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In recent years, increasing evidence of the positive impact of Virtual Reality (VR) on neurofeedback training has emerged. The immersive properties of VR training scenarios have been shown to facilitate neurofeedback learning while leading to cognitive enhancements such as increased working memory performance. However, in the design of an immersive VR environment, there are several covariates that can influence the level of immersion. To date, the specific factors which contribute to the improvement of neurofeedback performance have not yet been clarified. This research aims to investigate the effects of vividness in a Cave automatic virtual environment (CAVE-VR) on neurofeedback training outcome, and to assess the effect on working memory performance. To achieve this, we recruited 21 participants, exposed to neurofeedback training inside a CAVE-VR environment. Participants were divided into three experimental groups, each of which received feedback in a different neurofeedback training scenario with increasing level of vividness (i.e., low, medium, high) while also assessing the effect of neurofeedback on working memory performance. Current findings show that highly vivid feedback in CAVE-VR results in increased neurofeedback performance. In addition, highly vivid training scenarios had a positive effect on user’s motivation, concentration, and reduced boredom. Finally, current results corroborate the efficacy of the neurofeedback enhancement protocol in CAVE-VR for improving working memory performance.

Objetivo: Conhecer as experiências, práticas e desafios para o desenvolvimento do Programa Saúde na Escola pela Atenção Básica à Saúde. Metodologia: Conduziu-se um estudo de revisão integrativa de literatura, as bases de dados secundários utilizadas foram a Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde, Literatura Latino - Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (LILACS) e a Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo). A busca dos artigos foi realizada por meio dos descritores Serviços de Saúde Escolar, Estratégia Saúde da Família e Atenção Básica à Saúde. Resultados: Foram encontrados 28 artigos na base de dados Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde, 63 na Scielo e 17 na LILACS, com auxílio dos critérios de inclusão e exclusão a amostra final foi composta por 17 artigos. O Programa Saúde na Escola é uma oportunidade ímpar de aproximação dos setores saúde e educação, sendo uma estratégia de promoção à saúde dos estudantes, com inúmeros benefícios. Study completion: As ações desenvolvidas nas escolas são pontuais e assistemáticas, apenas como respostas a demandas específicas, o que limita o alcance das ações do Programa Saúde na Escola.

The idea of the epileptic brain being highly excitable and facilitated to synchronic activity has guided pharmacological treatment since the early twentieth century. Although tackling epilepsy's seizure-prone feature, by tonically modifying overall circuit excitability and/or connectivity, the last 50 years of drug development has not seen a substantial improvement in seizure suppression of refractory epilepsies. This review presents a new conceptual framework for epilepsy in which the temporal dynamics of the disease plays a more critical role in both its understanding and therapeutic strategies. The repetitive epileptiform pattern (characteristic during ictal activity) and other well-defined electrographic signatures (i.e., present during the interictal period) are discussed in terms of the sequential activation of the circuit motifs. Lessons learned from the physiological activation of neural circuitry are used to further corroborate the argument and explore the transition from proper function to a state of instability. Furthermore, the review explores how interfering in the temporally dependent abnormal connectivity between circuits may work as a therapeutic approach. We also review the use of probing stimulation to access network connectivity and evaluate its power to determine transitional states of the dynamical system as it moves towards regions of instability, especially when conventional electrographic monitoring is proven inefficient. Unorthodox cases, with little or no scalp electrographic correlate, in which ictogenic circuitry and/or seizure spread is temporally restricted to neurovegetative, cognitive, and motivational areas are shown as possible explanations for sudden death in epilepsy (SUDEP) and other psychiatric comorbidities. In short, this review presents a paradigm shift in the way that we address the disease and is aimed to encourage debate rather than narrow the rationale epilepsy is currently engaged in. This article is part of the Special Issue “NEWroscience 2018".

