tDCS vs rTMS

Thanks to Dr Schock. there can only be one ! What is transcranial direct current stimulation? With tDCS a weak electrical current of 1 or 2 m Ampere is applied to the head with an electrode. The electrode is a non-metalic conductive rubber electrode, covered completely by saline soaked sponges.It is a noninvasive brain stimulation technique that utilizes low amplitude direct currents applied via scalp electrodes to inject currents in the brain and thus modulates the level of excitability. It doesn’t elicit seizures and it doesn’t require anesthesia. For comparison in ECT current of 9 m Ampere is used to elicit seizures during narcosis. Advantages for tDCS above rTMS? In comparison with rTMS, tDCS has some advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages are that this is ■a simple, nonexpensive procedure, which is painless and allows inducing effects of opposite directions (facilitation or inhibition) on different parts of the brain ■It has a reliable sham condition, therefore providing more robust double blind clinical trials than TMS. ■tDCS is a good tool to be used simultaneously with cognitive training as it induces much less scalp sensation than rTMS and therefore is not prey to aspecific effects on attention Limitations of tDCS compared to rTMS. ■tDCS is less focal than TMS, it is not focal enough to target localized areas and to map cognitive functions accurately Efficacy in cognitive neurorehabilitation Overall the use of tDCS in cognitive neurorehabilitation is limited. The data to date are insufficient to assess the therapeutic use of tDCS in cognitive rehabilitation. tDCS has been used to modulate cognitive performance in healthy subjects. tDCS improved long-term memory consolidation for word pairs, enhanced working memory and language learning It also improved other language related tasks such as verbal fluency or picture naming. All these results were found in healthy subjects. tDCS applied to the left frontotemporal cortex of nonfluent aphasic patients, resulted in a 34% improvement in the ability to name object pictures correctly. The effects of tDCS in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease. Results showed that after anodal tDCS in temporoparietal areas, accuracy on a word recognition memory task increased. Limitations There is still a large field to explore with tDCS. The site of application, the excitability status of the underlying cortical tissue, and the timing, frequency, and duration of stimulation are still to be determined. Changes induced in cortical response induced by tDCS are dependent on a number of technical variables. Some are still subject of much debate because tDCS is marginally researched in the literature of neurostimulation. Depression trial discussed in a post on this blog suggest that at least 4 weeks of treatment are necessary to achieve clinically meaningful benefits. Therefore, the duration of treatment remain a key point in further studies. Follow-up on efficacy is needed, the effects could be temporarily.

Statistics anyone ?

Robot Inc.

Italian microcontroller company, Dave, has announced a new board based on TI's Sitara AM3505/AM3517 SoCs that may be just what you need for that robot you're about to send into the desert (or the Arctic). The new board is called the Lizard and it tolerates temperatures ranging from -40 F to 185 F. The Superscalar ARM Cortex-A8 processor clocks in at 500MHz. You get 256MB of DDR2 RAM, 2GB of NAND flash, 2 SD flash expansion ports, OpenGL acceleration, touchscreen controller, fast ethernet port, 2 USB host ports, 1 USB OTG port, CAN, 3 UARTs, 2 I2C, SPI, I2S, a keypad controller, JTAG, and some GPIO. Yes, it runs GNU/Linux. But be prepared to spend some money because those temperature tolerances come at the cost of $748 USD. For more details see the Linuxdevices.com article or Dave's Lizard press release (PDF format).

new search engine

Thank You Dr Schock !! The best neurostimulating blog around ! by far !!

4 a better life

Easy as 1...2......drip..?

Books on EEG signal analysis

3D fabulous fractals

Kudo's to Kyle for putting this link on the ChaosPsy maillist !

From here to nano

Surf to site and use slide bar to zoom in ! Whaw , neatly done ! (Thanks to Rik Delaet for pointing this out)

Meet a good friend

meet a great man

Neurobots are here

read about it here

Motion induced blindness

Motion Induced Blindness - The most amazing home videos are here

Save the cheerleader

Psychogenic !

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1152

This squirrel is driving me nuts

VIGER-ously Stimulating

This was programmed by group of talented guy's who can help you in any applications using NET 3.5, .aspx, Silverlight, WPF, .NET 2.0, AMS 7.5. They also develop English versions of Camtasia Studio 6 based video presentations. CONTACT THEM !! Highly recommended

Surf the wave

on depression

Thanks to Dr Schock !

Brain Cake

It's not from outer space from seen on the (excellent) blog of Dr Schock.

Even if You dearly like good food, this one could make You hesitate.

Goes with a good glass of Chateau Neuf Cerebral Flute (contains sulphites and prions)

Remember...

A photo tribute to D-day

Software for EEG buffs

128 ch

Shen's site on EEG programming

Very usefull. Good blog !!

EEG signals

A good intro to EEG and general principals of EEG signal analysis, averaging and inverse problem.

