Sex differences persist in visuospatial mental rotation under 3D VR conditions.

The classic Vandenberg and Kuse Mental Rotations Test (MRT) shows a male advantage for visuospatial rotation. However, MRTs that have been adapted for use with real or physical objects have found that sex differences are reduced or abolished. Previous work has also suggested that virtual 3D objects will eliminate sex differences, although this has not been demonstrated in a purely visuospatial paradigm without motor input.

The Impact of Load Mass and Distribution on Heart Rate, Perceived Exertion, and Accelerometer Measured Physical Activity During Running.

Many tactical athletes (military and emergency personnel) have fixed load carriage occupational requirements. Understanding the effects of running with common military "fighting loads" (no load to approximately 18 kg) on heart rate (HR), perceived exertion (RPE), and measuring it with accelerometers has implications for training and ensuring physical readiness of recruits. Eleven (7 male and 4 female) civilians (21.

Active Virtual Reality Games: Comparing Energy Expenditure, Game Experience, and Cybersickness to Traditional Gaming and Exercise in Youth Aged 8-12.

The purpose of this study was to (1) quantify the oxygen consumption (VO) and heart rate (HR) of virtual reality (VR) exergaming in youth, (2) compare the physical activity intensity of VR gaming to moderate-intensity thresholds, and (3) quantify the game experience and cybersickness of VR gaming, compared with traditional gaming. Youth ( = 28; age, 9.4 ± 1.

Comparing surgeries to restore upper extremity function in tetraplegia: Impact on function during the perioperative period.

Context/objective: To assess short-term changes in health outcomes in people with cervical-level spinal cord injury (SCI) who underwent upper extremity (UE) reconstruction via either novel nerve transfer (NT) or traditional tendon transfer (TT) surgery with individuals who did not undergo UE surgical reconstruction.

Design: Prospective, comparative cohort pilot study.

Participants: 34 participants with cervical SCI met the following inclusion criteria: age 18 or older, greater than 6 months post-injury, and mid-cervical level SCI American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) A, B or C.

Perception of the McGurk effect in people with one eye depends on whether the eye is removed during infancy or adulthood.

Background: The visual system is not fully mature at birth and continues to develop throughout infancy until it reaches adult levels through late childhood and adolescence. Disruption of vision during this postnatal period and prior to visual maturation results in deficits of visual processing and in turn may affect the development of complementary senses. Studying people who have had one eye surgically removed during early postnatal development is a useful model for understanding timelines of sensory development and the role of binocularity in visual system maturation.

Assessment of implicit COVID-19 attitudes using affective priming for pro-vaccine and vaccine-hesitant individuals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the introduction of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions such as precautionary behaviours. The current study used affective priming to evaluate COVID-19 attitudes in vaccine-hesitant and pro-vaccine participants. Explicitly, both groups rated their overall perception of risk associated with contracting COVID-19 significantly lower compared to their perception of necessary precautions and overall adherence to public health measures.

Continuous and intermittent theta burst stimulation of primary visual cortex do not modulate resting state functional connectivity: A sham-controlled multi-echo fMRI study.

Introduction: Theta burst stimulation (TBS) is a type of rTMS protocol which has the advantage of a shorter delivery time over traditional rTMS. When applied to motor cortex, intermittent TBS (iTBS) has been shown to yield excitatory aftereffects, whereas continuous TBS (cTBS) may lead to inhibitory aftereffects, both lasting from minutes to hours. The majority of TBS research has targeted motor, frontal, and parietal regions, and to date very few studies have examined its efficacy at visual areas.

Walking Outcome After Traumatic Paraplegic Spinal Cord Injury: The Function of Which Myotomes Makes a Difference?

Background: Accurate prediction of walking function after a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is crucial for an appropriate tailoring and application of therapeutical interventions. Long-term outcome of ambulation is strongly related to residual muscle function acutely after injury and its recovery potential. The identification of the underlying determinants of ambulation, however, remains a challenging task in SCI, a neurological disorder presented with heterogeneous clinical manifestations and recovery trajectories.

Within-subject reliability of concurrent TMS-fMRI during a single session.

Concurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation with functional MRI (concurrent TMS-fMRI) allows real-time causative probing of brain connectivity. However, technical challenges, safety, and tolerability may limit the number of trials employed during a concurrent TMS-fMRI experiment. We leveraged an existing data set with 100 trials of active TMS compared to a sub-threshold control condition to assess the reliability of the evoked BOLD response during concurrent TMS-fMRI.

Exascale integrated modeling of low-order wavefront sensing and control for the Roman Coronagraph instrument.

Astronomical instruments to detect exoplanets require extreme wavefront stability. For these missions to succeed, comprehensive and precise modeling is required to design and analyze suitable coronagraphs and their wavefront control systems. In this paper, we describe techniques for integrated modeling at scale that is, to the best of our knowledge, 1000 times faster than previously published works.

Early Canadian Real-World Experience with Brolucizumab in Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-Experienced Patients with Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Retrospective Chart Review.

Purpose: To assess early real-world outcomes with brolucizumab in Canadian patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) for which they previously received ≥1 anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) agent(s).

Patients And Methods: This multisite, real-world, retrospective chart review included data from a consecutive sample of 73 patients who received brolucizumab for nAMD after treatment with ≥1 other anti-VEGF agents. The principal reasons for switching to brolucizumab were to extend the treatment interval (51.

