Evidências de validade do teste informatizado para avaliação das funções executivas / Evidence of validity of the computerized test for evaluating executive functions / Evidencia de validez de la prueba computarizada para evaluación de funciones ejecutivas

Funções executivas (FE) referem-se ao conjunto de habilidades que, de forma integrada, coordenam o comportamento e a cognição. Assim, o comprometimento no desenvolvimento das FE está ligado a vários desfechos negativos ao longo da vida. Portanto, a avaliação dessas habilidades na infância é essencial para identificar e prevenir prejuízos na vida adulta. Este estudo teve como objetivo investigar evidências de validade do Teste Informatizado para Avaliação das Funções Executivas (Tafe) pelo critério de idade e pelo padrão de correlação entre medidas do TAFE e outras medidas de FE. Para isso, foi utilizada uma amostra de 51 crianças, entre 4 e 10 anos de idade, matriculadas em uma escola privada na cidade de Goiânia (GO), da pré-escola ao 4º ano do ensino fundamental. Como instrumentos, foram utilizados, além do Tafe, as tarefas de Bloco de Corsi, Teste de Trilhas A e B, Teste de Trilhas Pré-Escolares, Teste de Stroop Pré-Escolares e Subteste Dígitos da Escala Wechsler de Inteligência. Foram conduzidas análises estatísticas Kruskal Wallis para verificar a evidência de validade por relação com idade e análises de correlação não paramétrica de Spearman para avaliar as evidências de validade convergente. O instrumento investigado mostrou-se efetivo para discriminar entre as diferentes faixas etárias, assim, sensível ao desenvolvimento das FE. Os resultados obtidos no Tafe correlacionaram-se aos obtidos em outros testes que também avaliaram FE, mostrando claros padrões de convergência. Logo, as análises dos resultados fornecem evidências de validade ao Tafe, derivadas a partir de diferentes estratégias de investigação.(AU)

Executive functions (EF) refer to the set of skills that, in an integrated way, coordinate behavior and cognition. Thus, the commitment in developing EF is linked to several negative outcomes throughout life. Therefore, the assessment of these abilities in childhood is essential to identify and prevent possible harm in adult life. This study aimed to investigate evidences of validity of the Computerized Test for Evaluation of Executive Functions (TAFE) by the age criterion and by the pattern of correlation between TAFE measures and other EF measures. To this end, a sample of 51 children, between 4 and 10 years old, enrolled in a private school in the municipality of Goiânia (GO), from preschool to the 4th year of elementary school, was used. As instruments, in addition to TAFE, the tasks of Corsi Block, Trails Test A and B, Preschool Trails Test, Preschool Stroop Test and the Digits Subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale were used. Kruskal Wallis statistical analyzes were conducted to verify the evidence of validity by age criteria and Spearman's nonparametric correlation analysis to assess evidence of convergent validation. The instrument investigated was effective to discriminate between different age groups, thus being sensitive to the development of EF. The results obtained in TAFE were correlated with those obtained in other tests that also assess FE, showing patterns of convergence. Therefore, the analysis of the results provides validation evidence to TAFE, derived from different investigation methods.(AU)

Las funciones ejecutivas (FE) se refieren al conjunto de habilidades que coordinan la conducta y la cognición. Así, el deterioro en el desarrollo de FE está relacionado con varios resultados negativos durante la vida. Por tanto, la valoración de estas habilidades en la infancia es fundamental para identificar y prevenir posibles daños en la vida adulta. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo investigar la evidencia de validez de la Prueba Computarizada para Evaluación de Funciones Ejecutivas (Tafe) por el criterio de edad y convergencia entre las medidas Tafe y otras medidas de FE. Para ello, se utilizó una muestra de 51 niños, de entre 4 y 10 años de edad, matriculados en un colegio privado de Goiânia (Goiás, Brasil) desde la preescolar hasta 4.º de primaria. Como instrumentos, además del Tafe, se utilizaron las tareas de Bloque de Corsi, el Test de los senderos A y B, el Test de los Senderos Preescolares, el Test de Stroop Preescolar y la Subprueba de Dígitos de la Escala Wechsler de Inteligencia. Se realizaron análisis estadísticos de Kruskal Wallis para verificar la validez por criterios de edad y análisis de correlación no-paramétrica de Spearman para evaluar la evidencia de validez convergente. Tafe demostró ser efectivo para discriminar entre diferentes grupos de edad, así es sensible al desarrollo de FE. Los resultados en Tafe se correlacionaron con los obtenidos en otras pruebas de FE, lo que muestra claros patrones de convergencia. Por tanto, el análisis aporta evidencias de validez para Tafe, derivadas de diferentes estrategias de investigación.(AU)

Notas sobre o pesquisar em cena(s) / Notes on researching in scenes / Notas sobre la investigación en escena(s)

