Tracking dynamic adjustments to decision making and performance monitoring processes in conflict tasks.

How we exert control over our decision-making has been investigated using conflict tasks, which involve stimuli containing elements that are either congruent or incongruent. In these tasks, participants adapt their decision-making strategies following exposure to incongruent stimuli. According to conflict monitoring accounts, conflicting stimulus features are detected in medial frontal cortex, and the extent of experienced conflict scales with response time (RT) and frontal theta-band activity in the Electroencephalogram (EEG).

Multivariate pattern analysis of event-related potentials predicts the subjective relevance of everyday objects.

Potentially decision-relevant stimuli have been proposed to undergo immediate semantic processing. The current study investigated whether information regarding the general desirability ('Wanting') of visually presented 'everyday' objects was rapidly and automatically processed. Participants completed a foreground task while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded, and task-irrelevant images were presented in the background.

Off-pump coronary artery bypass is an alternative to conventional cardiopulmonary bypass when repair of traumatic coronary artery injuries is indicated.

Coronary artery injuries after penetrating cardiac trauma are rare. The standard approach to these injuries has traditionally been coronary artery ligation. When cardiac perfusion is profoundly compromised, cardiopulmonary bypass has been used to facilitate revascularization, although with serious morbidity.

Robotic-assisted coronary artery bypass on a beating heart: initial experience and implications for the future.

Background: Although totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass using facilitated anastomotic devices is still in development, practical less invasive surgical strategies using sophisticated robotic microsurgical systems have been applied to facilitate the journey to a completely endoscopic procedure. This report summarizes the initial clinical experience with off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting using the Intuitive da Vinci Surgical Robotic System.

Methods: Robotically-assisted coronary artery bypass grafting through a small thoracotomy on a beating heart without the use of cardiopulmonary bypass was performed on 70 patients from February 16, 2004 through September 20, 2005.