rudyvdbrink/CitationDatabase huggingface dataset:
The Arc gene: Retroviral heritage in cognitive functions.
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2019

Stabilization of neuronal plastic changes is mediated by transient gene expression, including transcription of the activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated gene (Arc), also known as Arg 3.1. Arc is implicated in several types of synaptic plasticity, including synaptic scaling, long-term potentiation, and long-term depression. However, the precise mechanisms by which Arc mediates these forms of long-term plasticity are unclear. It was recently found that Arc protein is capable of forming capsid-like structures and of transferring its own mRNA to neighboring cells. Moreover, Arc mRNA undergoes activity-dependent translation in these "transfected" cells. These new data raise unexpected possibilities for the mechanisms of the Arc action, and many intriguing questions concerning the role of Arc transcellular traffic in neuronal plasticity. In this mini-review, we discuss a possible link between the role of Arc in learning and memory and the virus-like properties of this protein. Additionally, we highlight some of the emerging questions for future neurobiological studies and translational applications of Arc transsynaptic effects.
Call of Duty at the Frontier of Research: Normative Epistemology for High-Risk/High-Gain Studies of Deep Brain Stimulation.
Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees, 2018

Research participants are entitled to many rights that may easily come into conflict. The most important ones are that researchers respect their autonomy as persons and act on the principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Since 2014, research subjects from numerous states in the United States of America also have a legal "right to try" that allows them, under certain circumstances, to receive experimental (i.e., preliminarily tested) interventions, including medical devices, before official approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration. In the context of experimental interventions, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Alzheimer's disease, this article argues that research participants ought never to have a legal "right to try" without a corresponding "right to be sure." The latter refers to external epistemic justification construed in terms of reliance on reliable evidence. This article demonstrates that the mere complexity of intervention ensembles, as in the case of DBS for Alzheimer's disease which serves as a paradigm example, illustrate how unanswered and/or unasked open questions give rise to a "combinatorial explosion" of uncertainties that require epistemic responses that no single research team alone is likely able to provide. From this assessment, several epistemic asymmetrical relations between researchers and participants are developed. By elucidating these epistemic asymmetries, this article unravels the reasons why open science, transparent exhaustive data reporting, preregistration, and continued constant critical appraisal via pre- and postpublication peer review are not scientific virtues of moral excellence but rather ordinary obligations of the scientific work routine required to increase reliability and strength of evidence.
Idiopathic (genetic) generalized epilepsies with absences: clinical and electrographic characteristics and seizure outcome.
Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology, 2020

We compared various syndromes of idiopathic (genetic) generalized epilepsy (IGE) with absences based on their demographic, clinical, and electroencephalographic (EEG) findings, and their seizure outcome.
Reducing EEG (Electroencephalogram) Electrode-induced Skin Injury among Ambulatory EEG Monitored Patients: A Non-randomized Interventional Study of Two Commonly Used Cream-based Products for Electrode Application.
The Neurodiagnostic journal, 2020

Ambulatory electroencephalography (AEEG) seeks to capture inter-ictal epileptiform activity or paroxysmal events when patients are not in the clinic. Skin inflammation is a common complication of prolonged EEG monitoring. This non-randomized study aimed to investigate the performance of two commonly used cream-based methods of electrode application in reducing electrode-induced skin injury among patients undergoing AEEG monitoring. A non-randomized interventional study was conducted from July to December 2019 in the Neurosciences Ambulatory Care Unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Australia. Patients were enrolled into two groups: i) Group T, which received Ten20® Conductive Paste with Tensive® Conductive Adhesive Gel as the primary approach to electrode application; ii). Group E, which received EC2⁺® Conductive Cream as the primary approach to electrode application. Patients in Group T were enrolled in the 1st and 3rd week of the month, and patients in Group E were enrolled in the 2nd and 4th week for each month of the study. A total of 152 patients participated in this study. Two sub-groups were established: those who were monitored for two days (Group T; n = 36, Group E; n = 30) and those who were monitored for four days (Group T; n = 43, Group E; n = 43). Significant (p < 0.05) differences indicating greater inflammation in the Group E were noted for both Day 2 and Day 4 participants. Skin injury/inflammation was significantly less using the standard method (Group T: Ten20® with Tensive® gel) when compared to EC2⁺® (Group E) as the conductive material at the electrode site.
Contribution of Family Relatedness to Neurobehavioral Comorbidities in Idiopathic Childhood Epilepsies.
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS, 2018