O presente artigo tem como objetivo apresentar a construção metodológica desenvolvida em uma pesquisa de mestrado, na qual sustentamos a escrita de cenas como método de pesquisa da escuta clínica. As cenas do trabalho em questão foram recolhidas ao longo do tempo, no contorno da experiência de um projeto de extensão universitária de atenção à infância e adolescência em situação de vulnerabilidade social, situado em uma comunidade periférica. Apresentamos, neste texto, as interrogações que se elaboraram em torno da escolha pelo trabalho com cenas, e compartilhamos o resgate histórico dessas como um método de escrever a clínica, bem como a retomada de sua análise a partir da tradição psicanalítica. Amparadas nesta teoria e em leituras e contribuições do filósofo francês Jacques Derrida, embasamos a noção de que a cena se constitui como um lugar de produção, ao engendrar a configuração particular de elementos significantes nos processos de subjetivação e de construção social. A cena não é, então, compreendida aqui como uma representação do que acontece na clínica, mas como um modo de produzir a escuta e os seus processos de investigação.(AU)

This article aims to present the methodological construction developed in a master's research, in which the writing of scenes as a method of clinical listening research was endorsed. The scenes from the study in question were collected over time, from the experience gained in a project conducted within a university extension program on care in childhood and adolescence in social vulnerability, in a peripheral community. In this study, we present some questions that were elaborated surrounding the choices of working with scenes; and we share the historical rescue of this work as a method of writing on clinic practices and resuming their analysis from the psychoanalytic tradition. Based on the psychoanalytic theory and on the readings and contributions of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, we corroborate the notion that the scene is constituted as a place of production, engendering the particular configuration of significant elements in the processes of subjectivation and social construction. Here, the scene is not a representation of clinical practice but one mode of producing listening and its research processes.(AU)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo presentar la construcción metodológica desarrollada en una investigación de maestría, en la que sostenemos la escritura de escenas como método de investigación de la escucha clínica. Las escenas del trabajo en cuestión se recogieron a lo largo del tiempo desde la experiencia en un proyecto de extensión universitario de atención a la niñez y adolescencia en situación de vulnerabilidad social aplicado en una comunidad periférica. En este texto, presentamos los interrogantes que se elaboraron en torno a la elección por el trabajo con escenas y compartimos el rescate histórico de las mismas como un método de escribir la clínica y la reanudación del análisis a partir de la tradición psicoanalítica. Amparadas en el psicoanálisis y en lecturas y contribuciones del filósofo francés Jacques Derrida, nos basaremos en la noción de que la escena se constituye como un lugar de producción, engendrando la configuración particular de elementos significantes en los procesos de subjetivación y de construcción social. La escena no es aquí una representación de lo que pasa en la clínica, sino un modo de producir escucha y sus procesos de investigación.(AU)

Construction of an epileptic seizure prediction model using a semi-supervised method of generative adversarial and long short term memory network combined with Stockwell transform / 南方医科大学学报

OBJECTIVE@#To propose a semi-supervised epileptic seizure prediction model (ST-WGAN-GP-Bi-LSTM) to enhance the prediction performance by improving time-frequency analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, enhancing the stability of the unsupervised feature learning model and improving the design of back-end classifier.@*METHODS@#Stockwell transform (ST) of the epileptic EEG signals was performed to locate the time-frequency information by adaptive adjustment of the resolution and retaining the absolute phase to obtain the time-frequency inputs. When there was no overlap between the generated data distribution and the real EEG data distribution, to avoid failure of feature learning due to a constant JS divergence, Wasserstein GAN was used as a feature learning model, and the cost function based on EM distance and gradient penalty strategy was adopted to constrain the unsupervised training process to allow the generation of a high-order feature extractor. A temporal prediction model was finally constructed based on a bi-directional long short term memory network (Bi-LSTM), and the classification performance was improved by obtaining the temporal correlation between high-order time-frequency features. The CHB-MIT scalp EEG dataset was used to validate the proposed patient-specific seizure prediction method.@*RESULTS@#The AUC, sensitivity, and specificity of the proposed method reached 90.40%, 83.62%, and 86.69%, respectively. Compared with the existing semi-supervised methods, the propose method improved the original performance by 17.77%, 15.41%, and 53.66%. The performance of this method was comparable to that of a supervised prediction model based on CNN.@*CONCLUSION@#The utilization of ST, WGAN-GP, and Bi-LSTM effectively improves the prediction performance of the semi-supervised deep learning model, which can be used for optimization of unsupervised feature extraction in epileptic seizure prediction.

Eficacia de la terapia de estimulación cognitiva asistida por tecnología en pacientes con demencia / Efficacy of technology-assisted cognitive stimulation therapy in patients with dementia

De la mano del envejecimiento poblacional, la demencia o trastorno neurocognitivo mayor afecta a una cantidad cada vez mayor de personas, lo que implica un alto costo para los servicios de salud. Las guías de práctica clínica recomiendan ofrecer terapias de estimulación cognitiva a las personas afectadas y cada vez es más común el empleo de herramientas tecnológicas que permiten su aplicación a gran escala a pesar de la incertidumbre acerca de su beneficio.En este artículo revisamos la evidencia más actualizada sobre la eficacia de las herramientas computarizadas para el entrenamiento cognitivo de pacientes con demencia. Encontramos algunos estudios que sugieren que podría haber una posible mejora cognitiva en los pacientes con demencia y en la calidad de vida de sus cuidadores. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los estudios no fueron de buena calidad metodológica, fueron realizados con un número limitado de pacientes, en periodos poco prolongados, y los desenlaces fueron evaluados a través de múltiples pruebas de difícil interpretación. (AU)