A discussão sobre o stress na sociedade tem vindo a aumentar por parte dos especialistas. O stress ocupacional é um conjunto de reações emocionais, cognitivas, comportamentais e fisiológicas face às adversidades no trabalho, caracterizadas por elevados níveis de excitação e perturbação, normalmente acompanhadas por sentimentos de incapacidade (Comissão Europeia, 2002). Através da aplicação do questionário de stress nos Professores (QSP) de Gomes, Montenegro, Peixoto e Peixoto (2010), procuramos compreender quais os níveis de stress nos professores do 2º e 3º ciclo do ensino básico. Desta forma, foram inquiridos 50 professores com média de idades e tempos de serviço compreendidos entre 43.9 e os 17.38 respetivamente. Realizou-se uma comparação de médias através do t-test de amostras independentes entre as variáveis, ciclo de ensino do professor e situação profissional (contratados e quadro). Os resultados não demonstraram diferenças estatisticamente significativas, porém, pode-se referir que os níveis de stress dos professores se situam entre o “moderado stress” e o “bastante stress”. Os professores sentem mais stress quando os alunos revelam comportamentos inadequados enquanto que a falta de motivação e de capacidades dos alunos se revela como fator pouco relevante para o aumento de stress dos professores., The discussion about stress in society has been increasing by experts. Occupational stress is a set of emotional, cognitive, behavioral and physiological reactions to adversity at work, characterized by high levels of excitement and disturbance, usually accompanied by feelings of incapacity (European Commission, 2002). Through the application of the Teachers' Stress Questionnaire (QSP) by Gomes, Montenegro, Peixoto and Peixoto (2010), we seek to understand the stress levels in teachers in the 2nd and 3rd cycle of basic education. In this way, 50 teachers were surveyed with an average age and length of service between 43.9 and 17.38 respectively. A comparison of means was carried out through the t-test of independent samples between the variables, the teacher's teaching cycle and professional situation (contractors and staff). The results did not show statistically significant differences, however, it can be said that the teachers' stress levels are between “moderate stress” and “quite stress”. Teachers feel more stress when students show inappropriate behaviors, while students 'lack of motivation and skills is not a relevant factor in increasing teachers' stress.

Submitted by António Freitas (amsf@uma.pt) on 2021-02-12T10:26:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Lessons Learned from Gamifying Functional Fitness Training Through Human-Centered Design Methods in Older Adults.pdf: 2351491 bytes, checksum: 75afb849701826d1386df2bb3deb6f8c (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2021-02-12T10:26:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lessons Learned from Gamifying Functional Fitness Training Through Human-Centered Design Methods in Older Adults.pdf: 2351491 bytes, checksum: 75afb849701826d1386df2bb3deb6f8c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019 info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In this article, we provide an overview of the design and features of a portable exergaming platform with augmented reality components whose intention is to fight the sedentary lifestyle and promote active aging for older people. Exergames are projected on the floor, and the user’ movements and gestures are tracked by motion-sensing technology while interacting with the games. By playing the exergames, older adults can work on their physical fitness while training the cognitive function through a rich diversification of stimuli.

Lack of motivation during physical rehabilitation is a very common problem that worsens the efficacy of rehabilitation, decreasing the recovery rates of the patient. We suggest a gamified upper-limb rehabilitation that incorporates adaptive gameplay and difficulty so as to overcome that issue, emerging as a support tool for physical therapy professionals. The presence of difficulty adjustment in the game allows a higher motivation level for the patients by preserving the trade off between keeping the difficulty low enough to avoid frustration, but high enough to promote motivation and engagement. This rehabilitation game is a home-based system that allows the patient to exercise at home, due to its Kinect-based portable setup. The game aims to increase the motivation of the patients and thus the speed of their recovery. To accomplish that goal, it is key to potentiate a full immersion into the therapeutic activity. Thus gamification elements, gameplay design and adaptive difficulty are explored and incorporated into the concept.

The rat inferior colliculus (IC) is a major midbrain relay for ascending inputs from the auditory brain stem and has been suggested to play a key role in the processing of aversive sounds. Previous studies have demonstrated that auditory fear conditioning (AFC) potentiates transient responses to brief tones in the IC, but it remains unexplored whether AFC modifies responses to sustained periodic acoustic stimulation-a type of response called the steady-state evoked potential (SSEP). Here we used an amplitude-modulated tone-a 10-kHz tone with a sinusoidal amplitude modulation of 53.7 Hz-as the conditioning stimulus (CS) in an AFC protocol (5 CSs per day in 3 consecutive days) while recording local field potentials (LFPs) from the IC. In the preconditioning session (

