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Planning goal-directed movements towards different targets is at the basis of common daily activities (e.g., reaching), involving visual, visuomotor, and sensorimotor brain areas. Alpha (8–13 Hz) and beta (13–30 Hz) oscillations are modulated during movement preparation and are implicated in correct motor functioning. However, how brain regions activate and interact during reaching tasks and how brain rhythms are functionally involved in these interactions is still limitedly explored. Here, alpha and beta brain activity and connectivity during reaching preparation are investigated at EEG-source level, considering a network of task-related cortical areas. Sixty-channel EEG was recorded from 20 healthy participants during a delayed center-out reaching task and projected to the cortex to extract the activity of 8 cortical regions per hemisphere (2 occipital, 2 parietal, 3 peri-central, 1 frontal). Then, we analyzed event-related spectral perturbations and directed connectivity, computed via spectral Granger causality and summarized using graph theory centrality indices (in degree, out degree). Results suggest that alpha and beta oscillations are functionally involved in the preparation of reaching in different ways, with the former mediating the inhibition of the ipsilateral sensorimotor areas and disinhibition of visual areas, and the latter coordinating disinhibition of the contralateral sensorimotor and visuomotor areas.

IntroductionMagnocellular deficit in visual perception and impaired emotion recognition are core features of schizophrenia, however their relationship and the neurobiological underpinnings are still unclear.ObjectivesThe aim of our research was to investigate the oscillatory background of perception and emotion recognition in schizophrenia and to examine the relationship between these processes.MethodsThirty-nine subjects with schizophrenia and forty healthy controls subjects were enrolled in the study; the two study groups did not differ in age, gender and education. In the visual paradigm the participants viewed magnocellular biased low-spatial frequency (LSF) and parvocellular biased high-spatial frequency (HSF) Gabor-patches and in the second paradigm happy, sad and neutral faces were presented, while 128-channel EEG was recorded.ResultsSignificantly weaker theta (4-7 Hz) event related synchronisation (ERS) was observed in patients compared to controls in the LSF condition, whereas in the HSF condition there was no difference between the two groups. Event related changes in theta amplitude were also found to be significantly weaker in patients compared to healthy controls in the emotion recognition task, which difference was disappeared after correction for ERS to LSF condition. In the correlational analysis theta activity in the magnocellular biased stimuli correlated significantly with theta activity in the emotion recognition task, while theta to parvocellular biased stimuli showed no similar correlation with emotion recognition.ConclusionsIn schizophrenia, emotion recognition impairments are closely related to the dysfunction of the magnocellular system, which supports the bottom-up model of schizophrenia.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

Background Many studies have demonstrated the usefulness of repetitive task practice by using robotic-assisted gait training (RAGT) devices, including Lokomat, for the treatment of lower limb paresis. Virtual reality (VR) has proved to be a valuable tool to improve neurorehabilitation training. The aim of our pilot randomized clinical trial was to understand the neurophysiological basis of motor function recovery induced by the association between RAGT (by using Lokomat device) and VR (an animated avatar in a 2D VR) by studying electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillations. Methods Twenty-four patients suffering from a first unilateral ischemic stroke in the chronic phase were randomized into two groups. One group performed 40 sessions of Lokomat with VR (RAGT + VR), whereas the other group underwent Lokomat without VR (RAGT-VR). The outcomes (clinical, kinematic, and EEG) were measured before and after the robotic intervention. Results As compared to the RAGT-VR group, all the patients of the RAGT + VR group improved in the Rivermead Mobility Index and Tinetti Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment. Moreover, they showed stronger event-related spectral perturbations in the high-γ and β bands and larger fronto-central cortical activations in the affected hemisphere. Conclusions The robotic-based rehabilitation combined with VR in patients with chronic hemiparesis induced an improvement in gait and balance. EEG data suggest that the use of VR may entrain several brain areas (probably encompassing the mirror neuron system) involved in motor planning and learning, thus leading to an enhanced motor performance. Trial registration Retrospectively registered in Clinical Trials on 21-11-2016, n. NCT02971371 .

