Human Cognitive Functions Research Articles

Carbohydrate ingestion attenuates cognitive dysfunction following long-duration exercise in the heat in humans.

To determine if electrolyte or carbohydrate supplementation vs. water would limit the magnitude of dehydration and decline in cognitive function in humans following long-duration hyperthermic-exercise. 24 subjects performed 3 visits of 2h walking (3mph/7% grade) in an environmental chamber (33°C/10% relative humidity). In random order, subjects consumed water (W), electrolytes (Gatorade Zero; E), or electrolytes+carbohydrates (Gatorade; E+C). Throughout exercise (EX), subjects carried a 23kg pack and drank ad-libitum. Pre-and post-EX, body mass (BM) and plasma osmolality (pOsm) were measured. Physiological Strain Index (PSI) and core temperature (TC) were recorded every 15min. Plasma glucose (GLU) was measured every 30min. Cognitive processing (SCWT) was measured post-EX and compared to baseline (BL). A subset of 8 subjects performed a normothermic (N) protocol (21°C/ambient humidity) to ascertain how the exercise stimulus influenced hydration status and cognition without heat. There were no significant differences between fluid conditions (W, E, E+C) for BM loss (Δ2.5±0.2, 2.5±0.2, 2.3±0.2kg), fluid consumption (1.9±0.2, 1.9±0.2, 1.8±0.2L), pOsm (Δ1.5±2.7, 2.2±2.4, 2.0±1.5mmol/L), peak-PSI (7.5±0.4, 7.0±0.6, 7.9±0.5), and peak-TC (38.7±0.1, 38.6±0.2, 38.8±0.2°C). GLU decreased significantly in W and E, whereas it increased above BL in E+C at 60, 90, and 120min (P<0.05). Compared to BL values (43.6±26ms), SCWT performance significantly decreased in all conditions (463±93, 422±83, 140±52ms, P<0.05). Importantly, compared to W and E, the impairment in SCWT was significantly attenuated in E+C (P<0.05). As expected, when compared to the heat-stress protocol (W, E, E+C), N resulted in lower BM loss, fluid consumption, and peak-PSI (1.1±0.1kg, 1.2±0.7L, 4.8, respectively), and improved SCWT performance. These data are the first to suggest that, independent of supplementation variety, cognitive processing significantly decreases immediately following long-duration exercise in the heat in healthy humans. Compared to water and fluids supplemented with only electrolytes, fluids supplemented with carbohydrates significantly blunts this decrease in cognitive function.

Cognitive dysfunction severity evaluation in dogs with naturally-occurring Cushing´s syndrome: A matched case-control study

Hypercortisolism has been associated with impairment of cognitive function in humans with Cushing's syndrome (CS), but there are currently no studies looking into this effect in dogs with CS. The present study evaluated the pattern of cognitive deficits and behavioral changes in dogs with naturally-occurring CS (NOCS). A previously published questionnaire (DISHA - disorientation, changes in interactive behavior, sleep-wake cycle disturbances, house-soiling, and changes in activity) was used to assess cognitive dysfunction (CD) in dogs with recently diagnosed CS, and in age-, sex-, and gonadal status-matched dogs (1:2), according to their owners’ perception. The questionnaire consisted of 32 multiple-choice questions, scored 0 to 96. The higher the score, the higher the severity of CD. The questionnaire included eight categories of behavioral signs, namely: disorientation, social interactions, sleep-wake cycles, house-soiling, compulsive behaviors, depressive behaviors, anxiety, and memory and learning. Of the 57 dogs assessed in the study, 19 were included in the CS group and 38 in the control group. Exclusion criteria for the control group were animals suspected of having CS, chronic glucocorticoid therapy, or glucocorticoid exposure in the past month. Dogs with CS exhibited a higher final score (Wilcoxon test) of cognitive dysfunction (W = 149, P = 0.001), especially, higher memory dysfunction (W = 96, P = 0.01), compulsive behaviors (W = 93, P = 0.04), depressive behaviors (W = 86, P = 0.03), and anxiety (W = 117, P = 0.001). There was no correlation between age and CD score in dogs with NOCS (r = 0.32, P = 0.465) and neither control dogs (r = 0.18, P = 0.051). Results suggest hypercortisolism may accelerate neurodegenerative process, thus resulting in more intense behavioral and cognitive changes than those observed in age-matched dogs without CS.

