Boosting mitochondrial health to counteract neurodegeneration.

Mitochondrial health is based on a delicate balance of specific mitochondrial functions (e.g. metabolism, signaling, dynamics) that are impaired in neurodegenerative diseases.

REM sleep and muscle atonia in brainstem stroke: A quantitative polysomnographic and lesion analysis study.

Important brainstem regions are involved in the regulation of rapid eye movement sleep. We hypothesized that brainstem stroke is associated with dysregulated rapid eye movement sleep and related muscle activity. We compared quantitative/qualitative polysomnography features of rapid eye movement sleep and muscle activity (any, phasic, tonic) between 15 patients with brainstem stroke (N = 46 rapid eye movement periods), 16 patients with lacunar/non-brainstem stroke (N = 40 rapid eye movement periods), 15 healthy controls (N = 62 rapid eye movement periods), and patients with Parkinson's disease and polysomnography-confirmed rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder.

A modular strategy for next-generation upper-limb sensory-motor neuroprostheses.

Neuroprosthetics is a discipline that aims at restoring lost functions to people affected by a variety of neurological disorders or neurotraumatic lesions. It combines the expertise of computer science and electrical, mechanical, and micro/nanotechnology with cellular, molecular, and systems neuroscience. Rapid breakthroughs in the field during the past decade have brought the hope that neuroprostheses can soon become a clinical reality, in particular-as we will detail in this review-for the restoration of hand functions.

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation restores upper limb sensory-motor functions and body representations in chronic stroke survivors.

Background: A conventional treatment outcome is suboptimal for sensory impairments in stroke patients. Novel approaches based on electrical stimulation or robotics are proposed as an adjuvant for rehabilitation, though their efficacy for motor, sensory, and body representation recovery have not been tested.

Methods: Sixty chronic stroke patients with unilateral motor deficits were included in a pseudo-randomized open-label multi-arm control trial (ClinicalTrials.

Reward timing matters in motor learning.

Reward timing, that is, the delay after which reward is delivered following an action is known to strongly influence reinforcement learning. Here, we asked if reward timing could also modulate how people learn and consolidate new motor skills. In 60 healthy participants, we found that delaying reward delivery by a few seconds influenced motor learning.

Depotentiation of associative plasticity is intact in Parkinson's disease with mild dyskinesia.

Objective: Depotentiation of homosynaptic plasticity of the primary motor cortex (M1) is impaired in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) who have developed dyskinesias. In this exploratory study, we tested whether this holds true for heterosynaptic plasticity induced by paired associative stimulation (PAS).

Methods: Dyskinetic (n=11) and Non-dyskinetic (n=11), levodopa-treated PD patients were tested in M1 with PAS alone, PAS preceded by continuous theta-burst stimulation of the cerebellum (cTBS-PAS) as a method to evoke a larger plastic response in M1, and each of these two interventions followed by a depotentiation protocol (cTBS) to M1.

Three-dimensional multilayer concentric bipolar electrodes restrict spatial activation in optic nerve stimulation.

Intraneural nerve interfaces often operate in a monopolar configuration with a common and distant ground electrode. This configuration leads to a wide spreading of the electric field. Therefore, this approach is suboptimal for intraneural nerve interfaces when selective stimulation is required.

Evaluation of a shortened version of the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) for upper extremity function after stroke: The Mini-ARAT.

Objectives: (i) to create a shortened version of the Action Research Arm Test scale, (ii) to investigate its psychometric properties compared to the original scale and (iii) to externally validate it within an independent cohort.

Design: Prospective longitudinal cohort study.

Settings: Two University Hospitals (France, Switzerland).

Closed-Loop Vagus Nerve Stimulation for the Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases: State of the Art and Future Directions.

The autonomic nervous system exerts a fine beat-to-beat regulation of cardiovascular functions and is consequently involved in the onset and progression of many cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Selective neuromodulation of the brain-heart axis with advanced neurotechnologies is an emerging approach to corroborate CVDs treatment when classical pharmacological agents show limited effectiveness. The vagus nerve is a major component of the cardiac neuroaxis, and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a promising application to restore autonomic function under various pathological conditions.

Breathing control, brain, and bodily self-consciousness: Toward immersive digiceuticals to alleviate respiratory suffering.

Breathing is peculiar among autonomic functions through several characteristics. It generates a very rich afferent traffic from an array of structures belonging to the respiratory system to various areas of the brain. It is intimately associated with bodily movements.

Post-stroke reorganization of transient brain activity characterizes deficits and recovery of cognitive functions.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been widely employed to study stroke pathophysiology. In particular, analyses of fMRI signals at rest were directed at quantifying the impact of stroke on spatial features of brain networks. However, brain networks have intrinsic time features that were, so far, disregarded in these analyses.

