Neuroscience
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Elderly adults may have poorer recall ability than young adults and may not fully enjoy the effects of motor imagery. To understand the age bias of the effect of motor imagery on hand dexterity, we evaluated brain activation and spinal motor nerve excitability. Brain activation was evaluated from changes in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration, while spinal motor nerve excitability was evaluated from F-waves in eight young (mean age 21.0 ± 0.5 years) and eight elderly (mean age 69.5 ± 2.3 years) subjects of matched sex ratio at rest and during motor imagery. ⋯ In addition, regardless of age-related changes, causal coupling indicated the supplementary motor cortex was associated with the changes of spinal motor nerve excitability. Although the changes in brain activation during motor imagery were influenced by age, motor imagery-induced improvements in hand dexterity are also expected in the elderly. Furthermore, changes in spinal motor nerve excitability may be useful in determining the qualitative aspects of motor imagery.
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Motor actions adapt dynamically to external changes through the brain's ability to predict sensory outcomes and adjust for discrepancies between anticipated and actual sensory inputs. In this study, we investigated how changes in target speed (vT) and direction influenced visuomotor responses, focusing on gaze and manual joystick control during an interception task. Participants tracked a moving target with sinusoidal variations in vT and directional changes, generating sensory prediction errors and requiring real-time adjustments. ⋯ Participants also exhibited rapid within-trial adjustments, with peak gaze and joystick gains increasing linearly with vT frequency, highlighting the critical role of manual control in matching or exceeding vT for successful interception. Additionally, responses to sudden phase changes in the vT sinusoid revealed the continuous monitoring of prediction errors driven by the magnitude of phase shifts. These findings illustrate the brain's predictive system's ability to integrate continuous visual feedback and sensory prediction errors to fine-tune motor responses and anticipate future target speeds.
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Review Meta Analysis
Risk factors for delirium in patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Delirium is one of the serious neurological complications of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality in patients with COVID-19, especially in older patients. There is currently no meta-analysis of risk factors for delirium in patients with COVID-19. This study aimed to identify potential risk factors for delirium in patients with COVID-19 through a meta-analysis of observational clinical studies. ⋯ Notably, the administration of hydrocortisone and azithromycin, among other specific medications designated for COVID-19, exhibited a potential to be positively associated with the incidence of delirium in patients afflicted with COVID-19. In conclusion, the present study identified potential predisposing and precipitating factors linked with delirium in COVID-19 patients. It is anticipated that these results will have a considerable impact on the management and treatment of delirium in COVID-19 patients.
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Review Meta Analysis Comparative Study
Comparison of the efficacy of updated drugs for the treatment on the improvement of cognitive function in patients with Alzheimer 's disease: A systematic review and network meta- analysis.
The recent emergence of updated drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has produced encouraging cognitive and clinical results in clinical trials, but there is still controversy over how to choose effective treatment options among these numerous drugs. The purpose of this network meta-analysis (NMA) is to compare and rank these drugs based on their efficacy. ⋯ Donanemab and Lecanemab showed good efficacy in ADCS-ADL and CDR-SB, respectively. GV-971 is the best choice to improve ADAS cogs and NPI.
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Face recognition is an important aspect of human non-verbal communication. Event-related potentials or magnetic fields, such as the N170/M170 component, are considered essential neural markers of face processing. Compared to upright human faces, inverted human faces and upright but not inverted animal faces cause longer latencies and larger amplitudes of these components. ⋯ Additionally, face orientation differentially modulated the anterior region of the fusiform gyrus (FG) in both face categories. These results suggest that spatiotemporal dynamics differ in face orientation regardless of category and that the FG contributes little or nothing to the M170 modulation recorded in the scalp sensor. Furthermore, we demonstrated that inverted human and animal faces are processed via different mechanisms.