Gut Microbiota, Probiotic Interventions, and Cognitive Function in the Elderly: A Review of Current Knowledge.

Changes in the composition and proportions of the gut microbiota may be associated with numerous diseases, including cognitive impairment. Over the recent years, the growing interest in this relation is observed, but there are still many unknowns, especially in the elderly. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that synthesizes and critically evaluates existing evidence on the possible association between human gut microbiota and cognitive function in the elderly. For this purpose, comprehensive literature searches were conducted using the electronic databases PubMed, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect. The gut microbiota of cognitively healthy and impaired elderly people may differ in the diversity and abundance of individual taxes, but specific taxes cannot be identified. However, some tendencies to changing the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio can be identified. Currently, clinical trials involving probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics supplementation have shown that there are premises for the claim that these factors can improve cognitive functions, however there is no single intervention beneficial to the elderly population. More reliable evidence from large-scale, long-period RCT is needed. Despite proposing several potential mechanisms of the gut microbiota’s influence on the cognitive function impairment, prospective research on this topic is extremely difficult to conduct due to numerous confounding factors that may affect the gut microbiota. Heterogeneity of research outcomes impairs insight into these relations.

Effects of passive heat stress and recovery on human cognitive function: An ERP study.

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the effects of passive heat stress and recovery on the human cognitive function with Flanker tasks, involving congruent and incongruent stimuli. We hypothesized that modulation of the peak amplitude and latency of the P300 component in ERP waveforms would differ with task difficulty during passive heat stress and recovery. Subjects performed the Flanker tasks before (Pre), at the end of whole body heating (Heat: internal temperature increase of ~1.2°C from the pre-heat baseline), and after the internal temperature had returned to the pre-heat baseline (Recovery). The internal temperature was regulated by a tube-lined suit by perfusing 50°C water for heat stress and 25°C water for recovery immediately after the heat stress. Regardless of task difficulty, the reaction time (RT) was shortened during Heat rather than Pre and Recovery, and standard deviations of RT (i.e., response variability) were significantly smaller during Heat than Pre. However, the peak amplitudes of the P300 component in ERPs, which involved selective attention, expectancy, and memory updating, were significantly smaller during Heat than during Pre, suggesting the impairment of neural activity in cognitive function. Notably, the peak amplitudes of the P300 component were higher during Recovery than during Heat, indicating that the impaired neural activity had recovered after sufficient whole-body cooling. An indicator of the stimulus classification/evaluation time (peak latency of P300) and the RT were shortened during Heat stress, but such shortening was not noted after whole-body cooling. These results suggest that hyperthermia affects the human cognitive function, reflected by the peak amplitude and latency of the P300 component in ERPs during the Flanker tasks, but sufficient treatment such as whole-body cooling performed in this study can recover those functions.

Challenges of Applying AI in Healthcare in India

With the advent of digitalization, upcoming technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) are being utilized by healthcare services to manage various healthcare services to mimic human cognitive functions. This technology is expected to bring about a massive change in healthcare. Patient management, clinical decision support, patient tracking, and health care services are the four main AI-enabled fields of the healthcare industry. The method carrying out the study was based on secondary research by the themes of the studies performed earlier using Artificial intelligence in healthcare sector, through observations, interviews and valid documentations from prominent databases, by means of challenges and its analysis and the last by the issues associated with the study and the target groups are the front line workers in healthcare sectors. The AI applications in health care have gathered much attention, but AI's adoption issues have not been significantly tended. There are several challenges of its implementation, such as resolving the unequal relationship between trained physicians and patients and increasing physicians' efficiency to be more effective in their work; providing AI-enabled healthcare equipment in rural communities; and educating physicians or doctors in handling it. AI technologies have the potential to enhance patient outcomes. Still, they may also pose significant risks in terms of inadequate patient risk assessment, medical error, and suggestions for treatment, privacy violations, and others.