L' Open Vibe 4.0 est arrivé

The main OpenViBE application fields are medical (assistance to disabled people, real-time biofeedback, neurofeedback, real-time diagnosis), multimedia (virtual reality, video games), robotics and all other application fields related to brain-computer interfaces and real-time neurosciences. OpenViBE users can either be programmers or people not familiar with programming. This includes medical doctors, video game developers, researchers in signal-processing or robotics, etc. In this new release, you will find the following modifiactions (+ for adds, * for modifications, - for removes) : + Mr. Christoph Veigl contributed and added a new driver for OpenEEG Modular EEG / Monolith EEG + We added a new driver : g.Tec's gUSBamp acquisition device + We added a new P300-based entertaining application called "Magic Card" + We added tooltips for new users :) + We updated the sample scenarios * We propose a stabilized P300-based pipeline * We made the development of new classifiers easier thanks to base algorithms * We updated the dependencies installation script for linux so that it uses native packages instead of compiling everything from scratch * We updated the dependencies installation for windows so that DirectX and Visual C++ Runtime gets installed automatically if needed * We updated the online documentation and tutorials * We fixed lots of bugs ! - The VR demo are no more built by default as OpenMASK is not compiling on recent Linux distributions + We added several tooltips for new users :) + We added a k-fold test in the classifier trainer box + We added a functionnality to load/save channel names in the acquisition server + We enabled the voting classifier box to vote either on streamed matrix or on stimulations + We added a frequency band selector box + We added a signal decimation box + We added a CSV file writer box (text based) * We changed the way chanels can be selected in the signal display, power spectrum display and time frequency map display * We reimplemented the common average reference box === What's coming in the next release ================ Here is a snapshot of what we are currently doing and what you can expect from the next release : + A BrainProducts V-Amp acquisition driver + A Neuroscan acquisition driver + A MitsarEEG driver + Online comparison of different processing pipelines performance (e.g. multiple classifiers) + More documentation on the sample scenarios * GUI definition will move from glade to gtk-builder * VR demos will move from OpenMASK to native Ogre3D

More BCI

Wireless EEG/ECG, body area networks, brain computer interfaces: great R&D is resulting in solutions to communicate around, in or even with the body. These new technologies will allow improving comfort of life. Indeed, ICT will be enjoyed in many different applications ranging from sports and leisure, over support in different health concerns, as well as it will help the ageing society in independent living. The 2010 WIC mid-winter meeting will introduce recent technological progress in this field, as well as applications that make use of the innovation in sometimes amazing ways.

The Tuff Tuffts club

The human brain and body are prolific signal generators. Recent technologies and computing techniques allow us to measure, process and interpret these signals. We can now infer such things as cognitive and emotional states, to create adaptive systems and gain an understanding of user experience. In this workshop, we aim to bring together researchers from fields such as HCI, interaction design, cognitive science, psychology, psychophysiology, game research, neural or bio-engineering, and BCI.

Ariba A RIBA Ariba

The product of joint research by RIKEN and Tokai Rubber Industries (TRI), the new robot, named the Robot for Interactive Body Assistance (RIBA), is the first of its kind in the world. It is capable of safely lifting and moving a human patient of up to 61 kg from a bed to a wheelchair and back.

Coffee face

Coffee Face Our face-detection neural machinery can be overloaded. There’s a man’s face hidden in this image. But before we spill the beans about its location, look around and see if you can find it yourself. It’s difficult! Don’t give up too quickly: finding the face may take you a few minutes the first time you look. But once you have seen it, you will always find it immediately in every subsequent search.

a new kid on the cortex

New brain stimulation treatment may offer hope for those with treatment resistant depression October 13th, 2009 A new neurosurgical procedure may prove helpful for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Bilateral epidural prefrontal cortical stimulation (EpCS) was found generally safe and provided significant improvement of depressive symptoms in a small group of patients, according to lead researcher Ziad Nahas, M.D. at the Medical University of South Carolina. The data are reported in the on-line issue of Biological Psychiatry. Treatment-resistant depression is a recurrent psychiatric illness and a leading cause of premature morality due to suicide and associated medical conditions. In the U.S., more than 3.2 million patients are diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. Typically, patients have tried several medications and treatments without success or improvement. EpCS targets electrical stimulation to the anterior frontal poles and the lateral prefrontal cortex. "We focused on these two regions because they are part of a larger brain networks critical in regulating mood. Both play complementary roles integrating emotional and cognitive experiences and offer a distinct opportunity for targeted antidepressant treatments" said Dr. Nahas, an associate professor of Psychiatry, Physiology and Neuroscience and Director of the Mood Disorders Program at MUSC. "Cortical stimulation has several advantages provided that it shows efficacy in treating depression. It is reversible, non-destructive and potentially safer than other forms of invasive brain stimulation since the stimulating paddles don't come in direct contact with the brain." His team included MUSC neurosurgeon Istvan Takacs, MD and MUSC anesthesiologist Scott Reeves, MD. Five patients were implanted with EpCS over the anterior frontal poles and the lateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally. Four separate paddle leads were then connected to two small generators surgically implanted in the upper chest area of the patient. The researchers individualized the treatment parameters for each patient to maximize the long-term antidepressant effects. They relied in part on input from the patients themselves who signaled positive mood changes when first stimulated. In general, their devices were set to periodically deliver electrical charges at intensities below the seizure threshold. The devices were never active at night. Only patients who failed to respond to several antidepressant treatments - including medications, psychotherapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation or electroconvulsive therapy, were included in the study. Patients were closely followed after the surgical implant and evaluated regularly using standard clinical ratings. After seven months, the average improvement was 54.9 percent based on the Hamilton Rating Scare for Depression and 60.1 percent on the Inventory of Depressive Symptoms Self Report . Three of the patients reached remission. One patient experienced a scalp infection that required removing the implants over the left hemisphere. "These preliminary results are encouraging but not definitive," said Dr. Nahas. "Now that we have a proof of concept, we should aim at studying bilateral EpCS in larger placebo-controlled studies." "The more sophisticated functions are on the surface of the brain" said Takacs. "We are trying to change the climate within the prefrontal cortex so it could exert more adaptive governance of deeper brain regions." he said. Source: Medical University of South Carolina