Journal of neuroscience methods
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Jan 2018
Micropatterned surface electrode for massive selective stimulation of intraepidermal nociceptive fibres.
No satisfactory neurophysiological test for nociceptive afferents is available to date. Laser stimuli present risks of skin damage, whilst electrical stimulation through specially designed electrodes is not selective enough. ⋯ A new electrode providing selective stimulation of nociceptive nerve free endings is presented. It is non-invasive, and its surface can be enlarged at will. It is expected that it may greatly help in neurophysiological assessment of conditions affecting the nociceptive pathway.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Nov 2017
Comparative StudyComparison of analytical methods of brain [18F]FDG-PET after severe traumatic brain injury.
Loss of consciousness has been shown to reduce cerebral metabolic rates of glucose (CMRglc) measured by brain [18F]FDG-PET. Measurements of regional metabolic patterns by normalization to global cerebral metabolism or cerebellum may underestimate widespread reductions. ⋯ We recommend supplementing a static [18F]FDG scan with a single venous blood sample in future studies of patients with severe TBI or reduced level of consciousness. This can be used for simple semi-quantitative uptake values by normalizing brain activity uptake to plasma tracer concentration, or quantitative estimates of CMRglc.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Aug 2017
Iodine and freeze-drying enhanced high-resolution MicroCT imaging for reconstructing 3D intraneural topography of human peripheral nerve fascicles.
The precise annotation and accurate identification of the topography of fascicles to the end organs are prerequisites for studying human peripheral nerves. ⋯ Thus, enhanced microCT is a new technique for acquiring 3D intraneural topography of the human peripheral nerve fascicles both to improve our understanding of neurobiological principles and to guide accurate repair in the clinic. Additionally, 3D microstructure data can be used as a biofabrication model, which in turn can be used to fabricate scaffolds to repair long nerve gaps.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Aug 2017
Exploring connectivity with large-scale Granger causality on resting-state functional MRI.
Large-scale Granger causality (lsGC) is a recently developed, resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) connectivity analysis approach that estimates multivariate voxel-resolution connectivity. Unlike most commonly used multivariate approaches, which establish coarse-resolution connectivity by aggregating voxel time-series avoiding an underdetermined problem, lsGC estimates voxel-resolution, fine-grained connectivity by incorporating an embedded dimension reduction. ⋯ Functional network recovery from fMRI data suggests that lsGC gives useful insight into connectivity patterns from resting-state fMRI at a multivariate voxel-resolution.
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J. Neurosci. Methods · Jun 2017
Global field synchronization in gamma range of the sleep EEG tracks sleep depth: Artifact introduced by a rectangular analysis window.
Investigating functional connectivity between brain networks has become an area of interest in neuroscience. Several methods for investigating connectivity have recently been developed, however, these techniques need to be applied with care. We demonstrate that global field synchronization (GFS), a global measure of phase alignment in the EEG as a function of frequency, must be applied considering signal processing principles in order to yield valid results. ⋯ We demonstrated that it is crucial to apply an appropriate window function for determining synchronization measures based on a spectral approach to avoid spurious synchronization in the beta/gamma range.