Movement parameters that distinguish between voluntary movements and levodopa-induced dyskinesia in Parkinson's disease

It is well known that long-term use of levodopa by patients with Parkinson's disease causes dyskinesia. Several methods have been proposed for the automatic, unsupervised detection and classification of levodopa induced dyskinesia. Recently, we have demonstrated that neural networks are highly successful to detect dyskinesia and to distinguish dyskinesia from voluntary movements. The aim of this study was to use the trained neural networks to extract parameters, which are important to distinguish between dyskinesia and voluntary movements.Thirteen patients were continuously monitored in a home-like situation performing in about 35 daily life tasks for a period of approximately 2.5 h. Behavior of the patients was measured using triaxial accelerometers, which were placed at six different positions of the body. A neural network was trained to assess the severity of dyskinesia. The neural network was able to assess the severity of dyskinesia and could distinguish dyskinesia from voluntary movements in daily life. For the trunk and the leg, the important parameters appeared to be the percentage of time that the trunk or leg was moving and the standard deviation of the segment velocity of the less dyskinetic leg. For the arm, the combination of the percentage of time, that the wrist was moving, and the percentage of time, that a patient was sitting, explained the largest part of the variance of the output. Dyskinesia differs from voluntary movements in the fact that dyskinetic movements tend to have lower frequencies than voluntary movements and in the fact that movements of different body segments are not well coordinated in dyskinesia.     

Commanding the direction of passive whole-body rotations facilitates egocentric spatial updating

In conditions of slow passive transport without vision, even tenuous inertial signals from semi-circular canals and the haptic-kinaesthetic system should provide information about changes relative to the environment provided that it is possible to command the direction of the body's movements voluntarily. Without such control, spatial updating should be impaired because incoming signals cannot be compared to the expected sensory consequences provided by voluntary command. Participants were seated in a rotative robot (Robuter) and learnt the positions of five objects in their surroundings. They were then blindfolded and assigned either to the active group (n=7) or to the passive group (n=7). Members of the active group used a joystick to control the direction of rotation of the robot. The acceleration (25 degrees /s2) and plateau velocity (9 degrees /s) were kept constant. The participants of the passive group experienced the same stimuli passively. After the rotations, the participants had to point to the objects whilst blindfolded. Participants in the active group significantly outperformed the participants in the passive group. Thus, even tenuous inertial cues are useful for spatial updating in the absence of vision, provided that such signals are integrated as feedback associated with intended motor command.     

The prospects of precision psychiatry

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - Since the turn of the twenty-first century, biomedical psychiatry around the globe has embraced the so-called precision medicine paradigm, a model for medical...     

Intended responses to romantic partners’ annoying behaviours vary with willpower beliefs

When a romantic partner behaves in an annoying way – for example, by leaving a mess – we might respond with frustration or understanding. Responses may vary with contextual factors, including whether the partner could be mentally fatigued or depleted. We hypothesized that limited willpower theorists – who believe self-control diminishes with use – might be especially likely to consider their partner’s preceding mental exertion. Two preregistered studies (combined N = 428) examined participants’ responses to four hypothetical scenarios. Limited theorists responded more compassionately to infractions performed after fatiguing days than to those performed after relaxing days; non-limited theorists responded more consistently, regardless of context. Beliefs about one’s own willpower, rather than beliefs about one’s partner’s willpower, can affect how people respond to their partner’s undesirable behaviours.     

Bergson’s panpsychism

Physical processes manifest an objective order that science manages to discover. Commonly, it is considered that these processes obey the “laws of nature.” Bergson disputes this idea which ultimately constitutes a kind of Platonism. In contrast, he develops the idea that physical processes are a particular case of automatic behaviors. In this sense, they imply a motor memory immanent to matter, whose actions are triggered by some perceptions. This approach is obviously panpsychist. It gives matter a certain consciousness, even if the latter is different in nature from our consciousness. In some respects, this approach is similar to contemporary panpsychism because it claims that the psychic is a fundamental characteristic of nature, causally active. But it is also original because it does not constitute a theory of the origin of mind in nature.     

Tracks to a Medical Diagnosis: Expertise Differences in Visual Problem Solving

This study focuses on the visual problem‐solving process of clinical pathologists. Its aim is to find expertise‐related differences in the temporal arrangement of this process, with a special focus on the orientation phase. A theoretical model of the visual diagnostic process of medical specialists is extended with general problem‐solving theory. Participants were 13 experts, 12 intermediates, and 13 novices, who all diagnosed seven microscopic images. Their microscope movements and thinking aloud were recorded. To study temporal arrangement of the process, we applied a time‐grid to the data. The results reflected several aspects of general problem‐solving theory. Experts and intermediates showed a more extensive orientation phase and more refined schemata than novices. Intermediates also showed a control phase at the end of the diagnostic process. Novices showed a uniform process. These phases were reflected in microscope navigation and thinking aloud, which justifies the extension of the theoretical model.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measuring adaptive expertise: development and validation of an instrument

Individuals with adaptive expertise possess the skills to deal with novel problems. Whereas this concept has been around since the mid-1980s, no instrument exists that provides a good operationalization of the theoretical construct. This inhibits the further development of research on adaptive expertise and the evaluation of employees’ adaptive expertise levels. Adaptive expertise has been unanimously described as a composition of domain-specific and innovative skills. Some researchers argue that metacognitive skills are also crucial. This study aimed to establish whether an instrument measuring adaptive expertise is composed of these three dimensions. In addition, it was tested whether such an instrument is influenced by task variety and work experience, as previously reported in literature. A sample of 383 professionals and graduates were used to test the Adaptive Expertise Inventory. Through exploratory factor analysis (EFA), (E/CFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the quality of the instrument was evaluated. Good model fit was achieved. The final instrument consisted of two dimensions—i.e., domain-specific and innovative skills—with five items each. Regression analysis showed that not work experience, but task variety is related to level of adaptive expertise. The Adaptive Expertise Inventory proved to be a valid instrument for measuring adaptive expertise.     

What Ethics for Bioart?

Living artworks created with biotechnology raise a range of ethical questions, some of which are unprecedented, others well known from other contexts. These questions are often discussed within the framework of bioethics, the ethics of the life sciences. The basic concern of institutionalised bioethics is to develop and implement ethical guidelines for ethically responsible handling of living material in technological and scientific contexts. Notably, discussions of ethical issues in bioart do not refer to existing discourses on art and morality from the field of aesthetics. The latter framework is primarily concerned with how the moral value of an artwork affects its artistic value. The author argues that a successful integration of these two frameworks will make possible an ethics of bioart that is adequate to its subject matter and relevant for practice. Such an integrated approach can give increased depth to understandings of ethical issues in bioart, inspire new ways of thinking about ethics in relation to art in general and give novel impulses to bioethics and technology assessment. Artworks by the Tissue Culture and Art Project and their reception serve as the empirical starting point for connecting perspectives in art with those of bioethics, developing an ethics for bioart. The author suggests that consideration of the effect of these artworks is vital in validating ethically problematical applications of biotechnology for art. It is argued that the affective, visceral qualities of living artworks may spur the audience to adjust, revise or develop their personal ethical framework.