With the increasing population aging, dementia or major neurocognitive disorder affects a growing number of people,incurring a substantial burden on healthcare services. Clinical practice guidelines recommend providing cognitive stimulation therapies to affected individuals, and the use of technological tools for implementing therapies on a large scale is increasingly common despite the uncertainty about their benefits.In this article, we reviewed the most up-to-date evidence on the effectiveness of computerized tools for cognitive training in patients with dementia. We found some studies that suggest that there could be a possible cognitive improvement in patients with dementia and in the quality of life of their caregivers. However, most studies were not of good methodological quality, were carried out with a limited number of patients, in short periods of time, and the outcomes were evaluated through multiple tests that were difficult to interpret. (AU)

Effects of working memory training on cognition in healthy older adults: A systematic review / Efeitos do treino de memória operacional na cognição de idosos saudáveis: um estudo de revisão sistemática

ABSTRACT. The working memory (WM) training in older adults can benefit their cognition. However, there is a dearth of literature reviews on the subject. Objective: This study aimed to investigate and evaluate the effects of WM training on the cognition of healthy older adults, in individual and group interventions reported in the literature. Methods: This is a systematic review involving a qualitative analysis of publications on the SciELO, LILACS, and MEDLINE databases carried out between March and June 2021. Results: A total of 47 studies were identified and analyzed, comprising 40 in older adults only and 7 comparing older and younger adults, investigating individual or group WM training or other types of intervention focused on WM effects. Conclusions: Both individual and group intervention contributed to the maintenance and/or improvement of cognition in older adults exploiting brain plasticity to promote mental health and prevent cognitive problems that can negatively impact quality of life of this group.

RESUMO. O treino da memória operacional (WM) com idosos pode gerar benefícios em sua cognição. Entretanto, há escassez de revisões da literatura sobre o tema. Objetivo: Investigar e avaliar, na literatura, os efeitos do treino da WM na cognição de idosos saudáveis, em intervenções individuais e grupais. Métodos: Estudo de revisão sistemática realizado entre março e junho de 2021, utilizando-se as bases Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (LILACS) e Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE). Resultados: Foram identificados e analisados 47 estudos, 40 apenas com idosos, e sete comparativos entre idosos e adultos mais jovens, que realizaram treino individual ou em grupo com foco nos efeitos na WM. Conclusões: Os trabalhos analisados mostraram que ambos os tipos de intervenções podem contribuir para a manutenção e/ou melhoria da cognição de pessoas idosas, aproveitando sua plasticidade cerebral e, portanto, para a promoção de sua saúde mental e para a prevenção de problemas cognitivos que podem interferir em sua qualidade de vida.

Central executive and target selection in visual working memory / Executivo central e seleção de alvos na memória de trabalho visual / Ejecutivo central y selección de estímulos por la memoria de trabajo visual

The goal of this study was to investigate if the selection of external information for storage in visual working memory requires control by the central executive when the categorization of targets is guided by instructions. The design was experimental 3 (concurrent task) x 2 (instruction). Forty-eight university students saw eight colored shapes, four of them surrounded by square outlines. Memory was assessed using a recognition task. Targets varied with instructions: targets were presented within squares in the first block and outside squares in the second block. There were three concurrent tasks: no task, articulatory suppression, and backward counting. Performance was measured by hits, false alarms, corrected recognition, and sensitivity (A'), compared using within-subject ANOVAs. Results showed a main effect only for concurrent task, with lower performance in the backward counting condition for all measures. These results suggest that the central executive does not control the perceptual filter, corroborating earlier results. (AU)

O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar se a seleção de informações externas para manutenção na memória de trabalho visual requer controle do executivo central, quando a categorização de alvos depende de instrução. O delineamento foi experimental três (tarefa concorrente) x duas (instrução). Participaram 48 universitários. Os participantes viam oito formas coloridas, quatro delas dentro de quadrados. A memória foi avaliada por reconhecimento. Os alvos dependiam de instrução: no primeiro bloco estavam dentro de quadrados e no segundo, fora de quadrados. Havia três tarefas concorrentes: sem tarefa, supressão articulatória e contagem inversa. O desempenho foi avaliado por acertos, alarmes falsos, taxa de reconhecimento correto e índice de sensibilidade A', comparados por meio de ANOVAs intrassujeitos. Os resultados mostraram apenas efeito principal da tarefa concorrente, com menor desempenho na condição contagem inversa em todas as medidas. Esse resultado sugere que o executivo central não controla o filtro perceptual, corroborando resultados anteriores. (AU)

