Search results for "NEUROSCIENCE"
showing 10 items of 8040 documents
A multi-joint lower-limb tracking-trajectory test for the assessment of motor coordination.
2005
This study aimed to determine whether a lower-limb trajectory-tracking task performed on a leg press machine, that is commonly adopted in both rehabilitation and resistance training settings, could yield reliable assessment of motor coordination in able-bodied individuals. Twenty-two female subjects allocated to two experimental groups were tested and retested after 48-72 h. Group A was fully familiarized with the experimental procedures before each test while group B received only verbal instructions. The unilateral coordination test consisted of target tracking during a simulated half squat including eccentric and concentric actions. In both groups, tracking error showed significant test-…
Corrective loops involved in fast aiming movements: effect of task and environment
1998
In daily living, we continuously interact with our environment. This environment is rarely stable and living beings show remarkable adaptive capacities. When we reach for an object, it is necessary to localize the position of this object with respect to our own body before programming an adequate arm movement. If the target remains stable, the programmed movement brings the hand near the target. However, what happens when the target suddenly jumps to another position in space? The aim of this work was to investigate how rapid aiming movements are corrected when the target is displaced close to movement onset. Our results reveal that rapid movements can be modified and that the efficiency of…
Constraints representing a meta-stable régime facilitate exploration during practice and transfer of learning in a complex multi-articular task
2018
Previous investigations have shown that inducing meta-stability\ud in behavior can be achieved by overlapping affordances through constraint\ud manipulation, allowing cooperative and competitive tendencies to\ud functionally coexist. The purpose of this paper was to test a number of\ud conditions applying these design principles on performance during skills\ud practice and transfer. Of additional interest, was whether the existing\ud skill level interacted with the environmental properties of the\ud experimental tasks (varying indoor climbing routes). Two skill groups\ud practised on three routes per session over four separate sessions. At the\ud end of the final session, climbers undertook…
ERP correlates of transposed-letter priming effects: The role of vowels versus consonants
2008
One key issue for any computational model of visual-word recognition is the choice of an input coding scheme for assigning letter position. Recent research has shown that pseudowords created by transposing two letters are very effective at activating the lexical representation of their base words (e.g., relovution activates REVOLUTION). We report a masked priming lexical decision experiment in which the pseudoword primes were created by transposing/replacing two consonants or two vowels while event-related potentials were recorded. The results showed a modulation of the amplitude at an early window (150-250 ms) and at the N400 component for vowels but not for consonant transpositions. In ad…
Coping with an acute psychosocial challenge: behavioral and physiological responses in young women.
2014
Despite the relevance of behavior in understanding individual differences in the strategies used to cope with stressors, behavioral responses and their relationships with psychobiological changes have received little attention. In this study on young women, we aimed at analyzing the associations among different components of the stress response and behavioral coping using a laboratory psychosocial stressor. The Ethological Coding System for Interviews, as well as neuroendocrine, autonomic and mood parameters, were used to measure the stress response in 34 young women (17 free-cycling women in their early follicular phase and 17 oral contraceptive users) subjected to the Trier Social Stress …
Visual performance of the Akreos Adapt AO intraocular lens in patients with different corneal profiles measured with an adaptive optics visual simula…
2012
AIMS: To evaluate the visual performance of an aberration-free intraocular lens (IOL) in patients with different corneal profiles using adaptive optics visual simulation. METHODS: A crx1 adaptive optics visual simulator was used to simulate the aberration pattern of an aberration-free IOL combined with five corneal profiles: virgin corneas and corneas with low and high myopic ablations and low and high hyperopic ablations. Ten eyes of 10 subjects were evaluated, and monocular distance visual acuity (VA) at 100%, 50% and 10% of contrast was measured. RESULTS: At 100% of contrast, no differences were found in VA values among virgin corneas, low and high myopic ablations and low hyperopic abla…
Think globally: Cross-linguistic variation in electrophysiological activity during sentence comprehension
2011
This paper demonstrates systematic cross-linguistic differences in the electrophysiological correlates of conflicts between form and meaning (“semantic reversal anomalies”). These engender P600 effects in English and Dutch (e.g. Kolk et al., 2003 ; Kuperberg et al., 2003), but a biphasic N400 – late positivity pattern in German (Schlesewsky and Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, 2009), and monophasic N400 effects in Turkish (Experiment 1) and Mandarin Chinese (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 revealed that, in Icelandic, semantic reversal anomalies show the English pattern with verbs requiring a position-based identification of argument roles, but the German pattern with verbs requiring a case-based identi…
Cross-cultural music cognition: cognitive methodology applied to North Sami yoiks
2000
This article is a study of melodic expectancy in North Sami yoiks, a style of music quite distinct from Western tonal music. Three different approaches were taken. The first approach was a statistical style analysis of tones in a representative corpus of 18 yoiks. The analysis determined the relative frequencies of tone onsets and two- and three-tone transitions. It also identified style characteristics, such as pentatonic orientation, the presence of two reference pitches, the frequency of large consonant intervals, and a relatively large set of possible melodic continuations. The second approach was a behavioral experiment in which listeners made judgments about melodic continuations. Thr…
How the Context Matters. Literal and Figurative Meaning in the Embodied Language Paradigm
2014
The involvement of the sensorimotor system in language understanding has been widely demonstrated. However, the role of context in these studies has only recently started to be addressed. Though words are bearers of a semantic potential, meaning is the product of a pragmatic process. It needs to be situated in a context to be disambiguated. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that embodied simulation occurring during linguistic processing is contextually modulated to the extent that the same sentence, depending on the context of utterance, leads to the activation of different effector-specific brain motor areas. In order to test this hypothesis, we asked subjects to give a moto…
The Neuronal Ceroid-Lipofuscinoses. Recent Advances
1998
The neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs) represent a group of neurodegenerative disorders characterised by progressive visual failure, neurodegeneration, epilepsy and the accumulation of an autofluorescent lipopigment in neurons and other cells. The main childhood subtypes are infantile (INCL;CLN1), classical late infantile (LINCL;CLN2) and juvenile NCL (J NCL; CLN3), distinguished on the basis of age of onset, clinical course and ultrastructural morphology, and recently genetic analysis. In addition several variant forms of the disease complex have been described as well as a rare adult onset form. Advances in both genetics and biochemistry have led to the identification of the genes for …