From von Neumann architecture and Atanasoff’s ABC to Neuromorphic Computation and Kasabov’s NeuCube. Part II: Applications

Spatio/Spector-Temporal Data (SSTD) analyzing is a challenging task, as temporal features may manifest complex interactions that may also change over time. Making use of suitable models that can capture the “hidden” interactions and interrelationship among multivariate data, is vital in SSTD investigation. This chapter describes a number of prominent applications built using the Kasabov’s NeuCube-based Spiking Neural Network (SNN) architecture for mapping, learning, visualization, classification/regression and better understanding and interpretation of SSTD

Cerebellar Integrity in the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis - Frontotemporal Dementia Continuum

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) are multisystem neurodegenerative disorders that manifest overlapping cognitive, neuropsychiatric and motor features. The cerebellum has long been known to be crucial for intact motor function although emerging evidence over the past decade has attributed cognitive and neuropsychiatric processes to this structure. The current study set out i) to establish the integrity of cerebellar subregions in the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia spectrum (ALS-bvFTD) and ii) determine whether specific cerebellar atrophy regions are associated with cognitive, neuropsychiatric and motor symptoms in the patients. Seventy-eight patients diagnosed with ALS, ALS-bvFTD, behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), most without C9ORF72 gene abnormalities, and healthy controls were investigated. Participants underwent cognitive, neuropsychiatric and functional evaluation as well as structural imaging using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to examine the grey matter subregions of the cerebellar lobules, vermis and crus. VBM analyses revealed: i) significant grey matter atrophy in the cerebellum across the whole ALS-bvFTD continuum; ii) atrophy predominantly of the superior cerebellum and crus in bvFTD patients, atrophy of the inferior cerebellum and vermis in ALS patients, while ALS-bvFTD patients had both patterns of atrophy. Post-hoc covariance analyses revealed that cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms were particularly associated with atrophy of the crus and superior lobule, while motor symptoms were more associated with atrophy of the inferior lobules. Taken together, these findings indicate an important role of the cerebellum in the ALS-bvFTD disease spectrum, with all three clinical phenotypes demonstrating specific patterns of subregional atrophy that associated with different symptomology

Apraxia of speech and cerebellar mutism syndrome: a case study

Background Cerebellar mutism syndrome (CMS) or posterior fossa syndrome (PFS) consists of a constellation of neuropsychiatric, neuropsychological and neurogenic speech and language deficits. It is most commonly observed in children after posterior fossa tumor surgery. The most prominent feature of CMS is mutism, which generally starts after a few days after the operation, has a limited duration and is typically followed by motor speech deficits. However, the core speech disorder subserving CMS is still unclear. Case presentation This study investigates the speech and language symptoms following posterior fossa medulloblastoma surgery in a 12-year-old right-handed boy. An extensive battery of formal speech (DIAS = Diagnostic Instrument Apraxia of Speech) and language tests were administered during a follow-up of 6 weeks after surgery. Although the neurological and neuropsychological (affective, cognitive) symptoms of this patient are consistent with Schmahmann’s syndrome, the speech and language symptoms were markedly different from what is typically described in the literature. In-depth analyses of speech production revealed features consistent with a diagnosis of apraxia of speech (AoS) while ataxic dysarthria was completely absent. In addition, language assessments showed genuine aphasic deficits as reflected by distorted language production and perception, wordfinding difficulties, grammatical disturbances and verbal fluency deficits. Conclusion To the best of our knowledge this case might be the first example that clearly demonstrates that a higher level motor planning disorder (apraxia) may be the origin of disrupted speech in CMS. In addition, identification of non-motor linguistic disturbances during follow-up add to the view that the cerebellum not only plays a crucial role in the planning and execution of speech but also in linguistic processing. Whether the cerebellum has a direct or indirect role in motor speech planning needs to be further investigated

White matter volume alterations in hair-pulling disorder (trichotillomania)

Trichotillomania (TTM) is a disorder characterized by repetitive hair-pulling resulting in hair loss. Key processes affected in TTM comprise affective, cognitive, and motor functions. Emerging evidence suggests that brain matter aberrations in fronto-striatal and fronto-limbic brain networks and the cerebellum may characterize the pathophysiology of TTM. The aim of the present voxel-based morphometry (VBM) study was to evaluate whole brain grey and white matter volume alteration in TTM and its correlation with hair-pulling severity. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (3 T) data were acquired from 29 TTM patients and 28 age-matched healthy controls (CTRLs). All TTM participants completed the Massachusetts General Hospital Hair-Pulling Scale (MGH-HPS) to assess illness/pulling severity. Using whole-brain VBM, between-group differences in regional brain volumes were measured. Additionally, within the TTM group, the relationship between MGH-HPS scores, illness duration and brain volumes were examined. All data were corrected for multiple comparisons using family-wise error (FWE) correction at p < 0.05. Patients with TTM showed larger white matter volumes in the parahippocampal gyrus and cerebellum compared to CTRLs. Estimated white matter volumes showed no significant association with illness duration or MGH-HPS total scores. No significant between-group differences were found for grey matter volumes. Our observations suggest regional alterations in cortico-limbic and cerebellar white matter in patients with TTM, which may underlie deficits in cognitive and affective processing. Such volumetric white matter changes may precipitate impaired cortico-cerebellar communication leading to a reduced ability to control hair pulling behavior