El objetivo fue investigar si la selección de información externa para el mantenimiento de la memoria de trabajo visual requiere un control del ejecutivo central, cuando la categorización de los estímulos depende de instrucciones. El diseño fue experimental 3 (tarea concurrente) x 2 (instrucción). Los 48 estudiantes universitarios participantes vieron ocho formas de colores, cuatro de ellas dentro de cuadrados. La memoria se evaluó por reconocimiento. Los estímulos dependían de la instrucción: en el primer bloque estaban dentro de los cuadrados, y en el segundo, fuera de ellos. Hubo tres tareas recurrentes: ninguna tarea, supresión articulatoria y conteo inverso. El rendimiento se evaluó mediante aciertos, falsas alarmas, tasa de reconocimiento correcto e índice de sensibilidad A', mediante ANOVAs intrasujeto Los resultados mostraron solo el efecto principal de la tarea concurrente, con menor rendimiento en la condición de conteo inverso en todas las medidas. Los resultados sugieren que el ejecutivo central no controla el filtro perceptual, corroborando resultados anteriores. (AU)

Validity evidence for the Neuropsychological Test for the Assessment of Visuospatial Binding: a working memory test / Evidências de validade do Teste Neuropsicológico para Avaliação do Binding Visuoespacial: um teste de memória operacional / Evidencias de validez del Test Neuropsicológico para la Evaluación de Binding Visuoespacial: un test de memoria operativa

The Neuropsychological Test for the Assessment of Visuospatial Binding (TNABV) was developed to measure the Working Memory binding for object-location features. This study aimed to provide validity evidence related to the content and internal structure of the TNABV. To investigate the evidence based on internal structure, the sample was composed of 1173 people. Participants were between 18 and 95 years of age. In order to investigate the content-related validity evidence, a judgment was performed through the analysis of seven experts. The data analysis was carried out through exploratory factor analysis, the Internal Consistency Content Validity Index (CVI). The result suggested a one-dimensional model with an explained variation of 41.78% and Cronbach's alpha of .82. The total CVI showed an agreement of .98. The findings indicated that the psychometric properties evaluated in the TNABV are adequate.(AU)

O Teste Neuropsicológico para Avaliação do Binding Visuoespacial (TNABV) foi desenvolvido para avaliar o binding da memória operacional para os recursos de objeto-localização. Este estudo investigou as evidências de validade relacionadas ao conteúdo e estrutura interna do TNABV. Para realizar as evidências baseadas na estrutura interna, a amostra foi composta por 1173 pessoas. Os participantes tinham entre 18 e 95 anos. Para investigar a validade das evidências baseadas no conteúdo, foi realizado um julgamento pela análise de sete especialistas. A análise dos dados foi realizada por meio de análise fatorial exploratória, Índice de Confiabilidade e Validade de Conteúdo (IVC). O resultado sugeriu um modelo unidimensional com uma variação explicada de 41,78% e o alfa de Cronbach de 0,82. O IVC total mostrou uma concordância de 0,98. Os achados indicaram que as propriedades psicométricas avaliadas no TNABV são adequadas.(AU)

El Test Neuropsicológico para la Evaluación de Binding Visuoespacial (TNABV) se desarrolló para evaluar el binding de la memoria operativa para los recursos de objeto-localización. Este estudio investigó las evidencias de validez relacionadas con el contenido y la estructura interna del TNABV. Para explorar las evidencias basadas en la estructura interna, la muestra se compuso por 1173 personas. Los participantes tenían entre 18 y 95 años. Para investigar la validez de las evidencias basadas en el contenido se realizó un juicio mediante la revisión de siete expertos. El análisis de los datos se ejecutó utilizando el análisis factorial exploratorio, el Índice de Confiabilidad y la Validez de Contenido (CVI). El resultado sugirió un modelo unidimensional con una variación explicada del 41,78% y un alfa de Cronbach de 0.82. El CVI total mostró una concordancia de 0,98. Los hallazgos indicaron que las propiedades psicométricas evaluadas en el TNABV son adecuadas.(AU)

Memória operacional e vocabulário em crianças com Transtorno do Desenvolvimento da Linguagem / Memoria operativa y vocabulario en niños con Trastorno del Desarrollo del Lenguaje / Working memory and vocabulary in children with Developmental Language Disorder

O objetivo deste estudo foi verificar se existe diferença no desempenho de crianças com Transtorno do Desenvolvimento da Linguagem (TDL) e Desenvolvimento Típico de Linguagem (DTL) em testes de memória operacional fonológica (MOF) e de memória visual de curto prazo (MVCP), e se esse desem-penho está correlacionado com o vocabulário receptivo. Selecionamos 14 crianças com TDL e 28 com DTL. Todos os sujeitos foram submetidos a dois testes de memória de curto prazo e a um teste de vocabulário receptivo. A comparação entre os grupos foi realizada por meio do Teste t de Student e a correlação entre a memória de curto prazo e o vocabulário foi obtida pela correlação de Pearson. Crian-ças com TDL tiveram pior desempenho quando comparadas ao grupo controle, tanto em MOF quanto em MVCP. A correlação positiva entre os testes de memória e vocabulário sugere que tanto a alça fo-nológica quanto a memória visual são importantes para o processamento da linguagem, mesmo que a alça fonológica possa ter maior relevância

The aim of this study was to verify if there is a difference in performance between children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and typical language development (TLD) in phonological working memory (PWM) test and visual short-term memory (VSTM), and if this performance is correlated with the result of a receptive vocabulary test. We selected 14 children with DLD and 28 with TLD. All subjects underwent two short-term memory tests and a receptive vocabulary test. The comparison between the groups was performed using the Student's t-test, and the correlation between the short-term memory and the vocabulary was obtained by Pearson's correlation. Children with DLD had a worse performance when compared with the control group, both in PWM and VSTM. The positive correlation between memory and vocabulary tests suggests that both the phonological loop and visual memory are important for the processing of language, even if the phonological loop may have greater relevance.

