Assessment of polytraumatized patients according to the Berlin Definition: Does the addition of physiological data really improve interobserver reliability?

Background: Several new definitions for categorizing the severely injured as the Berlin Definition have been developed. Here, severely injured patients are selected by additive physiological parameters and by the general Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS)-based assessment. However, all definitions should conform to an AIS severity coding applied by an expert.

Smoking cues in a virtual world provoke craving in cigarette smokers.

Twenty smoking-deprived cigarette smokers participated in a study to test the ability of smoking cues within a virtual world to provoke self-reported craving to smoke. Participants were exposed to 2 virtual-reality simulations displayed on a computer monitor: a control environment not containing any intentional smoking stimuli and a cue-exposure environment containing smoking stimuli. At various points, participants rated their urge to smoke on a scale of 0-100.

A rapid fMRI task battery for mapping of visual, motor, cognitive, and emotional function.

A set of sensory, motor, cognitive, and emotional tasks were combined in a simple, rapid-presentation task battery and tested on a group of 31, normal, healthy subjects aged 22 to 76. Five tasks were selected on the basis of widespread use in fMRI and their ability to produce robust and reliable regional activations. They were (1) a visual task designed to activate the occipital cortex; (2) a bimanual motor task designed to activate motor areas; (3) a verb generation task designed to activate speech processing areas; (4) an n-back task designed to activate areas associated with working memory and executive function; and (5) an emotional pictures task designed to provoke strong emotional responses that typically activate limbic structures.

A virtual reality system for neurobehavioral and functional MRI studies.

We are developing a VR system of integrated software and hardware for scientific research and clinical application. The system is sufficiently flexible and broad-based in appeal that neurobehavioral researchers from a variety of disciplines might be interested in using it for basic research and clinical studies. The system runs on a standard Windows-based personal computer with a high-performance graphics card.