Decongestion improving right heart function ameliorates prognosis after an acute heart failure episode.

The prognostic role of decongestion-related change of cardiac morphology and in particular right heart function has not been investigated comprehensively in AHF patients. This prospective observational single-centre study included consecutive patients hospitalized for treatment of AHF with reduced, mildly-reduced or preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Comprehensive transthoracic echocardiography at admission and discharge assessed decongestion-related change of cardiac function and morphology. The combined endpoint of 1 year all-cause mortality and cardiovascular rehospitalization explored the prognostic importance of decongestion-related change. The 176 study participants were 83 years old [74-87] and 54% were men. Fifty one (29%) had rLVEF, 65 (37%) mrLVEF, and 60 (34%) pLVEF. The proportion of de novo or worsening chronic HF was not different between LVEF groups. HF aetiology and cardiovascular risk factors were equally distributed across all groups except for a higher BMI in the pLVEF group. Decongestion equally reduced body weight, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, tricuspid regurgitation gradient, and inferior vena cava diameter across all groups (P < 0.004 for all). Decongestion-related increase in TAPSE independent of the LVEF was associated with improvement of right-ventricular-pulmonary artery coupling and a lower incidence of the combined outcome in the Cox proportional hazard risk analysis (unadjusted HR 0.50 95% CI 0.33-0.78, P = 0.002; adjusted HR 0.46 95% CI: 0.33-0.78, P = 0.001). Decongestion-related increase in TAPSE and recovery of RV/pulmonary artery coupling was observed across all LVEF groups and associated with a risk reduction for the combined endpoint highlighting the important prognostic role of right heart recovery after an AHF episode

Summation of visual attributes in auditory‐visual crossmodal

Crossmodal correspondences are a feature of human perception in which two or more sensory dimensions are linked together; for example, high‐pitched noises may be more readily linked with small objects than large objects. However, no study yet has systematically examined the interaction between different visual‐auditory crossmodal correspondences. We investigated how the visual dimensions of luminance, saturation, size and vertical position can influence decisions when matching particular visual stimuli with high‐pitched or low‐pitched auditory stimuli. For multi‐dimensional stimuli, we found a general pattern of summation of individual crossmodal correspondences, with some exceptions that may be explained by Garner interference. These findings have applications for the design of sensory substitution systems, which convert information from one sensory modality to another

As light as your scent: effects of smell and sound on body image perception

How people mentally represent their body appearance (i.e., body image perception - BIP) does not always match their actual body. BIP distortions can lead to a detriment in physical and emotional health. Recent works in HCI have shown that technology can be used to change people’s BIP through visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and auditory stimulation. This paper investigates, for the first time, the effect of olfactory stimuli, by looking at a possible enhancement of a known auditory effect on BIP.We present two studies building on emerging knowledge in the field of crossmodal correspondences. First, we explored the correspondences between scents and body shapes. Then, we investigated the impact of combined scents and sounds on one’s own BIP. Our results show that scent stimuli can be used to make participants feel lighter or heavier (i.e., using lemon or vanilla) and to enhance the effect of sound on perceived body lightness. We discuss how these findings can inform future research and design directions to overcome body misperception and create novel augmented and embodied experiences