Spontaneous Motor Recovery after Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: Issues for Nerve Transfer Surgery Decision Making.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Objectives: To quantify spontaneous upper extremity motor recovery between 6 and 12 months after spinal cord injury (SCI) to help guide timing of nerve transfer surgery to improve upper limb function in cervical SCI.

Setting: Nineteen European SCI rehabilitation centers.

EMPOWER Retinoblastoma: Engaging Patient Partners in Solving the Top 10 Priorities for Eye Cancer Research in Canada.

While it is recognized that research priorities should reflect and integrate the perspectives and needs of patients along with those of health professionals and researchers, it remains challenging to actualize such priorities into tangible research projects. Targeted dissemination is required to catalyze research on these priorities. To create awareness of and inspire action toward actualizing the top 10 retinoblastoma research priorities in Canada, Canadian Retinoblastoma Research Advisory Board (CRRAB) members developed a wide range of dissemination tools and processes.

Inclusive Trial Designs in Acute Spinal Cord Injuries: Prediction-Based Stratification of Clinical Walking Outcome and Projected Enrolment Frequencies.

Background: New therapeutic approaches in neurological disorders are progressing into clinical development. Past failures in translational research have underlined the critical importance of selecting appropriate inclusion criteria and primary outcomes. Narrow inclusion criteria provide sensitivity, but increase trial duration and cost to the point of infeasibility, while broader requirements amplify confounding, increasing the risk of trial failure.

Modulating intrinsic functional connectivity with visual cortex using low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Introduction: Intrinsic network connectivity becomes altered in pathophysiology. Noninvasive brain stimulation can modulate pathological functional networks in an attempt to restore the inherent response. To determine its usefulness for visual-related disorders, we developed procedures investigating repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) protocols targeting the visual cortex on modulating connectivity associated with the visual network and default mode network (DMN).

Continuous and intermittent theta burst stimulation to the visual cortex do not alter GABA and glutamate concentrations measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Background: Theta burst stimulation (TBS), a form of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), uses repeated high-frequency bursts to non-invasively modulate neural processes in the brain. An intermittent TBS (iTBS) protocol is generally considered "excitatory," while continuous TBS (cTBS) is considered "inhibitory." However, the majority of work that has led to these effects being associated with the respective protocols has been done in the motor cortex, and it is well established that TMS can have variable effects across the brain.

Lack of affective priming indicates attitude-behaviour discrepancy for COVID-19 affiliated words.

The ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in the enforcement of national public health safety measures including precautionary behaviours such as border closures, movement restrictions, total or partial lockdowns, social distancing, and face mask mandates in order to reduce the spread of this disease. The current study uses affective priming, an indirect behavioural measure of implicit attitude, to evaluate COVID-19 attitudes. Explicitly, participants rated their overall risk perception associated with contracting COVID-19 significantly lower compared to their perception of necessary precautions and overall adherence to public health measures.

Development and Validation of Crosswalks Between FIM® and SCIM III for Voluntary Musculoskeletal Movement Functions.

. In spinal cord injury, there are multiple databases containing information on functional recovery, but data cannot be pooled or compared due to differences in how function is measured. A crosswalk is needed to link or convert scores between instruments.

Differences in Physical Activity During Walking and Two Pokémon Go Playing Styles.

Two self-selected playing styles of Pokémon Go (PG) have been observed: intermittent and continuous. However, it is unknown how playing style impacts volume and pattern of physical activity (PA) compared with a traditional walking bout. Twenty experienced PG players followed a 1.

Evaluation of Functional Independence in Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: Implications for Surgery to Restore Upper Limb Function.

Purpose: To help individuals make informed choices regarding the optimal type and timing of restorative surgical treatment for cervical spinal cord injury (SCI), more precise information is needed on their ability to perform activities of daily living. The goal of this work was to describe functional independence achieved by individuals with differing levels of cervical SCI.

Methods: Using the comprehensive European Multicenter Study of Spinal Cord Injury dataset, analysis was undertaken of individuals with traumatic SCI, motor-level C5-C8.

Oscillations in the central brain of are phase locked to attended visual features.

Object-based attention describes the brain's capacity to prioritize one set of stimuli while ignoring others. Human research suggests that the binding of diverse stimuli into one attended percept requires phase-locked oscillatory activity in the brain. Even insects display oscillatory brain activity during visual attention tasks, but it is unclear if neural oscillations in insects are selectively correlated to different features of attended objects.

Assessing differential effects of single and accelerated low-frequency rTMS to the visual cortex on GABA and glutamate concentrations.

Background: The application of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for therapeutic use in visual-related disorders and its underlying mechanisms in the visual cortex is under-investigated. Additionally, there is little examination of rTMS adverse effects particularly with regards to visual and cognitive function. Neural plasticity is key in rehabilitation and recovery of function; thus, effective therapeutic strategies must be capable of modulating plasticity.

Adaptive trial designs for spinal cord injury clinical trials directed to the central nervous system.

Study Design: Narrative review.

Purpose: To provide an overview of adaptive trial designs, and describe how adaptive methods can address persistent challenges encountered by randomized controlled trials of people with spinal cord injury (SCI).

Results: With few exceptions, adaptive methodologies have not been incorporated into clinical trial designs of people with SCI.

Correction to: Baseline-adjusted proportional odds models for the quantification of treatment effects in trials with ordinal sum score outcomes.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.