Cerebral peak alpha frequency predicts individual differences in pain sensitivity.

The identification of neurobiological markers that predict individual predisposition to pain are not only important for development of effective pain treatments, but would also yield a more complete understanding of how pain is implemented in the brain. In the current study using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated the relationship between the peak frequency of alpha activity over sensorimotor cortex and pain intensity during capsaicin-heat pain (C-HP), a prolonged pain model known to induce spinal central sensitization in primates. We found that peak alpha frequency (PAF) recorded during a pain-free period preceding the induction of prolonged pain correlated with subsequent pain intensity reports: slower peak frequency at pain-free state was associated with higher pain during the prolonged pain condition.

Determining Levels of Upper Extremity Movement Impairment by Applying a Cluster Analysis to the Fugl-Meyer Assessment of the Upper Extremity in Chronic Stroke.

Objective: To quantitatively determine levels of upper extremity movement impairment by using a cluster analysis of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment of the Upper Extremity (FMA-UE) with and without reflex items.

Design: Secondary analysis.

Setting: University and research centers.

Psychophysiological support of increasing attentional reserve during the development of a motor skill.

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between motor skill and attentional reserve. Participants practiced a reaching task with the dominant upper extremity, to which a distortion of the visual feedback was applied, while a control group performed the same task without distortion. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs), elicited by auditory stimuli were recorded throughout practice.

Increased reward in ankle robotics training enhances motor control and cortical efficiency in stroke.

Robotics is rapidly emerging as a viable approach to enhance motor recovery after disabling stroke. Current principles of cognitive motor learning recognize a positive relationship between reward and motor learning. Yet no prior studies have established explicitly whether reward improves the rate or efficacy of robotics-assisted rehabilitation or produces neurophysiologic adaptations associated with motor learning.

The influence of social evaluation on cerebral cortical activity and motor performance: a study of "Real-Life" competition.

Motor performance in a social evaluative environment was examined in participants (N = 19) who completed a pistol shooting task under both performance-alone (PA) and competitive (C) conditions. Electroencephalographic (EEG), autonomic, and psychoendocrine activity were recorded in addition to kinematic measures of the aiming behavior. State anxiety, heart rate, and cortisol were modestly elevated during C and accompanied by relative desynchrony of high-alpha power, increased cortico-cortical communication between motor and non-motor regions, and degradation of the fluency of aiming trajectory, but maintenance of performance outcome (i.

Clinical application of a modular ankle robot for stroke rehabilitation.

Background: Advances in our understanding of neuroplasticity and motor learning post-stroke are now being leveraged with the use of robotics technology to enhance physical rehabilitation strategies. Major advances have been made with upper extremity robotics, which have been tested for efficacy in multi-site trials across the subacute and chronic phases of stroke. In contrast, use of lower extremity robotics to promote locomotor re-learning has been more recent and presents unique challenges by virtue of the complex multi-segmental mechanics of gait.

Stress, emotion regulation and cognitive performance: the predictive contributions of trait and state relative frontal EEG alpha asymmetry.

The relationship between trait and state measures of frontal lobe EEG alpha-band asymmetry in regard to indexing the approach-withdrawal dimension of emotion is unclear. The comparative predictive power of these constructs to explain emotion regulation and cognitive performance was examined under varying degrees of emotional challenge. The Capability Model posits the neural underpinnings of the relative difference in electrical activity between the left and right frontal lobes as a situational mechanism possibly indexing prefrontal-amygdalar interactions and psychological state.

Cerebral-cortical networking and activation increase as a function of cognitive-motor task difficulty.

Excessive increases in task difficulty typically result in marked attenuation of cognitive-motor performance. The psychomotor efficiency hypothesis suggests that poor performance is mediated by non-essential neural activity and cerebral cortical networking (inefficient cortical dynamics). This phenomenon may underlie the inverse relationship between excessive task difficulty and performance.

Neural decoding of treadmill walking from noninvasive electroencephalographic signals.

Chronic recordings from ensembles of cortical neurons in primary motor and somatosensory areas in rhesus macaques provide accurate information about bipedal locomotion (Fitzsimmons NA, Lebedev MA, Peikon ID, Nicolelis MA. Front Integr Neurosci 3: 3, 2009). Here we show that the linear and angular kinematics of the ankle, knee, and hip joints during both normal and precision (attentive) human treadmill walking can be inferred from noninvasive scalp electroencephalography (EEG) with decoding accuracies comparable to those from neural decoders based on multiple single-unit activities (SUAs) recorded in nonhuman primates.

Cerebral cortical dynamics and the quality of motor behavior during social evaluative challenge.

To determine the influence of arousal on cerebral cortical dynamics and motor behavior, 58 channels of EEG were recorded in 13 college-age men (n=6) and women during an aiming task performed alone and in a social evaluation condition. Moderate arousal, as measured by heart rate, skin conductance, and self-reported mood, was induced during the social evaluation. In accord with the Yerkes-Dodson Hypothesis, which posits optimal performance during moderate arousal, improved performance (i.