The Importance of Cognitive Styles: Dependence and Field Independence (DIC) in the Memory Process

It is in the framework of a cognition orientation, or theory of information processing, that we seek the theoretical models that can best support us in the analysis of human cognitive functioning, specifically in the tasks of learning and problem solving.

The interindividual variability of sleep timing and circadian phase in humans is influenced by daytime and evening light conditions

Human cognitive functioning shows circadian variations throughout the day. However, individuals largely differ in their timing during the day of when they are more capable of performing specific tasks and when they prefer to sleep. These interindividual differences in preferred temporal organization of sleep and daytime activities define the chronotype. Since a late chronotype is associated with adverse mental and physical consequences, it is of vital importance to study how lighting environments affect chronotype. Here, we use a mathematical model of the human circadian pacemaker to understand how light in the built environment changes the chronotype distribution in the population. In line with experimental findings, we show that when individuals spend their days in relatively dim light conditions, this not only results in a later phase of their biological clock but also increases interindividual differences in circadian phase angle of entrainment and preferred sleep timing. Increasing daytime illuminance results in a more narrow distribution of sleep timing and circadian phase, and this effect is more pronounced for longer photoperiods. The model results demonstrate that modern lifestyle changes the chronotype distribution towards more eveningness and more extreme differences in eveningness. Such model-based predictions can be used to design guidelines for workplace lighting that help limiting circadian phase differences, and craft new lighting strategies that support human performance, health and wellbeing.

Understanding Benefits of Curcumin on Cognitive Function from Molecular Aspect: A Review

Cognitive function has a significant impact on individuals’ quality of life. Over time, human cognitive function tends to decline. The importance of cognitive function in everyday life has led many researchers to seek alternative treatments to maintain and improve cognitive function. Some studies show that curcumin can improve cognitive function and prevent cognitive decline in humans. This review focuses on the benefits of curcumin on cognitive function and the mechanism of how it works from molecular aspect. According to some studies, one of the factors leading to cognitive decline is chronic low-grade systemic inflammation. This review will focus on antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective effects, and β amyloid aggregation inhibition properties of curcumin that can improve cognitive function or delay cognitive decline. It is important to understand the basic reasons why curcumin can have benefits on cognitive function, this can be seen from the mechanisms that are reflected in the biomolecular aspect.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, VIRTUAL REALITY AND ROBOTICS IN COLORECTAL SURGERY USING MASTER-CLASS TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, VIRTUAL REALITY AND ROBOTICS IN COLORECTAL SURGERY USING MASTER-CLASS TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS

Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Cognitive Function in Women With Methamphetamine Dependence in a Detoxification Program in Tianjin, China: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Cognitive impairment is prevalent among individuals, especially women, with methamphetamine dependence. Although aerobic exercise has been shown to affect cognitive function in humans and animals, few related studies have focused on subjects with methamphetamine dependence. The aim of this study was to assess the detoxification-related effects of aerobic exercise on cognitive function in women with methamphetamine dependence. A randomized controlled trial was used with 98 women with methamphetamine dependence undergoing a detoxification program at a mental hospital. The women were distributed using a computer-generated grouping random method into either the study or control group. The investigator conducting the baseline questionnaire, the neuropsychologist assessing the cognitive function, and the data analyst were blinded to group assignment. In addition to hospital routine care, the study group received an aerobic exercise intervention for 3 months. The control group only received hospital routine care. Attention and working memory were measured using the Trail Making Test and Digit Span Test, verbal memory was measured using Logical Memory (LM) and Memory for Persons Data (MPD), and executive function was measured using the Color-Word Stroop Test. Forty-nine participants were randomized into each group, and the valid data of 43 participants in the study group and 46 in the control group were analyzed. The study group showed significantly more improvement over time in terms of Digit Span Test, Trail Making Test, LM-delayed, MPD-5 minutes delayed, MPD-30 minutes delayed, and Color-Word Stroop Test than the control group (p < .05). LM-immediate and MPD-immediate scores showed that the effects of time and the interaction between time and group were significant but that the main effect of group was not. Women undergoing detoxification for methamphetamine dependence may practice aerobic exercise to improve attention, working memory, executive function, and parts of verbal memory. Aerobic exercise may be incorporated into detoxification treatment programs to facilitate the recovery of cognitive functions in women.

