电触觉的皮肤神经机理仿真及实验验证

触觉学已经在很多领域得到应用,如遥控机器人、手术机器人、假肢、娱乐交互界面以及虚拟现实技术等,以此来增强人对机器或者虚拟物体的操作性。电触觉是现在主要的触觉再现措施,即通过改变恒流/恒压电脉冲的频率、脉宽、强度以及脉冲方向等因素,让人产生不同的触觉感。首先通过人体皮肤神经的建模推导出激励函数,并进行仿真研究,通过改变施加在电刺激阵列的电脉冲方向和强度,设计能分别刺激皮下3种刺激感受器（Meissner触觉小体、Merkel触盘、Pancinian环层小体）的实验范式,同时进行了心理物理学实验。10位受试者参加了实验,对食指进行电触觉刺激。正脉冲时采用不同频率（10、30、70、90 Hz）的电脉冲进行刺激,让受试者产生不同级别的振动感;负脉冲时采用不同脉宽（150、200、250、300 μs）的电脉冲进行刺激,让受试者产生不同级别的压力感。受试者对振动和压力的感觉强度进行主观判断。统计结果表明,该模型下的实验模式能够使触觉强度分级平均识别率高达80%以上,同时可通过对刺激电极分布以及电流大小的分析,找到最佳的刺激模式,保证最佳的触觉再现。     

原发性失眠与抑郁症伴发失眠患者觉醒水平脑电频谱及复杂度分析比较研究

目的：通过抑郁症伴发失眠患者和原发性失眠患者线性脑电频谱与非线性复杂度的分析,对比两者脑皮层觉醒水平差异,初步探讨抑郁性伴发失眠可能的特点。方法：收集2011年6月至2012年3月52例本院睡眠门诊及住院原发性失眠与抑郁症伴发失眠患者52例,按照美国精神病学会制订的《精神障碍诊断和统计手册》的相关标准分为DI组和PI组,比较两组患者多导睡眠监护脑电频谱及复杂度的差异。结果：DI组与pI组相比,脑电del协相对功率值出现升高,差异有统计学意义（p〈0．05）,Theta、Alpha、Sigma、Beta、Gamma相对功率值出现下降,差异具有统计学意义（p〈0．05）,DI组脑电复杂度C（n）与PI组相比,脑电复杂度c（n）出现下降,差异具有统计学意义（p〈0．05）。结论：DI组与PI组相比,脑电delta频段频谱出现升高,Theta、Alpha、Sigma、Beta、Gamma频段频谱出现下降．同时与PI组相比,脑电复杂度cOO出现下降,而DI患者脑皮质觉醒水平较PI患者低,脑电频谱分析和脑电复杂度分析的结果是一致的。     

强度中频电刺激健康男性腰交感神经节后下肢远端皮肤血流的改变

背景：飞行人员由于长时间保持固定坐姿,腿部活动范围受限,易引起腿部血液循环不畅,产生疲劳感。研究显示中频电流具有明显的促进局部血液循环的作用。 目的：探讨低强度中频电刺激腰交感神经节对健康男性下肢远端皮肤血液循环的影响,并与静态干扰电疗法作比较。 方法：在39名健康男性腰部交感神经节(T10~L2)放置中频电电极,右内踝关节上方2 cm处放置激光多普勒血流监测仪探头,电流强度为感觉阈。分别给予调制中频电刺激、静态干扰电刺激及不通电刺激。激光多普勒血流监测仪记录静息15 min后及电刺激20 min末的血流值。 结果与结论：与基线值比较,经调制中频电刺激的受试者下肢远端皮肤血流灌注量有所增加,而未给予电刺激及静态干扰电刺激的受试者下肢远端皮肤血流灌注量有所减少,尤其是经静态干扰电刺激后,明显低于基线值(P < 0.05)。说明调制中频电刺激可以改善下肢的血液循环,对长时间保持固定坐姿产生的疲劳有缓解功能。     

