Do Airports green cities? : Von der Airport City zur nachhaltigen Region ; Flughafenstrategien und Regionalentwicklung

Multivariate pattern recognition approaches have become a prominent tool in neuroimaging data analysis. These methods enable the classification of groups of participants (e.g. controls and patients) on the basis of subtly different patterns across the whole brain. This study demonstrates that these methods can be used, in combination with automated morphometric analysis of structural MRI, to determine with great accuracy whether a single subject has been engaged in regular mental training or not. The proposed approach allowed us to identify with 94.87% accuracy (p<0.001) if a given participant is a regular meditator (from a sample of 19 regular meditators and 20 non-meditators). Neuroimaging has been a relevant tool for diagnosing neurological and psychiatric impairments. This study may suggest a novel step forward: the emergence of a new field in brain imaging applications, in which participants could be identified based on their mental experience

Effects of a 7-Day Meditation Retreat on the Brain Function of Meditators and Non-Meditators During an Attention Task

Meditation as a cognitive enhancement technique is of growing interest in the field of health and research on brain function. The Stroop Word-Color Task (SWCT) has been adapted for neuroimaging studies as an interesting paradigm for the understanding of cognitive control mechanisms. Performance in the SWCT requires both attention and impulse control, which is trained in meditation practices. We presented SWCT inside the MRI equipment to measure the performance of meditators compared with non-meditators before and after a meditation retreat. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a 7-day Zen intensive meditation training (a retreat) on meditators and non-meditators in this task on performance level and neural mechanisms. Nineteen meditators and 14 non-meditators were scanned before and after a 7-day Zen meditation retreat. No significant differences were found between meditators and non-meditators in the number of the correct responses and response time (RT) during SWCT before and after the retreat. Probably, due to meditators training in attention, their brain activity in the contrast incongruent &gt; neutral during the SWCT in the anterior cingulate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate, caudate/putamen/pallidum/temporal lobe (center), insula/putamen/temporal lobe (right) and posterior cingulate before the retreat, were reduced compared with non-meditators. After the meditation retreat, non-meditators had reduced activation in these regions, becoming similar to meditators before the retreat. This result could be interpreted as an increase in the brain efficiency of non-meditators (less brain activation in attention-related regions and same behavioral response) promoted by their intensive training in meditation in only 7 days. On the other hand, meditators showed an increase in brain activation in these regions after the same training. Intensive meditation training (retreat) presented distinct effects on the attention-related regions in meditators and non-meditators probably due to differences in expertise, attention processing as well as neuroplasticity

Encefalopatia necrotizante aguda: paciente com evolução recidivante e letal Acute necrotizing encephalopathy: patient with a relapsing and lethal evolution

A encefalopatia necrotizante aguda foi descrita inicialmente em crianças japonesas e se caracteriza por rápida evolução e lesões simétricas no tronco encefálico, cerebelo e especialmente nos tálamos. Avaliamos uma menina de 7 meses de idade, que apresentou dois episódios de depressão da consciência de rápida instalação e paresias, sem alterações metabólicas. Houve uma rápida melhora na primeira crise, porém o segundo episódio foi fulminante, tendo evoluído para estado de morte encefálica em dois dias. Os estudos de ressonância magnética mostraram lesões simétricas nos tálamos e acometimento também do tronco encefálico e cerebelo.Acute necrotizing encephalopathy was initially reported in Japanese children. The rapid evolution and symmetrical brain lesions seen in the brainstem, cerebellum and specially in the thalamus characterize the disease. We studied a 7-month-old-girl, who presented with two episodes of rapid loss of consciousness and paresis without metabolic disturbances. At the first time she had a rapid improvement, but at the second episode the course was fulminant and in two days she lapsed into a clinical state of brain death. The magnetic resonance studies showed symmetrical lesions in the thalamus and additional lesions involving the brainstem and the cerebellum