Rates of cognitive, academic and behavioral comorbidities are elevated in children with epilepsy. The contribution of environmental and genetic influences to comorbidity risk is not fully understood. This study investigated children with epilepsy, their unaffected siblings, and controls to determine the presence and extent of risk associated with family relatedness across a range of epilepsy comorbidities.
A Minimally Invasive Lesion Technique for Muscles Intrinsic to the Odontophore of Aplysia californica.
Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE, 2019

Aplysia californica is a model system for studying the neural control of learning and behavior. This animal has a semi-open circulatory system, making it possible to access many of its internal structures without causing any significant damage. Many manipulations can be easily performed both in vivo and in vitro, making it a highly tractable model for the analysis of behavior and neural circuitry. To better understand the functions of muscles within the feeding grasper, we have developed a technique for lesioning them without opening the main body cavity of the animal or damaging the outer layers of the feeding organ (i.e., the buccal mass). In this technique, the grasper is partially everted, allowing direct access to the musculature. This procedure allows animals to recover quickly and reliably. This has made it possible to lesion the I7 muscles and sub-radular fibers, allowing us to show that both muscles significantly contribute to the opening in vivo.
The psychophysics of stereopsis can be explained without invoking independent ON and OFF channels.
Journal of vision, 2019

Early vision proceeds through distinct ON and OFF channels, which encode luminance increments and decrements respectively. It has been argued that these channels also contribute separately to stereoscopic vision. This is based on the fact that observers perform better on a noisy disparity discrimination task when the stimulus is a random-dot pattern consisting of equal numbers of black and white dots (a "mixed-polarity stimulus," argued to activate both ON and OFF stereo channels), than when it consists of all-white or all-black dots ("same-polarity," argued to activate only one). However, it is not clear how this theory can be reconciled with our current understanding of disparity encoding. Recently, a binocular convolutional neural network was able to replicate the mixed-polarity advantage shown by human observers, even though it was based on linear filters and contained no mechanisms which would respond separately to black or white dots. Here, we show that a subtle feature of the way the stimuli were constructed in all these experiments can explain the results. The interocular correlation between left and right images is actually lower for the same-polarity stimuli than for mixed-polarity stimuli with the same amount of disparity noise applied to the dots. Because our current theories suggest stereopsis is based on a correlation-like computation in primary visual cortex, this postulate can explain why performance was better for the mixed-polarity stimuli. We conclude that there is currently no evidence supporting separate ON and OFF channels in stereopsis.
Behavioral psychological symptoms of dementia and functional connectivity changes: a network-based study.
Neurobiology of aging, 2020

Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are commonly observed since the early stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD) associated with structural brain changes. It is conceivable that they may also relate to functional brain changes. This resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI) study investigated the alterations within functional brain networks of a cohort of AD patients at different clinical stages who presented with BPSD. One hundred one AD patients and 56 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment underwent a neuropsychological evaluation including the Neuropsychiatry Inventory-12 (NPI-12). All patients and 35 healthy controls (HS) underwent 3T-MRI. Factor analysis was used to extract the principal factors from NPI-12, while RS-fMRI data were processed using graph theory to investigate functional connectivity. Five factors were extracted from NPI-12. Sixty-two percent of patients showed BPSD and functional brain connectivity changes in various networks compared to those without BPSD and HS. These changes contributed to account for patients' BPSD. This work opens new perspectives in terms of nonpharmacological interventions that might be designed to modulate brain connectivity and improve patients' BPSD.
Who needs AESOP? Predicting long-term readmission rates from routine Early Intervention team discharge information.
Early intervention in psychiatry, 2018

Prognosis following early psychosis is highly variable. Long-term prognostic information from research studies is available in only a few areas. We sought to understand how well routine discharge information allows prediction of long-term readmission prognosis.
Timing of initiation of oral anticoagulants in patients with acute ischemic stroke and atrial fibrillation comparing posterior and anterior circulation strokes.
European stroke journal, 2020

The aim of this study in patients with acute posterior ischaemic stroke (PS) and atrial fibrillation (AF) was to evaluate (1) the risks of recurrent ischaemic event and severe bleeding and (2) these risks in relation with oral anticoagulant therapy (OAT) and its timing.
LTP Induction Boosts Glutamate Spillover by Driving Withdrawal of Perisynaptic Astroglia.
Neuron, 2020

