Introduction: The increasing prevalence of mental health disorders and emotional pain poses a critical challenge to social well-being and healthcare equity. Visual art therapy is well established as a clinical and nonclinical intervention for emotional pain that promotes self-regulation and psychological insight. However, there is a lack of research that clearly maps the previous studies that use both subjective and objective measures to examine the impact of art therapy on emotional pain.
Methods: This scoping review focuses on studies that use brain or physiological measurement in investigating the effect of art therapy on emotional pain in healthy adults. A systematic search of academic databases and scholarly information systems MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Engineering Village, Web of Science, Academic Search Ultimate, and Epistemonikos was conducted in May 2025. It identified 4,734 relevant records, of which 12 full texts were screened, and 6 studies met the inclusion criteria.
Results: Evidence indicates that visual art therapy can improve mood and reduce stress, anxiety, fear, and sadness, also modulating activity across multiple brain regions. Overall, fNIRS studies reported increased activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex after art therapy, and studies on HR, skin conductance, salivary cortisol, sAA, IL-6, CRP, and RSA illustrated its positive effects in reducing stress, anxiety, and sad mood.
Discussion: However, existing research has primarily addressed emotional pain, with no studies assessing its impact on physical pain in healthy populations using objective physiological or biological measures, showing that there is a gap for assessing physical pain improvement by art therapy. These findings highlight both the therapeutic potential of visual art interventions and the need for further research to explore their effects on physical pain.
Systematic review registration: This review was registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/935kw, date created and registered: 24. 07. 2025).
The Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) Think Tank XIII was held September 2-4th, 2025, in Gainesville, Florida, at the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at the University of Florida. The theme was "The Evolving Landscape of DBS: New Indications, New Goals." This theme was a continuation of the DBS Think Tank XI and XII, which were focused on emerging technology and pushing the horizon of indications. Since its founding in 2012, the DBS Think Tank has provided a global forum for leading clinicians, engineers, and researchers in both in industry and academia to present, discuss, and debate the current state of DBS technologies as well as to consider important logistics and ethical challenges. Over the course of three days, members of each panel presented and facilitated discussions on the cutting edge of DBS research. The keynote speaker was Dr. Kamil Uğurbil of the University of Minnesota, who led the first group of researchers to demonstrate the feasibility of imaging the human brain using fMRI technology and who was a pioneer in the development of high-field human MRI scanning. Nobel laureate Dr. Stanley Prusiner, from the University of California, San Francisco, used the story of the discovery of prions to demonstrate the power of pursuing a finding even when the idea conflicted with the prevailing state of the field. The think tank was divided into sections, including: Next Generation Neuromodulation for Gait, Brain Networks and Neuromodulation, Neuroscience & Society, Interventional Psychiatry & Behavior, Devices for Closing the Loop, Physiology & Closing the Loop, and A Roadmap for Genetics & Neuromodulation.
Introduction: Corticomuscular coherence (CMC) quantifies the frequency-specific coupling between cortical and muscular activity and is increasingly used to probe motor-control mechanisms. However, the factors that consistently influence CMC in axial and lower-limb muscles remain unclear.
Objective: The objective of this study is to map and critically describe experimental factors and methodological choices that have been studied and their potential influence on CMC of axial and lower limb muscles measured in healthy humans.
Methods: A scoping review was conducted following PRISMA-ScR guidelines. CINAHL, MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase, and Web of Science were searched from the date of inception to March 5th, 2024. Eligible studies that (i) computed CMC, (ii) recorded cortical activity with EEG or MEG, (iii) analyzed trunk or lower limb EMG, and (iv) compared CMC across experimental conditions or participant groups were included. Two reviewers independently screened records, extracted demographic, neurophysiological, task, and signal-processing variables, and grouped studies by the factor examined; third reviewer resolved discrepancies. Results were synthesized descriptively.
Results: Four factors showed the most consistent influence on CMC: (1) Age: younger adults exhibit higher CMC than older adults (2) Muscle-specificity: the tibialis anterior (TA) displays stronger CMC than other axial or lower-limb muscles; (3) Contraction type: isotonic and eccentric/quasi-isotonic contractions elicit greater CMC than isometric contractions; (4) Athletic status: non-athletes demonstrate higher CMC than trained individuals. The effects of fatigue, contraction intensity, posture, or walking tasks were inconsistent. Methodologically, most studies employed EEG (single Cz channel) and rectified EMG; MEG, source localization, and longitudinal approaches were seldom used.