交感神经皮肤电反应对功能性消化不良合并焦虑症患者治疗效果评价的研究

目的：观察功能性消化不良（functional dyspepsia,FD）合并焦虑症患者的自主神经功能状况,评价交感神经皮肤电反应（SSR）在FD合并焦虑症治疗效果中的应用价值。方法：对42例FD合并焦虑症患者使用文拉法辛治疗前后进行电刺激SSR检查。结果：给予文拉法辛治疗12周后SSR潜伏期与波幅与治疗前相比有显著差异。结论：FD合并焦虑症患者存在自主神经功能障碍,抗焦虑治疗后能缓解自主神经功能障碍。SSR是一种无创的,能评价FD合并焦虑症患者自主神经功能及治疗效果的神经电生理检查。     

青少年亲子冲突处理策略特点及与心理健康的相关研究

目的研究青少年亲子冲突处理策略与心理健康的关系。方法运用亲子冲突处理策略问卷和症状自评量表（SCL-90），对570名被试进行考察。结果青少年在亲子冲突处理策略的使用上具有显著的类型、性别、年级差异，且冲突对象不同，策略的使用也有显著的差异。不同类型的处理策略与青少年不同的心理健康问题有关。结论青少年的心理健康水平对其亲子冲突处理策略具有预测作用。     

青少年肌阵挛癫痫发作间期EEG-fMRI的研究

采用同步脑电与功能磁共振(Simultaneous electroencephalography-correlated functional magnetic resonance imaging,EEG-fMRI)技术,研究青少年肌阵挛癫痫患者发作间期痫样放电时脑部血氧水平依赖(Blood oxygen level-dependent,BOLD)信号变化。结果发现:双侧大脑半球的激活及失活信号变化普遍对称且各自独立存在,信号由枕顶至额区逐渐减少。阳性激活区有:楔叶、岛叶、额中部内侧、小脑中线两侧及丘脑。阴性激活区有:双侧额前部、顶部及扣带后回。由此推断:以棘慢复合波为表现形式的同步的神经元活动可能反映了丘脑皮层BOLD信号的激活,而失活区域反映了异常放电时的脑功能的静息状态;这类激活在神经元的活动(EEG)与fMRI结果之间有很好的对应关系;EEG-fMRI是研究脑功能状态有效的方式。     

宁夏地区汉族与回族青少年心理健康水平及父母养育方式的比较研究

目的：考查不同民族学生心理健康水平和父母养育方式的差异以及两者之间的关系。方法：采用父母教养方式问卷（ＥＭＢＵ）和症状自评量表（ＳＣＬ－９０）对银川市一所重点高中的３６８名汉族学生和２８９名回族学生进行了测查。结果：（１）回族学生的父亲对其子女表现出更多的情感温暖与理解，但与此同时又对其子女也有更多的处罚、严厉和过度保护倾向；而汉族学生的母亲对子女有更多的拒绝与否定倾向。（２）回族学生在症状自评量表中的躯体化、强迫、人际敏感、抑郁和恐怖的得分上明显高于汉族学生。（３）父母不良的教养方式与两组学生在ＳＣＬ－９０的多项得分均具有明显相关。结论：汉族与回族学生的心理健康水平及父母养育方式有不同程度的差异，且两者之间有一定的联系。     

网络成瘾者心率变异性频谱特征的研究

目的：了解网络成瘾者的心率变异性频域特点及其影响因素。方法：对30名网络成瘾者（16岁-25岁）和43名非成瘾者进行心率变异性（HRV）及艾森克人格问卷（EPQ）和网络成瘾量表的调查。结果：网瘾组HRV的LFNU和LF／HF比值明显高于对照组（P〈0．05，P〈0．01），而HFNU明显低于对照组（P〈0．05）。网瘾组和对照组的EPQ量表得分无显著差异，但网瘾组EPQ量表中N得分与HRV中LFNU、LF／HF比值呈正相关（P〈0．05），与HFNU呈负相关（P〈0．05）。网瘾程度与对照组HRV中LFNU、LF／HF比值呈负相关（P〈0．05），与HFNU呈正相关（P〈0．05）。结论：网络成瘾者存在一定生理心理水平的改变，心率变异性可以作为评估青少年是否网络成瘾的重要参考指标．而网瘾者的神经质特征对心率变异性有显著影响。     

