Search results for "Process"
showing 10 items of 22310 documents
Behavioral and event-related potential distraction effects with regularly occurring auditory deviants
2007
When auditory stimulation contains infrequent task-irrelevant changes (deviants), behavioral responses to task-relevant aspects of the stimulation are prolonged. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) show that deviants elicit mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, and reorienting negativity (RON). Here, we examine whether distraction effects can also be elicited within fixed auditory sequences with deviant probabilities of 0.25, 0.33, and 0.5. Deviants varied either in pitch, loudness, or sound source location. In all conditions MMN and P3a were elicited, suggesting that an automatic detection of and an attentional allocation to the change occurred. With relative frequencies of 25% and 33%, devian…
Imaging the visual autokinetic illusion with fMRI
2005
During fixation of a stationary, dim light-emitting diode (LED) in complete darkness, a subtle, apparent motion is perceived which is called autokinesis. This autokinetic illusion increases with increasing fixation time. Eleven healthy subjects were examined by fMRI while fixating an LED in darkness for 35 s. BOLD signal changes of the first and the second half of the fixation period were compared. While the stimulus was the same for both periods, perception differed in that autokinesis was more pronounced in the second half. This second half of the period was associated with bilateral activations in the motion-sensitive middle occipito-temporal area known as MT/V5. Our finding suggests tha…
Response repetition vs. response change modulates behavioral and electrophysiological effects of distraction
2004
If stimulation occasionally contains distracting information, behavioral responses to task-relevant aspects of the stimulation are prolonged and more error prone. Additionally, event-related potentials (ERPs) acquired in an auditory distraction paradigm show that the distracting information elicits the components mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a and reorienting negativity (RON). Here, we assess to what extent sequential dependencies in the stimulation influence such indicators of distraction. Data of four experiments were reanalyzed for response repetition and response change trials separately. Behavioral performance on Deviants suggests markedly smaller distraction effects in change compared…
Conditional Self-Entropy and Conditional Joint Transfer Entropy in Heart Period Variability during Graded Postural Challenge.
2015
Self-entropy (SE) and transfer entropy (TE) are widely utilized in biomedical signal processing to assess the information stored into a system and transferred from a source to a destination respectively. The study proposes a more specific definition of the SE, namely the conditional SE (CSE), and a more flexible definition of the TE based on joint TE (JTE), namely the conditional JTE (CJTE), for the analysis of information dynamics in multivariate time series. In a protocol evoking a gradual sympathetic activation and vagal withdrawal proportional to the magnitude of the orthostatic stimulus, such as the graded head-up tilt, we extracted the beat-to-beat spontaneous variability of heart per…
Different phase relationships between EEG frequency bands during NREM and REM sleep.
1997
Phase relationships between distinct frequency bands of the sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) were studied in healthy subjects using cross-correlation coefficients, both over the entire night and separately for nonrapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Over the entire night, a large positive correlation developed within high- and low-frequency bands, while a negative correlation emerged between low- and high-frequency bands, reflecting their reciprocal temporal course. More detailed analysis revealed different phase relationships during NREM and REM sleep. Findings during NREM were similar to the entire night. However, during REM, a large increase of the correlation be…
Sequential analysis of the brain's transfer properties during consecutive REM episodes
1995
Abstract Classical analysis of the spontaneous sleep EEG has revealed alterations of REM sleep in psychiatric diseases and under the influence of drugs. In order to elucidate possible functional differences between different REM episodes even in healthy subjects we investigated in 10 volunteers the transfer properties of the brain by measuring auditory (AEP) and visual evoked potentials (VEP) from scalp positions Fz, Cz and Pz during the night. According to linear system theory we computed the so-called amplitude-frequency characteristics (AFC) from averaged AEPs and VEPs during the first and each of the following 3 REM episodes. These functions describe the relationship between the input a…
Alveolar bone preservation in extraction sockets using non-resorbable dPTFE membranes: a retrospective non-randomized study.
2008
Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical regeneration of extraction sockets using high-density polytetrafluoroethylene (dPTFE) membranes without the use of a graft material. Methods: A total of 276 extraction sockets were evaluated in 276 subjects (151 males and 125 females; mean age, 50.2 years; age range: 24 to 73 years). After extraction, flaps were elevated and a dPTFE membrane was placed over the extraction site. The flaps were repositioned and sutured into place. Primary closure was not obtained over the membranes. The cemento-enamel junctions of the adjacent teeth were used as reference points. Measurements were taken postextraction and 12 months after surger…
The presence of infection-related antiphospholipid antibodies in infective endocarditis determines a major risk factor for embolic events.
1999
Abstract OBJECTIVES The impact of infection-associated antiphospholipid antibodies (APA) on endothelial cell activation, blood coagulation and fibrinolysis was evaluated in patients with infective endocarditis with and without major embolic events. BACKGROUND An embolic event is a common and severe complication of infective endocarditis. Despite the fact that APAs are known to be associated with infectious diseases, their pathogenic role in infective endocarditis has not been clearly defined. METHODS The relationship among the occurrence of major embolic events, echocardiographic vegetation size, endothelial cell activation, thrombin generation, fibrinolysis and APA was examined in 91 patie…
Surgical treatment of gastric cancer in Latvia: Results of centralized experience
2009
Although the mortality for gastric cancer is decreasing in Western Europe and United States, it still remains high in Eastern Europe. This study was aimed at evaluating short- and long-term results of surgical treatment of gastric cancer performed in Latvia Oncology Center.Retrospectively collected data from 461 patients who underwent gastrectomy with curative intent in Latvia Oncology Center from January 2001 to December 2005 were analyzed statistically.An average (range) of 92.2 (81-102) R0-R1 gastrectomies was performed each year. Post-operative complications occurred in 75 patients (16.3%); in-hospital mortality was 3.3%. The overall 5-year survival was 50.8%. In 444 cases (96.3%) there…
Covariation of spectral and nonlinear EEG measures with alpha biofeedback.
2002
Item does not contain fulltext This study investigated how different spectral and nonlinear EEG measures covaried with alpha power during auditory alpha biofeedback training, performed by 13 healthy subjects. We found a significant positive correlation of alpha power with the largest Lyapunov-exponent, pointing to an increased dynamical instability of the EEG accompanying alpha enhancement. Alpha power amplification, moreover, was significantly correlated with a decrease of spectral entropy within the alpha range. This outcome reflects a sharpening of the alpha peak during biofeedback training. The fact that the sharpening effect clearly preceded the increase of alpha amplitude could be exp…