Pesquisas em cérebro e Práticas Contemplativas

Introdução: Nos últimos anos tem havido um crescente interesse na investigação dos efeitos práticas de meditação na saúde mental e física. De alguma maneira, as habilidades treinadas durante as práticas meditativas, como o treinamento da atenção focada em um objeto específico, ou a monitoração dos padrões de pensamentos e emoções age modificando o funcionamento e a estrutura cerebrais. Recentemente, trabalhos na área de neuroimagem tem ajudado a elucidar possíveis mecanismo de ação das práticas meditativas no cérebro. Objetivo: revisar na literatura os estudos mais recentes sobre os efeitos da prática de meditação no cérebro e apresentar resultados de um protocolo com ressonância magnética funcional (fMRI) desenvolvido no Instituto do Cérebro do Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein (InCe-HIAE) sobre os efeitos da meditação na atenção. Método: revisão sobre estudos de neuroimagem funcional e estrutural e avaliação por fMRI de 39 sujeitos, 20 meditadores que realizam a prática há pelo menos 3 anos, por 3 vezes por semana e 20 sujeitos inexperientes em meditação. Resultados: estudos recentes têm mostrado alterações funcionais resultantes da prática de meditação, na atividade cerebral, bem como na estrutura do cérebro, como a espessura de áreas corticais. Nossos resultados preliminares corroboram com estes dados, mostrando que sujeitos que praticam meditação regularmente precisam recrutar menos áreas cerebrais, em especial frontais, do que pessoas inexperientes em meditação para ter o mesmo desempenho em uma tarefa atencional (o Stroop Word-Color Task). Conclusão: a prática de meditação pode trazer mudanças não apenas psicológicas, como mostram boa parte dos estudos, mas também modificações na fisiologia e anatomia cerebrais. Nosso estudo preliminar no InCe-HIAE indica que pessoas que praticam meditação regularmente podem apresentar um cérebro mais eficiente no desempenho de uma tarefa de atenção

Machado-Joseph disease in Brazil: from the first descriptions to the emergence as the most common spinocerebellar ataxia

Machado-Joseph disease is an autosomal dominant inherited disorder of Azorean ancestry firstly described in 1972. Since then, several Brazilian researchers have studied clinical and genetic issues related to the disease. Nowadays, Machado-Joseph disease is considered the most common spinocerebellar ataxia worldwide. Machado-Joseph disease still has no specific therapy to arrest progression, but the unclear pathophysiological mechanism, features related to genetic characteristics, phenotype variability, apparently global involvement of the nervous system in the disease and the therapeutic challenges continue to attract investigators in the field of spinocerebellar ataxias. Brazilian researchers have distinguished themselves in the ongoing investigation seeking new knowledge about Machado-Joseph disease

Classification of regular meditators and non-meditators using support vector machines (SVM).

<p>Regions identified by the SVM as containing discriminative information used to consistently predict the groups (right precentral gyrus, left entorhinal cortex, right pars opercularis cortex, right basal putamen, and bilateral thalamus). These five regions were selected by SVM in an all leave-one-subject-out iterations, with 94.87% accuracy. The bottom of the figure depicts the projection values of each subject and the decision boundary.</p

Image_1_Effects of a 7-Day Meditation Retreat on the Brain Function of Meditators and Non-Meditators During an Attention Task.JPEG

<p>Meditation as a cognitive enhancement technique is of growing interest in the field of health and research on brain function. The Stroop Word-Color Task (SWCT) has been adapted for neuroimaging studies as an interesting paradigm for the understanding of cognitive control mechanisms. Performance in the SWCT requires both attention and impulse control, which is trained in meditation practices. We presented SWCT inside the MRI equipment to measure the performance of meditators compared with non-meditators before and after a meditation retreat. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a 7-day Zen intensive meditation training (a retreat) on meditators and non-meditators in this task on performance level and neural mechanisms. Nineteen meditators and 14 non-meditators were scanned before and after a 7-day Zen meditation retreat. No significant differences were found between meditators and non-meditators in the number of the correct responses and response time (RT) during SWCT before and after the retreat. Probably, due to meditators training in attention, their brain activity in the contrast incongruent > neutral during the SWCT in the anterior cingulate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate, caudate/putamen/pallidum/temporal lobe (center), insula/putamen/temporal lobe (right) and posterior cingulate before the retreat, were reduced compared with non-meditators. After the meditation retreat, non-meditators had reduced activation in these regions, becoming similar to meditators before the retreat. This result could be interpreted as an increase in the brain efficiency of non-meditators (less brain activation in attention-related regions and same behavioral response) promoted by their intensive training in meditation in only 7 days. On the other hand, meditators showed an increase in brain activation in these regions after the same training. Intensive meditation training (retreat) presented distinct effects on the attention-related regions in meditators and non-meditators probably due to differences in expertise, attention processing as well as neuroplasticity.</p