Sleep fragmentation and working memory in healthy adults.

IntroductionSleep is essential for performing cognitive function in humans. We have hypothesized that sleep fragmentation compared to sleep efficiency may have a negative impact on the working memory.Material and MethodsTwenty-eight healthy adults (18 males and 10 females; mean age 27.8±15.5 years) were enrolled in this study. We measured the total sleep time (TST), sleep efficiency, %stage wakefulness (W), %stage rapid eye movement (REM), %stage N1, %stage N2, %stage N3, wake after sleep onset (WASO), and arousal index using polysomnography. Working memory, executive function, and sustained attention of three domains of cognitive function were evaluated with the number of back task (N-back task), Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST), and continuous performance test-identical pairs (CPT-IP), respectively.ResultsThe percentage of correct answers on the 2-back task was significantly correlated with %stage REM, %stage N1, and %stage N2 (%stage REM: r=0.505, p=0.006; %stage N1: r=-0.637, p<0.001; %stage N2: r=0.670, p<0.001), and multiple regression analysis including the stepwise forward selection method revealed that %stage N2 was the most significant factor (%stage N2: β=0.670, p<0.001). The percentage of correct answers on the 2-back task was also significantly correlated with TST, sleep efficiency, WASO, and arousal index (TST: r=0.492, p=0.008; sleep efficiency: r=0.622, p<0.001; WASO: r=-0.721, p<0.001; arousal index: r=-0.656, p<0.001), and WASO was the significant factor (β=-2.086, p=0.007). The WCST category achievement and CPT-IP d-prime score were correlated with none of the sleep variables.ConclusionIncreased WASO and a decrease in %stage N2 were associated with worse working memory.

A Primer on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Spine Surgery.

This was a narrative review. Summarize artificial intelligence (AI) fundamentals as well as current and potential future uses in spine surgery. Although considered futuristic, the field of AI has already had a profound impact on many industries, including health care. Its ability to recognize patterns and self-correct to improve over time mimics human cognitive function, but on a much larger scale. Review of literature on AI fundamentals and uses in spine pathology. Machine learning (ML), a subset of AI, increases in hierarchy of complexity from classic ML to unsupervised ML to deep leaning, where Language Processing and Computer Vision are possible. AI-based tools have been developed to segment spinal structures, acquire basic spinal measurements, and even identify pathology such as tumor or degeneration. AI algorithms could have use in guiding clinical management through treatment selection, patient-specific prognostication, and even has the potential to power neuroprosthetic devices after spinal cord injury. While the use of AI has pitfalls and should be adopted with caution, future use is promising in the field of spine surgery and medicine as a whole. Level IV.

Negative and Positive Bias for Emotional Faces: Evidence from the Attention and Working Memory Paradigms.

Visual attention and visual working memory (VWM) are two major cognitive functions in humans, and they have much in common. A growing body of research has investigated the effect of emotional information on visual attention and VWM. Interestingly, contradictory findings have supported both a negative bias and a positive bias toward emotional faces (e.g., angry faces or happy faces) in the attention and VWM fields. We found that the classical paradigms—that is, the visual search paradigm in attention and the change detection paradigm in VWM—are considerably similar. The settings of these paradigms could therefore be responsible for the contradictory results. In this paper, we compare previous controversial results from behavioral and neuroscience studies using these two paradigms. We suggest three possible contributing factors that have significant impacts on the contradictory conclusions regarding different emotional bias effects; these factors are stimulus choice, experimental setting, and cognitive process. We also propose new research directions and guidelines for future studies.

Human cognitive functions and psycho-physiological responses under low thermal conditions in a simulated office environment.

