1,721,164 research outputs found

    FUNCTIONAL COUPLING OF PARIETAL ALPHA RHYTHMS IS ENHANCED IN ATHLETES BEFORE VISUOMOTOR PERFORMANCE: A COHERENCE ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC STUDY

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    It has been shown that elite pistol shooters are characterized by a power increase of wide cortical electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha (about 8-12 Hz) and beta (about 14-35 Hz) rhythms during the preparation of air pistol shots, possibly related to selective attentional and "neural efficiency" processes [Del Percio C, Babiloni C, Bertollo M, Marzano N, lacoboni M, Infarinato F, Lizio R, Stocchi M, Robazza C, Cibelli G, Comani S, Eusebi F (2009a) Hum Brain Mapp 30(11):3527-3540; Del Percio C, Babiloni C, Marzano N, lacoboni M, Infarinato F, Vecchio F, Lizio R, Aschieri P, Fiore A, Toran G, Gallamini M, Baratto M, Eusebi F (2009b) Brain Res Bull 79(3-4):193-200]. Here, we tested the hypothesis that such processes are associated with an enhanced functional coupling of posterior cortical regions involved in task-relevant attentional processes and visuo-motor transformations. To this aim, between-electrodes spectral coherence was computed from spatially enhanced EEG data collected during a previous study (i.e. right handed 18 elite air pistol shooters and 10 matched non-athletes; augmented 10-20 system; surface Laplacian estimation). Theta (about 4-6 Hz), low-frequency alpha (about 8-10 Hz), high-frequency alpha (about 10-12 Hz), low-frequency beta (14-22 Hz), high-frequency beta (23-35 Hz), and gamma (36-44 Hz) bands were considered. Statistical results showed that intra-hemispheric low-frequency alpha (parietal-temporal and parietal-occipital regions), high-frequency alpha (parietal-temporal and parietal-occipital regions), high-frequency beta, and gamma (parietal-temporal regions) coherence values were stable in amplitude in the elite athletes but not in the non-athletes during the preparation of pistol shots. The same applies to interhemispheric low-frequency alpha (parietal regions), high-frequency alpha (parietal regions), high-frequency beta and gamma coherence values. These findings suggest that under the present experimental conditions, elite athletes are characterized by the stabilization of functional coupling of preparatory EEG rhythms between "visuo-spatial" parietal area and other posterior cortical areas. (C) 2011 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

    Is it possible to automatically distinguish resting EEG data of normal elderly vs. mild cognitive impairment subjects with high degree of accuracy?

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    Objective: It has been shown that a new procedure (implicit function as squashing time, IFAST) based on artificial neural networks (ANNs) is able to compress eyes-closed resting electroencephalographic (EEG) data into spatial invariants of the instant voltage distributions for an automatic classification of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) subjects with classification accuracy of individual subjects higher than 92%. Methods: Here we tested the hypothesis that this is the case also for the classification of individual normal elderly (Nold) vs. MCI subjects, an important issue for the screening of large populations at high risk of AD. Eyes-closed resting EEG data (10-20 electrode montage) were recorded in 171 Nold and in 115 amnesic MCI subjects. The data inputs for the classification by IFAST were the weights of the connections within a nonlinear auto-associative ANN trained to generate the instant voltage distributions of 60-s artifact-free EEG data. Results: The most relevant features were selected and coincidently the dataset was split into two halves for the final binary classification (training and testing) performed by a supervised ANN. The classification of the individual Nold and MCI subjects reached 95.87% of sensitivity and 91.06% of specificity (93.46% of accuracy). Conclusions: These results indicate that IFAST can reliably distinguish eyes-closed resting EEG in individual Nold and MCI subjects. Significance: IFAST may be used for large-scale periodic screening of large populations at risk of AD and personalized care. © 2008 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology

    An observational study on the influence of the APOE-epsilon4 allele on the correlation between 'free' copper toxicosis and EEG activity in Alzheimer disease

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    Since many years the apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele (APOE-epsilon 4) is known to be associated with Alzheimer disease (AD) but the mechanisms of these associations remained unclear. In the last years, the potential pathogenetic role of 'free' copper (i.e. non-ceruloplasmin bound copper) has been evidenced in AD. Recently, elevated 'free' copper was found to be correlated with slowing of cortical electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythms. The present work aimed to check the hypothesis that the strength of the correlations between free-copper and alterations of cortical rhythms might be different in carriers and non-carriers of the APOE-epsilon 4 allele. Fifty-four AD patients and 20 healthy controls were included in the study. In all of them 1) APOE genotyping was performed; 2) total serum copper and ceruloplasmin was determined in order to calculate the serum 'free' copper; and 3) resting eyes-closed EEG rhythms were recorded and spectral brain activity was estimated via LORETA. A 'two correlation coefficients comparison' test was used to test the strength of the correlation in APOE-epsilon 4 carriers and non-carriers. 'Free' copper levels were higher inpatients than in controls and correlated positively with parietal-temporal delta and negatively with parieto-temporal alpha-1 activities. The correlation between 'free' copper and temporal alpha-1 activity was stronger in APOE-epsilon 4 carriers than in non-carriers. Peroxide levels correlated with higher temporal delta in the AD group. APOE-epsilon 4 appears to modulate the effect of copper on the altered AD brain activities, suggesting that modulation of oxidative stress related to copper dysfunction may be one of the mechanisms that make APOE-epsilon 4 a risk factor for AD. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
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