Changes In Electrical Activity Research Articles

Changes in Electrical Activity of the Diaphragm in Response to Painful Procedures in Neonates

Background: Premature neonates are exposed to numerous painful procedures. Physiologic fluctuations in heart rate (HR), respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation are typically used to determine the response to pain. Neurally assisted ventilatory assist (NAVA) delivers inspiratory pressure in proportion to the electrical activity of the diaphragm (Edi). Since NAVA allows self-regulation of peak inspiratory pressures (PIP), there is apprehension that painful stimulus may increase respiratory drive and result in ex- cessive PIP. This study evaluated changes in respiratory drive, measured by Edi, in response to a painful procedure (heel stick) to determine if there was excessive PIP delivered from the ventilator. Methods: Prospective, single-center study; subjects <32 weeks on NAVA/NIV NAVA requiring routine blood work via heel sticks. Vital signs were measured every 10 seconds for the first 2 minutes. PIP, Edi peak, and min were collected for the first ten breaths and then averaged at 1 and 2 minutes. Statistics were repeated measures ANOVA. Results: Fourteen subjects with gestational age 26.9+2 weeks and birth weight 994+318 grams. At study, the average age was 4.6+5 days, and weight was 948+305 grams. Following the heel stick, the first breath showed an increase in PIP and Edi peak but returned to baseline by the second breath. PIP increased again by the10th breath and at 1 and 2 minutes. HR increased after heel stick and remained elevated through the remainder of the study. There were no changes in tonic Edi, Edi min or other vital signs. Conclusion: Although the increase in PIP and Edi peak in response to heel stick pain was brief and limited, it is important always to set the PIP alarm limit appropriately to protect the lung from excessive pressures that may be generated during painful procedures.

Use of Quantitative Electroencephalography Biomarker in Characterizing Mild Cognitive Impairment in Malaysian Elderly

The elderly population rising rapidly in Malaysia and contributes to the increasing number of cognitive problems including mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, due to limited information regarding this problem which may progress towards severe neurologic degeneration, this problem rarely diagnosed and left untreated. Hence, the use of electroencephalography (EEG) biomarker is seen to be important with the spectral power, coherence and synchronization between the both halves of brain explain the pathophysiology underlined. This method is becoming popular for its capabilities in quantifying changes in brain electrical activity and provide early signs of brain impairment. This paper reviews the incidence of mild cognitive impairment in elderly as an early cognitive deterioration signal. It continues with the role of quantitative EEG analysis in providing the physiological meaning of their brain. This paper also provides the information about neurochemical changes which associated with MCI. In addition, this paper proposes an idea of study towards examining physiology, neurochemicals, diet and lifestyles to promote healthy lifestyle in elderly.International Journal of Human and Health Sciences Vol. 04 No. 04 October’20 Page : 267-270

Continuous neurally adjusted ventilation: a feasibility study in preterm infants

ObjectivesTo assess the feasibility and tolerance of NeuroPAP, a new non-invasive ventilation mode which continuously adjusts (during both inspiration and expiration) the pressure support proportionally to the diaphragm electrical activity...

Empagliflozin Reduces Arrhythmic Events and Improves Ca2+ Transient in Hypoxia‐induced Injury Rat Cardiomyocytes

Sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) emerged as promising antidiabetic drugs that decreasing glucose reabsorption as well as effectively reduce heart failure hospitalization and cardiovascular death in type 2 diabetes patients. Recently, it has been shown that the SGLT2i also exert beneficial cardiovascular effects in non‐diabetic heart failure patients. However, the cardioprotective mechanisms of these drugs remain unknow. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that the cardioprotective effects of SGLT2i empagliflozin (EMPA) may be associated with changes of cardiac electrical activity and Ca2+ homeostasis in hypoxia‐induced injury ventricular myocytes. Cardiomyocytes isolated from neonatal rats submitted to chemical hypoxia (200 μM CoCl2) or normoxia were incubated with EMPA (1 μM) or vehicle during 24 hours. Electrophysiological recordings were obtained using multielectrode array (MEA) system and intracellular microelectrode. Cytoplasmic calcium transients were investigated via fura‐2 fluorescence. Compared with vehicle, MEA analysis showed a significant decrease in field potential duration in EMPA‐group in both conditions [hypoxia: 83 ± 4 (N=19) vs. 37 ± 3 (N=44); normoxia: 213 ± 5 (N=53) vs. 62 ± 4 (N=36) ms, p<0.001]. EMPA reduced action potential duration at 30%, 50% and 90% repolarization (APD30, APD50 and APD90, respectively) in hypoxia [APD30: 109 ± 2 (N=41) vs. 98 ± 1 (N=30); APD50: 150 ± 3 (N=41) vs. 134 ± 1 (N=30); APD90: 292 ± 4 (N=41) vs. 271 ± 5 (N=30) ms, p<0.05] and normoxia [APD30: 94 ± 2 (N=30) vs. 81 ± 1 (N=39); APD50: 129 ± 2 (N=30) vs. 111 ± 1 (N=39); APD90: 259 ± 4 (N=30) vs. 244 ± 4 (N=39) ms, p<0.05]. No differences were observed in amplitude and resting membrane potential. Action potential recordings also revealed that the percentage of arrhythmic cells was lower in EMPA‐group in both conditions [hypoxia: 19 (N=41) vs. 10 (N=30) %; normoxia: 7 (N=30) vs. 3 (N=39) %]. In addition, EMPA significantly increased in Ca2+ transient amplitude in hypoxia [F/F0: 0.16 ± 0.01 (N=21) vs. 0.21 ± 0.01 (N=19), p<0.01] and normoxia [F/F0: 0.17 ± 0.01 (N=19) vs. 0.23 ± 0.01 (N=20) μM, p<0.01]. These results suggest that EMPA modulates electrical activity, reduces arrhythmic events and improves Ca2+ transient, which may contribute to cardioprotective effects of SGLT2i.Support or Funding InformationFAPESP and CNPq

Features of electrical activity of inspiratory muscles in different age groups

Aim . To identify features of changes in electrical activity of inspiratory muscles and their relationship with anthropometric indicators in different age groups. Materials and methods . There were examined 57 men with the same strength of respiratory muscles, aged 20 to 65 years old, who were divided into 3 groups. The 1st group included 26 young people, the 2nd group consisted of 20 middle-aged people, the 3rd group had 11 elderly patients. The examination included determination of anthropometric indicators, assessment of motor activity, inspiratory muscle strength, analysis of the electrical activity of inspiratory muscles when performing functional tests. Results. In young people compared with patients of groups 2 and 3, a significant difference in anthropometric indicators was revealed. In patients of group 1, the dynamics of electromyography (EMG) indices of inspiratory muscles was the greatest when performing functional tests. There was revealed correlation between age and dynamics of the EMG amplitude indicators of external intercostal muscles (r=0.48, p<0.05), sternocleidomastoid muscles (r=-0.41, p<0.05) and diaphragm (r=-0.63, p<0.05); dynamics of EMG amplitude indicators of diaphragm and circumference of the chest on the inspiration (r=-0.77, p<0.05) and expiration (r=-0.73, p<0.05), dynamics of EMG amplitude indicators of sternocleidomastoid muscles and circumference of chest on inspiration (r=-0.61, p<0.05) and expiration (r=-0.59, p<0.05). Conclusion. There is a negative relationship between dynamics of EMG amplitude indicators of inspiratory muscles when performing functional tests with age and chest circumference on inspiration and expiration. The main feature of electrical activity of inspiratory muscles in young people when performing functional tests is revealed in active participation of auxiliary muscles, in particular, the sternocleidomastoid muscle. In middle-aged and elderly people, dynamics of indicators of electrical activity of inspiratory muscles during performance of functional tests was the same.