In office environments, thermal comfort is one of the most significant factor affecting employees' performance. This study aimed to determine the effects of exposure to low air temperatures on human cognitive performance, physiological responses, and thermal perceptions during mental work. Twenty-four volunteers with an age range of 18-30 years participated in this study. The subjects were exposed to four different air temperatures (10, 14, 18, and 22°C) in a climate chamber based on a within-subject design. The n-back, CPT, and PVT tests were employed to evaluate some basic aspects of cognitive performance. Body physiological responses and the subjective thermal comfort were also measured. When the thermal condition deviated from relatively neutral temperature, the subjects' cognitive responses significantly disturbed (P < 0.05), such that the response accuracy was more affected by reduction of air temperature. The blood pressures and heart rate, galvanic skin response, and respiration rate increased as the air temperature decreased (P < 0.05), such that the galvanic skin response as a stress indicator was more affected. In the test configurations, as a result of decrease in air temperature of 1°C, the finger and body skin temperatures reduced to 0.74°C and 0.25°C, respectively. The findings confirmed that low thermal condition can considerably affect cognitive performance and physiological responses during some office work tasks. The subjects' thermal comfort votes proposed that air temperature lower than 14 °C can be intolerable for employees during routine mental work. It is suggested that personalized conditioning systems should be used to provide individual thermal comfort in moderate cold air conditions.

Attentional gaze dynamics in group interactions

ABSTRACT Group interactions influence human social and cognitive function. However, the non-verbal vehicles of that influence remain poorly understood. To address this question, here we present a taxonomy of interactive non-verbal attentional gaze behaviours – social referencing, participation, and mutual engagement – which we captured and characterized during live three-person interactions. Experiment 1 measured how each of these non-verbal indices predicted both the groups’ social dynamic (in terms of leadership perception) and later individual group member’s behaviour (in terms of gaze following magnitudes). The data indicated that the three attentional gaze behaviours (i) reliably reflected the groups’ nonverbal dynamics, (ii) predicted the groups’ social dynamics, and (iii) connected meaningfully with individual members’ behaviour. Experiment 2 confirmed that these group-to-individual links were dependent on individuals participating in a prior group interaction. Thus, our taxonomy of nonverbal attentional gaze behaviours characterizes both group and individual function well, and as such provides a methodological foundation for future investigations of non-verbal group dynamics and their links with individual behaviour.

Model-Agnostic Fits for Understanding Information Seeking Patterns in Humans

In decision making tasks under uncertainty, humans display characteristic biases in seeking, integrating, and acting upon information relevant to the task. Here, we reexamine data from previous carefully designed experiments, collected at scale, that measured and catalogued these biases in aggregate form. We design deep learning models that replicate these biases in aggregate, while also capturing individual variation in behavior. A key finding of our work is that paucity of data collected from each individual subject can be overcome by sampling large numbers of subjects from the population, while still capturing individual differences. We predict human behavior with high accuracy without making any assumptions about task goals, reward structure, or individual biases, thus providing a model-agnostic fit to human behavior in the task. Such an approach can sidestep potential limitations in modeler-specified inductive biases, and has implications for computational modeling of human cognitive function in general, and of human-AI interfaces in particular.

The morphometry of left cuneus mediating the genetic regulation on working memory.

Working memory is a basic human cognitive function. However, the genetic signatures and their biological pathway remain poorly understood. In the present study, we tried to clarify this issue by exploring the potential associations and pathways among genetic variants, brain morphometry and working memory performance. We first carried out association analyses between 2‐back accuracy and 212 image‐derived phenotypes from 1141 Human Connectome Project (HCP) subjects using a linear mixed model (LMM). We found a significantly positive correlation between the left cuneus volume and 2‐back accuracy (T = 3.615, p = 3.150e−4, Cohen's d = 0.226, corrected using family‐wise error [FWE] method). Based on the LMM‐based genome‐wide association study (GWAS) on the HCP dataset and UK Biobank 33 k GWAS summary statistics, we identified eight independent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were reliably associated with left cuneus volume in both UKB and HCP dataset. Within the eight SNPs, we found a negative correlation between the rs76119478 polymorphism and 2‐back accuracy accuracy (T = −2.045, p = .041, Cohen's d = −0.129). Finally, an LMM‐based mediation analysis elucidated a significant effect of left cuneus volume in mediating rs76119478 polymorphism on the 2‐back accuracy (indirect effect = −0.007, 95% BCa CI = [−0.045, −0.003]). These results were also replicated in a subgroup of Caucasians in the HCP population. Further fine mapping demonstrated that rs76119478 maps on intergene CTD‐2315A10.2 adjacent to protein‐encoding gene DAAM1, and is significantly associated with L3HYPDH mRNA expression. Our study suggested this new variant rs76119478 may regulate the working memory through exerting influence on the left cuneus volume.

