Comparison of the Effects of Sensorimotor Rhythm and Slow Cortical Potential Neurofeedback in Epilepsy

Current conventional epilepsy treatments do not always aim to improve epilepsy comorbidities. For a treatment to be effective, is not necessary for it to keep the patient seizure-free; it is sufficient to show improvement in functions to help people who suffer from epilepsy to become more independent and productive in life. There is an urgent need to explore non- pharmaceutical/non-invasive interventions that can help in that regard. The earlier patients are treated with this condition, the more likely it is to prevent severe disabilities over time. Neurofeedback is a self-modulatory brain activity oscillatory intervention that previous researchers have found to reduce seizure frequency in patients with epilepsy. The aim of this work was to compare two Neurofeedback techniques that have shown some efficacy in improving symptoms in epilepsy. The novelty of this study is to explore further and included clinical, neurophysiological and cognitive outcomes in order to assess in more detail the effectiveness of epilepsy comorbidities. Forty-four patients, between the ages of 12 and 18 years, and diagnosed with focal epilepsy, divided randomly into three groups: sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) training, slow cortical potential (SCP) training, and control. The patients completed 25 sessions of intervention. The results showed that the SMR group training had an advantage in improving reaction time compared with SCP and control. Regression analysis revealed a significant correlation between the patients who learned to modify their brain activity in the SMR group and improving reaction time in two different tasks. In addition, the quality of life scale significantly improved in all three groups. The study supplies preliminary data to support that SMR neurofeedback training as an intervention should further be explored as a therapeutic option for children who suffer from focal epilepsy.CONACYT (Mexican Council of science and technology

Inhibition in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a developmental condition estimated to affect approximately 5.9 to 7.1 per cent of children and 5.29 per cent of adults worldwide (Willcutt, 2012). Whilst the aetiology of the disorder is unknown, ADHD is characterised by attention deficits, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. These symptoms often significantly impair an individual’s functioning in the domains of school, employment, home life, and general social settings. In this thesis, I investigated the effect of dysfunctional inhibition in individuals with ADHD. Specifically, bottom-up processes, such as motor inhibition, motor control, and attentional inertia, were investigated to see to what extent these processes are affected by inhibitory dysfunction. This essential process is impaired in individuals with ADHD. This was accomplished by a battery of tasks, including a motor inhibition task, two motor skills tasks, and an attentional inertia task. These tasks were indexed to a Stroop task to investigate the possibility of a general inhibitory dysfunction in both top-down and bottom-up processes. In addition, the motor inhibition and Stroop task were indexed to self-inventories commonly used to identify individuals with ADHD. Across these eight experiments, adolescent ADHD individuals, age-matched controls, and adults undertook various tasks designed to index automatic bottom-up motor inhibition. Results showed that, compared with controls, ADHD individuals did not exhibit usual levels of inhibition. However, higher-level cognitive inhibition, as measured with Stroop, was comparable with controls. Results also revealed a positive association, but not a statistically significant one, between the degree to which a person exhibits ADHD-like behaviour and the degree to which they lack automatic motor inhibition. I will later show that it is due to a specific diagnostic construct of ADHD that does not include motor difficulties. These data suggest that bottom-up inhibitory motor processes are an essential component of ADHD. I will argue that including dysfunctional motor inhibition complements current ADHD models, particularly those developed by Barkley (1997) and Nigg (2001)

A Gaze into politics. The role of ideology, personality and political group processing in shaping automatic social behaviors

Studies in human and non-human primates indicate that basic socio-cognitive operations are inherently linked to the power of gaze in capturing reflexively the attention of an observer. Here I report a series of behavioral and neural investigation studies that I and my collaborators have conducted on the modulation of this automatic social behavior by high order factors as politics. In particular, we showed that Gaze following behavior is permeable to social identities within the political domain, individual differences in ideology and personality and low level facial features that drive our inferences on the personality of a character. Furthermore I discussed which are the social processes that underly this basic social cognitive behavior and sketched future directions to better clarify this issue

An investigation into the neural substrates of virtue to determine the key place of virtues in human moral development

Virtues, as described by Aristotle and Aquinas, are understood as dispositions of character to behave in habitual, specific, positive ways; virtue is a critical requirement for human flourishing. From the perspective of Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology which offers an integrated vision of the material and the rational in the human person, I seek to identify the neural bases for the development and exercise of moral virtue. First I review current neuroscientific knowledge of the capacity of the brain to structure according to experience, to facilitate behaviours, to regulate emotional responses and support goal election. Then, having identified characteristics of moral virtue in the light of the distinctions between cardinal virtues, I propose neural substrates by mapping neuroscientific knowledge to these characteristics. I then investigate the relationship between virtue, including its neurobiological features, and human flourishing. This process allows a contemporary and evidence-based corroboration for a model of moral development based on growth in virtue as understood by Aristotle and Aquinas, and a demonstration of a biological aptitude and predisposition for the development of virtue. Conclusions are drawn with respect to science, ethics, and parenting

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Environmental Sensitivity: A Multi-Domain Investigation of its Development in Infancy

Highly sensitive individuals are thought to be disproportionately susceptible to both the risk engendering and development enhancing elements of their environment. If this is so, it seems necessary to hold that sensitivity is a unitary construct, in which markers of sensitivity to stimuli at neural, autonomic, and behavioural levels of analysis moderate the relationship between early social environments and outcomes, for better as well as for worse. The trait of environmental sensitivity (ES) is theorised, through conditional adaptation to enable resource exploitation or risk survival in the developmental context. This thesis tests four main hypotheses: that measures of ES at different levels of analysis would covary at 6-months and would be evoked by positive and negative stimuli; whether associations between measures at 6-months would endure by 12-months; that indices of sensitivity at 12-months would associate with measures indexing the quality of the developmental environment; that measures indexing ES would moderate the relationship between the environment and outcomes. Neural, autonomic, and behavioural indices of ES were measured in N82 infants at 6-months and 12-months, while concurrently collecting data on the wellbeing and socioeconomic status (SES) of their parents. Levels of infant self-regulation and sustained attention were assessed at 12-months. Associations between visual and auditory neural sensitivity were found at 6-months but not 12-months. Likewise, measures of positive and negative behavioural reactivity correlated at 6-months but not 12-months. Maternal SES moderated the relationship between negative reactivity at 6-months and positive reactivity at 12-months such that negatively reactive 6-months infants from high SES households were more positively reactive at 12-months. Baseline RSA at 6-months moderated the relationship between maternal anxiety and 12-months self-regulation but was marginally non-significant. The results are interpreted from the perspective of theories and concepts that have been integrated into a single overarching meta framework of Environmental Sensitivity

Inhibitory Control Training

Inhibitory control is a critical neurocognitive skill for navigating cognitive, social, and emotional challenges. It rapidly increases during the preschool period and is important for early cognitive development, as it is a crucial component of executive functioning, self-regulation, and impulsivity. Inhibitory control training (ICT) is a novel intervention in which participants learn to associate appetitive cues with inhibition of behavior. It is being considered a promising approach in the treatment of psychopathology and appetitive behaviors. This book aims to bring together knowledge on the topic, considering research, clinic, and forensic field of intervention. Indeed, this book can be considered an excellent synopsis of perspectives, methods, empirical evidence, and international references