工程技术最新文献

Problem gambling has been associated with attentional biases toward gambling-related stimuli, but less is known about how problem gamblers distribute their visual attention during gambling tasks. This eye-tracking study investigated differences in sustained visual attention between problem gamblers (PGs; n = 22) and non-problem gamblers (NPGs; n = 22) during a gambling task using neutral picture pairs. While total gaze time toward stimuli did not differ between the groups, PGs showed distinctive characteristics in their visual attentional allocation. Specifically, two-sample t-tests revealed that PGs exhibited significantly higher focal attention to right-sided stimuli in central zones (0-25 pixels) during decision-making, while NPGs demonstrated greater left-sided peripheral attention (76-100 pixels) during feedback. These patterns were further supported by a three-way ANOVA showing a significant group × zone × laterality interaction in the decision phase, confirming that PGs exhibited significantly higher right-sided attention in the central zone (0-25 and 26-50 pixels), while NPGs showed a tendency toward greater left-sided attention in the peripheral zone (76-100 pixels). Additionally, PGs demonstrated stronger rightward attentional bias in both phases. These differences in visual attention were associated with higher behavioral-approach-system, reward sensitivity, and sensation-seeking scores among PGs. The findings suggest that PGs exhibit distinctive characteristics in terms of sustained visual attention during gambling-related decision-making, even when viewing neutral stimuli. This distinctive distribution of visual attention may reflect fundamental differences in information processing and potential hemispheric imbalances in attention control mechanisms among PGs.

Neurological disorders affect the nervous system and can impair physical, cognitive, or emotional functions. They often result in challenges such as movement difficulties and the inability to perform daily activities. Common conditions include stroke, traumatic brain injury, and cerebral palsy. Physical therapy is a common approach to managing these disorders. Recently, virtual reality (VR), a technology that creates interactive, simulated environments, has been used in rehabilitation. This study presents a rehabilitative game-based system to improve patients' movements and cognitive abilities. Six games were designed using the Unity platform, namely, "Piano," "Connect," "Drag & Drop," "Little Intelligent," "Memory," and "Hack & Slash." The Oculus Quest 2 VR headset was used to simulate the virtual environment for gaming. A mobile application called "Recover Me" was created to facilitate communication between patients and physiotherapists. A score index was generated for each patient, indicating the performance. It enables monitoring and assessment of the patients, leading to customizing the treatment plan based on progress. The study proposed simulating monitoring and evaluation of the patients by training an artificial neural network model to predict scores for the developed games and consequently indicate the patient's actual status. A dataset of 50 patients with different injuries was used. Results indicate patient satisfaction with gaming and enjoyment. Moreover, a regression analysis was performed to detect the progress level of each patient, indicating that 60% of the tested patients had improved. A low-cost VR game-based system has proven effective in rehabilitating neurological disorders.

The ability to recognize and interpret facial expressions is fundamental to human social cognition, enabling navigation of complex interpersonal interactions and understanding of others' emotional states. The extent to which neural patterns associated with facial expression processing are shared between observers remains unexplored, and no study has yet examined the neural dynamics specific to different emotional expressions. Additionally, the neural processing dynamics of facial attributes such as sex and identity in relation to facial expressions have not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, we investigated the shared neural dynamics of emotional face processing using an explicit facial emotion recognition task, where participants made two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) decisions on the displayed emotion. Our data-driven approach employed cross-participant multivariate classification and representational dissimilarity analysis on EEG data. The results demonstrate that EEG signals can effectively decode the sex, emotional expression, and identity of face stimuli across different stimuli and participants, indicating shared neural codes for facial expression processing. Multivariate classification analyses revealed that sex is decoded first, followed by identity, and then emotion. Emotional expressions (angry, happy, sad) were decoded earlier when contrasted with neutral expressions. While identity and sex information were modulated by image-level stimulus features, the effects of emotion were independent of visual image properties. Importantly, our findings suggest enhanced processing of face identity and sex for emotional expressions, particularly for angry faces and, to a lesser extent, happy faces.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11571-025-10230-4.

