Front Hum Neurosci
-
Individual differences in adult human brain structure have been found to reveal a great deal of information about variability in behaviors, cognitive abilities and mental and physical health. Driven by such evidence, what contributes to individual variation in brain structure has gained accelerated attention as a research question. Findings thus far appear to support the notion that an individual's brain architecture is determined largely by genetic and environmental influences. ⋯ It first considers how genetic and environmental effects may separately contribute to brain morphology, by examining evidence from twin, genome-wide association, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Next, evidence for the influence of the complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors, characterized as gene-environment interactions and correlations, is reviewed. In evaluating the extant literature, this review will conclude that both genetic and environmental factors play critical roles in contributing to individual variability in brain structure.
-
Minimal or inconsistent behavioral responses to command make it challenging to accurately diagnose the level of awareness of a patient with a Disorder of consciousness (DOC). By identifying markers of mental imagery being covertly performed to command, functional neuroimaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) has shown that some of these patients are aware despite their lack of behavioral responsiveness. We report the findings of behavioral, fMRI, and EEG approaches to detecting command-following in a group of patients with DOC. ⋯ A further patient demonstrated command following only in the EEG motor imagery task, and two patients did not demonstrate command following in any of the behavioral, EEG, or fMRI assessments. Due to the heterogeneity of etiology and pathology in this group, DOC patients vary in terms of their suitability for some forms of neuroimaging, the preservation of specific neural structures, and the cognitive resources that may be available to them. Assessments of a range of cognitive abilities supported by spatially-distinct brain regions and indexed by multiple neural signatures are therefore required in order to accurately characterize a patient's level of residual cognition and awareness.
-
"Chronic traumatic encephalopathy" (CTE) is described as a slowly progressive neurodegenerative disease believed to result from multiple concussions. Traditionally, concussions were considered benign events and although most people recover fully, about 10% develop a post-concussive syndrome with persisting neurological, cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms. ⋯ Much remains unknown about the development of CTE but its pathological substrate is usually tau, similar to that seen in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). The aim of this "perspective" is to compare and contrast clinical and pathological CTE with the other neurodegenerative proteinopathies and highlight that there is an urgent need for understanding the relationship between concussion and the development of CTE as it may provide a window into the development of a proteinopathy and thus new avenues for treatment.
-
Modulation of pain using visual distortion of body size (VDBS) has been the subject of various reports. However, the mechanism underlying the effect of VDBS on pain has been less often studied. In the present study, factors associated with modulation of pain threshold by VDBS were investigated. ⋯ Interestingly, this emotional reaction was strongly associated with negative body consciousness in several subjects. These data suggested an analgesic effect of visual feedback in the form of a magnified image of the hand is only when tactile perception is vivid and the emotional reaction toward the magnified image is moderate. The results also suggested that negative body consciousness is important for the modulation of pain using VDBS.
-
Research in sports, dance and rehabilitation has shown that basic action concepts (BACs) are fundamental building blocks of mental action representations. BACs are based on chunked body postures related to common functions for realizing action goals. In this paper, we outline issues in research methodology and an experimental method, the structural dimensional analysis of mental representation (SDA-M), to assess action-relevant representational structures that reflect the organization of BACs. ⋯ We show how the SDA-M can improve motor imagery training and how it contributes to our understanding of coaching processes. The SDA-M capitalizes on the objective measurement of individual mental movement representations before training and the integration of these results into the motor imagery training. Such motor imagery training based on mental representations (MTMR) has been applied successfully in professional sports such as golf, volleyball, gymnastics, windsurfing, and recently in the rehabilitation of patients who have suffered a stroke.