Enhanced use of gaze cue in a face-following task after brief trial experience in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Eye movements toward sequentially presented face images with or without gaze cues were recorded to investigate whether those with ASD, in comparison to their typically developing (TD) peers, could prospectively perform the task according to gaze cues. Line-drawn face images were sequentially presented for one second each on a laptop PC display, and the face images shifted from side-to-side and up-and-down. In the gaze cue condition, the gaze of the face image was directed to the position where the next face would be presented.

Visual Hand Recognition in Hand Laterality and Self-Other Discrimination Tasks: Relationships to Autistic Traits and Positive Body Image.

In a study concerning visual body part recognition, a "self-advantage" effect, whereby self-related body stimuli are processed faster and more accurately than other-related body stimuli, was revealed, and the emergence of this effect is assumed to be tightly linked to implicit motor simulation, which is activated when performing a hand laterality judgment task in which hand ownership is not explicitly required. Here, we ran two visual hand recognition tasks, namely, a hand laterality judgment task and a self-other discrimination task, to investigate (i) whether the self-advantage emerged even if implicit motor imagery was assumed to be working less efficiently and (ii) how individual traits [such as autistic traits and the extent of positive self-body image, as assessed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2), respectively] modulate performance in these hand recognition tasks. Participants were presented with hand images in two orientations [i.

Recognizing Your Hand and That of Your Romantic Partner.

Although the hand is an important organ in interpersonal interactions, focusing on this body part explicitly is less common in daily life compared with the face. We investigated (i) whether a person's recognition of their own hand is different from their recognition of another person's hand (i.e.

Older Adolescents and Young Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder Have Difficulty Chaining Motor Acts When Performing Prehension Movements Compared to Typically Developing Peers.

It is known that motor actions performed by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are clumsy and a previous study revealed that children with ASD of around 8 years old showed less smooth movement and dysfunction of appropriate usage of online vision for grip aperture control. The present study investigates whether and how the kinematic properties of reach-to-grasp movements in older adolescents and adults with ASD [mean (±SD) age: 18.3 ± 2.

A neural network model for development of reaching and pointing based on the interaction of forward and inverse transformations.

Pointing is one of the communicative actions that infants acquire during their first year of life. Based on a hypothesis that early pointing is triggered by emergent reaching behavior toward objects placed at out-of-reach distances, we proposed a neural network model that acquires reaching without explicit representation of 'targets'. The proposed model controls a two-joint arm in a horizontal plane, and it learns a loop of internal forward and inverse transformations; the former predicts the visual feedback of hand position and the latter generates motor commands from the visual input through random generation of the motor commands.

Differentiation of cancer from atrial fibrillation in patients with acute multifocal stroke.

Objective: Acute multifocal embolic infarction (AMEI) is conventionally caused by etiologies such as cardioembolism due to atrial fibrillation (Af), but can also be caused by serious underlying diseases such as cancer. We characterized cancer-related AMEI and identified useful indicators for cancer-associated strokes.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 35 patients with Af-related AMEI and 35 patients with cancer-related AMEI selected from 1235 consecutive patients with acute infarcts.

A Computational Model for Aperture Control in Reach-to-Grasp Movement Based on Predictive Variability.

In human reach-to-grasp movement, visual occlusion of a target object leads to a larger peak grip aperture compared to conditions where online vision is available. However, no previous computational and neural network models for reach-to-grasp movement explain the mechanism of this effect. We simulated the effect of online vision on the reach-to-grasp movement by proposing a computational control model based on the hypothesis that the grip aperture is controlled to compensate for both motor variability and sensory uncertainty.

Retrospective analysis of parkinsonian patients exhibiting normal (123)I-MIBG cardiac uptake.

Background: Although most patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) show decreased cardiac (123)I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) uptake, some exhibit normal uptake. We evaluated the clinical characteristics of such patients.

Methods: We enrolled 154 non-demented patients showing parkinsonism with normal cardiac MIBG uptake and had been clinically followed up during 29.

Use of early phase online vision for grip configuration is modulated according to movement duration in prehension.

Our previous study (Hum Mov Sci 25:349-371, 2006) investigated whether and how online vision in the early phase of movement influences the control of reach-to-grasp movements (movement duration: approximately 1000 ms). We used liquid-crystal shutter goggles to manipulate the duration of available online vision during the movement and specified that online vision during the early phase influences grasping movements. The current study examined the effect of online early phase vision on the grip configuration according to the movement duration and compared it between two different movement durations (approximately 500 and 1000 ms).

Histone deacetylase inhibitor attenuates neurotoxicity of clioquinol in PC12 cells.

