The sensitivity of ECG contamination to surgical implantation site in brain computer interfaces.

BACKGROUND Brain sensing devices are approved today for Parkinson's, essential tremor, and epilepsy therapies. Clinical decisions for implants are often influenced by the premise that patients will benefit from using sensing technology. However, artifacts, such as ECG contamination, can render such treatments unreliable. Therefore, clinicians need to understand how surgical decisions may affect artifact probability. OBJECTIVES Investigate neural signal contamination with ECG activity in sensing enabled neurostimulation systems, and in particular clinical choices such as implant location that impact signal fidelity. METHODS Electric field modeling and empirical signals from 85 patients were used to investigate the relationship between implant location and ECG contamination. RESULTS The impact on neural recordings depends on the difference between ECG signal and noise floor of the electrophysiological recording. Empirically, we demonstrate that severe ECG contamination was more than 3.2x higher in left-sided subclavicular implants (48.3%), when compared to right-sided implants (15.3%). Cranial implants did not show ECG contamination. CONCLUSIONS Given the relative frequency of corrupted neural signals, we conclude that implant location will impact the ability of brain sensing devices to be used for "closed-loop" algorithms. Clinical adjustments such as implant location can significantly affect signal integrity and need consideration

Interactive Dendrograms: The R Packages idendro and idendr0

Hierarchical cluster analysis is a valuable tool for exploring data by describing their structure using a dendrogram. However, proper visualization and interactive inspection of the dendrogram are needed to unlock the information in the data. We describe a new R package, idendro, that enables the user to inspect dendrograms interactively: to select and color clusters, to zoom and pan the dendrogram, and to visualize the clustered data not only in a built-in heat map, but also in any interactive plot implemented in the cranvas package. A lightweight version idendr0 with reduced dependencies is also available from the Comprehensive R Archive Network

Eye Movements in Ephedrone-Induced Parkinsonism

Patients with ephedrone parkinsonism (EP) show a complex, rapidly progressive, irreversible, and levodopa non-responsive parkinsonian and dystonic syndrome due to manganese intoxication. Eye movements may help to differentiate parkinsonian syndromes providing insights into which brain networks are affected in the underlying disease, but they have never been systematically studied in EP. Horizontal and vertical eye movements were recorded in 28 EP and compared to 21 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects using standardized oculomotor tasks with infrared videooculography. EP patients showed slow and hypometric horizontal saccades, an increased occurrence of square wave jerks, long latencies of vertical antisaccades, a high error rate in the horizontal antisaccade task, and made more errors than controls when pro-and antisaccades were mixed. Based on oculomotor performance, a direct differentiation between EP and PD was possible only by the velocity of horizontal saccades. All remaining metrics were similar between both patient groups. EP patients present extensive oculomotor disturbances probably due to manganese-induced damage to the basal ganglia, reflecting their role in oculomotor system

Make EU trade with Brazil sustainable

Brazil, home to one of the planet's last great forests, is currently in trade negotiations with its second largest trading partner, the European Union (EU). We urge the EU to seize this critical opportunity to ensure that Brazil protects human rights and the environment