The changes of brain electric activity in patients with different severity of coronary atherosclerosis one-year after coronary artery bypass grafting

Aim. To examine the brain electrical activity changes with the quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) indicators (the spectral power) in patients at 1 year after on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) depending on the severity of the coronary lesions. Methods. 65 patients were included in the study. Before performing CABG, they were divided into two groups depending on the severity of coronary artery disease according to the SYNTAX score: patients with mild coronary artery lesions – SYNTAX ≤22, (n = 28) and patients with severe coronary lesions – SYNTAX ≥ 23, (n = 37). EEG studies were performed in the preoperative period (at days 3–5 before GABG) and 1 year after surgery. Variance analysis with repeated comparisons (ANOVA) was used to compare pre-and postoperative EEG spectral power indicators in five clusters of the right and left hemispheres. Results. Patients with SYNTAX ≥23 had higher theta rhythm power values as compared with patients with SYNTAX ≤22 (p = 0.018) at 1 year after CABG, whereas these groups were comparable before the surgery. In addition, patients with severe lesions of the coronary arteries (SYNTAX ≥23) demonstrated an increase of theta rhythm power at 1 year after surgery in comparison to preoperative values (p = 0.017), this effect was not detected in patients with SYNTAX ≤22. Conclusion .One year after CABG, patients with severe coronary lesions (SYNTAX ≥23), demonstrated qEEG changes that resembled cortical dysfunction, showing significance of severity of coronary atherosclerosis, assessed by the SYNTAX score, as an integral indicator, indirectly characterizing neurophysiological status of patients.

Changes in Electrical Activity of the Masseter Muscle and Masticatory Force after the Use of the Masseter Nerve as Donor in Facial Reanimation Surgery.

Introduction The masseter nerve has been used as a donor nerve for facial reanimation procedures due to the multiple advantages it offers; it has been generally considered that sacrifice of the masseter nerve does not alter the masticatory apparatus; however, there are no objective studies to support this claim. Objective To evaluate the impact that the use of the masseter nerve in dynamic facial reconstruction has on the electrical activity of the masseter muscle and on bite force. Materials and Methods An observational and prospective longitudinal study was performed measuring bite force and electrical activity of the masseter muscles before and 3 months after dynamic facial reconstructive surgery using the masseter nerve. An occlusal analyzer and surface electromyography were employed for measurements. Results The study included 15 patients with unilateral facial paralysis, with a mean age of 24.06 ± 23.43. Seven patients were subjected to a masseter–buccal branch nerve transfer, whereas in eight patients, the masseter nerve was used as a donor nerve for gracilis free functional muscle transfer. Electrical activity of the masseter muscle was significantly reduced after surgery in both occlusal positions: from 140.86 ± 65.94 to 109.68 ± 68.04 ( p = 0.01) in maximum intercuspation and from 123.68 ± 75.64 to 82.64 ± 66.56 ( p = 0.01) in the rest position. However, bite force did not show any reduction, changing from 22.07 ± 15.66 to 15.56 ± 7.91 ( p = 0.1) after the procedure. Conclusion Masseter nerve transfer causes a reduction in electromyographic signals of the masseter muscle; however, bite force is preserved and comparable to preoperative status.

Changes in neuronal activity across the mouse ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus in response to low glucose: Evaluation using an extracellular multi-electrode array approach.