Diminishing returns as a function of the association between within-individual average performance and variance

It has been demonstrated that the worst performance rule (WPR) effect can occur as a result of statistical dependencies in the data. Here, we examine whether this might also be the case for Spearman's law of diminishing returns (SLODR). Two proposed SLODR criteria are the skewness of the estimated latent ability factor and the correlation between this latent ability and within-individual residual variance. Using four publicly available datasets, covering quite different dimensions of behavior, we show that both these criteria are affected by the correlation between within-individual average performance and variance on the test scores. However, the influence of this correlation on the two criteria goes in opposite directions, which suggests that it generally might be difficult to get results that unambiguously support SLODR. These results might have far-reaching implications for the literature, to the extent that various research findings attributed to human cognitive functioning might in fact be due to trivial statistical dependencies in data. This is an important issue to address for future research.

Analysis of AI techniques for healthcare data with implementation of a classification model using support vector machine

Artificial intelligence (AI) is imposed to impersonate human cognitive functions. AI Techniques are most popular across healthcare. The motive behind implementing an AI system is to make the system more fast and efficient. Now, AI can assist medical physician for fast and accurate diagnosis of diseases. When the time of deployment of the AI system will come then, systems need to be ‘trained’ for a huge amount of data will be generated from different clinical performance data. Now a day’s data is available in a structured, unstructured and, semi-structured format. For supporting, retrieving results and knowledge from this data, its analysis using different AI techniques are available. This includes machine learning methods for structured data and unsupervised learning for unstructured data which is useful for retrieving features when the outcome for some subjects is missing. In this paper different conventional machine learning techniques used in healthcare, domains is analyzed using different data types. Also, a comparison of different methods used in Artificial intelligence fiction in the healthcare domain is explored. A flow from clinical data creation, through NLP data enhancement and Machine learning data analysis for making clinical diagnosis decisions and its predictions are discussed and implementation using a support vector machine (SVM) on the healthcare dataset consisting of the patient questionnaire isdone.

Two variations and one similarity in memory functions deployed by mice and humans to support foraging.

Assessing variations in cognitive function between humans and animals is vital for understanding the idiosyncrasies of human cognition and for refining animal models of human brain function and disease. We determined memory functions deployed by mice and humans to support foraging with a search task acting as a test battery. Mice searched for food from the top of poles within an open arena. Poles were divided into groups based on visual cues and baited according to different schedules. White and black poles were baited in alternate trials. Striped poles were never baited. The requirement of the task was to find all baits in each trial. Mice's foraging efficiency, defined as the number of poles visited before all baits were retrieved, improved with practice. Mice learnt to avoid visiting unbaited poles across trials (long-term memory) and revisits to poles within each trial (working memory). Humans tested with a virtual reality version of the task outperformed mice in foraging efficiency, working memory, and exploitation of the temporal pattern of rewards across trials. Moreover, humans, but not mice, reduced the number of possible movement sequences used to search the set of poles. For these measures, interspecies differences were maintained throughout the 3 weeks of testing. By contrast, long-term memory for never-rewarded poles was similar in mice and humans after the first week of testing. These results indicate that human cognitive functions relying on archaic brain structures may be adequately modelled in mice. Conversely, modelling in mice fluid skills likely to have developed specifically in primates requires caution.