Frontiers in Human Neuroscience最新文献

Background: Basal ganglia hemorrhage (BGH) is a life-threatening neurosurgical emergency associated with substantial mortality and disability. Accurate postoperative prognosis assessment remains challenging due to multifactorial influences. Hemoglobin (HB), as the key determinant of oxygen delivery, may play a critical role in neurological recovery, yet the prognostic significance of perioperative HB fluctuations in BGH has not been fully elucidated.

Methods: A retrospective cohort of 213 surgically treated BGH patients from 2020 to 2023 was analyzed. Perioperative HB indices, including preoperative (Pre-HB), postoperative (Post-HB), and mean HB (Mean-HB) levels, were evaluated alongside clinical data. Functional outcome at 6 months was determined based on the modified Rankin Scale (mRS). Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression together with multivariate logistic regression models were utilized to screen for independent risk variables, followed by construction of a composite predictive model. Model discrimination, calibration, and evaluation of the model's clinical applicability were conducted using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, calibration plots, and decision curve analysis (DCA).

Results: Patients with poor prognosis exhibited significantly lower Pre-HB, Post-HB, and Mean-HB levels (all P < 0.05). Multivariate analysis confirmed these variables as independent predictors of adverse outcome. The proposed model provides a practical and data-driven tool that demonstrated good predictive performance (AUC = 0.84) in a single-center retrospective cohort. Calibration and DCA demonstrated good consistency and potential clinical applicability.

Conclusion: Perioperative declines in HB are independently associated with poor postoperative outcomes in BGH. The proposed HB-integrated model provides a reliable, dynamic tool for individualized risk prediction, facilitating precision perioperative management and optimized recovery strategies.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1698605.].

Background: The assessment of gender perception influenced by ambiguous facial cues in patients requiring emergency medical attention remains ambiguous. Pareidolia faces represent unconscious errors in facial recognition, wherein a wide array of visual attributes contribute to the interpretation of facial features. This study aims to explore the mechanisms underlying gender perception in individuals undergoing emergency medical treatment, employing an innovative digital pareidolia assessment to evaluate gender perception within the context of face pareidolia.

Methods: Fifty adult patients treated by a female physician in the green triage zone participated in the study. Target images consisted of face pareidolia images, while non-target images were scrambled. All images were standardized for size, tone, and light intensity. Patients instructed the pareidolia images and were asked if they discerned a face; if they answered 'No,' the next image was shown. If they saw a face, they identified the associated gender. Their responses and reaction times were systematically recorded digitally.

Results: Our findings revealed that, regardless of wait times, patients were significantly more likely to identify pareidolia faces as male rather than female, especially after being examined by a female physician. Additionally, male patients exhibited slightly longer reaction times than females when responding to pareidolia images.

Conclusion: The outcomes of this investigation provide critical insights into the influence of pareidolia on gender perception of faces in the emergency department setting. It underscores the notion that gender biases, which arise from both biological and sociocultural factors, can affect the dynamics of patient-physician interactions.

This Perspective article discusses the emerging potential of transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) as a non-invasive neuromodulatory technique for enhancing self-regulatory processes, particularly emotion and sleep regulation, in healthy individuals. Offering high spatial precision and the ability to target both cortical and deep brain regions, TUS uses focused ultrasound waves to induce acute and delayed effects on brain activity. We propose that combining TUS with neurofeedback methods and/or specific cognitive training exercises may capitalise on these neuroplastic effects, thereby augmenting and prolonging their impact to support lasting improvements in self-regulation. We focus on the domains of sleep and emotion regulation, where such an integrated approach may strengthen resilience and promote healthier functioning in the general population. Our aim is to highlight the potential of TUS-based integrated interventions for supporting mental health and well-being in non-clinical populations and to outline key directions for future research.

Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) significantly improves tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and dyskinesia for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), but gait and speech remain inconsistent. These discrepancies underscore the need for a systematic, quantitative synthesis of existing data to clarify the impact of DBS across different motor domains.