El objetivo de este estudio fue verificar si existe una diferencia en el desempeño de los niños con Trastorno del Desarrollo del Lenguaje (TDL) y el desarrollo del lenguaje típico (DLT) en las pruebas de memoria operativa fonológica (MOF) y memoria visual a corto plazo (MVCP), y si ese desempeño es correlacionado con el vocabulario receptivo. Seleccionamos 14 niños con TDL y 28 con DTL. Todos los sujetos se sometieron a dos pruebas de memoria a corto plazo y a una prueba de vocabulario receptivo. La comparación entre grupos se realizó mediante la prueba t de Student y la correlación entre la memoria a corto plazo y el vocabulario se obtuvo mediante la correlación de Pearson. Los niños con TDL tuvieron un peor desempeño en comparación con el grupo de control, tanto en la MOF como en la MVCP. La correlación positiva entre las pruebas de memoria y vocabulario sugiere que tanto el bucle fonológico como la memoria visual son importantes para el procesamiento del lenguaje, aunque el bucle fonológico puede tener mayor relevancia.

Efeito agudo da prática esportiva com engajamento cognitivo nas funções executivas em crianças / Acute effect of sports practice with cognitive engagement on children's cognition

O objetivo do presente estudo foi avaliar o efeito agudo da prática de uma sessão de futsal com engajamento cognitivo na memória de trabalho e no controle inibitório de crianças. Trata-se de um estudo controlado e randomizado com abordagem quantitativa do tipo Crossover. Foram recrutadas 33 crianças (com idade entre 8 e 10 anos) de ambos os sexos que foram submetidas a duas sessões experimentais: 1) Sessão jogo com duração de 15 min baseada no futsal com maiores demandas de engajamento cognitivo. 2) Sessão controle que consistiu em 15 min de repouso em uma sala. Foram aplicados imediatamente antes e após as sessões o DigitSpan e o Stroop Test para avaliar a memória de trabalho e o controle inibitório, respectivamente. As equações de estimativas generalizadas foram utilizadas para verificar a interação entre o tempo e as intervenções. Os resultados indicaram interação sessão*tempo significativa para a memória de trabalho, precisamente na ordem direta do DigitSpan, indicando aumento significante de pré para pós-intervenção para a sessão jogo com um tamanho de efeito pequeno (p = 0,012; d = 0,38). Após a sessão jogo, as crianças também apresentaram melhora significativa, com tamanho do efeito médio na acurácia da fase incongruente (p = 0,008; d = 0,63) do Stroop Test e menor tempo para resposta em comparação à sessão controle (p = 0,029). O estudo apontou que a atividade física com engajamento cognitivo teve efeito sobre o controle inibitório de crianças

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the acute effect of practicing a futsal session with cognitive engagement on working memory and inhibitory control in children. This is a controlled and randomized study with a quantitative crossover approach. 33 children (aged between 8 and 10 years) of both sexes were recruited and submitted to two experimental sessions: 1) Game session lasting 15 min based on futsal with greater demands for cognitive engagement. 2) Control session consisting of 15 min of rest in a room. The DigitSpan and Stroop Test were applied immediately before and after the sessions to assess working memory and inhibitory control, respectively. Generalized estimating equations were used to verify the interaction between time and interventions. The results indicated a significant session*time interaction for working memory, precisely in the direct order of DigitSpan, indicating a significant increase from pre to post-in-tervention for the game session with a small effect size (p = 0.012; d = 0.38). After the game session, the children also showed significant improvement, with a mean effect size on the accuracy of the incongruous phase (p = 0.008; d = 0.63) of the Stroop Test and a shorter time to respond compared to the control session (p = 0.029). The study pointed out that physical activity with cognitive engagement had an effect on the inhibitory control of children

Entrainment of Astrocytic and Neuronal Ca2+ Population Dynamics During Information Processing of Working Memory in Mice / 神经科学通报·英文版

Astrocytes are increasingly recognized to play an active role in learning and memory, but whether neural inputs can trigger event-specific astrocytic Ca2+ dynamics in real time to participate in working memory remains unclear due to the difficulties in directly monitoring astrocytic Ca2+ dynamics in animals performing tasks. Here, using fiber photometry, we showed that population astrocytic Ca2+ dynamics in the hippocampus were gated by sensory inputs (centered at the turning point of the T-maze) and modified by the reward delivery during the encoding and retrieval phases. Notably, there was a strong inter-locked and antagonistic relationship between the astrocytic and neuronal Ca2+ dynamics with a 3-s phase difference. Furthermore, there was a robust synchronization of astrocytic Ca2+ at the population level among the hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex, and striatum. The inter-locked, bidirectional communication between astrocytes and neurons at the population level may contribute to the modulation of information processing in working memory.

