Forward optic flow is prioritised in visual awareness independently of walking direction

When two different images are presented separately to each eye, one experiences smooth transitions between them – a phenomenon called binocular rivalry. Previous studies have shown that exposure to signals from other senses can enhance the access of stimulation-congruent images to conscious perception. However, despite our ability to infer perceptual consequences from bodily movements, evidence that action can have an analogous influence on visual awareness is scarce and mainly limited to hand movements. Here, we investigated whether one’s direction of locomotion affects perceptual access to optic flow patterns during binocular rivalry. Participants walked forwards and backwards on a treadmill while viewing highly-realistic visualisations of self-motion in a virtual environment. We hypothesised that visualisations congruent with walking direction would predominate in visual awareness over incongruent ones, and that this effect would increase with the precision of one’s active proprioception. These predictions were not confirmed: optic flow consistent with forward locomotion was prioritised in visual awareness independently of walking direction and proprioceptive abilities. Our findings suggest the limited role of kinaesthetic-proprioceptive information in disambiguating visually perceived direction of self-motion and indicate that vision might be tuned to the (expanding) optic flow patterns prevalent in everyday life

Forward optic flow is prioritised in visual awareness independently of walking direction

Abstract: When two different images are presented separately to each eye, one experiences smooth transitions between them. Previous studies have shown that exposure to signals from other senses can enhance perceptual awareness of stimulation-congruent images. Surprisingly, despite our ability to infer perceptual consequences from bodily movements, evidence that action can have an analogous influence on visual experience is scarce and mainly limited to local (hand) movements. Here, we investigated whether one’s direction of locomotion affects perceptual awareness of optic flow patterns. Participants walked forwards and backwards on a treadmill while viewing highly-realistic visualisations of self-motion in a virtual environment. We hypothesised that visualisations congruent with walking direction would predominate in visual awareness over incongruent ones, and that this effect would increase with the precision of one’s active proprioception. These predictions were not confirmed: optic flow consistent with forward locomotion was prioritised in visual awareness independently of walking direction and proprioceptive abilities. Our results suggest that kinaesthetic-proprioceptive processing plays a limited role in shaping visual experience. This seems at odds with Bayesian accounts of perception but is in-line with Cancellation theories, which imply that crossmodal influences of self-generated signals are suppressed as a redundant source of information about the outside world. (Data and scripts are available at: https://github.com/Pawel-Motyka/SMPVR

OpenVirtualObjects: An Open Set of Standardized and Validated 3D Household Objects for Virtual Reality-Based Research, Assessment, and Therapy

Virtual reality (VR) technology provides clinicians, therapists, and researchers with new opportunities to observe, assess, and train behavior in realistic yet well-controlled environments. However, VR also comes with a number of challenges. For example, compared to more abstract experiments and tests on 2D computer screens, VR-based tasks are more complex to create, which can make it more expensive and time-consuming. One way to overcome these challenges is to create, standardize, and validate VR content and to make it openly available for researchers and clinicians. Here we introduce the OpenVirtualObjects (OVO), a set of 124 realistic 3D household objects that people encounter and use in their everyday lives. The objects were rated by 34 younger and 25 older adults for recognizability, familiarity, details (i.e., visual complexity), contact, and usage (i.e., frequency of usage in daily life). All participants also named and categorized the objects. We provide the data and the experiment- and analysis code online.With OVO, we hope to facilitate VR-based research and clinical applications. Easy and free availability of standardized and validated 3D objects can support systematic VR-based studies and the development of VR-based diagnostics and therapeutic tools

OpenVirtualObjects: An Open Set of Standardized and Validated 3D Household Objects for Virtual Reality-Based Research, Assessment, and Therapy

Virtual reality (VR) technology provides clinicians, therapists, and researchers with new opportunities to observe, assess, and train behavior in realistic yet well-controlled environments. However, VR also comes with a number of challenges. For example, compared to more abstract experiments and tests on 2D computer screens, VR-based tasks are more complex to create, which can make it more expensive and time-consuming. One way to overcome these challenges is to create, standardize, and validate VR content and to make it openly available for researchers and clinicians. Here we introduce the OpenVirtualObjects (OVO), a set of 124 realistic 3D household objects that people encounter and use in their everyday lives. The objects were rated by 34 younger and 25 older adults for recognizability, familiarity, details (i.e., visual complexity), contact, and usage (i.e., frequency of usage in daily life). All participants also named and categorized the objects. We provide the data and the experiment- and analysis code online.With OVO, we hope to facilitate VR-based research and clinical applications. Easy and free availability of standardized and validated 3D objects can support systematic VR-based studies and the development of VR-based diagnostics and therapeutic tools

OpenVirtualObjects (OVO): An open set of standardized and validated 3D household objects for virtual reality-based research, assessment, and therapy.

