Search results for "Cognition"

Mild to moderate chronic airways disease does not carry an excess risk of cognitive dysfunction

2003

Whether chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) carries a risk of cognitive dysfunction prior to the onset of arterial hypoxemia is not known. Our objective was to assess both the prevalence and main correlates of subclinical cognitive dysfunction in older patients with non-hypoxemic COPD.Home-dwelling non-demented subjects over 64 years of age consecutively attending 24 outpatient Departments of Respiratory Medicine or Geriatrics because of COPD (N = 233), asthma (N = 203), non-obstructive bronchitis (N = 92) or chronic non-respiratory and non-dementing diseases (controls, N = 1080) underwent a multidimensional assessment. Cognitive status was assessed by the Mini-Mental State Examina…

2021

Introduction: Functional imaging studies have demonstrated the recruitment of additional neural resources as a possible mechanism to compensate for age and Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-related cerebral pathology, the efficacy of which is potentially modulated by underlying structural network connectivity. Additionally, structural network efficiency (SNE) is associated with intelligence across the lifespan, which is a known factor for resilience to cognitive decline. We hypothesized that SNE may be a surrogate of the physiological basis of resilience to cognitive decline in elderly persons without dementia and with age- and AD-related cerebral pathology.Methods: We included 85 cognitively normal…

LXR antagonists induce ABCD2 expression

2014

X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the accumulation of very-long-chain fatty acids resulting from a beta-oxidation defect. Oxidative stress and inflammation are also key components of the pathogenesis. X-ALD is caused by mutations in the ABCDI gene, which encodes for a peroxisomal half ABC transporter predicted to participate in the entry of VLCFA-CoA into the peroxisome, the unique site of their beta-oxidation. Two homologous peroxisomal ABC transporters, ABCD2 and ABCD3 have been proven to compensate for ABCD1 deficiency when overexpressed. Pharmacological induction of these target genes could therefore represent an alternative ther…

Trait Empathy associated with Agreeableness and rhythmic entrainment in a spontaneous movement to music task: Preliminary exploratory investigations

2017

The simulation theory of empathy suggests that we use motor processing to empathise, through modelling the actions of others. Similarly, research into embodied music cognition posits that music, particularly musical rhythm, is perceived as a motor stimulus. In both cases, the human Mirror Neuron System (MNS) is put forward as a potential underlying mechanism. If this is the case, some overlap may exist between the ability to empathise with others, and the ability to perceive rhythm in music. The present study investigated this relationship indirectly, through the study of individual differences in Trait Empathy and rhythmic entrainment. Undergraduate students ( N = 237) completed a questio…

Sexually dimorphic effects of alcohol self-administration on cognitive processes

2012

Chronic alcohol consumption is able to modify cognitive and emotional behaviour in humans. Many studies on gender diversity have identified swingeing differences between man and woman, not only in the propensity for alcohol abuse, but also in their behavioural effects. In this study we investigate in adult male and female rats: i) alcohol drinking behaviour and preference pattern using a 3-bottle choice paradigm with water, 10% ethanol solution and white wine (10%v/v), along a four-week period; ii) Alcohol free access (AFA) effects on locomotion and behavioural reactivity in the Open Field; iii) The influence of AFA on spatial learning and reference memory, employing the Morris Water Maze. …

Psychopathology of Alexithymia and Multiple Sclerosis

2015

The notion of alexithymia was introduced by Sifneos (Psychother Psychosom 22:255–62, 1973) to define a set of affective and cognitive characteristics observed in patients with psychosomatic diseases. Alexithymia appears to be a multidimensional and transnosographic concept ranging from normal to pathological, and it is important to regard alexithymia as a disorder of emotional regulation, which can be found in different populations and not only in somatic diseases.

Motivic Pattern Extraction in Symbolic Domain

2008

This chapter offers an overview of computational research in motivic pattern extraction. The central questions underlying the topic, concerning the formalization of the motivic structures, the matching strategies and the filtering of the results, have been addressed in various ways. A detailed analysis of these problems leads to the proposal of a new methodology, which will be developed throughout the study. One main conclusion of this review is that the problems cannot be tackled using purely mathematic or geometric heuristics or classical engineering tools, but require also a detailed understanding of the multiple constraints derived by the underlying cognitive context.

A Teaching proposal for the study of eigenvectors and eigenvalues

2017

[EN] In this work, we present a teaching proposal which emphasizes on visualization and physical applications in the study of eigenvectors and eigenvalues. These concepts are introduced using the notion of the moment of inertia of a rigid body and the GeoGebra software. The proposal was motivated after observing students¿ difficulties when treating eigenvectors and eigenvalues from a geometric point of view. It was designed following a particular sequence of activities with the schema: exploration, introduction of concepts, structuring of knowledge and application, and considering the three worlds of mathematical thinking provided by Tall: embodied, symbolic and formal.

KARD - Kinect Activity Recognition Dataset

2017

To cite this dataset, please refer to the following paper:Human Activity Recognition Process Using 3-D Posture Data. S. Gaglio, G. Lo Re, M. Morana. In IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems. 2014 doi: 10.1109/THMS.2014.2377111******************************************************************KARD contains 18 Activities. Each activity is performed 3 times by 10 different subjects.1Horizontal arm wave2High arm wave3Two hand wave4Catch Cap5High throw6Draw X7Draw Tick8Toss Paper9Forward Kick10Side Kick11Take Umbrella12Bend13Hand Clap14Walk15Phone Call16Drink17Sit down18Stand upIn total, you have 4 (files) x 18 (activities) x 3 (repetitions) x 10 (subjects), that is 2160 files.Each filename …

Motion sensors for activity recognition in an ambient-intelligence scenario

2013

In recent years, Ambient Intelligence (AmI) has attracted a number of researchers due to the widespread diffusion of unobtrusive sensing devices. The availability of such a great amount of acquired data has driven the interest of the scientific community in producing novel methods for combining raw measurements in order to understand what is happening in the monitored scenario. Moreover, due the primary role of the end user, an additional requirement of any AmI system is to maintain a high level of pervasiveness. In this paper we propose a method for recognizing human activities by means of a time of flight (ToF) depth and RGB camera device, namely Microsoft Kinect. The proposed approach is…