Evaluation of Mental Workload in Working Memory Tasks with Different Information Types Based on EEG / 中国医疗器械杂志

OBJECTIVE@#Exploring the effectiveness of using EEG linear and nonlinear features for accessing mental workload in different tasks.@*METHODS@#Working memory tasks with different information types and various mental loads were designed based on N-Back paradigm. EEG signals from 18 normal adults were acquired when tasks were being performed. Linear and nonlinear features of EEGs were then extracted. Indices that can effectively reflect mental workload levels were selected by using multivariate analysis of variance statistical approach.@*RESULTS@#With the increment of task load, power of frontal Theta, Theta/Alpha ratio, and sample entropies (scales>10) in parietal regions increased significantly first and decreased slightly then, while the power of central-parietal Alpha decreased significantly first and increased slightly then. No difference in power of frontal Theta, central-parietal Alpha, and sample entropies (scales>10) of parietal regions were found between verbal and object tasks, as well as between two spatial tasks. No difference of frontal Theta/Alpha ratio was found in all the four tasks.@*CONCLUSIONS@#The results can provide evidence for the mental workload evaluation in tasks with different information types.

Research on prediction of daily admissions of respiratory diseases with comorbid diabetes in Beijing based on long short-term memory recurrent neural network / 浙江大学学报·医学版

To compare the performance of generalized additive model (GAM) and long short-term memory recurrent neural network (LSTM-RNN) on the prediction of daily admissions of respiratory diseases with comorbid diabetes. Daily data on air pollutants, meteorological factors and hospital admissions for respiratory diseases from Jan 1st, 2014 to Dec 31st, 2019 in Beijing were collected. LSTM-RNN was used to predict the daily admissions of respiratory diseases with comorbid diabetes, and the results were compared with those of GAM. The evaluation indexes were calculated by five-fold cross validation. Compared with the GAM, the prediction errors of LSTM-RNN were significantly lower [root mean squared error (RMSE): 21.21±3.30 vs. 46.13±7.60, <0.01; mean absolute error (MAE): 14.64±1.99 vs. 36.08±6.20, <0.01], and the value was significantly higher (0.79±0.06 vs. 0.57±0.12, <0.01). In gender stratification, RMSE, MAE and values of LSTM-RNN were better than those of GAM in predicting female admission (all <0.05), but there were no significant difference in predicting male admission between two models (all >0.05). In seasonal stratification, RMSE and MAE of LSTM-RNN were lower than those of GAM in predicting warm season admission (all <0.05), but there was no significant difference in value (>0.05). There were no significant difference in RMSE, MAE and between the two models in predicting cold season admission (all >0.05). In the stratification of functional areas, the RMSE, MAE and values of LSTM-RNN were better than those of GAM in predicting core area admission (all <0.05). has lower prediction errors and better fitting than the GAM, which can provide scientific basis for precise allocation of medical resources in polluted weather in advance.

Electrocardiogram signal classification algorithm of nested long short-term memory network based on focal loss function / 生物医学工程学杂志

Electrocardiogram (ECG) can visually reflect the physiological electrical activity of human heart, which is important in the field of arrhythmia detection and classification. To address the negative effect of label imbalance in ECG data on arrhythmia classification, this paper proposes a nested long short-term memory network (NLSTM) model for unbalanced ECG signal classification. The NLSTM is built to learn and memorize the temporal characteristics in complex signals, and the focal loss function is used to reduce the weights of easily identifiable samples. Then the residual attention mechanism is used to modify the assigned weights according to the importance of sample characteristic to solve the sample imbalance problem. Then the synthetic minority over-sampling technique is used to perform a simple manual oversampling process on the Massachusetts institute of technology and Beth Israel hospital arrhythmia (MIT-BIH-AR) database to further increase the classification accuracy of the model. Finally, the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database is applied to experimentally verify the above algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively solve the issues of imbalanced samples and unremarkable features in ECG signals, and the overall accuracy of the model reaches 98.34%. It also significantly improves the recognition and classification of minority samples and has provided a new feasible method for ECG-assisted diagnosis, which has practical application significance.

Phase amplitude coupling analysis of local field potentials in working memory of rats affected by transcranial magneto-acoustic-electrical stimulation / 生物医学工程学杂志