Virtual reality (VR) technology provides clinicians, therapists, and researchers with new opportunities to observe, assess, and train behaviour in realistic yet well-controlled environments. However, VR also comes with a number of challenges. For example, compared to more abstract experiments and tests on 2D computer screens, VR-based tasks are more complex to create, which can make it more expensive and time-consuming. One way to overcome these challenges is to create, standardize, and validate VR content and to make it openly available for researchers and clinicians. Here we introduce the OpenVirtualObjects (OVO), a set of 124 realistic 3D household objects that people encounter and use in their everyday lives. The objects were rated by 34 younger and 25 older adults for recognizability, familiarity, details (i.e., visual complexity), contact, and usage (i.e., frequency of usage in daily life). All participants also named and categorized the objects. We provide the data and the experiment- and analysis code online. With OVO, we hope to facilitate VR-based research and clinical applications. Easy and free availability of standardized and validated 3D objects can support systematic VR-based studies and the development of VR-based diagnostics and therapeutic tools

Differential regulation of diabetes-induced rat aorta ATP-sensitive potassium channels, Kir 6.1 and Kir 6.2, by pulsed magnetic field therapy

Amaç: Normal ve streptozotosin ile indüklenen diyabetik sıçanlarda serum kolesterol, glikoz, ve trigliserid seviyelerinin normale dönmesini, damarsal hasarların giderilmesini ve özellikle aort halkalarında gevşeme yanıtının oluşmasında olumlu etkileri olan pulslu manyetik alanın (PMA) streptozotosin ile indüklenen diyabetik sıçanlarda ATP’ye duyarlı potasyum kanalları alt ünitelerinden olan Kir 6.1 ve Kir 6.2 üzerine olan etkilerini belirlemek bu çalışmamızın temel amacıdır. Yöntem: Diyabet, sıçanlarda Streptozotosin uygulaması ile indüklendi. Diyabetik sıçanlara 1,5 mT şiddetinde pulslu manyetik alan tedavisi uygulandı. Aortları kesilerek çıkarıldı ve mRNA izole edilerek ardından cDNA haline çevrildi. mRNA ekspresyon düzeylerini belirlemek için Kir 6.1 ve Kir 6.2 mRNA’larına özgü primerler aracılığıyla real time PCR yapıldı. Bulgular: Çalışmalarımızda kullanılan PMA’nın, diyabetik sıçanlarda Kir 6.1 mRNA ekspresyonunu baskılarken ve Kir 6.2 mRNA ekspresyonunu indüklediği gözlenmiştir. Sonuç: PMA tedavisi aortda diyabete bağlı olarak ortaya çıkan endotel hasarlar ile ilişkilendirilmiş kasılma-gevşeme yanıtı ve vasküler tonda oluşan fonksiyon bozukluklarının kısmen iyileştirilmesini sağlar. Bizim buradaki bulgularımız, PMA’nın pozitif tedavi edici etkisini ATP’ye duyarlı potasyum kanallarının üzerinden gerçekleştirdiğini önermektedir.Purpose: Our goal is to determine the effects of pulsed field magnetic field treatment (PMF), which has been reported to lower blood cholesterol, glucose, triglyceride levels and recover vascular defects of diabetic rats, on ATP-sensitive potassium channel subunits, Kir 6.1 and Kir 6.2, of streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rat aorta. Methods: Diabetes was induced in rats by streptozotocin administration. Pulsed filed magnetic field treatment performed at 1,5 mT intensity on diabetic rats. Aortas were excised out and mRNAs were isolated and reverse transcribed into cDNAs. In order to evaluate mRNA expression levels, real time PCR was employed with primers specific for Kir 6.1 and Kir 6.2 mRNA. Results: In our studies, pulsed filed magnetic field treatment repressed Kir 6.1 but not Kir 6.2 mRNA expression in diabetic rats. Conclusion: In aorta diabetes-induced endothelial dysfunction leads to impairment in contraction-relaxation response and vascular tone, which could be recovered in part by PMF treatment. Our findings here may suggest that the positive therapeutic effect of PMF possibly act through the regulation of ATP-sensitive potassium channels, Kir 6.1 and Kir 6.2

Multidimensional evaluation of Virtual Reality paradigms in clinical neuropsychology: the VR-Check framework

Virtual Reality (VR) represents a key technology of the 21st century, attracting substantial interest from a wide range of scientific disciplines. With regard to clinical neuropsychology, a multitude of new VR applications are being developed to overcome the limitations of classical paradigms. In consequence, researchers increasingly face the challenge of systematically evaluating the characteristics and quality of VR applications in order to design the optimal paradigm for their specific research question and study population. However, the manifold properties of contemporary VR are not adequately captured by the psychometric quality criteria of classical test theory (i.e., objectivity, reliability, validity), highlighting the need for an extended paradigm evaluation framework. To address this gap, we here propose a multidimensional evaluation framework for VR applications in clinical neuropsychology, summarized as an easy-to-use checklist (VR-Check). This framework rests on ten main evaluation dimensions encompassing cognitive domain specificity, ecological relevance, technical feasibility, user feasibility, user motivation, task adaptability, performance quantification, immersive capacities, training feasibility, and predictable pitfalls. We show how VR-Check enables systematic and comparative paradigm optimization by illustrating its application in an exemplary research project on the assessment of spatial cognition and executive functions with immersive VR. This application furthermore demonstrates how the framework allows researchers to identify across-domain tradeoffs, makes deliberate design decisions explicit, and optimizes the allocation of study resources. Complementing recent approaches to standardize clinical VR studies, the VR-Check framework enables systematic and project-specific paradigm optimization for behavioral and cognitive research in neuropsychology

Multidimensional evaluation of Virtual Reality paradigms in clinical neuropsychology : The VR-Check framework

Virtual Reality (VR) represents a key technology of the 21st century, attracting substantial inter- est from a wide range of scientific disciplines. With regard to clinical neuropsychology, a multitude of new VR applications are being developed to overcome the limitations of classical paradigms. In consequence, researchers increasingly face the challenge of systematically evaluating the charac- teristics and quality of VR applications in order to design the optimal paradigm for their specific research question and study population. However, the manifold properties of contemporary VR are not adequately captured by the psychometric quality criteria (i.e., objectivity, reliability, validity) commonly referred to by established test theoretical approaches, highlighting the need for an extended paradigm evaluation framework. To address this gap, we here propose a multidimensional evaluation framework for VR applica- tions in clinical neuropsychology, summarized as an easy-to-use checklist (VR-Check). This frame- work rests on ten main evaluation dimensions encompassing cognitive domain specificity, ecological relevance, technical feasibility, user feasibility, user motivation, task adaptability, performance quan- tification, immersive capacities, training feasibility, and predictable pitfalls. We show how VR-Check enables systematic and comparative paradigm optimization by illustrating its application in an exem- plary research project on the assessment of spatial cognition and executive functions with immersive VR. This application furthermore demonstrates how the framework allows researchers to identify across-domain tradeoffs, makes deliberate design decisions explicit, and optimizes the allocation of study resources. Complementing recent approaches to standardize clinical VR studies, the VR-Check framework enables systematic and project-specific paradigm optimization for behavioral and cogni- tive research in neuropsychology

Early effects of low molecular weight heparin therapy with soft-mist inhaler for covid-19-induced hypoxemia: A phase iib trial

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.In COVID-19-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome, the lungs are incapable of filling with sufficient air, leading to hypoxemia that results in high mortality among hospitalized patients. In clinical trials, low-molecular-weight heparin was administered via a specially designed soft-mist inhaler device in an investigator initiated, single-center, open-label, phase-IIb clinical trial. Patients with evidently worse clinical presentations were classed as the “Device Group”; 40 patients were given low-molecular-weight heparin via a soft mist inhaler at a dose of 4000 IU per administration, twice a day. The Control Group, also made up of 40 patients, received the standard therapy. The predetermined severity of hypoxemia and the peripheral oxygen saturation of patients were measured on the 1st and 10th days of treatment. The improvement was particularly striking in cases of severe hypoxemia. In the 10-day treatment, low-molecular-weight heparin was shown to significantly improve breathing capability when delivered via a soft-mist inhaler