lagged phase-interactions between vector time series in the frequency domain. Such a coupling can be empirically observed in functional neuroimaging data, e.

Synergistic difference in the effect of stretching on electromechanical delay components.

This study investigated the synergistic difference in the effect of stretching on electromechanical delay (EMD) and its components, using a simultaneous recording of electromyographic, mechanomyographic, and force signals. Twenty-six healthy men underwent plantar flexors passive stretching. Before and after stretching, the electrochemical and mechanical components of the EMD and the relaxation EMD (R-EMD) were calculated in gastrocnemius medialis (GM), lateralis (GL) and soleus (SOL) during a supramaximal motor point stimulation.

TMS-Induced Modulation of EEG Functional Connectivity Is Affected by the E-Field Orientation.

Coregistration of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) allows non-invasive probing of brain circuits: TMS induces brain activation due to the generation of a properly oriented focused electric field (E-field) using a coil placed on a selected position over the scalp, while EEG captures the effects of the stimulation on brain electrical activity. Moreover, the combination of these techniques allows the investigation of several brain properties, including brain functional connectivity. The choice of E-field parameters, such as intensity, orientation, and position, is crucial for eliciting cortex-specific effects.

Magnetoencephalographic spectral fingerprints differentiate evidence accumulation from saccadic motor preparation in perceptual decision-making.

The understanding of the neurobiological basis of perceptual decision-making has been profoundly shaped by studies in the monkey brain in tandem with mathematical models, providing the basis for the formulation of an intentional account of decision-making. Although much progress has been made in human studies, a characterization of the neural underpinnings of an integrative mechanism, where evidence accumulation and the selection and execution of responses are carried out by the same system, remains challenging. Here, by employing magnetoencephalographic recording in combination with an experimental protocol that measures saccadic response and leverages a systematic modulation of evidence levels, we obtained a spectral dissociation between evidence accumulation mechanisms and motor preparation within the same brain region.

Looking through the windows: a study about the dependency of phase-coupling estimates on the data length.

. Being able to characterize functional connectivity (FC) state dynamics in a real-time setting, such as in brain-computer interface, neurofeedback or closed-loop neurostimulation frameworks, requires the rapid detection of the statistical dependencies that quantify FC in short windows of data. The aim of this study is to characterize, through extensive realistic simulations, the reliability of FC estimation as a function of the data length.

Looking through the windows: a study about the dependency of phase-coupling estimates on the data length.

Objective: Being able to characterize functional connectivity (FC) state dynamics in a real-time setting, such as in brain-computer interface, neurofeedback or closed-loop neurostimulation frameworks, requires the rapid detection of the statistical dependencies that quantify FC in short windows of data. The aim of this study is to characterize, through extensive realistic simulations, the reliability of FC estimation as a function of the data length. In particular, we focused on FC as measured by phase-coupling (PC) of neuronal oscillations, one of the most functionally relevant neural coupling modes.

Metabolomics Diagnosis of COVID-19 from Exhaled Breath Condensate.

Infection from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can lead to severe respiratory tract damage and acute lung injury. Therefore, it is crucial to study breath-associated biofluids not only to investigate the breath's biochemical changes caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, but also to discover potential biomarkers for the development of new diagnostic tools. In the present study, we performed an untargeted metabolomics approach using a bidimensional gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GCxGC-TOFMS) on exhaled breath condensate (EBC) from COVID-19 patients and negative healthy subjects to identify new potential biomarkers for the noninvasive diagnosis and monitoring of the COVID-19 disease.

Neuroplasticity within and between Functional Brain Networks in Mental Training Based on Long-Term Meditation.

(1) The effects of intensive mental training based on meditation on the functional and structural organization of the human brain have been addressed by several neuroscientific studies. However, how large-scale connectivity patterns are affected by long-term practice of the main forms of meditation, Focused Attention (FA) and Open Monitoring (OM), as well as by aging, has not yet been elucidated. (2) Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and multivariate pattern analysis, we investigated the impact of meditation expertise and age on functional connectivity patterns in large-scale brain networks during different meditation styles in long-term meditators.