Accumulating evidence from different animal models has contributed to the understanding of the bidirectional comorbidity associations between the epileptic condition and behavioral abnormalities. A strain of animals inbred to enhance seizure predisposition to high-intensity sound stimulation, the Wistar audiogenic rat (WAR), underwent several behavioral tests: forced swim test (FST), open-field test (OFT), sucrose preference test (SPT), elevated plus maze (EPM), social preference (SP), marble burying test (MBT), inhibitory avoidance (IAT), and two-way active avoidance (TWAA). The choice of tests aimed to investigate the correlation between underlying circuits believed to be participating in both WAR's innate susceptibility to sound-triggered seizures and the neurobiological substrates associated with test performance. Comparing WAR with its Wistar counterpart (i.e., resistant to audiogenic seizures) showed that WARs present behavioral despair traits (e.g., increased FST immobility) but no evidence of anhedonic behavior (e.g., increased sucrose consumption in SPT) or social impairment (e.g., no difference regarding juvenile exploration in SP). In addition, tests suggested that WARs are unable to properly evaluate degrees of aversiveness (e.g., performance on OFT, EPM, MBT, IAT, and TWAA). The particularities of the WAR model opens new venues to further untangle the neurobiology underlying the co-morbidity of behavioral disorders and epilepsy. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Genetic and Reflex Epilepsies, Audiogenic Seizures and Strains: From Experimental Models to the Clinic".

Inputting information to the brain through direct electrical microstimulation must consider how underlying neural networks encode information. One unexplored possibility is that a single electrode delivering temporally coded stimuli, mimicking an asynchronous serial communication port to the brain, can trigger the emergence of different brain states. This work used a discriminative fear-conditioning paradigm in rodents in which 2 temporally coded microstimulation patterns were targeted at the amygdaloid complex. Each stimulus was a binary-coded "word" made up of 10 ms bins, with 1's representing a single pulse stimulus: A-1001111001 and B-1110000111. During 3 consecutive retention tests (i.e., day-word: 1-B; 2-A, and 3-B), only binary-coded words previously paired with a foot-electroshock elicited proper aversive behavior. To determine the neural substrates recruited by the different stimulation patterns, c-Fos expression was evaluated 90 min after the last retention test. Animals conditioned to word-B, after stimulation with word-B, demonstrated increased hypothalamic c-Fos staining. Animals conditioned to word-A, however, showed increased prefrontal c-Fos labeling. In addition, prefrontal-cortex and hypothalamic c-Fos staining for, respectively, word-B- and word-A-conditioned animals, was not different than that of an unpaired control group. Our results suggest that, depending on the valence acquired from previous learning, temporally coded microstimulation activates distinct neural networks and associated behavior.

Physical activity has been proposed as a behavioral intervention that improves learning and memory; nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying these health benefits are still not well understood. Neuronal Calcium Sensor-1 (NCS-1) is a member of a superfamily of proteins that respond to local Ca(2+) changes shown to have an important role in learning and memory. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of swimming training on NCS-1 levels in the rat brain after accessing cognitive performance. Wistar rats were randomly assigned to sedentary (SG) or exercised groups (EG). The EG was subject to forced swimming activity, 30 min/day, 5 days/week, during 8 weeks. Progressive load trials were performed in the first and last week in order to access the efficiency of the training. After the 8 week training protocol, memory performance was evaluated by the novel object preference and object location tasks. NCS-1 levels were measured in the cortex and hippocampus using immunoblotting. The EG performed statistically better for the spatial short-term memory (0.73 ± 0.01) when compared to the SG (0.63 ± 0.02; P0.05). No statistically significant exercise-effect was observed in the novel object preference task (SG 0.65 ± 0.02 and EG 0.68 ± 0.02; p0.05). In addition, chronic exercise promoted a significant increase in hippocampal NCS-1 levels (1.8 ± 0.1) when compared to SG (1.17 ± 0.08; P0,05), but had no effect on cortical NCS-1 levels (SG 1.6 ± 0.1 and EG 1.5 ± 0.1; p0.05). Results suggest that physical exercise would modulate the state of the neural network regarding its potential for plastic changes: physical exercise could be modulating NCS-1 in an activity dependent manner, for specific neural substrates, thus enhancing the cellular/neuronal capability for plastic changes in these areas; which, in turn, would differentially effect ORM task performance for object recognition and displacement.