Glioma patients often experience neurocognitive deficits, particularly mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which affects their perioperative safety. The use of auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) might be a promising method for reflecting perioperative cognitive function in patients, even under unresponsive sedation. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationships between the AERP under sedation and preoperative cognitive performance in glioma patients. Patients with primary supratentorial gliomas who were scheduled for elective craniotomy under general anesthesia were included in this prospective observational study. The patients were categorized into MCI and non-MCI groups based on their preoperative Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores. AERP characteristics, including mismatch negativity (MMN), P300, and event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) in the theta bands, were analyzed under different propofol-induced sedation conditions. Differences in these parameters between groups and their relationships with preoperative cognitive performance were subsequently investigated. Twenty-nine eligible patients were included in the analysis. Compared to that in the non-MCI group, the average amplitude of the MMN component evoked by the novel stimulus significantly decreased during the recovery period in the MCI group (-3.895 ± 1.961 μV vs. -1.617 ± 1.831 μV,  = 0.003). Theta-ERSPs also differed between the two groups under standard (0.021 ± 0.658 μV /Hz vs. 0.515 ± 0.622 μV /Hz,  = 0.048) and novel (0.212 ± 0.584 μV /Hz vs. 0.823 ± 0.931 μV /Hz,  = 0.041) stimulation conditions under light sedation. After correcting for age, education level, site of lesion, WHO pathological grade and combined symptomatic epilepsy as confounders, the frontal theta-ERSP induced by standard and novel stimuli under light sedation was inversely related to the preoperative MoCA score (standard stimuli:  = -0.491,  = 0.011; novel stimuli:  = -0.594,  = 0.007), as was the average MMN amplitude induced by novel stimuli during the recovery period (β = -0.356,  = 0.035). The AERP neural response characteristics of glioma patients during propofol sedation were associated with preoperative cognitive performance, which might be a potential neurophysiological indicator for monitoring perioperative cognitive function, especially theta-ERSP.

Anthropomorphized robots are increasingly integrated into human social life, playing vital roles across various fields. This study aimed to elucidate the neural dynamics underlying users’ perceptual and emotional responses to robots with varying levels of anthropomorphism. We investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs) elicited while participants viewed, perceived, and rated the affection of robots with low (L-AR), medium (M-AR), and high (H-AR) levels of anthropomorphism. EEG data were recorded from 42 participants. Results revealed that H-AR induced a more negative N1 and increased frontal theta power, but decreased P2 in early time windows. Conversely, M-AR and L-AR elicited larger P2 compared to H-AR. In later time windows, M-AR generated greater late positive potential (LPP) and enhanced parietal-occipital theta oscillations than H-AR and L-AR. These findings suggest distinct neural processing phases: early feature detection and selective attention allocation, followed by later affective appraisal. Early detection of facial form and animacy, with P2 reflecting higher-order visual processing, appeared to correlate with anthropomorphism levels. This research advances the understanding of emotional processing in anthropomorphic robot design and provides valuable insights for robot designers and manufacturers regarding emotional and feature design, evaluation, and promotion of anthropomorphic robots.

Recent mobile brain/body imaging (MoBI) techniques based on active electrode scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) allow the acquisition and real-time analysis of brain dynamics during active unrestrained motor behavior involving whole body movements such as treadmill walking, over-ground walking and other locomotive and non-locomotive tasks. Unfortunately, MoBI protocols are prone to physiological and non-physiological artifacts, including motion artifacts that may contaminate the EEG recordings. A few attempts have been made to quantify these artifacts during locomotion tasks but with inconclusive results due in part to methodological pitfalls. In this paper, we investigate the potential contributions of motion artifacts in scalp EEG during treadmill walking at three different speeds (1.5, 3.0, and 4.5 km/h) using a wireless 64 channel active EEG system and a wireless inertial sensor attached to the subject's head. The experimental setup was designed according to good measurement practices using state-of-the-art commercially available instruments, and the measurements were analyzed using Fourier analysis and wavelet coherence approaches. Contrary to prior claims, the subjects' motion did not significantly affect their EEG during treadmill walking although precaution should be taken when gait speeds approach 4.5 km/h. Overall, these findings suggest how MoBI methods may be safely deployed in neural, cognitive, and rehabilitation engineering applications.

Dysphagia is commonly assessed with qualitative and image-based diagnostic tools, which are often costly, technically demanding, and limited in their ability to support individualized rehabilitation. Electroencephalography (EEG) has recently emerged as a quantitative, cost-effective, and accessible alternative to characterize sensorimotor activity during swallowing, though its potential in dysphagic populations has not been systematically explored. This study investigated neural dynamics in 50 post-stroke dysphagic patients, 32 post-stroke non-dysphagic controls, and 21 healthy adults performing a swallowing task. EEG recordings from primary motor regions (C3, Cz, C4) were analyzed using event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) to quantify alpha (8–13 Hz) and beta (15–30 Hz) event-related desynchronization, alongside hemispheric lateralization indices. Group comparisons revealed significantly reduced beta desynchronization in both post-stroke groups compared to healthy participants, with additional alpha and beta deficits at C3 and Cz distinguishing dysphagic patients from non-dysphagic controls. Dysphagic patients further exhibited abnormal lateralization not observed in other groups. These findings identify distinct alterations in motor cortical dynamics and hemispheric balance in dysphagia, supporting EEG-derived biomarkers as promising tools for diagnosis and clinical follow-up. The accessibility of EEG reinforces its potential integration into routine workflows to enable objective and personalized management of post-stroke dysphagia.

