Isolated entrapment of the brachialis branch of the musculocutaneous nerve: a case report

Non peer reviewe

Poor neural and perceptual phoneme discrimination during acoustic variation in dyslexia

Whereas natural acoustic variation in speech does not compromise phoneme discrimination in healthy adults, it was hypothesized to be a challenge for developmental dyslexics. We investigated dyslexics’ neural and perceptual discrimination of native language phonemes during acoustic variation. Dyslexics and non-dyslexics heard /æ/ and /i/ phonemes in a context with fo variation and then in a context without it. Mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a responses to phoneme changes were recorded with electroencephalogram to compare groups during ignore and attentive listening. perceptual phoneme discrimination in the variable context was evaluated with hit-ratios and reaction times. MMN/N2bs were diminished in dyslexics in the variable context. Hit-ratios were smaller in dyslexics than controls. MMNs did not differ between groups in the context without variation. These results suggest that even distinctive vowels are challenging to discriminate for dyslexics when the context resembles natural variability of speech. This most likely reflects poor categorical perception of phonemes in dyslexics. Difficulties to detect linguistically relevant invariant information during acoustic variation in speech may contribute to dyslexics’ deficits in forming native language phoneme representations during infancy. Future studies should acknowledge that simple experimental paradigms with repetitive stimuli can be insensitive to dyslexics’ speech processing deficits.Peer reviewe

Atypical MEG inter-subject correlation during listening to continuous natural speech in dyslexia

Listening to speech elicits brain activity time-locked to the speech sounds. This so-called neural entrainment to speech was found to be atypical in dyslexia, a reading impairment associated with neural speech processing deficits. We hypothesized that the brain responses of dyslexic vs. normal readers to real-life speech would be different, and thus the strength of inter-subject correlation (ISC) would differ from that of typical readers and be reflected in reading-related measures. We recorded magnetoencephalograms (MEG) of 23 dyslexic and 21 typically-reading adults during listening to ∼10 min of natural Finnish speech consisting of excerpts from radio news, a podcast, a self-recorded audiobook chapter and small talk. The amplitude envelopes of band-pass-filtered MEG source signals were correlated between subjects in a cortically-constrained source space in six frequency bands. The resulting ISCs of dyslexic and typical readers were compared with a permutation-based t-test. Neuropsychological measures of phonological processing, technical reading, and working memory were correlated with the ISCs utilizing the Mantel test. During listening to speech, ISCs were mainly reduced in dyslexic compared to typical readers in delta (0.5–4 Hz) and high gamma (55–90 Hz) frequency bands. In the theta (4−8 Hz), beta (12–25 Hz), and low gamma (25−45 Hz) bands, dyslexics had enhanced ISC to speech compared to controls. Furthermore, we found that ISCs across both groups were associated with phonological processing, technical reading, and working memory. The atypical ISC to natural speech in dyslexics supports the temporal sampling deficit theory of dyslexia. It also suggests over-synchronization to phoneme-rate information in speech, which could indicate more effort-demanding sampling of phonemes from speech in dyslexia. These irregularities in parsing speech are likely some of the complex neural factors contributing to dyslexia. The associations between neural coupling and reading-related skills further support this notion.Peer reviewe

Collaborative conservation planning : Quantifying the contribution of expert engagement to identify spatial conservation priorities

The importance of expert input to spatial conservation prioritization outcomes is poorly understood. We quantified the impacts of refinements made during consultation with experts on spatial conservation prioritization of Christmas Island. There was just 0.57 correlation between the spatial conservation priorities before and after consultation, bottom ranked areas being most sensitive to changes. The inclusion of a landscape condition layer was the most significant individual influence. Changes (addition, removal, modification) to biodiversity layers resulted in a combined 0.2 reduction in correlation between initial and final solutions. Representation of rare species in top ranked areas was much greater after expert consultation; representation of widely distributed species changed relatively little. Our results show how different inputs have notably different impacts on the final plan. Understanding these differences helps plan time and resources for expert consultation.Peer reviewe

Involving users in OPAC interface design: Perspective from a UK study

This is the post-print versoin of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2007 SpringerThe purpose of this study was to determine user suggestions for a typical OPAC (Online Public Library Catalogue) application’s functionality and features. An experiment was undertaken to find out the type of interactions features that users prefer to have in an OPAC. The study revealed that regardless of users’ Information Technology (IT) backgrounds, their functionality expectations of OPACs are the same. However, based on users’ previous experiences with OPACs, their requirements with respect to specific features may change. Users should be involved early in the OPAC development cycle process in order to ensure usable and functional interface

Infancy and early childhood maturation of neural auditory change detection and its associations to familial dyslexia risk

Objective: We investigated early maturation of the infant mismatch response MMR, including mismatch negativity (MMN), positive MMR (P-MMR), and late discriminative negativity (LDN), indexing auditory discrimination abilities, and the influence of familial developmental dyslexia risk. Methods: We recorded MMRs to vowel, duration, and frequency deviants in pseudo-words at 0, 6, and 28 months and compared MMRs in subgroups with vs. without dyslexia risk, in a sample overrepresented by risk infants. Results: Neonatal MMN to the duration deviant became larger and earlier by 28 months; MMN was elicited by more deviants only at 28 months. The P-MMR was predominant in infancy; its amplitude increased by 6 and decreased by 28 months; latency decreased with increasing age. An LDN emerged by 6 months and became larger and later by 28 months. Dyslexia risk affected MMRs and their maturation. Conclusions: MMRs demonstrate an expected maturational pattern with 2-3 peaks by 28 months. The effects of dyslexia risk are prominent but not always as expected. Significance: This large-scale longitudinal study shows MMR maturation with three age groups and three deviants. Results illuminate MMR's relation to the adult responses, and hence their cognitive underpinnings, and help in identifying typical/atypical auditory development in early childhood. (c) 2022 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Socially-mediated changes in brain epigenome in the fire ant