Slow Resting State Fluctuations Enhance Neuronal and Behavioral Responses to Looming Sounds.

We investigate both experimentally and using a computational model how the power of the electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded in human subjects tracks the presentation of sounds with acoustic intensities that increase exponentially (looming) or remain constant (flat). We focus on the link between this EEG tracking response, behavioral reaction times and the time scale of fluctuations in the resting state, which show considerable inter-subject variability. Looming sounds are shown to generally elicit a sustained power increase in the alpha and beta frequency bands.

Population Health Strategies to Support Hospital and Intensive Care Unit Resiliency During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Italian Experience.

Italy was one of the countries most affected by the number of people infected and dead during the first COVID-19 wave. The authors describe the rapid rollout of a population health clinical and organizational response in preparedness and capabilities to support the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Italian province of Modena. The authors review the processes, the challenges faced, and describe how excess demand for hospital services was successfully mitigated and thus overwhelming the healthcare services avoided the collapse of the local health care system.

Visual similarity and psychological closeness are neurally dissociable in the brain response to vicarious pain.

Personal and vicarious experience of pain activate partially overlapping brain networks. This brain activity is further modulated by low- and high-order factors, e.g.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and cardiovascular disease phenotypes.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is increasingly recognized as a major global health problem. Intertwined with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease embraces a spectrum of liver conditions spanning from steatosis to inflammation, fibrosis, and liver failure. Compared with the general population, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease is higher among nonalcoholic fatty liver disease patients, in whom comprehensive cardiovascular risk assessment is highly desirable.

["ConnectToBrain" : Synergy project for therapeutic closed-loop stimulation of brain network disorders].

Therapeutic non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation with previous treatment protocols showed at best moderate effect sizes and large interindividual variability with a substantial proportion of non-responders. A currently intensively discussed approach to address these problems is individualized closed-loop stimulation. ConnectToBrain is a synergy project funded by the European Research Council to develop noninvasive closed-loop therapeutic stimulation of network disorders of the human brain.

The impact of improved MEG-MRI co-registration on MEG connectivity analysis.

Co-registration between structural head images and functional MEG data is needed for anatomically-informed MEG data analysis. Despite the efforts to minimize the co-registration error, conventional landmark- and surface-based strategies for co-registering head and MEG device coordinates achieve an accuracy of typically 5-10 mm. Recent advances in instrumentation and technical solutions, such as the development of hybrid ultra-low-field (ULF) MRI-MEG devices or the use of 3D-printed individualized foam head-casts, promise unprecedented co-registration accuracy, i.

Toward a brain theory of meditation.

The rapidly progressing science of meditation has led to insights about the neural correlates of focused attention meditation (FAM), open monitoring meditation (OMM), compassion meditation (CM) and loving kindness meditation (LKM), in terms of states and traits. However, a unified theoretical understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in meditation-related functions, including mindfulness, is lacking. After reviewing the main forms of meditation and their relationships, the major brain networks and brain states, as well as influential theoretical views of consciousness, we outline a Brain Theory of Meditation (BTM).

Spontaneous Brain Activity Predicts Task-Evoked Activity During Animate Versus Inanimate Touch.

The spontaneous activity of the brain is characterized by an elaborate temporal structure with scale-free properties as indexed by the power law exponent (PLE). We test the hypothesis that spontaneous brain activity modulates task-evoked activity during interactions with animate versus inanimate stimuli. For this purpose, we developed a paradigm requiring participants to actively touch either animate (real hand) or inanimate (mannequin hand) stimuli.

Alpha and alpha-beta phase synchronization mediate the recruitment of the visuospatial attention network through the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus.

It is well known that attentional selection of relevant information relies on local synchronization of alpha band neuronal oscillations in visual cortices for inhibition of distracting inputs. Additionally, evidence for long-range coupling of neuronal oscillations between visual cortices and regions engaged in the anticipation of upcoming stimuli has been more recently provided. Nevertheless, on the one hand the relation between long-range functional coupling and anatomical connections is still to be assessed, and, on the other hand, the specific role of the alpha and beta frequency bands in the different processes underlying visuo-spatial attention still needs further clarification.