Risky Decisions and Their Consequences: Neural Processing by Boys with Antisocial Substance Disorder

Adolescents with conduct and substance problems ("Antisocial Substance Disorder" (ASD)) repeatedly engage in risky antisocial and drug-using behaviors. We hypothesized that, during processing of risky decisions and resulting rewards and punishments, brain activation would differ between abstinent ASD boys and comparison boys.We compared 20 abstinent adolescent male patients in treatment for ASD with 20 community controls, examining rapid event-related blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses during functional magnetic resonance imaging. In 90 decision trials participants chose to make either a cautious response that earned one cent, or a risky response that would either gain 5 cents or lose 10 cents; odds of losing increased as the game progressed. We also examined those times when subjects experienced wins, or separately losses, from their risky choices. We contrasted decision trials against very similar comparison trials requiring no decisions, using whole-brain BOLD-response analyses of group differences, corrected for multiple comparisons. During decision-making ASD boys showed hypoactivation in numerous brain regions robustly activated by controls, including orbitofrontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, anterior cingulate, basal ganglia, insula, amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum. While experiencing wins, ASD boys had significantly less activity than controls in anterior cingulate, temporal regions, and cerebellum, with more activity nowhere. During losses ASD boys had significantly more activity than controls in orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, brain stem, and cerebellum, with less activity nowhere.Adolescent boys with ASD had extensive neural hypoactivity during risky decision-making, coupled with decreased activity during reward and increased activity during loss. These neural patterns may underlie the dangerous, excessive, sustained risk-taking of such boys. The findings suggest that the dysphoria, reward insensitivity, and suppressed neural activity observed among older addicted persons also characterize youths early in the development of substance use disorders

Water and nitrate exchange between a managed river and a peri-urban floodplain aquifer: quantification and management implications

The management of rivers for navigation, hydropower and flood risk reduction involves the installation of in‐channel structures. These influence river levels and can affect groundwater flow within hydraulically‐connected riparian floodplain aquifers. A comprehensively monitored, peri‐urban, lowland river floodplain in the southern United Kingdom was used to explore these dependencies and to examine the implications for the flux exchange of water and nitrate between the river and the floodplain alluvial aquifer. The study demonstrated that rivers maintained at high levels by management structures, result in raised groundwater levels in the adjacent aquifer and complex groundwater flow patterns. Engineered river management structures were shown to promote flow from river to aquifer through the river bed but the majority of the associated nitrate was removed in the hyporheic zone. High‐ nitrate groundwater recharge to the alluvial aquifer also occurred through overbank flood flows. Across the floodplain, substantial denitrification occurred due to anaerobic conditions resulting from carbon‐rich sediments and the shallow water table, the latter linked to the river management structures. An upper limit on the total annual mass of nitrate removed from river water entering the floodplain aquifer was estimated for the study site (2.9 x 104 kg), which was three orders of magnitude lower than the estimate of annual in‐channel nitrate flux (1.8 x 107 kg). However, this capacity of lowland floodplains to reduce groundwater nitrate concentrations has local benefits, for example for private and public water supplies sourced from alluvial aquifers. The insights from the study also have relevance for those considering schemes that include the installation, removal or redesign of river management structures, as the resultant change in groundwater levels may have consequences for floodplain meadows and the nutrient status of the aquatic system

Developmental dyslexia and widespread activation across the cerebellar hemispheres.

Developmental dyslexia is the most common learning disability in school-aged children with an estimated incidence of five to ten percent. The cause and pathophysiological substrate of this developmental disorder is unclear. Recently, a possible involvement of the cerebellum in the pathogenesis of dyslexia has been postulated. In this study, 15 dyslexic children and 7 age-matched control subjects were investigated by means of functional neuroimaging (fMRI) using a noun-verb association paradigm. Comparison of activation patterns between dyslexic and control subjects revealed distinct and significant differences in cerebral and cerebellar activation. Control subjects showed bilaterally well-defined and focal activation patterns in the frontal and parietal lobes and the posterior regions of the cerebellar hemispheres. The dyslexic children, however, presented widespread and diffuse activations on the cerebral and cerebellar level. Cerebral activations were found in frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital regions. Activations in the cerebellum were found predominantly in the cerebellar cortex, including Crus I, Crus II, hemispheric lobule VI, VII and vermal lobules I, II, III, IV and VII. This preliminary study is the first to reveal a significant difference in cerebellar functioning between dyslexic children and controls during a semantic association task. As a result, we propose a new hypothesis regarding the pathophysiological mechanisms of developmental dyslexia. Given the sites of activation in the cerebellum in the dyslexic group, a defect of the intra-cerebellar distribution of activity is suspected, suggesting a disorder of the processing or transfer of information within the cerebellar cortex.Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tSCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe