Search

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a motor neuron disease characterized by the progressive atrophy of both the first and the second motor neurons. Although the cognitive profile of ALS patients has already been defined by the occurrence of language dysfunctions and frontal deficit symptoms, it is less clear whether the degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons affects motor imagery abilities. Here, we directly investigated motor imagery in ALS patients by means of an established task that allows to examine the presence of the effects of the biomechanical constraints. Twenty-three ALS patients and 23 neurologically unimpaired participants have been administered with the (1) hand laterality task (HLT) in which participants were asked to judge the laterality of a rotated hand and the (2) mirror letter discrimination task (MLD) in which participants were asked to judge whether a rotated alphanumeric character was in its canonical or mirror-reversed form (i.e. control task). Results show that patients present the same pattern of performance as unimpaired participants at the MLD, while at the HLT, they present only partially with the effects of biomechanical constraints. Taken together, our findings provide evidences that motor imagery abilities, related to the mental simulation of an action, are affected by this progressive disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A highly oriented cubic texture (full width at half maximum <10°) has been formed in long length NiFe tapes. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron back-scattered patterns (EBSP) and optical microscopy (OM) techniques have been used in assessing the surface and volume texture and also the surface morphology of these kilometer long NiFe substrates. This texture was formed under a range of conditions including dynamic annealing in a reduced atmosphere and static annealing in hydrogen and in vacuum. Heat treatment for excessive times in vacuum tends to roughen the surface and should be avoided. Mechanical polishing can induce an additional undesirable texture, but electropolishing gives smooth tapes with good texture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]