Due to its complexity, the problem of predefined-time synchronization in multimodal memristive neural networks has rarely been explored in the literature. This paper is the first to systematically study this issue, filling a research gap in the field and further enriching the related theoretical framework. First, a novel predefined-time stability theorem is proposed, which features more lenient judgment conditions compared to existing methods. This significantly enhances the generality of the stability theorem, making it applicable to a wider range of practical engineering projects. Second, based on the proposed predefined-time stability theorem, as well as the theories of differential inclusion, Filippov solutions, and set-valued mapping, a simple and practical feedback controller is developed. This controller establishes the necessary criteria for achieving predefined-time projective synchronization in multimodal memristive neural networks. Finally, two intricate simulation experiments are carefully designed. These experiments validate the effectiveness and feasibility of the theoretical derivations presented in this paper.

Gastric cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers globally due to delayed detection and limited treatment options, underscoring the critical need for innovative prognostic methods. Disulfidptosis, a recently discovered programmed cell death triggered by disulphide stress, presents a fresh avenue for therapeutic exploration. This research examines disulfidptosis-related long noncoding RNAs (DRLs) in gastric cancer, with the goal of leveraging these lncRNAs as potential markers to enhance patient outcomes and treatment approaches. Comprehensive genomic and clinical data from stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Employing least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis, a prognostic model was devised incorporating five key DRLs to forecast survival rates. The effectiveness of this model was validated using Kaplan-Meier survival plots, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, and extensive functional enrichment studies. The importance of select lncRNAs and the expression variability of genes tied to disulfidptosis were validated via quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western blot tests, establishing a solid foundation for their prognostic utility. Analyses of functional enrichment and tumour mutation burden highlighted the biological importance of these DRLs, connecting them to critical cancer pathways and immune responses. These discoveries broaden our comprehension of the molecular framework of gastric cancer and bolster the development of tailored treatment plans, highlighting the substantial role of DRLs in clinical prognosis and therapeutic intervention.

The correlations of several fundamental properties of human brain connections are investigated in a consensus connectome, constructed from 1064 braingraphs, each on 1015 vertices, corresponding to 1015 anatomical brain areas. The properties examined include the edge length, the fiber count, or edge width, meaning the number of discovered axon bundles forming the edge and the occurrence number of the edge, meaning the number of individual braingraphs where the edge exists. By using our previously published robust braingraphs at https://braingraph.org, we have prepared a single consensus graph from the data and compared the statistical similarity of the edge occurrence numbers, edge lengths, and fiber counts of the edges. We have found a strong positive Spearman correlation between the edge occurrence numbers and the fiber count numbers, showing that statistically, the most frequent cerebral connections have the largest widths, i.e., the fiber count. We have found a negative Spearman correlation between the fiber lengths and fiber counts, showing that, typically, the shortest edges are the widest or strongest by their fiber counts. We have also found a negative Spearman correlation between the occurrence numbers and the edge lengths: it shows that typically, the long edges are infrequent, and the frequent edges are short.

Brainprint recognition technology, regarded as a promising biometric technology, encounters challenges stemming from the time-varied, low signal-to-noise ratio of brain signals, such as electroencephalogram (EEG). Steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) exhibit high signal-to-noise ratio and frequency locking, making them a promising paradigm for brainprint recognition. Consequently, the extraction of time-invariant identity information from SSVEP EEG signals is essential. In this paper, we propose an Attentive Multi-sub-band Depth Identity Embedding Learning Network for stable cross-session SSVEP brainprint recognition. To address the issue of low recognition accuracy across sessions, we introduce the Sub-band Attentive Frequency mechanism, which integrates the frequency-domain relevant characteristics of the SSVEP paradigm and focuses on exploring depth-frequency identity embedding information. Also, we employ Attentive Statistic Pooling to enhance the stability of frequency domain feature distributions across sessions. Extensive experimentation and validation were conducted on two multi-session SSVEP benchmark datasets. The experimental results show that our approach outperforms other state-of-art models on 2-second samples across sessions and has the potential to serve as a benchmark in multi-subject biometric recognition systems.