Implanted System for Orthostatic Hypotension in Multiple-System Atrophy.

Orthostatic hypotension is a cardinal feature of multiple-system atrophy. The upright posture provokes syncopal episodes that prevent patients from standing and walking for more than brief periods. We implanted a system to restore regulation of blood pressure and enable a patient with multiple-system atrophy to stand and walk after having lost these abilities because of orthostatic hypotension.

An automatized method to determine latencies of motor-evoked potentials under physiological and pathophysiological conditions.

Latencies of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) can provide insights into the motor neuronal pathways activated by transcranial magnetic stimulation. Notwithstanding its clinical relevance, accurate, unbiased methods to automatize latency detection are still missing.We present a novel open-source algorithm suitable for MEP onset/latency detection during resting state that only requires the post-stimulus electromyography signal and exploits the approximation of the first derivative of this signal to find the time point of initial deflection of the MEP.

The Predictive Role of Low Spatial Frequencies in Automatic Face Processing: A Visual Mismatch Negativity Investigation.

Visual processing is thought to function in a coarse-to-fine manner. Low spatial frequencies (LSF), conveying coarse information, would be processed early to generate predictions. These LSF-based predictions would facilitate the further integration of high spatial frequencies (HSF), conveying fine details.

Preclinical upper limb neurorobotic platform to assess, rehabilitate, and develop therapies.

Numerous neurorehabilitative, neuroprosthetic, and repair interventions aim to address the consequences of upper limb impairments after neurological disorders. Although these therapies target widely different mechanisms, they share the common need for a preclinical platform that supports the development, assessment, and understanding of the therapy. Here, we introduce a neurorobotic platform for rats that meets these requirements.

Functional connectivity underlying cognitive and psychiatric symptoms in post-COVID-19 syndrome: is anosognosia a key determinant?

Lack of awareness of cognitive impairment (i.e. anosognosia) could be a key factor for distinguishing between neuropsychological post-COVID-19 condition phenotypes.

Dietary tryptophan-rich protein hydrolysate can acutely impact physiological and psychological measures of mood and stress in healthy adults.

Background: Tryptophan is the precursor to the mood regulating neurotransmitter serotonin. Its brain bioavailability from food can be dependent on the dietary source. Egg protein hydrolysate (EPH), a dietary supplement rich in tryptophan, has previously shown to acutely impact cognition, mood and stress benefits at 2 g dose.

Lower glutamate and GABA levels in auditory cortex of tinnitus patients: a 2D-JPRESS MR spectroscopy study.

We performed magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) on healthy individuals with tinnitus and no hearing loss (n = 16) vs. a matched control group (n = 17) to further elucidate the role of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters in tinnitus. Two-dimensional J-resolved spectroscopy (2D-JPRESS) was applied to disentangle Glutamate (Glu) from Glutamine and to estimate GABA levels in two bilateral voxels in the primary auditory cortex.

Virtual reality validation of naturalistic modulation strategies to counteract fading in retinal stimulation.

. Temporal resolution is a key challenge in artificial vision. Several prosthetic approaches are limited by the perceptual fading of evoked phosphenes upon repeated stimulation from the same electrode.

A Whole-Body Musculoskeletal Model of the Mouse.

Neural control of movement cannot be fully understood without careful consideration of interactions between the neural and biomechanical components. Recent advancements in mouse molecular genetics allow for the identification and manipulation of constituent elements underlying the neural control of movement. To complement experimental studies and investigate the mechanisms by which the neural circuitry interacts with the body and the environment, computational studies modeling motor behaviors in mice need to incorporate a model of the mouse musculoskeletal system.

Functional brain connectomes reflect acute and chronic cannabis use.

Resting state fMRI has been employed to identify alterations in functional connectivity within or between brain regions following acute and chronic exposure to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component in cannabis. Most studies focused a priori on a limited number of local brain areas or circuits, without considering the impact of cannabis on whole-brain network organization. The present study attempted to identify changes in the whole-brain human functional connectome as assessed with ultra-high field (7T) resting state scans of cannabis users (N = 26) during placebo and following vaporization of cannabis.

Breathing affects self-other voice discrimination in a bodily state associated with somatic passivity.

A growing number of studies have focused on identifying cognitive processes that are modulated by interoceptive signals, particularly in relation to the respiratory or cardiac cycle. Considering the fundamental role of interoception in bodily self-consciousness, we here investigated whether interoceptive signals also impact self-voice perception. We applied an interactive, robotic paradigm associated with somatic passivity (a bodily state characterized by illusory misattribution of self-generated touches to someone else) to investigate whether somatic passivity impacts self-voice perception as a function of concurrent interoceptive signals.