Objective: To systematically evaluate the effects of DBS on motor symptoms in PD by analyzing UPDRS-III scores and conducting subgroup analyses based on stimulation target, stimulation type, and medication status.

Methods: A literature search was conducted to identify relevant studies on clinical trials and observational studies reporting pre- and post-DBS motor assessments in PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Ovid MEDLINE, and Web of Science from inception to 15 December 2024.

Results: A total of 35 studies comprising 1,082 PD patients were included. The pooled analysis demonstrated a significant improvement in overall UPDRS-III scores post-DBS (WMD: = -1.09, 95% CI: -1.32 to -0.87, p < 0.05). Subgroup analyses showed consistent improvements across tremor, rigidity, akinesia, bradykinesia, dyskinesia, and axial symptoms, regardless of stimulation target or medication state. UPDRS Part IV scores also significantly improved, reflecting reduced motor complications. However, speech function remained unchanged, and UPDRS Part I scores initially showed no significant improvement, though significance emerged after removing sources of heterogeneity.

Conclusion: DBS significantly improves overall motor function, particularly tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia. However, its effects on gait and speech remain inconsistent, which shows the need for further research to refine patient selection and optimize stimulation parameters. These findings provide valuable insights into the therapeutic impact of DBS in PD management.

Introduction: The application of motor imagery in human-computer interaction and rehabilitative medicine has attracted growing attention due to recent advances in brain-computer interface technologies. However, traditional EEG decoding paradigms based on fixed frequency-band segmentation often exhibit limited performance because they fail to capture individual variability in brain rhythms.

Methods: This work proposes an adaptive method that integrates the sparrow search algorithm (SSA) with Filter Bank Common Spatial Pattern (FBCSP) to optimize sub-band segmentation for motor imagery EEG decoding. SSA adaptively searches for optimal sub-band boundaries, enabling individualized frequency-band selection.

Results: Experiments on the BCI Competition IV 2a dataset under a cross-session evaluation protocol (training on session T, testing on session E) demonstrated that SSA-FBCSP effectively improves frequency-band adaptability. The SSA-FBCSP approach was further combined with Support Vector Machine (SVM), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and k-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classifiers to evaluate the influence of different downstream classifiers.

Conclusion: Among them, SSA-FBCSP-LDA achieved the best performance, outperforming the conventional uniform sub-band approach by 21.76% and reaching an average accuracy of 89.92%. The adaptively selected sub-bands closely matched the ERD/ERS distribution, confirming the method's effectiveness in frequency-band optimization. Compared with recent deep-learning-based MI-EEG models, the proposed technique offers a balance of accuracy, interpretability, and computational efficiency, providing a promising direction for personalized brain-computer interface systems.

The logopenic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (lvPPA) is marked by phonological short-term memory deficits that compromise repetition and communication. While previous interventions in PPA have primarily targeted lexical-semantic abilities, little is known about therapies that directly address phonological impairments, primarily through teletherapy. This first study investigated the efficacy of an intensive phonological short-term memory training program delivered via teletherapy in individuals with the lvPPA. The intervention aimed to improve repetition of trained items, promote generalization to untrained items, facilitate transfer to functional tasks, and ensure maintenance over time. In the present study, significant improvements were observed in both immediate and delayed repetition of trained items, with partial short-term generalization to untrained items, particularly for words in delayed tasks. No substantial generalization effects were observed for functional language tasks, including picture description and picture naming, suggesting that the intervention's impact may remain task specific. Individual trajectories revealed heterogeneous responses, potentially influenced by baseline cognitive profiles, spontaneous strategies, or fatigue. Mixed-effects models confirmed that interindividual factors explained a substantial portion of the variance. These findings support the feasibility and clinical relevance of remote phonological training in the lvPPA and underline the importance of early, personalized interventions. The study also raises the hypothesis that delayed repetition may facilitate internal rehearsal, enhancing generalization. Further research is needed to assess broader functional outcomes and optimize protocol scalability.