In the PTZ animal model of epilepsy, electrical stimulation applied to the amygdaloid complex may result in either pro-convulsive or anticonvulsant effect, depending on the temporal pattern used (i.e. periodic-PS and non-periodic-NPS electrical stimulation). Our hypothesis is that the anatomical target is a determinant factor for the differential effect of temporally-coded patterns on seizure outcome. The threshold dose of PTZ to elicit forelimb clonus and generalized tonic–clonic seizure behavior was measured. The effect of amygdaloid complex PS on forelimb clonus threshold showed a pro-convulsive effect while NPS was anticonvulsant. NPS also significantly increased generalized tonic–clonic threshold; while PS, although at lower threshold levels, did not present statistical significance. Thalamus stimulation did not affect forelimb clonus threshold and showed similar anticonvulsant profiles for both PS and NPS on generalized tonic–clonic threshold. In summary, the anatomical target is a determinant factor on whether temporally-coded ES differentially modulates seizure outcome.

A Medicina Veterinária Legal é uma área em crescimento devido à demanda da sociedade na coibição dos crimes contra a fauna. No Brasil, pouco se conhece acerca da magnitude deste problema. Além disso, a investigação dos crimes contra a fauna é dificultada pela baixa disponibilidade de médicos veterinários e de órgãos especializados trabalhando em sintonia com a Polícia Judiciária e a Justiça, na elaboração da prova médico veterinária legal. A perfeita sintonia entre as partes pode ser alcançada por meio da comunicação adequada, que se concretiza por meio do laudo pericial. Assim, o presente estudo propôs-se a estimar a incidência dos casos de crimes contra a fauna praticados contra cães e gatos, em São Paulo, bem como a elaborar um modelo de laudo de exame de necroscopia, para ser utilizado nestes casos. Em primeiro lugar, foi realizado um levantamento retrospectivo dos casos encaminhados a dois órgãos distintos que lidam com esta modalidade de crime em sua rotina de atendimento: o Departamento de Patologia da FMVZ/USP e o Núcleo de Análise Instrumental do Instituto de Criminalística de São Paulo (NAI/IC). Este levantamento possibilitou a visualização do perfil quantitativo e qualitativo dos casos de maus-tratos a cães e gatos, no período de 2003 a 2009. Felinos são mais afetados pela prática de maus-tratos que caninos, não há diferença em relação ao sexo, predominam animais jovens e os agentes mais utilizados são os carbamatos. A seguir foi realizada uma pesquisa retrospectiva de laudos de exames de necropsia, que possibilitou a elaboração de um modelo de laudo, para ser utilizado na normatização de laudos de exame de necropsia elaborados pelo Departamento de Patologia da FMVZ/USP, em casos de crimes contra a fauna, a fim de melhorar a comunicação entre médicos veterinários e as demais partes envolvidas nos processos de crimes contra a fauna. Legal Veterinary Medicine is a growing field due to the demand of the society in restraint of crimes against fauna. In Brazil little is known about the magnitude of this problem. Furthermore investigation of crimes against fauna is rendered difficult by the low availability of veterinarians and specialized agencies working in harmony with Jucidial Police and Justice in the development of veterinary medical legal evidence. The perfect coordination of these efforts can be achieved through appropriate communication which is performed by the expert report. Thus, this study aimed to estimate the occurrence of cases of crimes committed against dogs and cats in the city of Sao Paulo, and develop a model for necroscopy examination report, to be used in these cases. First, it was performed a retrospective review of cases referred to two separate institutional departments dealing with this type of crime in their routine attendance: the Department of Pathology of FMVZ/USP and the Instrumental Analysis Laboratory of the Criminalistics Institute of Sao Paulo (NAI/IC). This survey allowed the visualization of the annual distribution and quantitative and qualitative profile of cases of mistreatment of dogs and cats, in the period of 2003 to 2009. Felines are more affected by the practice of mistreatment than canines; there is no difference regarding gender, predominantly young animals and the agents most commonly used are carbamates. Then it was performed a retrospective study of reports of necropsy examinations, which enabled the elaboration of a model report to be used in the standardization of medical examination reports for autopsy prepared by the Department of Pathology of FMVZ/USP to improve communication between veterinarians and other parties involved in cases of crimes against fauna.