Increase of precuneus metabolism correlates with reduction of PTSD symptoms after EMDR therapy in military veterans: an 18F-FDG PET study during virtual reality exposure to war

International audienc

Virtual Reality as a Tool for Evaluation of Repetitive Rhythmic Movements in the Elderly and Parkinson's Disease Patients

This work presents an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) system to evaluate, and potentially treat, the alterations in rhythmic hand movements seen in Parkinson's disease (PD) and the elderly (EC), by comparison with healthy young controls (YC). The system integrates the subjects into a VR environment by means of a Head Mounted Display, such that subjects perceive themselves in a virtual world consisting of a table within a room. In this experiment, subjects are presented in 1st person perspective, so that the avatar reproduces finger tapping movements performed by the subjects. The task, known as the finger tapping test (FT), was performed by all three subject groups, PD, EC and YC. FT was carried out by each subject on two different days (sessions), one week apart. In each FT session all subjects performed FT in the real world (FTREAL) and in the VR (FTVR); each mode was repeated three times in randomized order. During FT both the tapping frequency and the coefficient of variation of inter-tap interval were registered. FTVR was a valid test to detect differences in rhythm formation between the three groups. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) and mean difference between days for FTVR (for each group) showed reliable results. Finally, the analysis of ICC and mean difference between FTVR vs FTREAL, for each variable and group, also showed high reliability. This shows that FT evaluation in VR environments is valid as real world alternative, as VR evaluation did not distort movement execution and detects alteration in rhythm formation. These results support the use of VR as a promising tool to study alterations and the control of movement in different subject groups in unusual environments, such as during fMRI or other imaging studies

Involvement of the cerebellum in EMDR efficiency: a metabolic connectivity PET study in PTSD

International audienceBackgroundWe recently reported an improvement of precuneus PET metabolism after EMDR therapy in military participants suffering from PTSD.ObjectiveThe aim of the present study was to investigate the metabolic changes of precuneus connectivity in these participants after such treatment.MethodFifteen participants with PTSD performed a brain 18F-FDG-PET sensitized by virtual reality exposure to war scenes, before and after EMDR treatment. Inter-regional correlation analysis was performed to study metabolic changes of precuneus connectivity through SPMT maps at whole-brain level (p < 0.005 for the voxel, p < 0.05 for the cluster).ResultsA decrease of connectivity was observed after EMDR between the precuneus and two significant bilateral clusters of the cerebellum (bilateral Crus I and VI cerebellar lobules, Tmax voxel of 5.8 and 5.3, and cluster size of 343 and 314 voxels, respectively). Moreover, higher cerebellar metabolism before treatment was associated with reduced clinical PTSD scores after EMDR (p = 0.03).ConclusionsThe posterior cerebellum and its metabolic connectivity with the precuneus are involved in the clinical efficiency of EMDR in PTSD

Atmosphaeres – 360° Video Environments for Stress and Pain Management

The Atmosphaeres project aims to reduce sufferers’ stress and pain levels by using 360° video environments that are presented in a highly immersive Head-Mounted Display (HMD). Here we report first insights of our prototype combination of the 360° video environments and the Oculus Rift, the HMD used for our project. We find that our ‘Atmosphaeres’ are capable of truly transporting the user to another, virtually created location, however, there were a number of restrictions with the first system, including image quality and nausea which we hope to eliminate with the system we present in this paper. There are also a number of research questions that need to be considered for the use of the Atmosphaeres in stress and pain management or for general relaxation purposes. These questions include whether 360° video environments are capable of reducing stress and experienced pain and whether changes to the Oculus Rift DK2 do in fact reduce the nausea that was often caused by the DK1. Sound is another important yet often under-considered factor in many Virtual Reality applications and questions we seek to answer revolve around how the quality and type of audio contribute to users’ feeling of presence and ultimately their stress and pain levels

Analysis of Bead Sizes for MR Capsules Labeled for Sprinkle

The bead sizes used in approved modified release capsules labeled for sprinkling on food was investigated to generate bead size guidelines for generic products labeled for sprinkling. The conclusions from a survey of FDA databases were corroborated with experimental data obtained by measuring the bead sizes of several reference-listed drugs on the market labeled for administration by sprinkling on food. The experimental data show that majority of the marketed products were found to have bead sizes of less than 1,500 μm (1.5 mm). Based on this information, a bead size of less than 1,500 μm should generally be considered acceptable for use in generic products labeled for sprinkling