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Background and Objectives Agitation, a critical behavioral and psychological symptom in dementia, has a profound impact on a patients' quality of life as well as their caregivers'. Autonomous and objective characterization of agitation with multimodal systems has the potential to capture key patient responses or agitation triggers. Research Design and Methods In this article, we describe our multimodal system design that encompasses contextual parameters, physiological parameters, and psychological parameters. This design is the first to include all three of these facets in an n > 1 study. Using a combination of fixed and wearable sensors and a custom-made app for psychological annotation, we aim to identify physiological markers and contextual triggers of agitation. Results A discussion of both the clinical as well as the technical implementation of the to-date data collection protocol is presented, as well as initial insights into pilot study data collection. Discussion and Implications The ongoing data collection moves us toward improved agitation quantification and subsequent prediction, eventually enabling just-in-time intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is evidence of emotion perception deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), research on this topic has been mostly confined to perception of emotions in faces. Using behavioral measures and 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined whether such deficits extend to the perception of bodily expressed emotions. We found that individuals with ASD, in contrast to neurotypical (NT) individuals, did not exhibit a differential pattern of brain activation to bodies expressing fear as compared with emotionally neutral bodies. ASD and NT individuals showed similar patterns of activation in response to bodies engaged in emotionally neutral actions, with the exception of decreased activation in the inferior frontal cortex and the anterior insula in ASD. We discuss these findings in relation to possible abnormalities in a network of cortical and subcortical mechanisms involved in social orienting and emotion contagion. Our data suggest that emotion perception deficits in ASD may be due to compromised processing of the emotional component of observed actions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As observers we excel in decoding the emotional signals telling us that a social interaction is turning violent. The neural substrate and its modulation by personality traits remain ill understood. We performed an fMRI experiment in which participants watched videos displaying a violent conflict between two people. Observers' attention was directed to either the aggressor or the victim. Focusing on the aggressor (vs. focusing on the victim) activated the superior temporal sulcus (STS), extra-striate body area (EBA), occipital poles and centro-medial amygdala (CMA). Stronger instantaneous connectivity occurred between these and the EBA, insula, and the red nucleus. When focusing on the victim, basolateral amygdala (BLA) activation was related to trait empathy and showed increased connectivity with the insula and red nucleus. STS activation was associated with trait aggression and increased connectivity with the hypothalamus. The findings reveal that focusing on the aggressor of a violent conflict triggers more activation in categorical (EBA) and emotion (CMA, STS) areas. This is associated with increased instantaneous connectivity among emotion areas (CMA-insula) and between categorical and emotion (EBA-STS) areas. When the focus is on the victim, personality traits (aggression/empathy) modulate activity in emotion areas (respectively STS and postcentral gyrus/ BLA), along with connectivity in the emotional diencephalon (hypothalamus) and early visual areas (occipital pole). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]