33 research outputs found
Real-time fMRI-based neurofeedback in depression
No full textDepression is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Currently available treatment methods are not always effective in improving depression. There is thus a pressing need for the development of novel treatment methods. Neurofeedback training can potentially alleviate symptoms of depression. By providing depressed patients with feedback about the ongoing processes in their brain via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), patients can be trained to increase the activation in positive emotion processing areas by engaging in positive imagery. The advantages of this method are that it is non-invasive, offers an individually tailored approach without any side-effects and has the capability to target the neurobiological and cognitive pathways putatively mediating depression. The main aim of this thesis was to elaborate on pilot findings that fMRI-neurofeedback has potential as an add-on treatment tool for depression (Linden et al., 2012). In doing so, this thesis does not focus on confirming that fMRI-neurofeedback can improve symptoms of depression as the dataset employed here is part of a larger dataset of a currently still running clinical trial. Instead this work investigated the feasibility of a control group receiving feedback from a scene processing area and assessed whether fMRI-neurofeedback can indeed affect emotion processing areas that function abnormally in depression and enhance perceived self-efficacy. Sixteen moderately to severely depressed patients took part in a course of five neurofeedback training sessions in which all patients learned to up-regulate the activation in their individually localised target areas. The patients that had received feedback from a positive emotion area influenced the activity in a wider emotion regulation network than just their target area. Additionally, the acquisition of self-regulation skills significantly improved scores on a self-efficacy scale. These findings confirmed the ability of neurofeedback to target biological and cognitive pathways putatively mediating depression
Real-time self-regulation of emotion networks in patients with depression
No full textThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited - Copyright @ 2012 Linden et al.Many patients show no or incomplete responses to current pharmacological or psychological therapies for depression. Here we explored the feasibility of a new brain self-regulation technique that integrates psychological and neurobiological approaches through neurofeedback with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In a proof-of-concept study, eight patients with depression learned to upregulate brain areas involved in the generation of positive emotions (such as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and insula) during four neurofeedback sessions. Their clinical symptoms, as assessed with the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HDRS), improved significantly. A control group that underwent a training procedure with the same cognitive strategies but without neurofeedback did not improve clinically. Randomised blinded clinical trials are now needed to exclude possible placebo effects and to determine whether fMRI-based neurofeedback might become a useful adjunct to current therapies for depression.This work was supported by the Wales Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience with funds from the Welsh Assembly Government and by the Medical Research Council (grant reference G1100629/1)
Pattern classification of valence in depression
No full textCopyright @ The authors, 2013. This is an open access article available under Creative Commons Licence, CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0.Neuroimaging biomarkers of depression have potential to aid diagnosis, identify individuals at risk and predict treatment response or course of illness. Nevertheless none have been identified so far, potentially because no single brain parameter captures the complexity of the pathophysiology of depression. Multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) may overcome this issue as it can identify patterns of voxels that are spatially distributed across the brain. Here we present the results of an MVPA to investigate the neuronal patterns underlying passive viewing of positive, negative and neutral pictures in depressed patients. A linear support vector machine (SVM) was trained to discriminate different valence conditions based on the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of nine unipolar depressed patients. A similar dataset obtained in nine healthy individuals was included to conduct a group classification analysis via linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Accuracy scores of 86% or higher were obtained for each valence contrast via patterns that included limbic areas such as the amygdala and frontal areas such as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. The LDA identified two areas (the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and caudate nucleus) that allowed group classification with 72.2% accuracy. Our preliminary findings suggest that MVPA can identify stable valence patterns, with more sensitivity than univariate analysis, in depressed participants and that it may be possible to discriminate between healthy and depressed individuals based on differences in the brain's response to emotional cues.This work was supported by a PhD studentship to I.H. from the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research (NISCHR) HS/10/25 and MRC grant G 1100629
Health Hazard Evaluation Report: HETA-81-217-1086: Miller Electric Company; Woonsocket, Rhode Island
No full textIn June of 1981, a preliminary ergonomic evaluation at the Miller Electric Company (SIC-364), Woonsocket, Rhode Island, was conducted. During prior surveys, cumulative strain disorders had been reported. The workforce comprises 415 production workers, who are mostly female. Observation of jobs revealed that repetitive flexion and extension of the wrist, radial and ulnar deviations, and pinching were commonplace. Stressful motions in particular jobs included: wrist flexion while inserting blades into the fixture on the Miller Molder; extension and ulnar deviation of wrists while performing the blading operation; and open hand pinching while packing light socket assemblies. The author concludes that a hazard of developing musculoskeletal disorders of the hand and wrist existed. These disorders are likely to continue unless work practice modifications are implemented. Biochemical stresses could be reduced by workplace redesign and administrative controls
Health Hazard Evaluation Report: HETA-85-480-1771: Genie Home Products; Shenandoah, Virginia
No full textIn response to a request from the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Technical, Salaried and Machine Workers in Shenandoah, Virginia, an investigation was made of the health effects of repetitive motions required in many of the jobs at Genie Home Products, Inc. (SIC-3699) Shenandoah, Virginia. Remote control garage door openers, motorized remote control switches, heavy duty rotators, and antenna rotors were produced at this facility. Data were gathered concerning the number of injuries and worker's compensation reports as they related to job activities, symptoms and illnesses for 1984, 1985 and January through March of 1986. The incidence of hand/wrist cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) was significantly reduced over this period of time. Many of the job interventions undertaken at Genie during this time, particularly the torque limiters on the air powered nut drivers, represented not only technology and design that reduced stressful work postures, but also facilitated production. The author concludes that ergonomic improvements in jobs where workers had experienced CTDs have reduced the incidence of these disorders over the previous 2 years. Recommendations are made by the author for further reducing biomechanical demand on some specific jobs