脑电的非线性动力学高维特性及研究现状与展望

80年代以来 ,脑电 (EEG)一直被视为低维混沌信号 ,关于脑电混沌性的检验及对其低维混沌性的质疑 ,是近年来国际学术界的研究热点。目前的研究基本上认证了 EEG的非线性和混沌性 ,却否定了它是源于低维的混沌系统。因此 ,用经典的低维混沌理论和算法去分析研究高维 EEG的适用性和适用条件 ,必须进行探讨和论证。本文简要介绍了近年来的研究现状 ,其中着重介绍了EEG低维简化模型法 ,最后展望了研究的发展前景。     

Adolescent psychopathy,heart rate,and skin conductance

Researchers have advocated for a greater focus on measuring neurobiological underpinnings of serious psychological conditions such as psychopathy. This has become particularly important to investigate early in the life span, when intervention efforts for psychopathy‐related behavior like conduct disorder (CD) are more successful. Given that psychopathy is a complex syndrome, it is also important to investigate physiological processes at a dimensional level. Using a sample of 56 adolescent male offenders (M_age = 15.92; SD = 1.31), this study explored the relationship between the Psychopathy Checklist–Youth Version (Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003), heart rate (HR), and skin conductance (SC). A white noise countdown task was used to measure autonomic activity across a baseline, anticipatory (prenoise), and reactivity (postnoise) period. Findings revealed no significant associations between psychopathy and HR activity across the time intervals. However, results revealed a positive association between grandiose‐manipulative traits and SC activity and a negative association between callous‐unemotional traits and SC activity. The results indicate that autonomic processes may contribute to distinct psychopathic traits in different ways, implicating slightly differential brain functioning. The findings suggest that, in order to better understand and treat youth with CD, future research should continue to examine the biological correlates of psychopathy at the broader construct level but perhaps especially at the component level.     

Scoring Criteria for Response Latency and Habituation in Electrodermal Research: A Critique

Recent evidence, particularly in research on the skin conductance orienting response (SCOR) in schizophrenia, suggests that differences in scoring criteria may be important sources of error and variability in studies of electrodermal responses to discrete stimuli and their habituation. Although a wide variety of response latency criteria have been used in published studies, empirical evidence suggests that responses occur in a narrow and early post-stimulus time window. Data are presented demonstrating that the intra-subject variability of response latency is low when responses are scored within a narrow time window, but that broader time windows include more variable-latency responses that may represent spontaneous activity. The commonly-used criterion of three no-response trials as an habituation endpoint may also introduce contamination by spontaneous activity; available evidence favors a two-trials criterion. Analyses such as the ones presented here permit testing of the specificity of scoring criteria for responses elicited by experimental stimuli.     

Electrodermal activity in patients with persistent insomnia

SUMMARY  In order to evaluate daytime arousal in patients with persistent insomnia, electrodermal activity (EDA) was measured in a habituation paradigm (21 tones, 80 dB, 1s) in forty patients with persistent insomnia and in twenty normal subjects. Results showed that the patients had higher EDA than the controls implying a higher arousal level in the patients. Among the patients the distribution of trials to a habituation criterion was bimodal and patients were separated into habituators ( n = 24) and non-habituators ( n = 16). Non-habituators had significantly higher EDA than habituators and they also had a shorter nocturnal sleep time. Thus, daytime arousal was significantly related to nocturnal sleep in the patients. Both patients with Psychophysiological Insomnia and Insomnia Associated with Psychiatric Disorders had higher EDA than the controls, and EDA was also significantly related to sleep in both groups. Results lend further support for the notion of an excessive daytime arousal, which may serve as a common predisposing factor in the initiation or maintenance of persistent insomnia.     

