Association of an individual's ability to overcome desire to fall asleep with a higher anterior-posterior gradient in electroencephalographic indexes of sleep pressure

Publication date: Available online 7 January 2017
Source:International Journal of Psychophysiology
Author(s): Arcady A. Putilov, Olga G. Donskaya
Individual differences in ability to overcome desire to fall asleep cannot be accurately predicted from subjective and objective measurements of sleepiness level. Previously, we showed that an exponential buildup of sleep pressure during prolonged wakefulness can be accurately traced with electroencephalographic (EEG) indexes, such as Spectral Sleep Pressure Component (SSPC) score and score on the 2nd principal component (2PC) of the EEG spectrum. The anterior-posterior gradients in SSPC and 2PC scores were calculated as the differences between frontal and occipital scores and examined as possible correlates of individual's ability to overcome desire of falling asleep. Fifteen young and 15 older adults participated in two identically designed sleep deprivation experiments. After, at least, 12hours of wakefulness, resting EEG recordings were obtained from frontal and occipital derivations with 2-h intervals during 26–50hours. Due to irresistible desire to sleep, 11 young and 5 older adults completed <25 required EEG recordings. SSPC and 2PC scores were computed and, by subtracting occipital scores from frontal scores, the anterior-posterior gradients in SSPC and 2PC scores were calculated on one-min intervals of 5-min eyes closed EEG records. The analysis of these anterior-posterior gradients revealed their age-related difference and association with the number of completed EEG recording sessions (13–25). This association remained significant after accounting for age, alertness-sleepiness level, minute of eyes closed recording, and day of experiment. It seems that the anterior-posterior gradients in the EEG indexes of sleep pressure are the objective correlates of individual's ability to overcome desire to fall asleep.



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Instructions to Suppress Semantic Memory Enhances or has no effect on P300 in a Concealed Information Test (CIT)

Publication date: Available online 7 January 2017
Source:International Journal of Psychophysiology
Author(s): J. Peter Rosenfeld, Anne Ward, Jesse Drapekin, Elena Labkovsky, Samuel Tullman
The present study investigated the extent to which people can suppress semantic memory as indexed with the P300 ERP and the autobiographical implicit association test (aIAT). In EXP 1, participants (22) were run in a counterbalanced repeated measures study in both simply knowledgeable (SK) and knowledgeable with suppression (SP) conditions. A P300-based, concealed information test ("Complex Trial Protocol"; CTP) with a 50/50 Target/Nontarget (T/NT) ratio was given both with and without instructions to suppress semantic memories.The results showed increased P300s to probe name stimuli, reduced (but still high positive) aIAT d-scores, and increased simple reaction times to all stimuli used in ERP tests in the SP condition. EXP 2 was similar, but with SP and SK in two separate groups, and a 20/80T/NT ratio. Again, ERP and aIAT results failed to show a suppression effect for semantic memory. The behavioral data suggest some task demand effects under suppression instructions, and that EXP 1 was more demanding than EXP 2.



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Patient Centered Goal-setting in a Hospital-based Outpatient Stroke Rehabilitation Center

Goal-setting can positively impact stroke recovery during rehabilitation. Patient participation in goal formulation can ensure that personally relevant goals are set, and could result in greater satisfaction with the rehabilitation experience, and improved recovery of stroke deficits. This, however, not yet been studied in a stroke outpatient rehabilitation setting.

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Long-term Dosing of Intrathecal Baclofen in the Treatment of Spasticity after Acquired Brain Injury

Intrathecal baclofen (ITB) is often used to treat severe spasticity of cerebral origin. Though literature exists regarding efficacy of ITB, there has been minimal investigation related to dosing in the adult acquired brain injury population, particularly at long-term duration.

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Strengthening of Quadriceps by Neuromuscular Magnetic Stimulation in Healthy Subjects

Quadriceps muscle strengthening is one of the rehabilitation strategies for improving walking in some people with gait impairments and neuromuscular electrical stimulation(NMES) has been used for that reason. The strengthening effect of neuromuscular magnetic stimulation(NMMS) on the quadriceps has been demonstrated in various conditions, but not specifically for gait training. The purpose of this study was to prove whether the effect of NMMS is clinically applicable.

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The Course of Concussion Recovery in Children 6-12 Years of Age: Experience from an Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Clinic

Current concussion evidence is largely derived from teenagers and adults. Concussion in younger children occurs within the context of neuro-maturation, with differing age-based pathophysiological responses to injury. Therefore our current understanding of concussion in older children and adults is unlikely to directly apply to younger children.

