Plos One
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Most perceived parameters of sound (e.g. pitch, duration, timbre) can also be imagined in the absence of sound. These parameters are imagined more veridically by expert musicians than non-experts. Evidence for whether loudness is imagined, however, is conflicting. ⋯ Similarity between each participant's imagined and listening loudness profiles and reference recording intensity profiles was assessed using time series analysis and dynamic time warping. The results suggest a widespread ability to imagine the loudness of familiar music. The veridicality of imagined loudness tended to be greatest for the expert musicians, supporting the predicted relationship between musical expertise and musical imagery ability.
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The feedback-related negativity (FRN) is an event-related potential (ERP) component associated with processing of performance feedback, with more negative amplitudes for losses relative to wins. The amplitude of the FRN following near misses, i.e. the experience of coming close to winning, is between the amplitude elicited by losses and wins. In gambling, however, outcome value may not always be obvious since initially placed bets need to be taken into account when evaluating wins or losses. ⋯ Crucially, P300 amplitudes were also smaller for ambivalent outcomes compared to losses. Thus, the different dimensions determining outcome value appear to be integrated in early and late stages of feedback processing. However, only at later stages reflected in the P300 were ambivalent outcomes with and without bet clearly distinguished from other outcomes.
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Determine whether white matter signal fluctuation on T2* weighted BOLD contrast images are associated with aging and cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). ⋯ NAWM was found to have graded increases in cardiac pulsations due to age and SVD, independently. Within SVD participants, WMH lesions had reduced physiological noise compared to NAWM. Cardiac pulsatility in resting BOLD data may provide a complementary dynamic measure of WM integrity to add to static FLAIR anatomical images.
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The aim of the present study was to generate up-to-date normative data for health-related quality of life (QoL) measured with the "European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ-C30)" in a random sample of the population in Northern Germany. ⋯ Our study participants are representative for the German general population with regard to age, sex and education. Of special interest is the high proportion of participants reporting depression which is also mirrored by high fatigue, pain and insomnia scores. The normative data provided should be used as comparison health-related QoL data when evaluating the QoL in German cancer patients.
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The brain remains electrically and metabolically active during resting conditions. The low-frequency oscillations (LFO) of the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) coherent across distributed brain regions are known to exhibit features of this activity. However, these intrinsic oscillations may undergo dynamic changes in time scales of seconds to minutes during resting conditions. ⋯ The network activity associated with respiratory related frequency (slow-2) was found to have no relationship with the node activity in any of the frequency intervals. We found that the net causal flow towards a node in slow-3 band was correlated with the number of fibers, obtained from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data, from the other nodes connecting to that node. These findings imply that so-called resting state is not 'entirely' at rest, the higher frequency network activity flow can predict the lower frequency node activity, and the network activity flow can reflect underlying structural connectivity.