The hypothalamic ventromedial nucleus (VMN) is involved in maintaining systemic glucose homeostasis. Neurophysiological studies in rodent brain slices have identified populations of VMN glucose‐sensing neurones: glucose‐excited (GE) neurones, cells which increased their firing rate in response to increases in glucose concentration, and glucose‐inhibited (GI) neurones, which show a reduced firing frequency in response to increasing glucose concentrations. To date, most slice electrophysiological studies characterising VMN glucose‐sensing neurones in rodents have utilised the patch clamp technique. Multi‐electrode arrays (MEAs) are a state‐of‐the‐art electrophysiological tool enabling the electrical activity of many cells to be recorded across multiple electrode sites (channels) simultaneously. We used a perforated MEA (pMEA) system to evaluate electrical activity changes across the dorsal‐ventral extent of the mouse VMN region in response to alterations in glucose concentration. Because intrinsic (ie, direct postsynaptic sensing) and extrinsic (ie, presynaptically modulated) glucosensation were not discriminated, we use the terminology ‘GE/presynaptically excited by an increase (PER)’ and ‘GI/presynaptically excited by a decrease (PED)’ in the present study to describe responsiveness to changes in extracellular glucose across the mouse VMN. We observed that 15%‐60% of channels were GE/PER, whereas 2%‐7% were GI/PED channels. Within the dorsomedial portion of the VMN (DM‐VMN), significantly more channels were GE/PER compared to the ventrolateral portion of the VMN (VL‐VMN). However, GE/PER channels within the VL‐VMN showed a significantly higher basal firing rate in 2.5 mmol l‐1 glucose than DM‐VMN GE/PER channels. No significant difference in the distribution of GI/PED channels was observed between the VMN subregions. The results of the present study demonstrate the utility of the pMEA approach for evaluating glucose responsivity across the mouse VMN. pMEA studies could be used to refine our understanding of other neuroendocrine systems by examining population level changes in electrical activity across brain nuclei, thus providing key functional neuroanatomical information to complement and inform the design of single‐cell neurophysiological studies.

Effects of normal pregnancy on maternal EEG, TCD, and cerebral cortical volume

ObjectivePregnancy causes many changes in our body and some of them may affect our ability of learning and memory. We examined the cerebral cortical volume of brain during pregnancy and measured changes in the brain electrical activity and cerebral blood flow. Method35 women (20 normal full-term primigravida and 15 non-pregnant women) received the Electroencephalography (EEG) and Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (TCD). 8 non-pregnant women and 9 primigravida after vaginal delivery underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) voluntarily within 24 h. ResultsCompared with the non-pregnant, changes were shown by EEG through electrodes of T5, Pz, Cz, T6, F3 and F8. The results displayed increased activity in the central parietal area of pregnant women, while that in the temporoparietal junction decreased. The result of TCD revealed that pulsation index (PI) values of left and right internal and external carotid arteries were asymmetrical, but they all decreased in pregnancy. Atrophy of cortical volume had been found in many brain functional areas of pregnant women. The percentage of atrophy varied between 6.76% and 13.17%. ConclusionAtrophy of cerebral cortex, changes in cerebral blood flow and neuron electrophysiology may be the physiological basis of the emotional, cognitive changes in pregnant women.

The effect of EMG biofeedback on lower extremity functions in hemiplegic patients

The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of electromyography biofeedback (EMG BF) therapy in the treatment of ankle dorsiflexion which complicates ambulation in patients who developed hemiplegia after a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). A total of 40 patients attending the inpatient rehabilitation programme who developed hemiplegia after CVA were included in this randomized controlled study. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. In the 20 patients included in the EMG BF group, a visual and auditory EMG BF therapy was applied to tibialis anterior muscles, the extensor of the ankle, 5days a week for 3weeks in addition to conventional physiotherapy. The other 20 patients in the control group were only treated with conventional physiotherapy applications. All patients were evaluated for spasticity, ankle range of movement (ROM) scores, the Modified Motor Assessment Scale (MMAS) scores, Brunnstrom's neurophysiological assessment and EMG BF electrical muscle activity before and after treatment. There were significant improvements in the posttreatment ROM, Brunnstrom and MMAS values in both groups, whereas the levels of significance were mostly higher in the EMG BF group than in the control group. In addition, there were no significant changes in spasticity and electrical activity of tibialis anterior muscles in the control group while the EMG BF group demonstrated significant changes. This study showed that the clinical and functional parameters were improved by the use of EMG BF therapy for lower extremities, in addition to conventional rehabilitation programs, in hemiplegic patients with walking difficulty due to insufficient ankle dorsiflexion.

АНАЛИЗ ПРЕДИКТОРОВ ЭПИЛЕПТИЧЕСКИХ ПРИСТУПОВ

The statistical data on epilepsy, etiology and pathogenesis of the disease are given in the article. The main causes that affect the occurrence of epileptic seizures, and possible predictors that are sensitive to these causes (metabolic rate, blood flow velocity, change in electrical activity of the brain) are highlighted. The blood flow dynamics in the common carotid artery, which supplies the brain with oxygen and nutrients is proposed to be considered as one of the possible internal physiological parameters that are believed to be predictors of epileptic seizures.