Transcranial magneto-acoustic-electrical stimulation is a new non-invasive neuromodulation technology, in which the induced electric field generated by the coupling effect of ultrasound and static magnetic field are used to regulate the neural rhythm oscillation activity in the corresponding brain region. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of transcranial magneto-acoustic-electrical stimulation on the information transfer and communication in neuronal clusters during memory. In the experiment, twenty healthy adult Wistar rats were randomly divided into a control group (five rats) and stimulation groups (fifteen rats). Transcranial magneto-acoustic-electrical stimulation of 0.05~0.15 T and 2.66~13.33 W/cm 2 was applied to the rats in stimulation groups, and no stimulation was applied to the rats in the control group. The local field potentials signals in the prefrontal cortex of rats during the T-maze working memory tasks were acquired. Then the coupling differences between delta rhythm phase, theta rhythm phase and gamma rhythm amplitude of rats in different parameter stimulation groups and control group were compared. The experimental results showed that the coupling intensity of delta and gamma rhythm in stimulation groups was significantly lower than that in the control group ( P<0.05), while the coupling intensity of theta and gamma rhythm was significantly higher than that in the control group ( P<0.05). With the increase of stimulation parameters, the degree of coupling between delta and gamma rhythm showed a decreasing trend, while the degree of coupling between theta and gamma rhythm tended to increase. The preliminary results of this paper indicated that transcranial magneto-acoustic-electrical stimulation inhibited delta rhythmic neuronal activity and enhanced the oscillation of theta and gamma rhythm in the prefrontal cortex, thus promoted the exchange and transmission of information between neuronal clusters in different spatial scales. This lays the foundation for further exploring the mechanism of transcranial magneto-acoustic-electrical stimulation in regulating brain memory function.

Neurovascular coupling analysis of working memory based on electroencephalography and functional near-infrared spectroscopy / 生物医学工程学杂志

Working memory is an important foundation for advanced cognitive function. The paper combines the spatiotemporal advantages of electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore the neurovascular coupling mechanism of working memory. In the data analysis, the convolution matrix of time series of different trials in EEG data and hemodynamic response function (HRF) and the blood oxygen change matrix of fNIRS are extracted as the coupling characteristics. Then, canonical correlation analysis (CCA) is used to calculate the cross correlation between the two modal features. The results show that CCA algorithm can extract the similar change trend of related components between trials, and fNIRS activation of frontal pole region and dorsolateral prefrontal lobe are correlated with the delta, theta, and alpha rhythms of EEG data. This study reveals the mechanism of neurovascular coupling of working memory, and provides a new method for fusion of EEG data and fNIRS data.

Long short-term memory and Logistic regression for mortality risk prediction of intensive care unit patients with stroke / 北京大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#To select variables related to mortality risk of stroke patients in intensive care unit (ICU) through long short-term memory (LSTM) with attention mechanisms and Logistic regression with L1 norm, and to construct mortality risk prediction model based on conventional Logistic regression with important variables selected from the two models and to evaluate the model performance.@*METHODS@#Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC)-Ⅳ database was retrospectively analyzed and the patients who were primarily diagnosed with stroke were selected as study population. The outcome was defined as whether the patient died in hospital after admission. Candidate predictors included demogra-phic information, complications, laboratory tests and vital signs in the initial 48 h after ICU admission. The data were randomly divided into a training set and a test set for ten times at a ratio of 8 ∶2. In training sets, LSTM with attention mechanisms and Logistic regression with L1 norm were constructed to select important variables. In the test sets, the mean importance of variables of ten times was used as a reference to pick out the top 10 variables in each of the two models, and then these variables were included in conventional Logistic regression to build the final prediction model. Model evaluation was based on the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. And the model performance was compared with the forward Logistic regression model which hadn't conducted variable selection previously.@*RESULTS@#A total of 2 755 patients with 2 979 ICU admission records were included in the analysis, of which 526 recorded deaths. The AUC of Logistic regression model with L1 norm was statistically better than that of LSTM with attention mechanisms (0.819±0.031 vs. 0.760±0.018, P < 0.001). Age, blood glucose, and blood urea nitrogen were at the top ten important variables in both of the two models. AUC, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of Logistic regression models were 0.85, 85.98%, 71.74% and 74.26%, respectively. And the final prediction model was superior to forward Logistic regression model.@*CONCLUSION@#The variables selected by Logistic regression with L1 norm and LSTM with attention mechanisms had good prediction performance, which showed important implications on the mortality prediction of stroke patients in ICU.

Research on muscle fatigue recognition model based on improved wavelet denoising and long short-term memory / 生物医学工程学杂志

The automatic recognition technology of muscle fatigue has widespread application in the field of kinesiology and rehabilitation medicine. In this paper, we used surface electromyography (sEMG) to study the recognition of leg muscle fatigue during circuit resistance training. The purpose of this study was to solve the problem that the sEMG signals have a lot of noise interference and the recognition accuracy of the existing muscle fatigue recognition model is not high enough. First, we proposed an improved wavelet threshold function denoising algorithm to denoise the sEMG signal. Then, we build a muscle fatigue state recognition model based on long short-term memory (LSTM), and used the Holdout method to evaluate the performance of the model. Finally, the denoising effect of the improved wavelet threshold function denoising method proposed in this paper was compared with the denoising effect of the traditional wavelet threshold denoising method. We compared the performance of the proposed muscle fatigue recognition model with that of particle swarm optimization support vector machine (PSO-SVM) and convolutional neural network (CNN). The results showed that the new wavelet threshold function had better denoising performance than hard and soft threshold functions. The accuracy of LSTM network model in identifying muscle fatigue was 4.89% and 2.47% higher than that of PSO-SVM and CNN, respectively. The sEMG signal denoising method and muscle fatigue recognition model proposed in this paper have important implications for monitoring muscle fatigue during rehabilitation training and exercise.

