Overt Visual Attention as a Causal Factor of Perceptual Awareness

Our everyday conscious experience of the visual world is fundamentally shaped by the interaction of overt visual attention and object awareness. Although the principal impact of both components is undisputed, it is still unclear how they interact. Here we recorded eye-movements preceding and following conscious object recognition, collected during the free inspection of ambiguous and corresponding unambiguous stimuli. Using this paradigm, we demonstrate that fixations recorded prior to object awareness predict the later recognized object identity, and that subjects accumulate more evidence that is consistent with their later percept than for the alternative. The timing of reached awareness was verified by a reaction-time based correction method and also based on changes in pupil dilation. Control experiments, in which we manipulated the initial locus of visual attention, confirm a causal influence of overt attention on the subsequent result of object perception. The current study thus demonstrates that distinct patterns of overt attentional selection precede object awareness and thereby directly builds on recent electrophysiological findings suggesting two distinct neuronal mechanisms underlying the two phenomena. Our results emphasize the crucial importance of overt visual attention in the formation of our conscious experience of the visual world

Modulation of inhibitory corticospinal circuits induced by a nocebo procedure in motor performance.

As recently demonstrated, a placebo procedure in motor performance increases force production and changes the excitability of the corticospinal system, by enhancing the amplitude of the motor evoked potentials (MEP) and reducing the duration of the cortical silent period (CSP). However, it is not clear whether these neurophysiological changes are related to the behavioural outcome (increased force) or to a general effect of expectation. To clarify this, we investigated the nocebo effect, in which the induced expectation decreases force production. Two groups of healthy volunteers (experimental and control) performed a motor task by pressing a piston with the right index finger. To induce a nocebo effect in the experimental group, low frequency transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) was applied over the index finger with instructions of its detrimental effects on force. To condition the subjects, the visual feedback on their force level was surreptitiously reduced after TENS. Results showed that the experimental group reduced the force, felt weaker and expected a worse performance than the control group, who was not suggested about TENS. By applying transcranial magnetic stimulation over the primary motor cortex, we found that while MEP amplitude remained stable throughout the procedure in both groups, the CSP duration was shorter in the experimental group after the nocebo procedure. The CSP reduction resembled previous findings on the placebo effect, suggesting that expectation of change in performance diminishes the inhibitory activation of the primary motor cortex, independently of the behavioural outcome

The healthcare service support of the complex self-management drugs' regime during chronic disease

Müller-Mundt G, Haslbeck J, Geuter G, Schaeffer D. The healthcare service support of the complex self-management drugs' regime during chronic disease. Das Gesundheitswesen. 2008;70(7):470-471

Bezugswissenschaften der Physiotherapie: Soziologie und Gesundheitswissenschaften / Public Health

Background: Since in three preceeding articles already five possible reference sciences of physiotherapy (philosophy, medicine, sports sciences, pedagogics and psychology) were portrayed this last one outlines sociology and health sciences/public health. While philosophy made the start due to its fundamental importance for all sciences the second article illustrated medicine and sports sciences which both are characterised by a historical and content closeness to physiotherapy. The third article investigated the relevance of pedagogics and psychology for physiotherapy, two disciplines which tend to focus on individual processes and structures. The two disciplines to be outlined in this article sociology and health sciences/public health, however, are characterised by their social perspective. Objective/method: Like in the preceeding articles the disciplines are first outlined by an expert in view of their historical development as a discipline and their over the years emerging subsets, their central purpose and last but not least their current challenges. Following on from this two further experts substantiate exemplary the possible transfer potential for physiotherapy. Results: Not only with the background of limited resources, growing competition and rising health products plurality in the health sector, it is becoming increasingly important for physiotherapy to professionalise and develop not only in its occupational group. It is rather called upon to position itself in society and its health-care system as well as to actively involve its physiotherapeutic competence in view of new challenges. Both sociology and health sciences offer physiotherapy useful perspectives, theories, methods and techniques. Conclusions: A prospective physiotherapy science can use valuable impulses out of all seven disciplines portrayed in this article series for its further development and constitution. Apart from dealing with highlighted disciplines it is necessary to develop supplemental reference sciences and to critically investigate their potential for physiotherapy. In this process it is important for all loans from other disciplines to perform an appropriate objective and content transfer into physiotherapeutic questions and not attach great importance to the physiotherapeutic context per se without evaluation