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Combined tDCS and Vision Restoration Training in Subacute Stroke Rehabilitation: A Pilot Study

Visual field defects after posterior cerebral artery stroke can be improved by vision restoration training (VRT), but when combined with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) which alters brain excitability, vision recovery can be potentiated in the chronic stage. To date the combination of VRT and tDCS has not been evaluated in post-acute stroke rehabilitation.

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Return to the Primary Acute Care Service Among Patients with Multiple Myeloma on an Acute Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit

Pancytopenia, immunosuppression and other factors may put patients with multiple myeloma at risk for medical complications. These patients often require inpatient rehabilitation. No prior studies have looked at risk factors for return to the primary acute care service of this patient population.

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Using transcranial direct current stimulation to enhance performance in balance tasks

We read the article by Kaminski and co-workers (Kaminski et al., 2016) with great interest. Their paper presented the first study to demonstrate that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may facilitate neural processing in the M1 leg area in a whole-body dynamic balance task. Kaminski et al. observed that anodal tDCS over the primary motor cortex leg area enhanced performance in this task.

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Brainstem auditory responses to predict literacy

Early detection of aberrations in auditory processing, language comprehension and production will allow for the timely implementation of strategies to mitigate the longer-term impact on literacy. Psychological measures, such as phonological awareness, are typically used to detect alterations in literacy during development. In this issue of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neef et al. (2017) identify a neurophysiological measure capable of distinguishing good versus poor literacy skills. The authors measured brainstem auditory responses in a group of eleven to thirteen year old participants in response to the auditory [da] and [ba] stop-consonants and subsequently quantified the delta cross-phase and its relationship to literacy skills.

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Reply to “Using transcranial direct current stimulation to enhance performance in balance tasks”

We would like to thank Pohjola and co-workers for sharing their results and interesting add-on information (Pohjola et al., 2017). We agree that it is highly important to collect further information about transcranial direct current (tDCS)-induced behavioral effects in different motor learning paradigms. In this regard, we also believe that it is obligatory to publish null findings to gain a comprehensive picture about the specificity of tDCS-induced effects in different domains of motor learning.

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Corrigendum to “Intracortical inhibition abnormality during the remission phase of multiple sclerosis is related to upper limb dexterity and lesions” [Clin. Neurophysiol. 127 (2016) 1503–1511]

We recently detected an error in the MRI protocol we reported in "Intracortical inhibition abnormality during the remission phase of multiple sclerosis is related to upper limb dexterity and lesions", published this year in Clinical Neurophysiology. A subset of the relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) participants had data collected with a 12-channel head-coil, rather than the 32-channel head coil reported for all participants. This error is relevant only to data used in the third objective of this multimodal study.

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Ultrasound-guided transversus abdominis plane block for postoperative analgesia in living liver donors: A prospective, randomized, double-blinded clinical trial

Transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block is a peripheral nerve block that reduces postoperative pain, nausea, vomiting and the need for postoperative opioids following various types of abdominal surgery. The primary aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of TAP block on postoperative analgesia and opioid consumption in living liver donors in whom a right "J" abdominal incision was used.

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Determination of the diagnostic value of the Modified Mallampati Score, Upper Lip Bite Test and Facial Angle in predicting difficult intubation: A prospective descriptive study

Difficult intubation is a significant cause of mortality and morbidity related to anesthesia. We decided to evaluate the value of Modified Mallampati Score, Upper Lip Bite Test and Facial Angle in the prediction of difficult intubation.

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Effect of monetary incentives on first-case of the day starts

We read with interest the article by Kacmar et al., "Effect of monetary incentives on first-case of the day starts" [1]. The authors state that "we are the first to utilize a simple monetary incentive to motivate anesthesiology faculty to significantly increase operating room (OR) efficiency in a large academic center" [1]. We are uncertain how the authors showed "increased OR efficiency." There are two relevant types of OR efficiency. Allocative efficiency effectively refers to the inefficiency of use of OR time [2–4].

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Perioperative opioid administration in children with and without developmental delay undergoing outpatient dental surgery

Prior research has indicated that children with developmental delay (DD) experience qualitative and quantitative differences in health care (Boulet et al., 2009). In the perioperative setting, there is concern that children with DD may be more likely to experience postoperative complications including agitation and nausea/vomiting than typically developing patients (TDP). Differences in the administration and dosage of perioperative opioids may contribute to this, however, empirical investigations are lacking.

