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1.
AoB Plants ; 16(1): plad088, 2024 Jan.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38192569

RESUMO

In life, it is common for almost every kind of organism to interact with one another. In the human realm, such interactions are at the basis of joint actions, when two or more agents syntonize their actions to achieve a common goal. Shared intentionality is the theoretical construct referring to the suite of abilities that enable such coordinated and collaborative interactions. While shared intentionality has become an important concept in research on social cognition, there is controversy surrounding its evolutionary origins. An aspect still unexplored but promising to bring new insights into this open debate is the study of aneural organisms. To fill this gap, here we investigate whether climbing plants can act jointly to achieve a common goal, i.e. reaching the light. We examined Pisum Sativum plants growing intertwined when there is a need to climb but a potential support is not present in the environment. Three-dimensional kinematic analysis of their movement revealed a coordinated and complementary behaviour. They tend to coordinate their movement in time and space to achieve a joint climbing. By deliberately extending the context in which a joint action takes place, we pay tribute to the complex nature of this social phenomenon. The next challenge for the field of joint action is to generate a perspective that links coordination mechanisms to an evolutionary framework across taxa.

2.
Int J Med Inform ; 179: 105209, 2023 Nov.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37729839

RESUMO

BACKGROUND: The human exposome encompasses all exposures that individuals encounter throughout their lifetime. It is now widely acknowledged that health outcomes are influenced not only by genetic factors but also by the interactions between these factors and various exposures. Consequently, the exposome has emerged as a significant contributor to the overall risk of developing major diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. Therefore, personalized early risk assessment based on exposome attributes might be a promising tool for identifying high-risk individuals and improving disease prevention. OBJECTIVE: Develop and evaluate a novel and fair machine learning (ML) model for CVD and type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk prediction based on a set of readily available exposome factors. We evaluated our model using internal and external validation groups from a multi-center cohort. To be considered fair, the model was required to demonstrate consistent performance across different sub-groups of the cohort. METHODS: From the UK Biobank, we identified 5,348 and 1,534 participants who within 13 years from the baseline visit were diagnosed with CVD and T2D, respectively. An equal number of participants who did not develop these pathologies were randomly selected as the control group. 109 readily available exposure variables from six different categories (physical measures, environmental, lifestyle, mental health events, sociodemographics, and early-life factors) from the participant's baseline visit were considered. We adopted the XGBoost ensemble model to predict individuals at risk of developing the diseases. The model's performance was compared to that of an integrative ML model which is based on a set of biological, clinical, physical, and sociodemographic variables, and, additionally for CVD, to the Framingham risk score. Moreover, we assessed the proposed model for potential bias related to sex, ethnicity, and age. Lastly, we interpreted the model's results using SHAP, a state-of-the-art explainability method. RESULTS: The proposed ML model presents a comparable performance to the integrative ML model despite using solely exposome information, achieving a ROC-AUC of 0.78±0.01 and 0.77±0.01 for CVD and T2D, respectively. Additionally, for CVD risk prediction, the exposome-based model presents an improved performance over the traditional Framingham risk score. No bias in terms of key sensitive variables was identified. CONCLUSIONS: We identified exposome factors that play an important role in identifying patients at risk of CVD and T2D, such as naps during the day, age completed full-time education, past tobacco smoking, frequency of tiredness/unenthusiasm, and current work status. Overall, this work demonstrates the potential of exposome-based machine learning as a fair CVD and T2D risk assessment tool.


Assuntos
Doenças Cardiovasculares , Diabetes Mellitus Tipo 2 , Expossoma , Humanos , Diabetes Mellitus Tipo 2/epidemiologia , Fatores de Risco , Doenças Cardiovasculares/epidemiologia , Doenças Cardiovasculares/etiologia , Aprendizado de Máquina
3.
J Comp Psychol ; 137(4): 228-237, 2023 Nov.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37166943

RESUMO

"How" an action is performed is not solely determined by biomechanical constraints, but it depends on the agent's intention, that is, "why" the action is performed. Recent findings suggest that intentions can be specified at a tangible and quantifiable level in the kinematics of movements; that is, different motor intentions translate into different kinematic patterns. In the present study, we used 3D kinematical analysis to investigate whether the organization of climbing plants' approach-to-grasp action is sensitive to the kind of intention driving their movement toward potential support, namely individual or social. For the individual condition, a plant in isolation acted upon the support. For the social condition, two plants were located in the same pot opposite to each other with a support in the middle. Results indicate differences in kinematics depending on the context within which the plant is acting. In the presence of neighbors, climbing plants are able to modify their behaviors to maximize their long-term gains, including the grasping of a potential support. Overall, these data suggest that the organization of climbing plants' kinematics is sensitive to the "intention" driving their movement toward a potential support. To discuss this phenomenon, we capitalize on the concept of motor intentionality in plants and on available theories concerned to motor cognition. We suggest how they could be revisited to explain the intentionality component inherent in plant life and other brainless organisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).


Assuntos
Intenção , Movimento , Cognição , Fenômenos Biomecânicos , Força da Mão
4.
Plants (Basel) ; 12(8)2023 Apr 10.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37111821

RESUMO

Finding a suitable support is a key process in the life history of climbing plants. Those that find a suitable support have greater performance and fitness than those that remain prostrate. Numerous studies on climbing plant behavior have elucidated the mechanistic details of support-searching and attachment. Far fewer studies have addressed the ecological significance of support-searching behavior and the factors that affect it. Among these, the diameter of supports influences their suitability. When the support diameter increases beyond some point, climbing plants are unable to maintain tensional forces and therefore lose attachment to the trellis. Here, we further investigate this issue by placing pea plants (Pisum sativum L.) in the situation of choosing between supports of different diameters while their movement was recorded by means of a three-dimensional motion analysis system. The results indicate that the way pea plants move can vary depending on whether they are presented with one or two potential supports. Furthermore, when presented with a choice between thin and thick supports, the plants showed a distinct preference for the former than the latter. The present findings shed further light on how climbing plants make decisions regarding support-searching and provide evidence that plants adopt one of several alternative plastic responses in a way that optimally corresponds to environmental scenarios.