Herein, we report a robust way for the formation of biodegradable poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(e-caprolactone) (PEG-b-PCL) polymersomes, via direct hydration of a highly concentrated block copolymer/oligo(ethylene glycol) solution. Polymersomes with variable membrane thickness were formed under relatively mild conditions in a short time, by changing the hydrophobic block length. Plunge freezing followed by cryo transmission electron microscopy (Cryo-TEM) was utilized to visualize the morphology of newly-formed polymersomes in their native condition. An MTT cytotoxicity study showed that the as-prepared polymersomes have good biocompatibility to hCMEC/D3 brain endothelial cells. As this method does not involve the use of small molecular organic solvent, sonication or freeze-thawing steps, it can offer the opportunity to form biodegradable polymersomes on-site. The work may facilitate the bench-to-bedside translation of biodegradable polymersomes as robust drug nanocarriers

CMC is more than a measure of corticospinal tract integrity in acute stroke patients

In healthy subjects, motor cortex activity and electromyographic (EMG) signals from contracting contralateral muscle show coherence in the beta (15-30 Hz) range. Corticomuscular coherence (CMC) is considered a sign of functional coupling between muscle and brain. Based on prior studies, CMC is altered in stroke, but functional significance of this finding has remained unclear. Here, we examined CMC in acute stroke patients and correlated the results with clinical outcome measures and corticospinal tract (CST) integrity estimated with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). During isometric contraction of the extensor carpi radialis muscle, EMG and magneto encephalographic oscillatory signals were recorded from 29 patients with paresis of the upper extremity due to ischemic stroke and 22 control subjects. CMC amplitudes and peak frequencies at 13-30 Hz were compared between the two groups. In the patients, the peak frequency in both the affected and the unaffected hemisphere was significantly (p < 0.01) lower and the strength of CMC was significantly (p < 0.05) weaker in the affected hemisphere compared to the control subjects. The strength of CMC in the patients correlated with the level of tactile sensitivity and clinical test results of hand function. In contrast, no correlation between measures of CST integrity and CMC was found. The results confirm the earlier findings that CMC is altered in acute stroke and demonstrate that CMC is bidirectional and not solely a measure of integrity of the efferent corticospinal tract.Peer reviewe

Cardiorespiratory Fitness Estimation Based on Heart Rate and Body Acceleration in Adults With Cardiovascular Risk Factors : Validation Study

Publisher Copyright: © Antti-Pekka E Rissanen, Mirva Rottensteiner, Urho M Kujala, Jari L O Kurkela, Jan Wikgren, Jari A Laukkanen. Originally published in JMIR Cardio (https://cardio.jmir.org), 25.10.2022. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Cardio, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://cardio.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Adding CRF to conventional risk factors (eg, smoking, hypertension, impaired glucose metabolism, and dyslipidemia) improves the prediction of an individual's risk for adverse health outcomes such as those related to cardiovascular disease. Consequently, it is recommended to determine CRF as part of individualized risk prediction. However, CRF is not determined routinely in everyday clinical practice. Wearable technologies provide a potential strategy to estimate CRF on a daily basis, and such technologies, which provide CRF estimates based on heart rate and body acceleration, have been developed. However, the validity of such technologies in estimating individual CRF in clinically relevant populations is poorly known. Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the validity of a wearable technology, which provides estimated CRF based on heart rate and body acceleration, in working-aged adults with cardiovascular risk factors. Methods: In total, 74 adults (age range 35-64 years; n=56, 76% were women; mean BMI 28.7, SD 4.6 kg/m2) with frequent cardiovascular risk factors (eg, n=64, 86% hypertension; n=18, 24% prediabetes; n=14, 19% type 2 diabetes; and n=51, 69% metabolic syndrome) performed a 30-minute self-paced walk on an indoor track and a cardiopulmonary exercise test on a treadmill. CRF, quantified as peak O2 uptake, was both estimated (self-paced walk: a wearable single-lead electrocardiogram device worn to record continuous beat-to-beat R-R intervals and triaxial body acceleration) and measured (cardiopulmonary exercise test: ventilatory gas analysis). The accuracy of the estimated CRF was evaluated against that of the measured CRF. Results: Measured CRF averaged 30.6 (SD 6.3; range 20.1-49.6) mL/kg/min. In all participants (74/74, 100%), mean difference between estimated and measured CRF was −0.1 mL/kg/min (P = .90), mean absolute error was 3.1 mL/kg/min (95% CI 2.6-3.7), mean absolute percentage error was 10.4% (95% CI 8.5-12.5), and intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.88 (95% CI 0.80-0.92). Similar accuracy was observed in various subgroups (sexes, age, BMI categories, hypertension, prediabetes, and metabolic syndrome). However, mean absolute error was 4.2 mL/kg/min (95% CI 2.6-6.1) and mean absolute percentage error was 16.5% (95% CI 8.6-24.4) in the subgroup of patients with type 2 diabetes (14/74, 19%). Conclusions: The error of the CRF estimate, provided by the wearable technology, was likely below or at least very close to the clinically significant level of 3.5 mL/kg/min in working-aged adults with cardiovascular risk factors, but not in the relatively small subgroup of patients with type 2 diabetes. From a large-scale clinical perspective, the findings suggest that wearable technologies have the potential to estimate individual CRF with acceptable accuracy in clinically relevant populations.Peer reviewe