KEER2022

Avanttítol: KEER2022. DiversitiesDescripció del recurs: 25 juliol 202

13th Annual Focus on Creative Inquiry Poster Forum Program

The Focus on Creative Inquiry (FoCI) Poster Forum is an annual event in which CI teams can present their research and project accomplishments through poster and interactive displays. FoCI is a celebration of student and mentor collaboration and accomplishments! FoCI is a great venue for students to develop and hone their communication skills

The reverse translation of a quantitative neuropsychiatric framework into preclinical studies:Focus on social interaction and behavior

Following the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) concept, major brain circuits are conserved in evolution and malfunctioning of a brain circuit will lead to specific behavioral symptoms. Reverse translation of patient-based findings from Alzheimer’s disease (AD), schizophrenia (SZ) and major depression (MD) patients to preclinical models accordingly can be a starting point for developing a deeper understanding of the functional circuit biology and contribute to the validation of new hypotheses for therapeutic intervention in patients. In the context of the EU funded PRISM project, a preclinical test battery of tasks has been selected and aligned with the clinical test battery. It allows for assessment of social functioning, sensory processing, attention and working memory and is designed for validation of biological substrates from human molecular landscaping of social withdrawal. This review will broadly summarize the available literature on tasks for studying social behavior in rodents and outline the development of a preclinical test battery for the PRISM project by reverse translation

Proceedings of the 6th international conference on disability, virtual reality and associated technologies (ICDVRAT 2006)

The proceedings of the conferenc

A Biosymtic (Biosymbiotic Robotic) Approach to Human Development and Evolution. The Echo of the Universe.

In the present work we demonstrate that the current Child-Computer Interaction paradigm is not potentiating human development to its fullest – it is associated with several physical and mental health problems and appears not to be maximizing children’s cognitive performance and cognitive development. In order to potentiate children’s physical and mental health (including cognitive performance and cognitive development) we have developed a new approach to human development and evolution. This approach proposes a particular synergy between the developing human body, computing machines and natural environments. It emphasizes that children should be encouraged to interact with challenging physical environments offering multiple possibilities for sensory stimulation and increasing physical and mental stress to the organism. We created and tested a new set of computing devices in order to operationalize our approach – Biosymtic (Biosymbiotic Robotic) devices: “Albert” and “Cratus”. In two initial studies we were able to observe that the main goal of our approach is being achieved. We observed that, interaction with the Biosymtic device “Albert”, in a natural environment, managed to trigger a different neurophysiological response (increases in sustained attention levels) and tended to optimize episodic memory performance in children, compared to interaction with a sedentary screen-based computing device, in an artificially controlled environment (indoors) - thus a promising solution to promote cognitive performance/development; and that interaction with the Biosymtic device “Cratus”, in a natural environment, instilled vigorous physical activity levels in children - thus a promising solution to promote physical and mental health

The effect of odours and synthetic pheromones on reducing stress-related behaviour in the confined domestic dog

Confinement can be a stressor for dogs and can be inherently stressful if it occurs in unpredictable and novel environments, such as kennels or laboratories. Stress can have deleterious psychological and physiological effects on canine health and, therefore, it is important to mitigate stress to avoid compromising welfare. A potential approach to reducing stress in confined dogs is the use of olfactory stimuli. Odours and synthetic pheromones are purported to improve wellbeing through alleviating stress and promoting behaviours indicative of relaxation. However, research into odours and pheromones marketed as stress relief products is understudied in dogs, which limits conclusions in the canine and veterinary industries on whether they are effective and cost efficient. Limited research has been conducted on the effects of odours, and no published research exists for the purported stress relief odour Pet Remedy® in pet dogs. Furthermore, no research exists for the synthetic pheromone Adaptil® spray in sheltered dogs, which is advertised as an effective strategy to reduce stress. Moreover, studies relating to the efficacy of the Adaptil® diffuser are equivocal due to contradictory findings and a lack of supporting behavioural and physiological indicators of reduced stress in pet dogs. This critical commentary discusses the efficacy of odours and synthetic pheromones as tools to reduce stress-related behaviour in confined pet and sheltered dogs. A critical reflection on four peer-reviewed evidence sources was conducted to establish their contribution to canine olfactory research, and to provide an evidence base for future odour and pheromone research to build on. Odours such as coconut (Cocos nucifera), ginger (Zingiber officinale), vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) and valerian (Valeriana officinalis) were found to significantly reduce levels of vocalisations and activity in sheltered dogs indicating reduced stress, compared to control conditions. Coconut and ginger also increased levels of sleeping behaviour, suggestive of induced relaxation. However, valerian when combined with other odours found in the stress relief product Pet Remedy®, did not reduce behavioural indicators indicative of a stress response in pet dogs tested in a ‘laboratory like’ standardised condition. The research demonstrates that when applied on their own, coconut, ginger, vanilla and valerian may have some value in reducing stress-related behaviour in confined dogs. These odours could offer shelters a wider odour choice, aiding variation and interest while avoiding habituation to repeated use of the same odours over time. Increasing understanding of the efficacy of odours could help benefit canine welfare through improved management practices and stress reduction. Though, longer term research and larger sample sizes that account for individual variation in dogs such as breed, previous experiences and differences in temperament is required to confirm this. The research demonstrates that the synthetic pheromone Adaptil® spray did not markedly influence behaviours indicative of stress in sheltered dogs. Further, the Adaptil® diffuser did not reduce stress-related behaviour or eye temperature (º C) and did not influence heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV) or ear temperature (º C) in pet dogs tested in a ‘laboratory like’ standardised condition when separated from their owners. The value of Adaptil® and whether it is at all warranted or only useful within certain contexts has yet to be fully determined, and future research that utilises placebo controlled, blinded experimental designs over a prolonged period is needed. Until there is a stronger evidentiary basis supporting the use of Adaptil®, veterinary professionals should be cautious about recommending such products to clients considering there are financial and ethical complications if products are ineffective. Future opportunities exist to determine odour and pheromone efficacy in confined dogs through incorporating cortisol and neurological measures such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) alongside cognitive, behavioural, integumentary and cardiovascular parameters to further objectively measure stress

On the Recognition of Emotion from Physiological Data

This work encompasses several objectives, but is primarily concerned with an experiment where 33 participants were shown 32 slides in order to create ‗weakly induced emotions‘. Recordings of the participants‘ physiological state were taken as well as a self report of their emotional state. We then used an assortment of classifiers to predict emotional state from the recorded physiological signals, a process known as Physiological Pattern Recognition (PPR). We investigated techniques for recording, processing and extracting features from six different physiological signals: Electrocardiogram (ECG), Blood Volume Pulse (BVP), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Electromyography (EMG), for the corrugator muscle, skin temperature for the finger and respiratory rate. Improvements to the state of PPR emotion detection were made by allowing for 9 different weakly induced emotional states to be detected at nearly 65% accuracy. This is an improvement in the number of states readily detectable. The work presents many investigations into numerical feature extraction from physiological signals and has a chapter dedicated to collating and trialing facial electromyography techniques. There is also a hardware device we created to collect participant self reported emotional states which showed several improvements to experimental procedure