Single-channel electroencephalogram signal used for sleep state recognition based on one-dimensional width kernel convolutional neural networks and long-short-term memory networks / 生物医学工程学杂志

Aiming at the problem that the unbalanced distribution of data in sleep electroencephalogram(EEG) signals and poor comfort in the process of polysomnography information collection will reduce the model's classification ability, this paper proposed a sleep state recognition method using single-channel EEG signals (WKCNN-LSTM) based on one-dimensional width kernel convolutional neural networks(WKCNN) and long-short-term memory networks (LSTM). Firstly, the wavelet denoising and synthetic minority over-sampling technique-Tomek link (SMOTE-Tomek) algorithm were used to preprocess the original sleep EEG signals. Secondly, one-dimensional sleep EEG signals were used as the input of the model, and WKCNN was used to extract frequency-domain features and suppress high-frequency noise. Then, the LSTM layer was used to learn the time-domain features. Finally, normalized exponential function was used on the full connection layer to realize sleep state. The experimental results showed that the classification accuracy of the one-dimensional WKCNN-LSTM model was 91.80% in this paper, which was better than that of similar studies in recent years, and the model had good generalization ability. This study improved classification accuracy of single-channel sleep EEG signals that can be easily utilized in portable sleep monitoring devices.

Linguagem oral, processamento fonológico e memória visuoespacial em crianças com histórico de subnutrição leve na primeira infância / Oral language, phonological processing, and visuospatial memory in children with a history of mild malnutrition in early childhood

RESUMO Objetivo investigar o desempenho de crianças com histórico de subnutrição de grau leve na primeira infância, em tarefas que avaliam a linguagem oral, processamento fonológico e memória visuoespacial. Método participaram 36 crianças (media de idade 5,3 anos; desvio padrão = 0,57), sendo nove crianças que tiveram diagnóstico de subnutrição entre 0 e 3 anos de idade (G1); nove eutróficas e com atraso de linguagem (G2) e 18 crianças eutróficas com desenvolvimento típico de linguagem (G3). Todas foram submetidas a procedimentos de triagem auditiva, diagnóstico do estado nutricional atual e testes de linguagem, processamento fonológico e de memória operacional - esboço visuoespacial. Foi realizada análise estatística por meio do Teste de Igualdade de Proporções e Kruskal-Wallis (α = 5%). Resultados foram observadas diferenças no desempenho nas tarefas de linguagem receptiva e expressiva de G1 e G2, em relação ao G3. O desempenho nas tarefas de memória de trabalho - esboço visuoespacial foi significativamente diferente entre G1 e G3 e G2 e G3. Não houve diferença entre os grupos no teste de vocabulário emissivo, aspecto fonológico, consciência fonológica e memória operacional fonológica. Conclusão crianças com histórico de subnutrição de grau leve durante o período crítico de desenvolvimento cerebral podem apresentar prejuízos na linguagem, principalmente na área receptiva, e desempenho restrito em outras habilidades cognitivas, tais como memória de trabalho - esboço visuoespacial.

ABSTRACT Purpose To investigate the performance of children with a history of mild malnutrition in early childhood in tasks that assess oral language, phonological processing and visuospatial memory. Methods Thirty-six children participated (mean age 5.3 years; standard deviation = 0.57), with 9 children diagnosed with malnutrition between 0 and 3 years old (G1); 9 eutrophic and with language delay (G2) and; 18 eutrophic children with typical language development (G3). All were submitted to hearing screening procedures, diagnosis of current nutritional status and tests of language, phonological processing and working memory - visuospatial sketch. Statistical analysis was performed using the Test of Equality of Proportions and the Kruskal-Wallis test (α = 5%). Results Differences were observed in the performance in receptive and expressive language tasks of G1 and G2 in relation to G3. Performance on working memory tasks - visuospatial sketch was significantly different between G1 and G3 and G2 and G3. There was no difference between the groups concerning expressivevocabulary, phonological aspect, phonological awareness and phonological working memory. Conclusion Children with a history of mild malnutrition during the critical period of brain development may have language impairments, especially in the receptive area, and restricted performance in other cognitive skills, such as working memory - visuospatial sketch.

Number sense: the mediating effect between nonverbal intelligence and children's mathematical performance

The study explored the mediating effect of number sense between nonverbal intelligence and children's mathematical performance. The sample consisted of 131 pupils in Shaoxing City of China from grades 1, 3, and 5. The students completed measures of nonverbal intelligence, number sense, basic arithmetic ability, mathematical performance, rapid automatized naming, and working memory. Results show that although all variables significantly relate with each other (all p < .01), only nonverbal intelligence, number sense, and basic arithmetic ability significantly affect children's mathematical performance (all p < .01). According to multiple-mediation model, nonverbal intelligence significantly predicts children's mathematical performance through number sense and basic arithmetic ability. These findings suggest that domain-specific mathematical skills play a prominent role in children's mathematical performance in primary school, rather than domain-general cognitive functions. Educators should pay attention to develop children's number sense in order to improve children's mathematical ability. (AU)