Change in Electrical Activity of Hippocampal Neuronal Network by the Presence of Immature Neurons

Change in Electrical Activity of Hippocampal Neuronal Network by the Presence of Immature Neurons

Study of brainstem evoked response audiometry in medical students having long time mobile usage

Background: Mobile phones are undoubtedly one of the most revolutionizing inventions of the 21st century and are indispensable communication tools. Concomitantly, there has also been a potential increase in the health risks associated with prolonged mobile phone usage. Electromagnetic radiations emitted from telecommunication systems absorbed by the recipient's body may bring about changes in the brain electrical activity. Brainstem evoked response audiometry allows quantifying the activity of auditory pathway, and hence, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the auditory evoked potentials in the MBBS students who have been long-term mobile users. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted using Evoked Potential Recorder (RMS EMGEP MARK-II) in the Neurophysiology unit, Department of Physiology, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences. This was an observational noninterventional study design incorporating a total of 50 MBBS students, from institutional campus using mobile phones for >1 year. 25 students who used mobile phones for 30 min/day formed the test group. Results: The mean age among the test group was 17.5 ± 1.4 years and among controls was 16.2 ± 2.0 years. The average latency (both the right and left ear) of waves I–V and interpeak latencies (IPLs) I–III, III–V, and I–V waves were found to be prolonged (P > 0.001) in the test group when compared to controls. The mean latencies of the left ear were significantly (P

Investigating Frontal Neurovascular Coupling in Response to Workplace Design-Related Stress

This research seeks to examine the impact of workstation types on the coupling of neural and vascular activities of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The design of the workstations was found to impair the performance, physical and mental health of employees. However, the mechanism underlying cognitive activity involved during workstation design-related stress effects in the PFC has not been fully understood. We used electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to simultaneously measure electrical activity and hemoglobin concentration changes in the PFC. The multimodal signal was collected from 23 healthy adult volunteers who completed the Montreal imaging stress task in ergonomic and non-ergonomic workstations. A supervised machine learning method based on temporally embedded canonical correlation analysis (tCCA) was utilized to obtain the association between neural activity and local changes in hemoglobin concentrations to enhance localization and accuracy. The results showed deactivation in alpha power rhythms and oxygenated hemoglobin, as well as declined activation pattern of the fused data in the right PFC at the non-ergonomic workstation. Additionally, all participants at the non-ergonomic workstation experienced a substantial rise in salivary alpha-amylase activity in comparison with the ergonomic workstation, indicating the existence of high-stress levels. The proposed tCCA approach obtains excellent results in discriminating workstation types achieving accuracies of 98.8% and a significant improvement of 8.0% ( $p ) and 9.4% ( $p ) over EEG-only and fNIRS-only, respectively. Our study suggests the use of functional neuroimaging in designing the workplace as it provides critical information on the causes of workplace-related stress.

A Novel Design of Wearable Automatic Stress Detecting Device for Women Safety Using Heart Rate Variability

This paper presents the design of novel device to identify abnormal heart rate variability (HRV) due to anxiety in threatening circumstances, and to automatically relay alert along with location coordinates to the pre-saved phone numbers through global system for mobile communication (GSM), in order to acquire help. Physical activities change heart rate but not HRV whereas fight-or-flight response causes change in both. It is found that, with the help of HRV measurement it is possible to distinguish the changes in electrical activity of the heart due to physical activities and acute stress. The proposed design can also be used to know the abnormal conditions of heart patients and to provide timely help.

Shaw and Shal voltage-gated potassium channels mediate circadian changes in Drosophila clock neuron excitability.

