Factors associated with material deprivation in persons with multiple sclerosis in Switzerland: Cross-sectional data from the Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Registry.

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) impacts education, future career pathways and working capability and therefore may negatively impact the financial situation of persons with MS (pwMS) in Switzerland. We therefore investigated the financial situation and its influencing sociodemographic and disease-specific factors of pwMS compared to the general Swiss population with focus on material deprivation (MD).

Methods: Data on the financial situation of pwMS were collected via a specific questionnaire added to the regular, semi-annual follow-up assessments of the Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Registry.

Whole-brain estimates of directed connectivity for human connectomics.

Connectomics is essential for understanding large-scale brain networks but requires that individual connection estimates are neurobiologically interpretable. In particular, a principle of brain organization is that reciprocal connections between cortical areas are functionally asymmetric. This is a challenge for fMRI-based connectomics in humans where only undirected functional connectivity estimates are routinely available.

A generative model of whole-brain effective connectivity.

The development of whole-brain models that can infer effective (directed) connection strengths from fMRI data represents a central challenge for computational neuroimaging. A recently introduced generative model of fMRI data, regression dynamic causal modeling (rDCM), moves towards this goal as it scales gracefully to very large networks. However, large-scale networks with thousands of connections are difficult to interpret; additionally, one typically lacks information (data points per free parameter) for precise estimation of all model parameters.

Allostatic Self-efficacy: A Metacognitive Theory of Dyshomeostasis-Induced Fatigue and Depression.

This paper outlines a hierarchical Bayesian framework for interoception, homeostatic/allostatic control, and meta-cognition that connects fatigue and depression to the experience of chronic dyshomeostasis. Specifically, viewing interoception as the inversion of a generative model of viscerosensory inputs allows for a formal definition of dyshomeostasis (as chronically enhanced surprise about bodily signals, or, equivalently, low evidence for the brain's model of bodily states) and allostasis (as a change in prior beliefs or predictions which define setpoints for homeostatic reflex arcs). Critically, we propose that the performance of interoceptive-allostatic circuitry is monitored by a metacognitive layer that updates beliefs about the brain's capacity to successfully regulate bodily states (allostatic self-efficacy).

Neurophysiological correlates of relatively enhanced local visual search in autistic adolescents.

Previous studies found normal or even superior performance of autistic patients on visuospatial tasks requiring local search, like the Embedded Figures Task (EFT). A well-known interpretation of this is "weak central coherence", i.e.

Context-dependent interactions of left posterior inferior frontal gyrus in a local visual search task unrelated to language.

The Embedded Figures Task (EFT) involves search for a target hidden in a complex geometric pattern. Even though the EFT is designed to probe local visual search functions, not language-related processes, neuropsychological studies have demonstrated a strong association between aphasia and impairment on this task. A potential explanation for this relationship was offered by a recent functional MRI study (Manjaly et al.

In search of the hidden: an fMRI study with implications for the study of patients with autism and with acquired brain injury.

The Embedded Figures Task involves a search for a target hidden in a more complex visual pattern. The task has been used to study local perception and visual search in a range of normal and pathological populations. After acquired brain damage, impairment on embedded figures is strongly associated with aphasia; in the context of developmental disorder, people with autism or with Asperger's syndrome are reliably found to be better than normal controls on the task.