We present the results of a large-scale analysis of event-related responses based on raw EEG data from 17 studies performed at six experimental sites associated with four different institutions. The analysis corpus represents 1,155 recordings containing approximately 7.8 million event instances acquired under several different experimental paradigms. Such large-scale analysis is predicated on consistent data organization and event annotation as well as an effective automated preprocessing pipeline to transform raw EEG into a form suitable for comparative analysis. A key component of this analysis is the annotation of study-specific event codes using a common vocabulary to describe relevant event features. We demonstrate that Hierarchical Event Descriptors (HED tags) capture statistically significant cognitive aspects of EEG events common across multiple recordings, subjects, studies, paradigms, headset configurations, and experimental sites. We use representational similarity analysis (RSA) to show that EEG responses annotated with the same cognitive aspect are significantly more similar than those that do not share that cognitive aspect. These RSA similarity results are supported by visualizations that exploit the non-linear similarities of these associations. We apply temporal overlap regression, reducing confounds caused by adjacent event instances, to extract time and time-frequency EEG features (regressed ERPs and ERSPs) that are comparable across studies and replicate findings from prior, individual studies. Likewise, we use second-level linear regression to separate effects of different cognitive aspects on these features across all studies. This work demonstrates that EEG mega-analysis (pooling of raw data across studies) can enable investigations of brain dynamics in a more generalized fashion than single studies afford. A companion paper complements this event-based analysis by addressing commonality of the time and frequency statistical properties of EEG across studies at the channel and dipole level. [Display omitted] •Uses fully-automated processing to perform large-scale event-related analysis of 17 EEG studies from 6 sites.•Applies Hierarchical Event Descriptors (HED tags) to capture cognitive aspects of events and statistically significant relationships between EEG signals and event types across diverse collections of EEG.•Demonstrates the importance of using temporal overlap regression at the recording level to eliminate confounds when performing ERP and ERSP analysis across studies.•Uses scalable, two-level hierarchical modeling to separate effects of recordings, paradigms, and event classes when analyzing diverse collections of EEG recordings.

Event-related spectral perturbation analysis was employed in this study to explore whether surreal image designs containing metaphors could influence product marketing effects, including consumers’ product curiosity, product comprehension, product preference, and purchase intention. A total of 30 healthy participants aged 21-30 years were recruited. Neurophysiological findings revealed that lower gamma, beta, and theta spectral powers were evoked in the right insula (Brodmann Area 13) by surreal marketing images. This was associated, behaviorally, with the manifestation of higher product curiosity and purchase intention. Based on previous research, the brain functions of this area include novelty, puzzle-solving, and cravings for reward caused by cognitive overload.

Background Auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) are periodic evoked responses to constant periodic auditory stimuli, such as click trains, and are suggested to be associated with higher cognitive functions in humans. Since ASSRs are disturbed in human psychiatric disorders, recording ASSRs from awake intact macaques would be beneficial to translational research as well as an understanding of human brain function and its pathology. However, ASSR has not been reported in awake macaques. Results Electroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded from awake intact macaques, while click trains at 20–83.3 Hz were binaurally presented. EEGs were quantified based on event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) and inter-trial coherence (ITC), and ASSRs were significantly demonstrated in terms of ERSP and ITC in awake intact macaques. A comparison of ASSRs among different click train frequencies indicated that ASSRs were maximal at 83.3 Hz. Furthermore, analyses of laterality indices of ASSRs showed that no laterality dominance of ASSRs was observed. Conclusions The present results demonstrated ASSRs, comparable to those in humans, in awake intact macaques. However, there were some differences in ASSRs between macaques and humans: macaques showed maximal ASSR responses to click frequencies higher than 40 Hz that has been reported to elicit maximal responses in humans, and showed no dominant laterality of ASSRs under the electrode montage in this study compared with humans with right hemisphere dominance. The future ASSR studies using awake intact macaques should be aware of these differences, and possible factors, to which these differences were ascribed, are discussed.