The Processing of Somatosensory Information shifts from an early parallel into a serial processing mode: a combined fMRI/MEG study.

The question regarding whether somatosensory inputs are processed in parallel or in series has not been clearly answered. Several studies that have applied dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to fMRI data have arrived at seemingly divergent conclusions. However, these divergent results could be explained by the hypothesis that the processing route of somatosensory information changes with time. Specifically, we suggest that somatosensory stimuli are processed in parallel only during the early stage, whereas the processing is later dominated by serial processing. This hypothesis was revisited in the present study based on fMRI analyses of tactile stimuli and the application of DCM to magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data collected during sustained (260 ms) tactile stimulation. Bayesian model comparisons were used to infer the processing stream. We demonstrated that the favored processing stream changes over time. We found that the neural activity elicited in the first 100 ms following somatosensory stimuli is best explained by models that support a parallel processing route, whereas a serial processing route is subsequently favored. These results suggest that the secondary somatosensory area (SII) receives information regarding a new stimulus in parallel with the primary somatosensory area (SI), whereas later processing in the SII is dominated by the preprocessed input from the SI

Disrupted functional connectivity of the default mode network due to acute vestibular deficit

Vestibular neuritis is defined as a sudden unilateral partial failure of the vestibular nerve that impairs the forwarding of vestibular information from the labyrinth. The patient suffers from vertigo, horizontal nystagmus and postural instability with a tendency toward ipsilesional falls. Although vestibular neuritis is a common disease, the central mechanisms to compensate for the loss of precise vestibular information remain poorly understood. It was hypothesized that symptoms following acute vestibular neuritis originate from difficulties in the processing of diverging sensory information between the responsible brain networks. Accordingly an altered resting activity was shown in multiple brain areas of the task-positive network. Because of the known balance between the task-positive and task-negative networks (default mode network; DMN) we hypothesize that also the DMN is involved. Here, we employ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the resting state to investigate changes in the functional connectivity between the DMN and task-positive networks, in a longitudinal design combined with measurements of caloric function. We demonstrate an initially disturbed connectedness of the DMN after vestibular neuritis. We hypothesize that the disturbed connectivity between the default mode network and particular parts of the task-positive network might be related to a sustained utilization of processing capacity by diverging sensory information. The current results provide some insights into mechanisms of central compensation following an acute vestibular deficit and the importance of the DMN in this disease

Effektivität, Effizienz und Sicherheit der Schlaganfall-Telemedizin in Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie

In der vorliegenden Studie wird spirituelle Kompetenz (SpK) in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie praxisnah untersucht. Einleitend wird dargestellt, dass ebenso wie die World Psychiatric Association (WPA) und andere nationale psychiatrische Fachgesellschaften auch die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik und Nervenheilkunde (DGPPN) ein Positionspapier zu Religiosität und Spiritualität (R/Sp) in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie veröffentlicht hat, in dem sie Patientenzentrierung und spirituelle Kompetenz (SpK) der psychiatrischen Berufe fordert. Es wird erläutert, dass Kompetenzmangel das wichtigste Hindernis für die Implementierung von Spiritual Care (SpC) in die klinische Praxis darstellt. In dieser Untersuchung wird die Frage erforscht, wie psychiatrisch Tätige die SpK ihrer eigenen Berufsgruppe einschätzen und welche Variablen dieses Urteil beeinflussen. Insgesamt 391 psychiatrische Pflegekräfte, 75 Psychiater, 119 Therapeuten verschiedener Professionen und 62 andere (n = 647) aus Krankenhäusern in Deutschland und Österreich füllten den 'SpC Competency Questionnaire' (SCCQ) aus. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass Pflegekräfte, ältere und spirituell erfahrenere Personen die SpK der eigenen Berufsgruppe vergleichsweise höher einschätzten und seltener meinten, diesbezüglich nicht zuständig zu sein. Pflegende nannten häufiger als andere Berufsgruppen das Fehlen geeigneter Räumlichkeiten als Hindernis für die Implementierung von SpC. Eine höhere Einschätzung der SpK der eigenen Berufsgruppe ging mit höheren Werten in den SCCQ-Faktoren 'Selbsterfahrung und proaktive Öffnung', 'Team-Spirit', 'Wahrnehmungs-/Dokumentationskompetenz' einher. Es wird festgestellt, dass die Zuständigkeit der Gesundheitsberufe für SpC in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie unter den deutschsprachigen psychiatrischen Berufsgruppen noch kontrovers diskutiert wird. Es wird angenommen, dass dies mit mangelnder Kompetenz in diesem Feld zusammenhängt

Abnormal Emotional Processing and Emotional Experience in Patients with Peripheral Facial Nerve Paralysis: An MEG Study

Abnormal emotional reactions of the brain in patients with facial nerve paralysis have not yet been reported. This study aims to investigate this issue by applying a machine-learning algorithm that discriminates brain emotional activities that belong either to patients with facial nerve paralysis or to healthy controls. Beyond this, we assess an emotion rating task to determine whether there are differences in their experience of emotions. MEG signals of 17 healthy controls and 16 patients with facial nerve paralysis were recorded in response to picture stimuli in three different emotional categories (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral). The selected machine learning technique in this study was the logistic regression with LASSO regularization. We demonstrated significant classification performances in all three emotional categories. The best classification performance was achieved considering features based on event-related fields in response to the pleasant category, with an accuracy of 0.79 (95% CI (0.70, 0.82)). We also found that patients with facial nerve paralysis rated pleasant stimuli significantly more positively than healthy controls. Our results indicate that the inability to express facial expressions due to peripheral motor paralysis of the face might cause abnormal brain emotional processing and experience of particular emotions