Targeting Treatment-Resistant Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Schizophrenia with fMRI-Based Neurofeedback – Exploring Different Cases of Schizophrenia

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are a hallmark of schizophrenia and can significantly impair patients' emotional, social, and occupational functioning. Despite progress in psychopharmacology, over 25% of schizophrenia patients suffer from treatment-resistant hallucinations. In the search for alternative treatment methods, neurofeedback (NF) emerges as a promising therapy tool. NF based on real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) allows voluntarily change of the activity in a selected brain region - even in patients with schizophrenia. This study explored effects of NF on ongoing AVHs. The selected participants were trained in the self-regulation of activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a key monitoring region involved in generation and intensity modulation of AVHs. Using rt-fMRI, three right-handed patients, suffering from schizophrenia and ongoing, treatment-resistant AVHs, learned control over ACC activity on three separate days. The effect of NF training on hallucinations' severity was assessed with the Auditory Vocal Hallucination Rating Scale (AVHRS) and on the affective state - with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). All patients yielded significant upregulation of the ACC and reported subjective improvement in some aspects of AVHs (AVHRS) such as disturbance and suffering from the voices. In general, mood (PANAS) improved during NF training, though two patients reported worse mood after NF on the third day. ACC and reward system activity during NF learning and specific effects on mood and symptoms varied across the participants. None of them profited from the last training set in the prolonged three-session training. Moreover, individual differences emerged in brain networks activated with NF and in symptom changes, which were related to the patients' symptomatology and disease history. NF based on rt-fMRI seems a promising tool in therapy of AVHs. The patients, who suffered from continuous hallucinations for years, experienced symptom changes that may be attributed to the NF training. In order to assess the effectiveness of NF as a therapeutic method, this effect has to be studied systematically in larger groups; further, long-term effects need to be assessed. Particularly in schizophrenia, future NF studies should take into account the individual differences in reward processing, fatigue, and motivation to develop individualized training protocols

Calibration of double stripe 3D laser scanner systems using planarity and orthogonality constraints

In this study, 3D scanning systems that utilize a pair of laser stripes are studied. Three types of scanning systems are implemented to scan environments, rough surfaces of near planar objects and small 3D objects. These scanners make use of double laser stripes to minimize the undesired effect of occlusions. Calibration of these scanning systems is crucially important for the alignment of 3D points which are reconstructed from different stripes. In this paper, the main focus is on the calibration problem, following a treatment on the pre-processing of stripe projections using dynamic programming and localization of 2D image points with sub-pixel accuracy. The 3D points corresponding to laser stripes are used in an optimization procedure that imposes geometrical constraints such as coplanarities and orthogonalities. It is shown that, calibration procedure proposed here, significantly improves the alignment of 3D points scanned using two laser stripes

Stoics against stoics in Cudworth's "A Treatise of Freewill"

In his 'A Treatise of Freewill', Ralph Cudworth argues against Stoic determinism by drawing on what he takes to be other concepts found in Stoicism, notably the claim that some things are ‘up to us’ and that these things are the product of our choice. These concepts are central to the late Stoic Epictetus and it appears at first glance as if Cudworth is opposing late Stoic voluntarism against early Stoic determinism. This paper argues that in fact, despite his claim to be drawing on Stoic doctrine, Cudworth uses these terms with a meaning first articulated only later, by the Peripatetic commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias

Social Media Monitoring of the Campaigns for the 2013 German Bundestag Elections on Facebook and Twitter

As more and more people use social media to communicate their view and perception of elections, researchers have increasingly been collecting and analyzing data from social media platforms. Our research focuses on social media communication related to the 2013 election of the German parliament [translation: Bundestagswahl 2013]. We constructed several social media datasets using data from Facebook and Twitter. First, we identified the most relevant candidates (n=2,346) and checked whether they maintained social media accounts. The Facebook data was collected in November 2013 for the period of January 2009 to October 2013. On Facebook we identified 1,408 Facebook walls containing approximately 469,000 posts. Twitter data was collected between June and December 2013 finishing with the constitution of the government. On Twitter we identified 1,009 candidates and 76 other agents, for example, journalists. We estimated the number of relevant tweets to exceed eight million for the period from July 27 to September 27 alone. In this document we summarize past research in the literature, discuss possibilities for research with our data set, explain the data collection procedures, and provide a description of the data and a discussion of issues for archiving and dissemination of social media data

Alpha-synuclein prevents the formation of spherical mitochondria and apoptosis under oxidative stress

Oxidative stress (OS), mitochondrial dysfunction, and dysregulation of alpha-synuclein (aSyn) homeostasis are key pathogenic factors in Parkinson’s disease. Nevertheless, the role of aSyn in mitochondrial physiology remains elusive. Thus, we addressed the impact of aSyn specifically on mitochondrial response to OS in neural cells. We characterize a distinct type of mitochondrial fragmentation, following H(2)O(2) or 6-OHDA-induced OS, defined by spherically-shaped and hyperpolarized mitochondria, termed “mitospheres”. Mitosphere formation mechanistically depended on the fission factor Drp1, and was paralleled by reduced mitochondrial fusion. Furthermore, mitospheres were linked to a decrease in mitochondrial activity, and preceded Caspase3 activation. Even though fragmentation of dysfunctional mitochondria is considered to be a prerequisite for mitochondrial degradation, mitospheres were not degraded via Parkin-mediated mitophagy. Importantly, we provide compelling evidence that aSyn prevents mitosphere formation and reduces apoptosis under OS. In contrast, aSyn did not protect against Rotenone, which led to a different, previously described donut-shaped mitochondrial morphology. Our findings reveal a dichotomic role of aSyn in mitochondrial biology, which is linked to distinct types of stress-induced mitochondrial fragmentation. Specifically, aSyn may be part of a cellular defense mechanism preserving neural mitochondrial homeostasis in the presence of increased OS levels, while not protecting against stressors directly affecting mitochondrial function