Hippocampus in the mammalian brain supports navigation by building a cognitive map of the environment. However, only a few studies have investigated cognitive maps in large-scale arenas. To reveal the computational mechanisms underlying the formation of cognitive maps in large-scale environments, we propose a neural network model of the entorhinal-hippocampal neural circuit that integrates both spatial and non-spatial information. Spatial information is relayed from the grid units in medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) by integrating multimodal sensory-motor signals. Non-spatial, such as object, information is imparted from the visual units in lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) by encoding visual scenes through a deep neural network. The synaptic weights from the grid units and the visual units to the place units in the hippocampus are learned by a competitive learning rule. We simulated the model in a large box maze. The place units in the model form irregularly-spaced multiple fields across the environment. When the strength of visual inputs is dominant, the responses of place units become conjunctive and egocentric. These results point to the key role of the hippocampus in balancing spatial and non-spatial information relayed via LEC and MEC.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a well-established treatment for both neurological and psychiatric disorders. Directional DBS has the potential to minimize stimulation-induced side effects and maximize clinical benefits. Many new directional leads, stimulation patterns and programming strategies have been developed in recent years. Therefore, it is necessary to review new progress in directional DBS. This paper summarizes progress for directional DBS from the perspective of directional DBS leads, stimulation patterns, and programming strategies which are three key elements of DBS systems. Directional DBS leads are reviewed in electrode design and volume of tissue activated visualization strategies. Stimulation patterns are reviewed in stimulation parameters and advances in stimulation patterns. Programming strategies are reviewed in computational modeling, monopolar review, direction indicators and adaptive DBS. This review will provide a comprehensive overview of primary directional DBS leads, stimulation patterns and programming strategies, making it helpful for those who are developing DBS systems.

Emotion recognition plays a crucial role in brain-computer interfaces (BCI) which helps to identify and classify human emotions as positive, negative, and neutral. Emotion analysis in BCI maintains a substantial perspective in distinct fields such as healthcare, education, gaming, and human-computer interaction. In healthcare, emotion analysis based on electroencephalography (EEG) signals is deployed to provide personalized support for patients with autism or mood disorders. Recently, several deep learning (DL) based approaches have been developed for accurate emotion recognition tasks. Yet, previous works often struggle with poor recognition accuracy, high dimensionality, and high computational time. This research work designed an innovative framework named Proximity-conserving Auto-encoder (PCAE) for accurate emotion recognition based on EEG signals and resolves challenges faced by traditional emotion analysis techniques. For preserving local structures among the EEG data and reducing dimensionality, the proposed PCAE approach is introduced and it captures the essential features related to emotional states. The EEG data are collected from the EEG Brainwave dataset using a Muse EEG headband and applying preprocessing steps to enhance signal quality. The proposed PCAE model incorporates multiple convolution and deconvolution layers for encoding and decoding and deploys a Local Proximity Preservation Layer for preserving local correlations in the latent space. In addition, it develops a Proximity-conserving Squeeze-and-Excitation Auto-encoder (PC-SEAE) model to further improve the feature extraction ability of the PCAE technique. The proposed PCAE technique utilizes Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) regularization to decrease the distribution discrepancy between input data and the extracted features. Moreover, the proposed model designs an ensemble model for emotion categorization that incorporates a one-versus-support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks by utilizing each classifier's strength to enhance classification accuracy. Further, the performance of the proposed PCAE model is evaluated using diverse performance measures and the model attains outstanding results including accuracy, precision, and Kappa coefficient of 98.87%, 98.69%, and 0.983 respectively. This experimental validation proves that the proposed PCAE framework provides a significant contribution to accurate emotion recognition and classification systems.