Clioquinol is considered to be a causative agent of subacute myelo-optico neuropathy (SMON), although the pathogenesis of SMON is yet to be elucidated. We have previously shown that clioquinol inhibits nerve growth factor (NGF)-induced Trk autophosphorylation in PC12 cells transformed with human Trk cDNA. To explore the further mechanism of neuronal damage by clioquinol, we evaluated the acetylation status of histones in PC12 cells.

Voriconazole-responsive disseminated nodular lesions on spinal MRI.

A 74-year-old woman was hospitalized due to dysuria, weakness and dysesthesia of the lower extremities. She was in an immunosuppressed state following the administration of methylprednisolone therapy for idiopathic interstitial pneumonia. Cerebrospinal fluid and blood cultures were negative, and no infectious biomarkers were found.

Neurotropin promotes NGF signaling through interaction of GM1 ganglioside with Trk neurotrophin receptor in PC12 cells.

Activation of the high-affinity nerve growth factor (NGF) receptor Trk occurs through multiple processes consisted of translocation and clustering within the plasma membrane lipid rafts, dimerization and autophosphorylation. Here we found that a nonprotein extract of inflamed rabbit skin inoculated with vaccinia virus (Neurotropin(®)) enhanced efficiency of NGF signaling. In rat pheochromocytoma PC12 cells overexpressing Trk (PCtrk cells), Neurotropin augmented insufficient neurite outgrowth observed at suboptimal concentration of NGF (2ng/mL) in a manner depending on Trk kinase activity.

Targeting of aquaporin 4 into lipid rafts and its biological significance.

Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system and is considered to be caused by the binding of NMO-IgG to aquaporin 4 (AQP4) on astrocytes, which initiates complement-dependent cytotoxicity. AQP4 has two isoforms, i.e.

Lack of motor prediction, rather than perceptual conflict, evokes an odd sensation upon stepping onto a stopped escalator.

When stepping onto a stopped escalator, we often perceive an "odd sensation" that is never felt when stepping onto stairs. The sight of an escalator provides a strong contextual cue that, in expectation of the backward acceleration when stepping on, triggers an anticipatory forward postural adjustment driven by a habitual and implicit motor process. Here we contrast two theories about why this postural change leads to an odd sensation.

Automatic online control of motor adjustments in reaching and grasping.

Following the princeps investigations of Marc Jeannerod on action-perception, specifically, goal-directed movement, this review article addresses visual and non-visual processes involved in guiding the hand in reaching or grasping tasks. The contributions of different sources of correction of ongoing movements are considered; these include visual feedback of the hand, as well as the often-neglected but important spatial updating and sharpening of goal localization following gaze-saccade orientation. The existence of an automatic online process guiding limb trajectory toward its goal is highlighted by a series of princeps experiments of goal-directed pointing movements.

Utilization of visual feedback of the hand according to target view availability in the online control of prehension movements.

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of online vision of a target object and the participant's moving hand in the early phase of reach-to-grasp movements. We designed an experiment that separately manipulated the visibility of a moving hand and the target object by using two liquid crystal shutter plates placed in the same horizontal plane (25 cm above the experimental table). When target view was available immediately after movement onset, the effect of hand view in the early phase of movement was very limited.

How vision affects kinematic properties of pantomimed prehension movements.

When performing the reach-to-grasp movement, fingers open wider than the size of a target object and then stop opening. The recorded peak grip aperture (PGA) is significantly larger when this action is performed without vision during the movement than with vision, presumably due to an error margin that is retained in order to avoid collision with the object. People can also pretend this action based on an internal target representation (i.

Action evaluation is modulated dominantly by internal sensorimotor information and partly by noncausal external cue.

Previous studies demonstrated that human motor actions are not always monitored by perceptual awareness and that implicit motor control plays a key role in performing actions. In addition, appropriate evaluation of our own motor behavior is vital for human life. Here we combined a reaching task with a visual backward masking paradigm to induce an implicit motor response that is congruent or incongruent with the visual perception.

Odd sensation induced by moving-phantom which triggers subconscious motor program.

Our motor actions are sometimes not properly performed despite our having complete understanding of the environmental situation with a suitable action intention. In most cases, insufficient skill for motor control can explain the improper performance. A notable exception is the action of stepping onto a stopped escalator, which causes clumsy movements accompanied by an odd sensation.

The effect of viewing the moving limb and target object during the early phase of movement on the online control of grasping.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate (1) during which phase of the movement vision is most critical for control, and (2) how vision of the target object and the participant's moving limb affect the control of grasping during that movement phase. In Experiment 1, participants, wearing liquid crystal shutter goggles, reached for and grasped a cylinder with a diameter of 4 or 6 cm under a shutting paradigm (SP) and a re-opening paradigm (RP). In SP, the goggles closed (turned opaque) 0 ms, 150 ms, 350 ms, 500 ms, or 700 ms after movement onset, or remained open (transparent) during the prehension movements.