Discussion: Current evidence indicates that participant characteristics (age, athletic status) and task parameters (muscle tested, contraction type) can impact CMC, but heterogeneity in study design and analysis hampers direct comparison and causal inference. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs, standardized protocols, and advanced source localization techniques to clarify the mechanisms governing CMC in axial and lower-limb musculature.
Background: Medical staff frequently experience sleep deprivation, impacting both their health and patient care quality. Understanding brain network changes under sleep deprivation can guide preventive strategies. This study aims to determine how total sleep deprivation (TSD) alters brain network topology in medical professionals.
Methods: Using graph-theory analysis of resting-state fMRI data from 36 medical staff, we assessed global and local brain network properties following TSD and normal sleep (rested wakefulness, RW), examining topological changes and their correlation with cognitive performance.
Results: Small-world properties were present in both conditions, but the TSD condition showed higher clustering coefficients (p = 0.044). Key nodal changes included increased degree centrality in the right superior medial frontal gyrus (p = 0.0006) and decreased nodal efficiency in the left fusiform gyrus (p = 0.0004). Using the right superior medial frontal gyrus as ROI, enhanced functional connectivity (zFC) was observed in multiple bilateral frontal/temporal regions (peak t > 4.5). These topological changes correlated with cognitive deficits: reduced Digit Symbol Test (DST) scores (p < 0.001), prolonged Number Connection Test-A (NCT-A) and Line Tracing Test (LTT) completion times (p < 0.05), while increased clustering coefficients (Cp) positively correlated with NCT-A/SDT performance changes (r = 0.341-0.411, p < 0.05). And older staff exhibited greater vulnerability in global network efficiency and path length (r = -0.352, r = 0.390, p < 0.05).
Conclusion: By identifying key brain network nodes affected by TSD, this study provides insights into neural adaptations under TSD, offering an evidence-based framework for developing both therapeutic interventions and preventive strategies to mitigate cognitive and health impacts in high-risk populations.
This case report describes the successful use of epidural spinal cord stimulation (SCS) in managing severe, refractory spasticity in a 58-year-old male following traumatic brain injury. Despite nearly 8 months of conventional pharmacotherapy and rehabilitation for his tetraplegia, his lower-limb spasticity persisted at Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) grade 3, severely impeding functional recovery. After implantation of a trial and subsequently permanent SCS system at the lumbar enlargement, muscle tone decreased to MAS grade 2 within 48 h, alongside improvements in muscle strength. Over 6 months, stimulation led to a marked reduction in the frequency and severity of spastic episodes. This spasticity relief fundamentally improved the patient's sleep quality and enabled significant functional gains, including assisted standing and pedal stepping. This case demonstrates the positive effect of SCS for a condition often resistant to standard treatments. The results support re-evaluating SCS's therapeutic potential for refractory spasticity caused by TBI and other central nervous system disorders, potentially through mechanisms involving the modulation of spinal cord excitability.
Auditory hallucinations (AH)-the perception of sound in the absence of any external auditory stimulus-are among the most clinically significant and personally distressing symptoms encountered in psychiatry and neurology. Although AH is canonically associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, where it affects 60-80% of patients at some point in the illness course, it also emerges in major depressive disorder with psychotic features, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, substance-induced psychoses, and a range of neurological conditions including epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, Lewy-body dementia, and acquired brain injury. Patients with treatment-resistant AH (TR-AH) experience a substantial decline in their quality of life and face increased economic burden. The limitations of existing pharmaceutical treatments have spurred researchers to develop and assess neuroregulation techniques that can directly target abnormal neural circuits involved in the pathophysiology of AH. This review consolidates the current research findings of stimulation-based treatment methods for AH and aims to conduct an evidence-based evaluation of efficacy, safety, and practical feasibility of three neuromodulation methods: repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and deep brain stimulation (DBS). By making a comparison of these three methods, this review presents their respective risks and strengths and offers implications for future research direction.
Background: Physical activity during pregnancy is regarded as safe and desirable for uncomplicated pregnancy and benefits women's overall health. It was also previously found to be positively associated with neonatal brain cortical development. This study aims to evaluate whether there are associations between maternal physical activity during pregnancy and child cortical brain development and executive function at age 8 years.