Heart‐rate modulations reveal attention and consciousness interactions

Our environment is constantly overloaded with information, although we cannot consciously process all the stimulation reaching our senses. Current theoretical models are focused on the cognitive and neural processes underlying conscious perception. However, cognitive processes do not occur in an isolated brain but in a complex interaction between the environment, the brain, and the organism. The brain‐body interaction has largely been neglected in the study of conscious perception. The aim of the present study was to explore if heart rate and skin conductance (SC) are modulated by the interaction between phasic alertness and conscious perception. We presented near‐threshold visual stimuli that could be preceded by an alerting tone on 50% of the trials. Behaviorally, phasic alerting improved perceptual sensitivity for detecting a near‐threshold stimulus (along with changes in response criterion). Following the alerting tone, a cardiac deceleration‐acceleration pattern was observed, which was more pronounced when the near‐threshold stimulus was consciously perceived in comparison with unconsciously perceived stimuli. SC results further showed some degree of subliminal processing of unseen stimuli. These results reveal that cardiac activity could be a marker of attention and consciousness interactions, emphasizing the need for taking into account brain‐body interactions for current theoretical models of consciousness.     

Effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and maternal separation on heart rate,orienting response habituation,and retention

Effects of the presence or absence of the dam during testing and the retention interval on pretone heart rate (HR) and habituation and retention of an HR orienting response to tone were examined in prenatally cocaine-exposed and nontreated Sprague Dawley rat pups in two experiments. On postnatal day 16, each pup received two test sessions, separated by a 4-hr retention interval during which pups were either isolated or placed with their dam and siblings. For testing, each pup was placed in the test apparatus in the presence or absence of an anesthetized dam where, after a 15-min adaptation period, 10 tone presentations were given, each separated by a 65-s intertrial interval, with HR measured during a 5-s pretone period and throughout the 10-s tone for each trial. Experiment 1 used offspring from the regular breeding colony and observed the typical HR lowering effect of maternal presence during testing, an effect that was surprisingly potentiated, however, following the retention interval in animals that were isolated during this interval. This apparent potentiation by prior isolation of the HR lowering effect of the dam was confirmed in Experiment 2 in nontreated offspring, but did not emerge convincingly in offspring of either dams subcutaneously injected with 40 mg/kg of cocaine HCl daily from gestational days 8 to 20 (C40) or dams injected with saline and pair-fed 4 days (PF4) to mimic the acute anorexic effects of cocaine administration. Consistent with prior work, C40 offspring also were found to exhibit better retention of the habituated orienting response than offspring of NT dams and to some extent PF4 dams as well, a retention effect that was not significantly influenced, however, by social context during the retention interval.     

Instructed heart rate control in a high heart rate population

Forty college students were selected from a large number of introductory psychology students on the basis of high heart rate during an initial screening session. Subjects were then contacted and participated in two additional sessions during which heart rate, respiration rate, and skin conductance measures were obtained. Each session consisted of a baseline period followed by five trial periods during which subjects attempted to control their heart rate or performed a visual tracking task. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four groups. One group served as a control and monitored a visual feedback display driven by their own heart rate but received no instructions to decrease their heart rate. In contrast, the three heart rate control groups were instructed to decrease heart rate during the trial periods by utilizing a relaxation procedure, proportional biofeedback, or proportional biofeedback plus criterion information. No group differences were present during the baseline periods. During feedback trials, however, all the training groups differed from the control in heart rate but did not differ from each other. It is suggested that feedback displays may not facilitate heart rate reduction beyond the level achieved by instructing subjects to use a general relaxation procedure.     

Cortical thickness,resting state heart rate,and heart rate variability in female adolescents