Extrasynaptic actions of glutamate are limited by high-affinity transporters expressed by perisynaptic astroglial processes (PAPs): this helps maintain point-to-point transmission in excitatory circuits. Memory formation in the brain is associated with synaptic remodeling, but how this affects PAPs and therefore extrasynaptic glutamate actions is poorly understood. Here, we used advanced imaging methods, in situ and in vivo, to find that a classical synaptic memory mechanism, long-term potentiation (LTP), triggers withdrawal of PAPs from potentiated synapses. Optical glutamate sensors combined with patch-clamp and 3D molecular localization reveal that LTP induction thus prompts spatial retreat of astroglial glutamate transporters, boosting glutamate spillover and NMDA-receptor-mediated inter-synaptic cross-talk. The LTP-triggered PAP withdrawal involves NKCC1 transporters and the actin-controlling protein cofilin but does not depend on major Ca
Cellular-scale silicon probes for high-density, precisely localized neurophysiology.
Journal of neurophysiology, 2020

Neural implants with large numbers of electrodes have become an important tool for examining brain functions. However, these devices typically displace a large intracranial volume compared with the neurons they record. This large size limits the density of implants, provokes tissue reactions that degrade chronic performance, and impedes the ability to accurately visualize recording sites within intact circuits. Here we report next-generation silicon-based neural probes at a cellular scale (5 × 10 µm cross section), with ultra-high-density packing (as little as 66 µm between shanks) and 64 or 256 closely spaced recording sites per probe. We show that these probes can be inserted into superficial or deep brain structures and record large spikes in freely behaving rats for many weeks. Finally, we demonstrate a slice-in-place approach for the precise registration of recording sites relative to nearby neurons and anatomical features, including striatal µ-opioid receptor patches. This scalable technology provides a valuable tool for examining information processing within neural circuits and potentially for human brain-machine interfaces.
Prevalence and characteristics of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in adult migraineurs: Perspectives from a tertiary referral headache unit.
Cephalalgia : an international journal of headache, 2021

Migraine affects how the brain processes sensory information at multiple levels. The aberrant integration of visual and somatosensory stimuli is thought to underlie Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, a disorder often reported as being associated with migraine. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about the epidemiology of this syndrome in migraineurs and the association between Alice in Wonderland Syndrome episodes and migraine attacks. Therefore, we conducted a prospective cohort study to systematically evaluate the prevalence and the clinical features of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome in a large sample of patients with migraine.
Are there reasons to challenge a symbolic computationalist approach in explaining deductive reasoning?
Integrative psychological & behavioral science, 2008

The majority of the existing theories explaining deductive reasoning could be included in a classic computationalist approach of the cognitive processes. In fact, deductive reasoning could be seen to be the pinnacle of the symbolic computationalism, its last fortress to be defended in the face of new, dynamic, and ecological perspectives over cognition. But are there weak points in that position regarding deductive reasoning? What would be the reasons for which new perspectives could gain in credibility? What could be their most important tenets? The answers given to those questions in the paper include two main points. The first one is that the present empirical data could not sustain unambiguously one view over the other, that they are obtained in artificial experimental conditions, and that there are data that are not easily explainable using the traditional computationalist paradigm. The second one is that approaching the deductive reasoning from dynamic and ecological perspectives could have significant advantages. The most obvious one is the possibility to integrate more easily the research regarding the deductive reasoning with the results obtained in other domains of the psychology (especially in what respects the lower cognitive processes), in artificial intelligence or in neurophysiology. The reasons for that would be that such perspectives, as they are sketched in the paper, would imply, essentially, processes of second-order pattern formation and recognition (as it is the case for perception), embodied cognition, and dynamic processes as the brain ones are.
[Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy with myelopathy due to massively enlarged nerve roots].
Rinsho shinkeigaku = Clinical neurology, 2020

We report a 77-year-old man who presented with numbness and weakness of the feet bilaterally, that had progressed over 13 years. He was diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) on the basis of nerve conduction studies and a sural nerve biopsy; however, he was inadequately treated and his weakness had progressed. At 76 years of age, he developed spasticity in the legs as well as bladder and rectal incontinences. Gd-enhanced MRI revealed severe compression of the cervical cord by massively enlarged nerve roots. A cervical laminectomy was performed to decompress the cervical cord. A fascicular biopsy of the C5 dorsal root showed a prominent lymphocyte infiltration and edema. Repeated methylprednisolone pulse therapy and IVIg ameliorated the weakness. We concluded that the main cause of nerve root hypertrophy in this patient was active inflammation.
Emotion Regulation Modulates Dietary Decision-Making via Activity in the Prefrontal-Striatal Valuation System.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2020

