Search results for " learning."

Prediction error signal correlates with fluid intelligenceand dopamine synthesis across the lifespan

2011

IntroductionFluid intelligence expresses the capacity for interpretation of novel stimuli and flexible behavioral adaptation to such cues. Phasic dopamine firing closely matches a temporal difference prediction error (PE) signal important for learning and rapid behavioral adaptation. Both fluid intelligence and dopaminergic neurotransmission decline with age. So far, no study investigated the relationship between fluid IQ, PE signal and direct measures of dopaminergic neurotransmission. Here we used a multimodal imaging approach that combines positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging.MethodsA group of healthy controls was investigated with both 6-[18F]FluoroDOPA…

Classification of Schizophrenia Patients and Healthy Controls Using ICA of Complex-Valued fMRI Data and Convolutional Neural Networks

2019

Deep learning has contributed greatly to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis, however, spatial maps derived from fMRI data by independent component analysis (ICA), as promising biomarkers, have rarely been directly used to perform individualized diagnosis. As such, this study proposes a novel framework combining ICA and convolutional neural network (CNN) for classifying schizophrenia patients (SZs) and healthy controls (HCs). ICA is first used to obtain components of interest which have been previously implicated in schizophrenia. Functionally informative slices of these components are then selected and labelled. CNN is finally employed to learn hierarchical diagnostic fea…

Extract Mismatch Negativity and P3a through Two-Dimensional Nonnegative Decomposition on Time-Frequency Represented Event-Related Potentials

2010

This study compares the row-wise unfolding nonnegative tensor factorization (NTF) and the standard nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) in extracting time-frequency represented event-related potentials—mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a from EEG under the two-dimensional decomposition The criterion to judge performance of NMF and NTF is based on psychology knowledge of MMN and P3a MMN is elicited by an oddball paradigm and may be proportionally modulated by the attention So, participants are usually instructed to ignore the stimuli However the deviant stimulus inevitably attracts some attention of the participant towards the stimuli Thus, P3a often follows MMN As a result, if P3a was large…

In utero exposure to mixtures of xenoestrogens and child neuropsychological development.

2014

BACKGROUND: To date, no epidemiological studies have explored the impact and persistence of in utero exposure to mixtures of xenoestrogens on the developing brain. We aimed to assess whether the cumulative effect of xenoestrogens in the placenta is associated with altered infant neuropsychological functioning at two and at four years of age, and if associations differ among boys and girls. METHODS: Cumulative prenatal exposure to xenoestrogens was quantified in the placenta using the biomarker Total Effective Xenoestrogen Burden (TEXB-alpha) in 489 participants from the INMA (Childhood and the Environment) Project. TEXB-alpha was split in tertiles to test its association with the mental and…

El Instituto Médico Valenciano y la difusión de la vacuna

2004

The Medical Valencian Institute promoted a campaign of smallpox free vaccination (1851- 1894) by means of humanized vaccine sent from England. It spread the vaccination for the whole Spain and published careful statistics of the vaccinations practised in the Bulletin of the Medical Valencian Institute. The National Institute of Vaccination (1871) did not recognize his labor and one denied to him the category of Provincial Institute of Vaccination.

Diagnostic Performance of an Artificial Intelligence System in Breast Ultrasound.

2021

Objectives We study the performance of an artificial intelligence (AI) program designed to assist radiologists in the diagnosis of breast cancer, relative to measures obtained from conventional readings by radiologists. Methods A total of 10 radiologists read a curated, anonymized group of 299 breast ultrasound images that contained at least one suspicious lesion and for which a final diagnosis was independently determined. Separately, the AI program was initialized by a lead radiologist and the computed results compared against those of the radiologists. Results The AI program's diagnoses of breast lesions had concordance with the 10 radiologists' readings across a number of BI-RADS descri…

2016

Mirror training therapy is a promising tool to initiate neural plasticity and facilitate the recovery process of motor skills after diseases such as stroke or hemiparesis by improving the intermanual transfer of fine motor skills in healthy people as well as in patients. This study evaluated whether these augmented performance improvements by mirror visual feedback (MVF) could be used for learning a sport-specific skill and if the effects are modulated by skill level. A sample of 39 young, healthy, and experienced basketball and handball players and 41 novices performed a stationary basketball dribble task at a mirror box in a standing position and received either MVF or direct feedback. Af…

Neurocognitive impairment and psychosocial functioning in bipolar II disorder

2011

Sole B, Bonnin CM, Torrent C, Balanza-Martinez V, Tabares-Seisdedos R, Popovic D, Martinez-Aran A, Vieta E. Neurocognitive impairment and psychosocial functioning in bipolar II disorder. Objective:  There is a growing body of evidence on neurocognitive impairment in euthymic bipolar patients, but this issue has been studied mostly in bipolar I disorder, data on bipolar II (BD-II) are scant and discrepant. The two aims of this study were to ascertain whether strictly defined euthymic BD-II patients would present neurocognitive disturbances and to evaluate their impact on functional outcome. Method:  Forty-three BD-II patients and 42 demographically and educationally matched healthy subjects …

Appendectomy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a multicenter ambispective cohort study by the Italian Society of Endoscopic Surgery and new tech…

2021

AbstractMajor surgical societies advised using non-operative management of appendicitis and suggested against laparoscopy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hypothesis is that a significant reduction in the number of emergent appendectomies was observed during the pandemic, restricted to complex cases. The study aimed to analyse emergent surgical appendectomies during pandemic on a national basis and compare it to the same period of the previous year. This is a multicentre, retrospective, observational study investigating the outcomes of patients undergoing emergent appendectomy in March–April 2019 vs March–April 2020. The primary outcome was the number of appendectomies performed, classifie…

Intermittent ethanol exposure induces inflammatory brain damage and causes long-term behavioural alterations in adolescent rats

2007

Adolescent brain development seems to be important for the maturation of brain structures and behaviour. Intermittent binge ethanol drinking is common among adolescents, and this type of drinking can induce brain damage. Because we have demonstrated that chronic ethanol treatment induces inflammatory processes in the brain, we investigate whether intermittent ethanol intoxication enhances cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in adolescent rats, and whether these mediators induce brain damage and cause permanent cognitive dysfunctions. Adolescent rats were exposed to ethanol (3.0 g/kg) for two consecutive days at 48-h intervals over 14 days. Levels of COX-2, iN…