Journal of neuroscience methods
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Mar 2012
Cortical surface mapping using topology correction, partial flattening and 3D shape context-based non-rigid registration for use in quantifying atrophy in Alzheimer's disease.
Magnetic resonance (MR) provides a non-invasive way to investigate changes in the brain resulting from aging or neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Performing accurate analysis for population studies is challenging because of the interindividual anatomical variability. A large set of tools is found to perform studies of brain anatomy and population analysis (FreeSurfer, SPM, FSL). ⋯ We finally computed changes in atrophy in 32 AD patients and 81 healthy elderly individuals. Significant differences were found in regions known to be affected in AD. We demonstrated the validity of the method for use in clinical studies which provides an alternative to well established techniques to compare different imaging biomarkers for the study of neurodegenerative diseases.
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Although there are numerous 3T MRI research devices all over the world, only a few functional studies at 3T have been done in anesthetized monkeys. In the past, anesthetized preparations were reported to be misleading when exploring cortical brain regions outside the primary sensory areas. Nonetheless, a great improvement has been achieved in the limited effect of anesthetic agents on the reactivity of the brain. ⋯ Our results provide a satisfactory signal to noise ratio with a limited standard deviation range, when compared with studies on alert macaques. We suggest that the 3T magnet remains a valuable tool to analyze neural pathways in the macaque brain under light anesthesia and report the use of spatially resolved fMRI in higher visual areas of anesthetized monkeys. This methodology avoids the need for time-consuming training of awake monkeys, is stable over many hours, provides reproducible data and could be applied successfully to future functional studies.
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In this paper, a rule-based automatic sleep staging method was proposed. Twelve features including temporal and spectrum analyses of the EEG, EOG, and EMG signals were utilized. Normalization was applied to each feature to eliminating individual differences. ⋯ Finally, a smoothing process considering the temporal contextual information was applied for the continuity. The overall agreement and kappa coefficient of the proposed method applied to the all night polysomnography (PSG) of seventeen healthy subjects compared with the manual scorings by R&K rules can reach 86.68% and 0.79, respectively. This method can integrate with portable PSG system for sleep evaluation at-home in the near future.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Mar 2012
Application of triphasic pulses with adjustable phase amplitude ratio (PAR) for cochlear ECAP recording: I. amplitude growth functions.
This study describes the use of triphasic electrical stimulation pulses with an adjustable phase amplitude ratio (PAR) for the reduction of electrical stimulus artifacts. It is hypothesized that the setting of a certain PAR can facilitate a nearly artifact-free recording of electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAP) in the cochlea. Artifact reduction with triphasic pulses using single epochs is expected to prevent latency or polarity effects, which are seen in standard forward masking or alternating polarity strategies. ⋯ However, recording of ECAP with triphasic pulses showed drawbacks: additional artifacts depending on stimulation and/or recording parameters are introduced, the ratio between the additional artifact and improved detectability of neural responses is dependent on PAR, and response thresholds obtained with triphasic pulses--although similar in shape--are in most cases substantially higher compared to thresholds measured with the Miller method. Higher thresholds most probably occur because the triphasic pulse patterns seem to less effectively stimulate neural structures compared to biphasic pulses since measured response thresholds are higher. For certain electrode groups threshold profiles obtained with triphasic pulses were found to be similar compared to stimulation with biphasic pulses.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Mar 2012
A fully implanted programmable stimulator based on wireless communication for epidural spinal cord stimulation in rats.
Clinical research indicates that the epidural spinal cord stimulation (ESCS) has shown potential in promoting locomotor recovery in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury (ISCI). This paper presents the development of a fully implantable voltage-regulated stimulator with bi-directional wireless communication for investigating underlying neural mechanisms of ESCS facilitating motor function improvement. The stimulation system consists of a computer, an external controller, an implantable pulse generator (IPG), a magnet, the extension leads and a stimulation electrode. ⋯ The encapsulated IPG measures 33mm×24mm×8mm, with a total mass of ∼12.6g. Feasibility experiments are conducted in three Sprague-Dawley rats to validate the function of the stimulator, and to investigate the relationship between lumbar-sacral ESCS and hindlimb electromyography (EMG) responses. The results show that the stimulation system provides an effective tool for investigation of ESCS application in motor function recovery in small animals.