As in mammals, Drosophila circadian clock neurons display rhythms of activity with higher action potential firing rates and more positive resting membrane potentials during the day. This rhythmic excitability has been widely observed but, critically, its regulation remains unresolved. We have characterized and modelled the changes underlying these electrical activity rhythms in the lateral ventral clock neurons (LNvs). We show that currents mediated by the voltage-gated potassium channels Shaw (Kv3) and Shal (Kv4) oscillate in a circadian manner. Disruption of these channels, by expression of dominant negative (DN) subunits, leads to changes in circadian locomotor activity and shortens lifespan. LNv whole-cell recordings then show that changes in Shaw and Shal currents drive changes in action potential firing rate and that these rhythms are abolished when the circadian molecular clock is stopped. A whole-cell biophysical model using Hodgkin-Huxley equations can recapitulate these changes in electrical activity. Based on this model and by using dynamic clamp to manipulate clock neurons directly, we can rescue the pharmacological block of Shaw and Shal, restore the firing rhythm, and thus demonstrate the critical importance of Shaw and Shal. Together, these findings point to a key role for Shaw and Shal in controlling circadian firing of clock neurons and show that changes in clock neuron currents can account for this. Moreover, with dynamic clamp we can switch the LNvs between morning-like and evening-like states of electrical activity. We conclude that changes in Shaw and Shal underlie the daily oscillation in LNv firing rate.

Heterogeneous alpha-cell population modeling of glucose-induced inhibition of electrical activity

Glucagon release from the pancreatic alpha-cells is regulated by glucose, but the underlying mechanisms are far from understood. It is known that the alpha-cell population is very heterogeneous, but – compared to the insulin-secreting beta-cells – the consequences of this cell-to-cell variation are much less studied. Since the alpha-cells are not electrically coupled, large differences in the single cell responses are to be expected, and this variation may contribute to the confusion regarding the mechanisms of glucose-induced suppression of glucagon release. Using mathematical modeling of alpha-cells with realistic cell-to-cell parameter variation based on recent experimental results, we show that the simulated alpha-cells exhibit great diversity in their electrophysiological behavior. To robustly reproduce experimental recordings from alpha-cell exposed to a rise in glucose levels, we must assume that both intrinsic mechanisms and paracrine signals contribute to glucose-induced changes in electrical activity. Our simulations suggest that the sum of different electrophysiological responses due to alpha-cell heterogeneity is involved in glucose-suppressed glucagon secretion, and that more than one mechanism contribute to control the alpha-cell populations’ behavior. Finally, we apply regression analysis to our synthetic alpha-cell population to infer which membrane currents influence electrical activity in alpha-cells at different glucose levels. The results from such statistical modeling suggest possible disturbances underlying defect regulation of alpha-cell electrical behavior in diabetics. Thus, although alpha-cells appear to be inherently complex and heterogeneous as reflected in published data, realistic modeling of the alpha-cells at the population level provides insight into the mechanisms of glucagon release.

A human in vitro platform for the evaluation of pharmacology strategies in cardiac ischemia.

Cardiac ischemic events increase the risk for arrhythmia, heart attack, heart failure, and death and are the leading mortality condition globally. Reperfusion therapy is the first line of treatment for this condition, and although it significantly reduces mortality, cardiac ischemia remains a significant threat. New therapeutic strategies are under investigation to improve the ischemia survival rate; however, the current preclinical models to validate these fail to predict the human outcome. We report the development of a functional human cardiac in vitro system for the study of conduction velocity under ischemic conditions. The system is a bioMEMs platform formed by human iPSC derived cardiomyocytes patterned on microelectrode arrays and maintained in serum-free conditions. Electrical activity changes of conduction velocity, beat frequency, and QT interval (the QT-interval measures the period from onset of depolarization to the completion of repolarization) or action potential length can be evaluated over time and under the stress of ischemia. The optimized protocol induces >80% reduction in conduction velocity, after a 4 h depletion period, and a partial recovery after 72 h of oxygen and nutrient reintroduction. The sensitivity of the platform for pharmacological interventions was challenged with a gap junction modulator (ZP1609), known to prevent or delay the depression of conduction velocity induced by ischemic metabolic stress. ZP1609 significantly improved the drastic drop in conduction velocity and enabled a greater recovery. This model represents a new preclinical platform for studying cardiac ischemia with human cells, which does not rely on biomarker analysis and has the potential for screening novel cardioprotective drugs with readouts that are closer to the measured clinical parameters.