Health Hazard Evaluation Report: HETA-90-251-2128: Dow Jones and Company, Inc.; Dallas, Texas
No full textIn response to a request from OSHA, an evaluation was undertaken of lower extremity musculoskeletal problems among printers related to ergonomic working conditions in the composing room at Dow Jones and Company (SIC-2711), Dallas, Texas. In November of 1989 several changes occurred in the composing room environment. The carpet on the floor was removed and a tiled floor installed. Stools used by printers during downtime were removed and sitting in the composing room was not allowed unless the employee was assigned a sitting job. In March of 1990 a compromise was reached as a result of management/union negotiations; mats were installed and sit-down breaks during downtime were permitted. An ergonomic evaluation of the composing room was performed, and questionnaires administered to all 20 printers and eight of nine news production staff members. New onset of lower extremity discomfort following the changes in the composing room was reported by 25% of printers and 13% of news production staff; 60% of printers and 25% of the news production staff reported lower extremity discomfort following the floor surface change. Static standing postures were observed among printers at the make/up banks. The author concludes that an ergonomic hazard existed in the composing room among printers due to static standing postures. Unadjustable workstations were also creating an ergonomic hazard for short statured workers. The author recommends measures to remedy the situation
Health Hazard Evaluation Report: HETA-84-187-L1966: Standard Publishing Company; Cincinnati, Ohio
No full textIn response to a request from the management of the Standard Publishing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, an investigation was made of working conditions at the site which might be contributing to the incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and ganglionic cysts among employees engaged as machine helpers in the bindery area. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 75 full time employees in the bindery area to determine the frequency of wrist and forearm symptoms occurring in the preceding month. Questions also addressed specific diagnoses which had been rendered for certain wrist conditions. Eighteen workers were medically evaluated, and videotapes were made of these workers for ergonomic evaluation. Of four individuals identified as potential CTS cases, only one was considered to actually have CTS based on both initial and follow-up questionnaires and the results of a physical examination. In a subsequent review of OSHA 200 Logs for 1978 through March of 1984, 17 conditions associated with cumulative or repeated trauma were uncovered among bindery workers. The author recommends that specific measures be taken to reduce postural stress
Hans Habes Roman Christoph und sein Vater - Zwischen persönlicher Verarbeitung und den westdeutschen Schuld- und Aufarbeitsdiskursen der Nachkriegszeit
No full textThis Master thesis is an investigation of the Book “Christoph und sein Vater” by Hans Habe. The author was one of the most important publicists in West Germany after World War II. During his life he wrote more than twenty books, some of them translated into English, and around ten thousand newspaper articles, but today he is unknown and unnoticed by literary scholars. The beginning of this thesis (chapter 2) summarizes the investigated book and highlights biographical information about Hans Habe. The main topic of the book is the relationship between Veit Harlan, the director of the anti-Semitic film “Jud Suess” during the Nazi period, and his son Thomas Harlan. The literary interpretation reveals not only a relationship between the main characters and the German postwar period (chapter 3), but also a strong connection to the book “Ritualmord in Ungarn” by Arnold Zweig and explores the question of Jewishness in a Christian society (chapter 4), Habe’s depiction of the Harlan family (chapter 5) and how the author discusses several problems of the 1960s German society (chapter 6). The interpretation concludes with a short summary (chapter 7).
In this thesis I argue that Hans Habe uses the conflict between Veit and Thomas Harlan to, on the one hand, cast his own criticism on the German postwar society, and on the other hand, to come to terms with the suicide of his father.Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf ([email protected]) on 2011-07-16T14:33:50Z
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Full exploitation of high dimensionality in brain imaging: The JPND working group statement and findings
No full textAdvances in technology enable increasing amounts of data collection from individuals for biomedical research. Such technologies, for example, in genetics and medical imaging, have also led to important scientific discoveries about health and disease. The combination of multiple types of high-throughput data for complex analyses, however, has been limited by analytical and logistic resources to handle high-dimensional data sets. In our previous EU Joint Programme–Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) Working Group, called HD-READY, we developed methods that allowed successful combination of omics data with neuroimaging. Still, several issues remained to fully leverage high-dimensional multimodality data. For instance, high-dimensional features, such as voxels and vertices, which are common in neuroimaging, remain difficult to harmonize. In this Full-HD Working Group, we focused on such harmonization of high-dimensional neuroimaging phenotypes in combination with other omics data and how to make the resulting ultra-high-dimensional data easily accessible in neurodegeneration research.ImPhys/Quantitative Imagin
Real-time fMRI brain-computer interface: Development of a "motivational feedback" subsystem for the regulation of visual cue reactivity
No full textHere we present a novel neurofeedback subsystem for the presentation of motivationally relevant visual feedback during the self-regulation of functional brain activation. Our motivational neurofeedback approach uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals elicited by visual cues (pictures) and related to motivational processes such as craving or hunger. The visual feedback subsystem provides simultaneous feedback through these images as their size corresponds to the magnitude of fMRI signal change from a target brain area. During self-regulation of cue-evoked brain responses, decreases and increases in picture size thus provide real motivational consequences in terms of cue approach versus cue avoidance, which increases face validity of the approach in applied settings. Further, the outlined approach comprises of neurofeedback (regulation) and mirror runs that allow to control for non-specific and task-unrelated effects, such as habituation or neural adaptation. The approach was implemented in the Python programming language. Pilot data from 10 volunteers showed that participants were able to successfully down-regulate individually defined target areas, demonstrating feasibility of the approach. The newly developed visual feedback subsystem can be integrated into protocols for imaging-based brain-computer interfaces (BCI) and may facilitate neurofeedback research and applications into healthy and dysfunctional motivational processes, such food craving or addiction