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The concentration of desflurane preventing spectral entropy change during surgical stimulation: A prospective randomized trial

To determine the concentration of desflurane necessary to blunt changes in spectral entropy during surgical incision when two different target-controlled effect-site concentrations of remifentanil (1 and 3ng/ml) were infused.

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Combination of femoral and genitofemoral nerve blocks is effective for endovascular aneurysm repair

Abdominal/thoracic endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR/TEVAR) is a minimally invasive operation for the repair of abdominal/thoracic aortic aneurysms (AAAs/TAAs). Generally, EVAR/TEVAR is performed under general anesthesia or field block anesthesia of inguinal region [1]. Since field block anesthesia sometimes provides insufficient analgesia, conversion to general anesthesia may be required owing to patient discomfort, anxiety and persistent patient movement. In this report, we present a case in which femoral and genitofemoral nerve blocks were performed for analgesia during EVAR.

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A motion-classification strategy based on sEMG-EEG signal combination for upper-limb amputees

Most of the modern motorized prostheses are controlled with the surface electromyography (sEMG) recorded on the residual muscles of amputated limbs. However, the residual muscles are usually limited, especiall...

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Activity concentration measurements of selected radionuclides in seals from Canadian Arctic

Publication date: April 2017
Source:Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Volumes 169–170
Author(s): Jing Chen, Weihua Zhang, Baki Sadi, Xiaowa Wang, Derek C.G. Muir
The activity concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides (such as ²²⁶Ra, ²¹⁰Pb and ²¹⁰Po) and long lived ¹³⁷Cs were measured in a total of 119 tissue samples (43 blubber, 43 liver, and 33 muscle samples) from 40 ringed seals and 4 bearded seals collected in the Arviat area of Canada during the fall of 2014. Activity concentration of ²¹⁰Po was measured in all seal liver and muscle samples individually. The average ²¹⁰Po activity concentrations were 25 ± 7.6 Bq/kg fresh weight (fw) in muscle and 211 ± 58 Bq/kg fw in liver for ringed seals, and 20 ± 6.1 Bq/kg fw in muscle and 231 ± 150 Bq/kg fw in liver for bearded seals. Due to insufficient sample material for most samples collected, gamma counting for radioactive caesium and radiochemical analysis for ²²⁶Ra and ²¹⁰Pb were performed for pooled samples. Activity concentrations of ²¹⁰Pb and ²²⁶Ra were generally below detection limits. While ¹³⁴Cs activity concentration was not detectable, ¹³⁷Cs activity concentration was detected in muscle and liver samples. On average, the ¹³⁷Cs activity concentrations were 0.25 ± 0.05 and 0.12 ± 0.04 Bq/kg fw in muscle and liver samples of ringed seals, and 0.11 ± 0.02 and 0.10 ± 0.03 Bq/kg fw in muscle and liver samples of bearded seals, respectively. Neither ²¹⁰Po nor ¹³⁷Cs were detected in the blubber samples. This study confirmed that ²¹⁰Po is the dominant contributor to radiation doses resulting from seal consumption. Man-made contaminant ¹³⁷Cs only contributes less than 0.01% of the total ingestion dose obtained from Arviat seals.



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Influence of the rehabilitation outcome on return to drive after neurological impairment.

In traumatic brain injury (TBI) and stroke rehabilitation, the question of reintegration of the driver into traffic is faced very often. Driving is an important domain and for some patients, return to driving represents a crucial event for community inclusion. The aim of our study was to examine the utility of Glasgow Coma Scale within the first 24 h of injury and the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) at rehabilitation admission for predicting the return to driving. We included 72 patients after TBI or stroke. Driving outcome was assessed in terms of being allowed to drive without restrictions as opposed to failing the test or being allowed to drive with restrictions. We examined two samples: the TBI patients only and the entire sample including patients after stroke. The results indicate that for TBI patients, Glasgow Coma Scale and motor FIM could be predictors of driving outcome; in the entire sample, the unrestricted driving outcome was also associated with a high score on the FIM motor scale. Early prediction of return to driving after TBI and stroke is important for the patients, their families and the rehabilitation teams to set realistic goals that enable the best possible reintegration after rehabilitation. Copyright (C) 2017 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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