Resting state heart rate variability (HRV) is a psychophysiological marker that has gained increasing research interest, in particular in developmental neuroscience. HRV has been shown to be associated with mental and physical health, beyond simple measures of heart rate (HR) and shows inter‐ and intraindividual variance across aging. Recently, three studies reported on a positive correlation between resting state HRV and cortical thickness in selected regions of interest (ROIs) in adult samples. Structural thickness, HRV, and HR change during the sensitive period of adolescence. Previously, no study has addressed the structural concomitants of resting HR and HRV in adolescents. Cortical thickness (3‐T MRI), HR, and HRV were recorded in 20 healthy, female adolescents (mean age: 15.92 years; SD = 1.06; range: 14–17). In line with existing research in adults, cortical thickness in a number of ROIs was associated with resting state HRV but not HR. The comparison of regression analyses using the Bayes factor revealed evidence for a correlation between HRV and cortical thickness of the bilateral rostral anterior cingulate cortex. However, unlike in adults, greater cortical thickness was associated with reduced HRV in female adolescents. Analyses on HR showed no superior model fit. Results suggest that greater HRV might be beneficial for cortical development during adolescence (cortical thinning). On the other hand, cortical development might determine changes in autonomic nervous system function in adolescents. Future studies are needed to replicate these findings in larger samples including boys and to test these hypotheses in longitudinal designs.     

Electrodermal activity and temperament in preschool children

This study had two objectives: To examine poorly understood patterns of young children's electrodermal reactivity and to test the hypothesis that this reactivity reflects individual differences in the behavioral inhibition system (BIS). We recorded skin conductance responses (SCRs) from 92 4-year-old children during a laboratory session that encompassed physiological and psychological stimuli. Physiological stimuli (breaths), moderately loud to loud sounds (expected and unexpected) and, to a lesser extent, stimuli with psychological significance elicited clear SCRs. Induction of psychological conflict and exposure to emotional film clips for the most part did not elicit increases in skin conductance (SC). Children's temperament dimensions of fearfulness and effortful (or inhibitory) control--two components of the BIS--were assessed using robust observational batteries at age 2 and 4 years. The theoretically expected correlations between overall SC lability (reflecting SC levels) and both dimensions of temperament were significant, albeit modest and limited to the contemporaneous measures at age 4.     

Comparison of heart rate response and heart rate recovery after step test among smoker and non-smoker athletes

BackgroundExercise performance depend on the ability of the cardiovascular system to respond to a wide range of metabolic demands and physical exertion.ObjectivesTo investigate the habitual smoking effects in heart rate response and heart rate recovery after step test in athletes.MethodsSeventy-eight physically healthy active athletes (45 non-smokers and 33 smokers) aging 27±8 years old, participated in this study. All participants completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and performed the six-minute step test. Cardiovascular parameters such (resting heart rate, peak heart rate, heart rate at 1 min after testing, heart rate recovery, recovery time, blood pressure at rest, and post-testing blood pressure) were recorded.ResultsSmoker-athletes had higher resting heart rate (76 ± 9bpm vs. 72 ± 10bpm, p<0.05), maximum heart rate (154 ± 18bpm vs. 147 ± 17bpm, p<0.05) and recovery time (7min 25sec ± 6min 31sec vs. 4min 21sec ± 4min 30sec, p<0.05) than non-smoker athletes. Scores from the IPAQ were approximately the same (M=7927 ± 10303, M= 6380 ± 4539, p<0.05).ConclusionSmoking was found to affect athletes'' cardiovascular fitness. The change of the athletes'' heart rate recovery and recovery time contributes to the adaptation of cardiovascular function in training requirements.     

Changes in heart rate and skin conductance in the 30 min preceding aggressive behavior

Aggressive behavior of inpatients threatens the safety and well‐being of both mental health staff members and fellow patients. It was investigated whether heart rate and electrodermal activity can be used to signal imminent aggression. A naturalistic study was conducted in which 100 inpatients wore sensor wristbands during 5 days to monitor their heart rate and electrodermal activity while staff members recorded patients’ aggressive incidents on the ward. Of the 100 patients, 36 displayed at least one aggressive incident. Longitudinal multilevel models indicated that heart rate, skin conductance level, and the number of nonspecific skin conductance responses per minute rose significantly in the 20 min preceding aggressive incidents. Although psychopathy was modestly correlated with displaying aggression, it was not a significant predictor of heart rate and skin conductance preceding aggression. The current findings may provide opportunities for the development of individual prediction models to aid acute risk assessment and to predict aggressive incidents in an earlier stage. The current results on the physiological indicators of aggression are promising for reducing aggression and improving both staff as well as patient safety in psychiatric mental health institutions.