Effects of extracellular electric fields on electrical activities of two-compartment autaptic-neurons

In our work, we follow a modeling approach to investigate how extracellular electric fields affect the dynamics of two-compartment autaptic-neurons with morphological structures and how those effects translate into changes in electrical activities. Inter-spikes intervals bifurcation diagrams, frequency–input curves as well as phase-locking ratios are used to describe neural firing patterns, input sensitivities as well as mode-locking states. Modulated by extracellular electric fields, the autaptic-neurons exhibit subthreshold oscillation, tonic spiking, bursting and chaotic firing patterns. The input sensitivities and the mode-locking states are enhanced or suppressed depending on the parameters of extracellular electrical fields. Compared with autaptic-neurons with symmetrical structures, the autaptic-neuron with nonsymmetrical morphology have higher input sensitivities to extracellular electric fields, which suggest that neural geometric features play a crucial role in electric field effects on behaviors of neuron. Those results in our works provide a systematic understanding of effects of extracellular electric fields on the electrical activities of autaptic-neurons, which are further steps towards improving the design of electromagnetic brain stimulations.

Change of skin electrical activity during osteopathic correction with the use of biodynamical approach

Introduction.In connection with the widespread introduction of osteopathy into practical medicine, new facts confi rming its effectiveness are appearing. These facts need theoretical justifi cation. The biodynamic approach is the least studied and scientifi cally proven approach in osteopathy. There are only a few works describing the benefi cial effects of this type of treatment on the autonomic nervous system based on an assessment of heart rate variability. One of the most sensitive indicators of changes in the state of the body is the electrical activity of the skin (EAS), which is widely used in modern polygraphic devices.Goal of research— to investigate the EAS in the physician and in the patient during the session of craniosacral biodynamics (CSB).Materials and methods.The study involved 32 patients who were randomly divided into 2 groups — control group (10 patients) and main group (22 patients). In the control group there were 8 women and 2 men aged from 20 to 65 years (mean age 42±20 years). In the main group, 16 women and 6 men aged from 18 to 68 years (mean age 40±16 years) were examined. Two professional certifi ed computerized polygraphs «Chris» were used, simultaneously recording the EAS values of the doctor and the patient. In the main group, the background indicators were recorded at the fi rst stage (10 minutes), then the procedure of the CSB, which lasted 20 minutes, was recordered. The control group was used only for registration of EAS. At the same time, patients were in the same conditions as in the main group.Results.During the CSB, the state of both the doctor (p<0,001) and the patient (p<0,001) has changed signifi cantly. At the same time, the tendency of changes in individual indicators of EAS in patients during treatment was logical. The altered state of the physician practically did not depend on its original level (p>0,05). However, there was a high relationship between the states of the doctor during contact and non-contact treatment (correlation coeffi cient 0,80, p<0,001). The patient′s initial condition had a moderate, statistically signifi cant relationship with his condition during the treatment (p<0,001). Since the beginning of the craniosacral biodynamics, the patient′s condition has hardly changed. At the same time, the contactless impact on the patient′s body was comparable with the contact effect (correlation coeffi cient 0,97, p<0,001). There was no signifi cant relationship between the states of the physician and the patient before the beginning of the treatment (correlation coeffi cient 0,18, p>0,05). However, in the process of craniosacral biodynamics, a statistically signifi cant relationship was formed between them with a correlation coeffi cient for non-contact exposure equal to 0,49 (p<0,01) and for contact exposure — 0,34 (p<0,05). Biodynamic treatment statistically signifi cantly improved the state of the autonomic nervous system.Conclusion.The study of the electrical activity of the skin in craniosacral biodynamics is a highly informative method, which allows to verify and quantify the changes occurring in the patient and in the physician during the treatment.