scholarly journals Internal Consistency of Sway Measures via Embedded Head-Mounted Accelerometers: Implications for Neuromotor Investigations

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 4492
Author(s):  
Andrew P. Lapointe ◽  
Jessica N. Ritchie ◽  
Rachel V. Vitali ◽  
Joel S. Burma ◽  
Ateyeh Soroush ◽  
...  

Accelerometers are being increasingly incorporated into neuroimaging devices to enable real-time filtering of movement artifacts. In this study, we evaluate the reliability of sway metrics derived from these accelerometers in a standard eyes-open balance assessment to determine their utility in multimodal study designs. Ten participants equipped with a head-mounted accelerometer performed an eyes-open standing condition on 7 consecutive days. Sway performance was quantified with 4 standard metrics: root-mean-square (RMS) acceleration, peak-to-peak (P2P) acceleration, jerk, and ellipse area. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) quantified reliability. P2P in both the mediolateral (ICC = 0.65) and anteroposterior (ICC = 0.67) planes yielded the poorest reliability. Both ellipse area and RMS exhibited good reliability, ranging from 0.76 to 0.84 depending on the plane. Finally, jerk displayed the highest reliability with an ICC value of 0.95. Moderate to excellent reliability was observed in all sway metrics. These findings demonstrate that head-mounted accelerometers, commonly found in neuroimaging devices, can be used to reliably assess sway. These data validate the use of head-mounted accelerometers in the assessment of motor control alongside other measures of brain activity such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Burns ◽  
Lianne N. Barnes ◽  
Ian A. McCulloh ◽  
Munqith M. Dagher ◽  
Emily B. Falk ◽  
...  

The large majority of social neuroscience research uses WEIRD populations – participants from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic locations. This makes it difficult to claim whether neuropsychological functions are universal or culture specific. In this study, we demonstrate one approach to addressing the imbalance by using portable neuroscience equipment in a study of persuasion conducted in Jordan with an Arabic-speaking sample. Participants were shown persuasive videos on various health and safety topics while their brain activity was measured using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Self-reported persuasiveness ratings for each video were then recorded. Consistent with previous research conducted with American subjects, this work found that activity in the dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex predicted how persuasive participants found the videos and how much they intended to engage in the messages’ endorsed behaviors. Further, activity in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with persuasiveness ratings, but only in participants for whom the message was personally relevant. Implications for these results on the understanding of the brain basis of persuasion and on future directions for neuroimaging in diverse populations are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Sébastien Laurent ◽  
Laurence Paire-Ficout ◽  
Jean-Michel Boucheix ◽  
Stéphane Argon ◽  
Antonio Hidalgo-Muñoz

The question of the possible impact of deafness on temporal processing remains unanswered. Different findings, based on behavioral measures, show contradictory results. The goal of the present study is to analyze the brain activity underlying time estimation by using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) techniques, which allow examination of the frontal, central and occipital cortical areas. A total of 37 participants (19 deaf) were recruited. The experimental task involved processing a road scene to determine whether the driver had time to safely execute a driving task, such as overtaking. The road scenes were presented in animated format, or in sequences of 3 static images showing the beginning, mid-point, and end of a situation. The latter presentation required a clocking mechanism to estimate the time between the samples to evaluate vehicle speed. The results show greater frontal region activity in deaf people, which suggests that more cognitive effort is needed to process these scenes. The central region, which is involved in clocking according to several studies, is particularly activated by the static presentation in deaf people during the estimation of time lapses. Exploration of the occipital region yielded no conclusive results. Our results on the frontal and central regions encourage further study of the neural basis of time processing and its links with auditory capacity.


2020 ◽  
pp. jrheum.191391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Finzel ◽  
Sarah L. Manske ◽  
Cheryl Barnabe ◽  
Andrew J. Burghardt ◽  
Hubert Marotte ◽  
...  

Objective The aim of this multi-reader exercise was to assess the reliability and change over time of erosion measurements in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients using high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT). Methods HR-pQCT scans of 23 patients with RA were assessed at baseline and 12 months. Four experienced readers examined the dorsal, palmar, radial, and ulnar surfaces of the metacarpal head (MH) and phalangeal base (PB) of the 2nd and 3rd digits, blinded to time order. In total, 368 surfaces (23 patients x16 surfaces) were evaluated per time point to characterize cortical breaks as pathological (erosion) or physiological, and to quantify erosion width and depth. Reliability was evaluated by intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), percentage agreement, and Light’s kappa; change over time was defined by means ± SD of erosion numbers and dimensions. Results ICCs for the mean measurements of width and depth of the pathological breaks ranged between 0.819 - 0.883, and 0.771 - 0.907 respectively. Most physiological cortical breaks were found at the palmar PB, whereas most pathological cortical breaks were located at the radial MH. There was a significant increase in both the numbers and the dimensions of erosions between baseline and follow-up (p=0.0001 for erosion numbers, width, and depth in axial plane, and p=0.001 for depth in perpendicular plane). Conclusion This exercise confirmed good reliability of HR-pQCT erosion measurements and their ability to detect change over time.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 2362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander E. Hramov ◽  
Vadim Grubov ◽  
Artem Badarin ◽  
Vladimir A. Maksimenko ◽  
Alexander N. Pisarchik

Sensor-level human brain activity is studied during real and imaginary motor execution using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Blood oxygenation and deoxygenation spatial dynamics exhibit pronounced hemispheric lateralization when performing motor tasks with the left and right hands. This fact allowed us to reveal biomarkers of hemodynamical response of the motor cortex on the motor execution, and use them for designing a sensing method for classification of the type of movement. The recognition accuracy of real movements is close to 100%, while the classification accuracy of imaginary movements is lower but quite high (at the level of 90%). The advantage of the proposed method is its ability to classify real and imaginary movements with sufficiently high efficiency without the need for recalculating parameters. The proposed system can serve as a sensor of motor activity to be used for neurorehabilitation after severe brain injuries, including traumas and strokes.


Author(s):  
Paola Pinti ◽  
Andrea Devoto ◽  
Isobel Greenhalgh ◽  
Ilias Tachtsidis ◽  
Paul W Burgess ◽  
...  

Abstract Anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC, Brodmann area 10) activations are often, but not always, found in neuroimaging studies investigating deception, and the precise role of this area remains unclear. To explore the role of the PFC in face-to-face deception, we invited pairs of participants to play a card game involving lying and lie detection while we used functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to record brain activity in the PFC. Participants could win points for successfully lying about the value of their cards or for detecting lies. We contrasted patterns of brain activation when the participants either told the truth or lied, when they were either forced into this or did so voluntarily and when they either succeeded or failed to detect a lie. Activation in the anterior PFC was found in both lie production and detection, unrelated to reward. Analysis of cross-brain activation patterns between participants identified areas of the PFC where the lead player’s brain activity synchronized their partner’s later brain activity. These results suggest that during situations that involve close interpersonal interaction, the anterior PFC supports processing widely involved in deception, possibly relating to the demands of monitoring one’s own and other people’s behaviour.


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