Methods: Sixty-nine pregnant women and their children (38 boys and 31 girls) completed the longitudinal and prospective study and were included in this report. Maternal physical activity level was recorded using accelerometer worn on the ankle for 3-7 consecutive days each trimester during the pregnancy. Average daily steps and activity count as well as minutes spent in sedentary/light/moderate/vigorous activity modes were calculated. At age 8 years, their children's brain cortical features including cortical thickness, surface area, volume, and local gyrification index (LGI) were measured using high-resolution 3D T1-weighted MRI. Parent ratings of the children's executive functions were assessed by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) questionnaire. The relationships between maternal physical activity level, child brain cortical features, and BRIEF scores were evaluated using Spearman's correlation and linear regression, with child's sex, age, race, BMI, parental socioeconomic status and childhood traumatic experience controlled.
Results: Significant positive correlations (R: [0.35, 0.54], FDR-corrected p ≤ 0.05) between maternal physical activity level at different trimesters during pregnancy and child brain cortical features were identified, including cortical surface area and/or cortical volume in the paracentral, supramarginal, and transverse temporal gyri of the right hemisphere, and cortical LGI in widespread brain regions. Additionally, physical activity level during pregnancy negatively correlated (R: [-0.60, -0.43], p ≤ 0.05) with child executive function issues measured by BRIEF subscales of Inhibit, Shift, Emotional Control, and Behavioral Regulation Index. Results obtained from linear regression analyses were consistent, with most of the identified relationships remaining statistically significant.
Conclusion: We identified significant correlations between maternal physical activity levels during pregnancy and child brain cortical features and executive function at age 8 years. Higher maternal physical activity was associated with better child brain cortical development and less executive function challenges.
Event-related potentials (ERPs) are time-locked voltage changes in averaged EEG signals reflecting neural responses to specific events. ERPs are extracted from EEG by repeating the same stimulus across multiple trials and averaging the recordings. In ERP studies, artifact-contaminated trials (commonly termed "bad trials") refer to data segments deemed unsuitable for analysis due to excessive noise or artifacts. The criteria for determining such trials depend on overall data quality: researchers increase artifact tolerance when a subject's data quality is poor to retain statistical power, while applying stricter standards when quality is high to ensure analytical purity and accuracy. Current automated bad trial detection methods rely on static thresholds and fail to replicate the adaptive strategies employed by experts. To address this limitation, we propose YOLOBT, a YOLO-based deep learning framework that mimics expert judgment by integrating global signal quality assessment with dynamic threshold adjustment. By treating EEG signals as visualized waveform images, our approach naturally aligns with expert visual inspection methods while enabling context-aware artifact detection. Our technical contributions include: (1) a Cross-Layer Attention Bottleneck (CLAB) enhancing artifact feature extraction through cross-layer attention mechanisms; (2) a Hierarchical Feature Guidance Module (HFGM) leveraging high-level semantic features to guide low-level feature refinement; and (3) a Global Information Classification Module (GICM) enabling dynamic threshold adjustment based on comprehensive signal quality assessment. Experiments on our manually annotated dataset showed YOLOBT achieved 88.76% precision, 86.89% recall, 92.76% mAP, and 87.82% F1 score, outperforming classical models. Heatmap visualization confirmed the model adaptively adjusts artifact detection strategies based on signal quality, similar to expert judgment processes.
Introduction: High-cadence dynamic cycling has been associated with significant benefits on motor function in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Despite clear improvements in motor symptoms in this population, the neurophysiological mechanisms are unknown. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a neuroimaging tool that measures cortical activation by estimating hemoglobin content at the surface level of the brain.
Methods: 18 participants (N = 11 with PD) completed the present study in which changes in prefrontal cortical activity were investigated following high- and low-cadence dynamic cycling on the SMART bike, a motorized therapeutic stationary bicycle. fNIRS measures were acquired during finger tapping and cognitive assessment before and after dynamic cycling. Three-way mixed factorial ANOVA with repeated measures on time were conducted to determine differences in oxyhemoglobin concentrations within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) following dynamic cycling.
Results: No significant differences were found in oxyhemoglobin responses. However, this is the first study in which researchers compared changes in fNIRS responses in people with PD (PwPD) and healthy age-matched controls following dynamic cycling on the SMART bike.
Discussion: More work is warranted in larger sample sizes in order to continue the effort toward optimal exercise prescription for individuals with PD.
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