Search results for "Decision"
showing 10 items of 2091 documents
Visual tracking combined with hand-tracking improves time perception of moving stimuli
2014
A number of studies have shown that performing a secondary task while executing a time-judgment task impairs performance on the latter task. However, this turns out not to be the case for certain motor secondary tasks. We show that concomitant secondary motor tasks involving pointing, when performed during a time-judgment task, can actually improve our time-judgment abilities. We compared adult participants' performance in a time-of-movement paradigm with visual pursuit-only and with visual pursuit plus hand pursuit. Rather than interfering with their estimation of stimulus movement duration, the addition of hand pursuit significantly improved their judgment. In addition, we considered the …
Ethical assessment of hepatitis C virus treatment: The lesson from first generation protease inhibitors
2015
Abstract Since chronic hepatitis C has mostly become curable, issues concerning choice and allocation of treatment are of major concern. We assessed the foremost ethical issues in hepatitis C virus therapy with 1st generation protease inhibitors using the personalist ethical framework within the health technology assessment methodology. Our aim was to identify values at stake/in conflict and to support both the physicians’ choices in hepatitis C therapy and social (macro-) allocation decision-making. The ethical assessment indicates that: (1) safety/effectiveness profile of treatment is guaranteed if its use is restricted to the patients subgroups who may benefit from it; (2) patients shoul…
Neural correlates of valence generalization in an affective conditioning paradigm.
2014
In case of uncertainty, predictions that are based on prior, similar experiences guide our decision by processes of generalization. Over-generalization of negative information has been identified as an important feature of several psychopathologies, including anxiety disorders and depression, and might underlie biased interpretation of ambiguous information. Here, we investigated the neural correlates of valence generalization to ambiguous stimuli using a translational affective conditioning task during fMRI. Twenty-five healthy individuals participated in a conditioning procedure with (1) an initial acquisition phase, where participants learned the positive and negative valence of two diff…
Does viotin activate violin more than viocin? On the use of visual cues during visual-word recognition.
2013
The vast majority of neural and computational models of visual-word recognition assume that lexical access is achieved via the activation of abstract letter identities. Thus, a word’s overall shape should play no role in this process. In the present lexical decision experiment, we compared word-like pseudowords like viotín (same shape as its base word: violín) vs. viocín (different shape) in mature (college-aged skilled readers), immature (normally reading children), and immature/impaired (young readers with developmental dyslexia) word-recognition systems. Results revealed similar response times (and error rates) to consistent-shape and inconsistent-shape pseudowords for both adult skille…
Role of clinical and laboratory parameters for treatment choice in patients with inherited FVII deficiency undergoing surgical procedures: evidence f…
2018
Perioperative bleeding is a major concern in patients with factor VII (FVII) deficiency. Evaluating data of 95 FVII-deficient patients undergoing 110 surgical procedures (61 major, 49 minor), we assessed the impact of type of surgery, bleeding phenotype and FVII coagulant activity (FVII:C) levels on perioperative replacement therapy (RT). Compared to those with higher FVII:C levels, patients with <3% FVII:C received a higher number of RT doses (8 vs. 2, P = 0·003) for a longer RT duration (3 days vs. 1 day, P = 0·001), with no difference in RT dose. Similarly, patients with a history of major bleeds received a higher number of RT doses (8·5 vs. 2-3, P = 0·013) for a longer RT duration (2…
Role of the GALAD and BALAD-2 Serologic Models in Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Prediction of Survival in Patients.
2016
Background & Aims GALAD and BALAD-2 are statistical models for estimating the likelihood of the presence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in individual patients with chronic liver disease and the survival of patients with HCC, respectively. Both models use objective measures, particularly the serum markers α-fetoprotein (AFP), AFP-L3, and des-γ-carboxyprothrombin. We aimed to validate these models in an international cohort of patients with HCC and assess their clinical performance. Methods We collected data on cancer diagnosis and outcomes of 6834 patients (2430 with HCC and 4404 with chronic liver disease) recruited from Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong. We also collected data from 229 pati…
Skill-related differences between athletes and nonathletes in speed discrimination.
2008
This study examined differences in decision-making time and accuracy as attributes of speed discrimination between participants skilled and less skilled in ball games. A total of 130 men, ages 18 to 28 years ( M = 21.2, SD = 2.6), participated. The athlete sample (skilled group) comprised Estonian National League volleyball ( n = 26) and basketball players ( n = 27). The nonathlete sample (less skilled group) included 77 soldiers of the Estonian Defence Force with no reported top level experience in ball games. Speed-discrimination stimuli were images of red square shapes presented moving along the sagittal axis at four different virtual velocities on a computer (PC) screen which represent…
Opposite effects of suicidality and lithium on gray matter volumes in bipolar depression
2011
Background: Mood disorders are associated with the highest increase of attempted and completed suicide. Suicidality in major depressive disorder and in schizophrenia has been associated with reduced gray matter volumes in orbitofrontal cortex. Lithium reduces the suicide risk of patients with bipolar disorder (BD) to the same levels of the general population, and can increase GM volumes. We studied the effect of a positive history of attempted suicide and ongoing lithium treatment on regional GM volumes of patients affected by bipolar depression. Methods: With a correlational design, we studied 57 currently depressed inpatients with bipolar disorder: 19 with and 38 without a positive histor…
Dysfunctional decision-making related to white matter alterations in bipolar I disorder.
2015
Abstract Objective This study investigated how frontal white matter (WM) alterations in patients with bipolar I disorder (BD-I) are linked to motivational dysregulation, often reported in the form of risk-taking and impulsivity, and whether structure–function relations in patients might differ from healthy subjects (HC). Method We acquired diffusion data from 24 euthymic BD-I patients and 24 controls, to evaluate WM integrity of selected frontal tracts. Risk-taking was assessed by the Cambridge Gambling Task and impulsivity by self-report with the Barratt-Impulsiveness Scale. Results BD-I patients displayed significantly lower integrity in the right cingulum compared to HC. They also showed…
The intravascular ultrasound morphometry of iliac veins in subjects without severe chronic venous insufficiency and its implications for treatment in…
2019
Objectives The purpose of this study is to report the intravascular ultrasound morphometry of iliac veins and its relation to demographic and anthropometric factors in subjects without chronic venous insufficiency. Methods Thirty-three patients, without chronic venous insufficiency – qualified to great saphenous vein stripping due to unilateral, primary varicose veins – participated in the study. During the surgery, left and right external iliac veins, common iliac veins and inferior vena cava were interrogated with intravascular ultrasound. The morphometric analysis included measurement of a cross-sectional area at normal, non-stenosed vein segments (ref-CSA) and at the point of the most p…