Functionally aberrant electrophysiological cortical connectivities in first episode medication-naive schizophrenics from three psychiatry centers

Functional dissociation between brain processes is widely hypothesized to account for aberrations of thought and emotions in schizophrenic patients. The typically small groups of analyzed schizophrenic patients yielded different neurophysiological findings, probably because small patient groups are likely to comprise different schizophrenia subtypes. We analyzed multichannel eyes- closed resting EEG from three small groups of acutely ill, first episode productive schizophrenic patients before start of medication (from three centers: Bern N = 9; Osaka N = 9; Berlin N = 12) and their controls. Low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) was used to compute intracortical source model-based lagged functional connectivity not biased by volume conduction effects between 19 cortical regions of interest (ROIs). The connectivities were compared between controls and patients of each group. Conjunction analysis determined six aberrant cortical functional connectivities that were the same in the three patient groups. Four of these six concerned the facilitating EEG alpha-1 frequency activity; they were decreased in the patients. Another two of these six connectivities concerned the inhibiting EEG delta frequency activity; they were increased in the patients. The principal orientation of the six aberrant cortical functional connectivities was sagittal; five of them involved both hemispheres. In sum, activity in the posterior brain areas of preprocessing functions and the anterior brain areas of evaluation and behavior control functions were compromised by either decreased coupled activation or increased coupled inhibition, common across schizophrenia subtypes in the three patient groups. These results of the analyzed three independent groups of schizophrenics support the concept of functional dissociation

The genetics of neuropathic pain from model organisms to clinical application

Neuropathic pain (NeuP) arises due to injury of the somatosensory nervous system and is both common and disabling, rendering an urgent need for non-addictive, effective new therapies. Given the high evolutionary conservation of pain, investigative approaches from Drosophila mutagenesis to human Mendelian genetics have aided our understanding of the maladaptive plasticity underlying NeuP. Successes include the identification of ion channel variants causing hyper-excitability and the importance of neuro-immune signaling. Recent developments encompass improved sensory phenotyping in animal models and patients, brain imaging, and electrophysiology-based pain biomarkers, the collection of large well-phenotyped population cohorts, neurons derived from patient stem cells, and high-precision CRISPR generated genetic editing. We will discuss how to harness these resources to understand the pathophysiological drivers of NeuP, define its relationship with comorbidities such as anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, and explore how to apply these findings to the prediction, diagnosis, and treatment of NeuP in the clinic

First valence, then arousal: the temporal dynamics of brain electric activity evoked by emotional stimuli

The temporal dynamics of the neural activity that implements the dimensions valence and arousal during processing of emotional stimuli were studied in two multi-channel ERP experiments that used visually presented emotional words (experiment 1) and emotional pictures (experiment 2) as stimulus material. Thirty-two healthy subjects participated (mean age 26.8 +/- 6.4 years, 24 women). The stimuli in both experiments were selected on the basis of verbal reports in such a way that we were able to map the temporal dynamics of one dimension while controlling for the other one. Words (pictures) were centrally presented for 450 (600) ms with interstimulus intervals of 1,550 (1,400) ms. ERP microstate analysis of the entire epochs of stimulus presentations parsed the data into sequential steps of information processing. The results revealed that in several microstates of both experiments, processing of pleasant and unpleasant valence (experiment 1, microstate #3: 118-162 ms, #6: 218-238 ms, #7: 238-266 ms, #8: 266-294 ms; experiment 2, microstate #5: 142-178 ms, #6: 178-226 ms, #7: 226-246 ms, #9: 262-302 ms, #10: 302-330 ms) as well as of low and high arousal (experiment 1, microstate #8: 266-294 ms, #9: 294-346 ms; experiment 2, microstate #10: 302-330 ms, #15: 562-600 ms) involved different neural assemblies. The results revealed also that in both experiments, information about valence was extracted before information about arousal. The last microstate of valence extraction was identical with the first microstate of arousal extraction

Recommendations for performing, interpreting and reporting hydrogen deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) experiments.

Hydrogen deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) is a powerful biophysical technique being increasingly applied to a wide variety of problems. As the HDX-MS community continues to grow, adoption of best practices in data collection, analysis, presentation and interpretation will greatly enhance the accessibility of this technique to nonspecialists. Here we provide recommendations arising from community discussions emerging out of the first International Conference on Hydrogen-Exchange Mass Spectrometry (IC-HDX; 2017). It is meant to represent both a consensus viewpoint and an opportunity to stimulate further additions and refinements as the field advances

Research and Design of a Routing Protocol in Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

无线传感器网络，作为全球未来十大技术之一，集成了传感器技术、嵌入式计算技术、分布式信息处理和自组织网技术，可实时感知、采集、处理、传输网络分布区域内的各种信息数据，在军事国防、生物医疗、环境监测、抢险救灾、防恐反恐、危险区域远程控制等领域具有十分广阔的应用前景。 本文研究分析了无线传感器网络的已有路由协议，并针对大规模的无线传感器网络设计了一种树状路由协议，它根据节点地址信息来形成路由，从而简化了复杂繁冗的路由表查找和维护，节省了不必要的开销，提高了路由效率，实现了快速有效的数据传输。 为支持此路由协议本文提出了一种自适应动态地址分配算——ADAR（AdaptiveDynamicAddre...As one of the ten high technologies in the future, wireless sensor network, which is the integration of micro-sensors, embedded computing, modern network and Ad Hoc technologies, can apperceive, collect, process and transmit various information data within the region. It can be used in military defense, biomedical, environmental monitoring, disaster relief, counter-terrorism, remote control of haz...学位：工学硕士院系专业：信息科学与技术学院通信工程系_通信与信息系统学号：2332007115216

EEG of two persons during their roles as spiritual trance healer and as client – a pilot study

Two experienced spiritual (trance) healers who occasionally treat each other were recorded simultaneously, each with 27 EEG channels. The participants alternated their roles as healer and client (8 runs of 15 min: each 4 times healer, 4 times client). FFT spectral analysis was done using average reference. Spectra were averaged across the 27 channels. Power was integrated for each of the eight frequency bands (delta through gamma). The eight simultaneous results of the healing runs (client vs healer condition) were statistically compared (frequency band-wise ANOVA). In their role as healer compared to their role as client, both participants showed less power in the function-inhibiting delta and function-facilitating beta-3 EEG frequency bands. In sum, this pilot study of spiritual (trance) healing found distinct EEG states (common to both participants) that combined EEG characteristics of functional inhibition and functional facilitation in healer and client which cannot be reduced to changes in drowsiness or alertness

EEG microstates during different phases of Transcendental Meditation practice

Two phases of Transcendental Meditation (TM)—transcending and undirected mentation—were compared to each other and to task-free resting using multichannel EEG recorded from 20 TM practitioners. An EEG microstate analysis identified four classes of microstates which were labeled A, B, C and D, based on their similarity to previously published classes. For each class of microstates, mean duration, coverage and occurrence were computed. Resting and transcending differed from undirected mentation with decreased prominence of Class A and increased prominence of Class D microstates. In addition, transcending showed decreased prominence of Class C microstates compared to undirected mentation. Based on previous findings on the functional significance of the microstate classes, the results indicate an increased reference to reality and decreased visualization during resting and transcending compared to undirected mentation. Also, our results indicate decreased saliency of internally generated mentations during transcending compared to undirected mentation reflecting a more detached and less evaluative processing. It is proposed that the continuous cycling through these two phases of meditation during a TM session might facilitate and train the flexible modulation of the parameters of these microstates of these particular classes which are known to be altered in psychiatric disorders. This might promote beneficial stabilizing effects for the practitioner of TM