The consumption of indulgent, carbohydrate- and fat-rich foods is often used as a strategy to cope with negative affect because they provide immediate self-reward. Such dietary choices, however, can severely affect people's health. One countermeasure could be to improve one's emotion regulation ability. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural activity underlying the downregulation of incidental emotions and its effect on subsequent food choices. We investigated whether emotion regulation leads to healthier food choices and how emotion regulation interacts with the brain's valuation and decision-making circuitry. We found that 1) the downregulation of incidental negative emotions was associated with a subsequent selective increase in decisions for tasty but also for healthy foods, 2) food preferences were predicted by palatability but also by the current emotional state, and 3) emotion regulation modulated decision-related activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum. These results indicate that emotional states are indeed important for food choice and that the process of emotion regulation might boost the subsequent processing of health attributes, possibly via neural reward circuits. In consequence, our findings suggest that increasing emotion regulation ability could effectively modulate food choices by stimulating an incidental upvaluation of health attributes.
Left hemispheric stroke in a professional artist: A prospective case study.
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2021

Several papers have investigated the effect of stroke on creativity. While initial evidence favored right hemispheric dominance in artwork creation, subsequent well-founded research has established the left hemispheric participation in creativity, supporting the idea of bi-hemispheric role in artistic production. We here describe the case of a renowned artist who suffered a left hemispheric ischemic stroke involving the occipito-temporal region and subsequently manifested several difficulties in producing visual artworks. We documented his recovery phases in a prospective way during the initial months following stroke and observed that, although his constructional abilities recovered to a significant extent over 3 months, spontaneous creation was persistently impaired. The right hemispheric role in visual art is linked mainly to visuo-spatial skills and global attention, while left hemispheric participation is thought to be related to focal attention and visual imagery. Our case study lends support to the idea that art is a bi-hemispheric function with important complementary contributions from both the right and left hemisphere.
[A case of brain tuberculoma resembling a malignant tumor].
Rinsho shinkeigaku = Clinical neurology, 2021

A 35-year-old Sudanese man experienced bitter tastes on the right side of his tongue from January 2012. He was admitted to our hospital in March 2012 because of the appearance of distress, right facial palsy, nausea, and dizziness from late February 2012. A neurological examination revealed Bruns nystagmus, which increased on rightward gaze, as well as total hypoesthesia in the distribution of the maxillary branch of the right trigeminal nerve, moderate right peripheral type facial nerve palsy, and limb ataxia on the right side. Neither muscle weakness nor sensory disturbance was observed. Slight hyperreflexia was noted in the right extremities, and bilateral plantar responses were flexor. He showed wide-based ataxic gait and was unable to do tandem gait. Brain CT scans and magnetic resonance (MR) images revealed a mass lesion in the right pons to the right middle cerebellar peduncle with ring enhancement, suggestive of a "target" sign. Laboratory tests, including hematological and biochemical analyses, tumor markers, and antibodies, had normal values while the tuberculin reaction and QuantiFERON-TB Gold were strongly positive. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis revealed a slight increase in the protein level (76 mg/dl) with a normal cell count (2 per μl), and polymerase chain reaction-based tests and cultures were negative for Mycobacterium tuberculosis three times. Right subclavicular lymph node and right adrenal gland showed accumulation of fluorodeoxyglucose on positron emission tomography-CT, as did the mass lesion in the brainstem. These findings suggested a possibility of a metastatic malignant tumor or extrapleural tuberculoma. Because of the patient's religious belief, we were unable to perform a biopsy of the lymph node, and thus administered anti-tuberculous drugs. With treatment, his neurological symptoms such as facial palsy and ataxia improved steadily except for paradoxical worsening for the initial five days, and the gadolinium-enhanced lesion shrunk markedly. Follow-up MR images demonstrated that the lesions did not expand further for 9 months. From this course of treatment, we diagnosed the patient's tumor as brainstem tuberculoma. Brain tuberculoma sometimes resembles a malignant tumor, and it is therefore challenging to diagnose brainstem tuberculosis in cases without lung lesions. It is important to make a comprehensive diagnosis based on the patient's background, imaging, and course of treatment, and to treat brainstem tuberculoma promptly.