Introduction: Cognitive dysfunction is a chronic and debilitating element of major depressive disorder (MDD), which manifests as abnormal processing in hot (emotion-laden) and cold (emotion-independent) cognitive systems. Although the antidepressant properties of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) are well-established, its impact on hot and cold cognition requires further elucidation.

Methods: Prospective study of patients with MDD undergoing an acute course of high frequency rTMS to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L-DLPFC). MDD patients (N = 24) received a 4-to-6-week course of rTMS during which they were evaluated for depressive symptoms and completed cognitive assessments. Age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls (N = 33) also completed the cognitive tasks at the same intervals as the MDD patients.

Results: Sustained antidepressant effect was observed following rTMS in MDD patients. Hot and cold cognition remained unaltered over the course of treatment. A pre-treatment baseline cognitive phenotype of those who achieve remission of their depressive symptoms with rTMS was identified, characterized by greater sustained attention, speed in correct identification of facial expressions, and free recall of words.

Conclusion: Our findings further validate the cognitive safety and clinical efficacy of rTMS as an intervention for MDD. Future research is required to further characterize the utility of pre-rTMS cognitive phenotyping in identified remitters, to aid in patient selection and treatment prognostication.

Introduction: The purpose of the study was to investigate potential differences in contralateral muscle excitation in proximal versus distal muscles in the upper extremities. Based on the different neuroanatomical and neurophysiological constraints in the central part of the neural system for proximal and distal muscles, it was hypothesized that contralateral muscle excitation (CME) would be higher for proximal than distal muscles.

Methods: Thirteen university students participated in this study. The participants performed isometric flexion movements with the shoulder and index finger of the dominant arm at four different relative force levels (25, 50, 75, 100%). Force was measured with a force transducer connected to the index finger and elbow on the dominant arm. Muscle excitation was measured using sEMG placed on the flexor carpi radialis (distal condition) and the anterior deltoid (proximal condition) on the non-dominant arm.

Results: CME was observed in both proximal and distal muscles, with proximal muscles displaying significantly higher CME at higher force levels (50, 75, and 100%). In the proximal condition, contractions with the dominant anterior deltoid were associated with a progressive increase in CME across force levels in the contralateral homologous muscle. In contrast, for the distal condition (flexor carpi radialis), CME changes were only evident when comparing the lowest and highest force levels.

Conclusion: The results are in coherence with the differences in neuroanatomical and neurophysiological constraints for bilateral communication for proximal versus distal muscles. The present results encourage further neurophysiological studies using direct brain activity measures to explore the potential link between the differences in bilateral communication and CME for proximal versus distal muscles.

Introduction: Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is often associated with pain-related fear of movement, and virtual reality has been proposed as a potential rehabilitation intervention to overcome this issue. Therefore, this cross-sectional study aimed to test whether altering the visual feedback (VF) on movement could mitigate pain and promote movement.

Methods: Fifteen participants with upper-limb CRPS and 15 age- and gender-matched pain-free participants undertook a target reaching task in the Kinarm exoskeleton, with two VF conditions being tested (Per Exposure: GREATER or SMALLER VF; two separate sessions), preceded and followed by reaching movements without VF (Pre-/Post-Exposure). Proprioception was assessed with a Limb Position Sense task, and a Movement Accuracy outcome was derived from the Pre-Exposure reaching movements.

Results: Contrary to our hypothesis, pain intensity was not influenced by VF conditions but increased over Time (p < 0.001). Analyses performed on kinematics data showed that participants displayed visuomotor adaptation both Per Exposure, and Pre-/Post-Exposure to altered VF (VF condition^*Time: p < 0.001). Per Exposure analyses revealed that CRPS participants tended to adapt their Movement Length to a lesser extent than pain-free participants (Group^*VF condition: p = 0.048). Pre-/Post-Exposure analyses revealed that CRPS participants consistently performed larger movements than pain-free participants (p = 0.002). Both groups performed similarly for the Limb Position Sense task, but CRPS participants displayed significantly larger errors for Movement Accuracy, suggesting impaired proprioceptive integration in the CRPS group.

Discussion: These findings support the idea that visuomotor adaptation is preserved in CRPS and can be used to promote movement.