5.
Int J Soc Robot ; 15(3): 517-545, 2023.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35194482

RESUMO

The integration of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) frameworks with Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) has proven useful for monitoring and assisting older adults in their own home. However, the difficulties associated with long-term deployments in real-world complex environments are still highly under-explored. In this work, we first present the MoveCare system, an unobtrusive platform that, through the integration of a SAR into an AAL framework, aimed to monitor, assist and provide social, cognitive, and physical stimulation in the own houses of elders living alone and at risk of falling into frailty. We then focus on the evaluation and analysis of a long-term pilot campaign of more than 300 weeks of usages. We evaluated the system's acceptability and feasibility through various questionnaires and empirically assessed the impact of the presence of an assistive robot by deploying the system with and without it. Our results provide strong empirical evidence that Socially Assistive Robots integrated with monitoring and stimulation platforms can be successfully used for long-term support to older adults. We describe how the robot's presence significantly incentivised the use of the system, but slightly lowered the system's overall acceptability. Finally, we emphasise that real-world long-term deployment of SARs introduces a significant technical, organisational, and logistical overhead that should not be neglected nor underestimated in the pursuit of long-term robust systems. We hope that the findings and lessons learned from our work can bring value towards future long-term real-world and widespread use of SARs.

6.
Stud Health Technol Inform ; 294: 937-938, 2022 May 25.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35612247

RESUMO

Language has always been a rich source of amnestic information in the context of cognitive and affective disorders. Many of the language tests and metrics that are employed today have been designed when the only available technology was paper and pencil. Here we present a novel digital tool to administer and score a set of tests based on language.


Assuntos
Idioma , Saúde Mental , Biomarcadores , Tecnologia
7.
Biology (Basel) ; 11(3)2022 Mar 06.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35336779

RESUMO

Plants such as climbers characterized by stems or tendrils need to find a potential support (e.g., pole, stick, other plants or trees) to reach greater light exposure. Since the time when Darwin carried out research on climbing plants, several studies on plants' searching and attachment behaviors have demonstrated their unique ability to process some features of a support to modulate their movements accordingly. Nevertheless, the strategies underlying this ability have yet to be uncovered. The present research tries to fill this gap by investigating how the interaction between above- (i.e., stems, tendrils, …) and below-ground (i.e., the root system) plant organs influences the kinematics of their approach-to-grasp movements. Using three-dimensional (3D) kinematic analysis, we characterized the movements of pea plants (Pisum sativum L.) as they leaned towards supports whose below- and above-ground parts were characterized by different thicknesses (i.e., thin below- thick above-ground, or the opposite). As a control condition, the plants were placed next to supports with the same thickness below and above ground (i.e., either entirely thin or thick). The results suggest that the information regarding below- and above-ground parts of a support appears to be integrated and modulates the reach-to-grasp behavior of the plant. Information about the support conveyed by the root system seems to be particularly important to achieve the end-goal of movement.

8.
Sensors (Basel) ; 21(20)2021 Oct 11.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34695957

RESUMO

Enriched environments and tools are believed to promote grasp rehabilitation after stroke. We designed S2, an interactive grasp rehabilitation system consisting of smart objects, custom orthoses for selective grasp constraining, and an electrode array system for forearm NMES. Motor improvements and perceived usability of a new enriched upper limb training system for sub-acute stroke patients was assessed in this interim analysis. INCLUSION CRITERIA: sub-acute stroke patients with MMSE>20, ipsilesional MI>80%, and contralesional MI<80%. Effects of 30-min therapy supplements, conventional vs. S2 prototype, are compared through a parallel two-arms dose-matched open-label trial, lasting 27 sessions. Clinical centres: Asklepios Neurologische Klinik Falkenstein, Königstein im Taunus, Germany, and Clinica Villa Beretta, Costa Masnaga, Italy. Assessment scales: ARAT, System Usability, and Technology Acceptance. METHODOLOGY: 26 participants were block randomized, allocated to the study (control N=12, experimental N=14) and underwent the training protocol. Among them, 11 participants with ARAT score at inclusion below 35, n = 6 in the experimental group, and n = 5 in the control group were analysed. RESULTS: participants in the enriched treatment group displayed a larger improvement in the ARAT scale (+14.9 pts, pval=0.0494). Perceived usability differed between clinics. No adverse effect was observed in relation to the treatments. Trial status: closed. CONCLUSIONS: The S2 system, developed according to shared clinical directives, was tested in a clinical proof of concept. Variations of ARAT scores confirm the feasibility of clinical investigation for hand rehabilitation after stroke.


Assuntos
Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral , Acidente Vascular Cerebral , Terapia por Exercício , Força da Mão , Humanos , Recuperação de Função Fisiológica , Resultado do Tratamento , Extremidade Superior
9.
J Comp Psychol ; 135(4): 495-504, 2021 11.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34410801

RESUMO

Tendrils are clasping structures used by climbing plants to anchor and support their vines that coil around suitable hosts to achieve the greatest exposure to sunlight. Although recent evidence suggests that climbing plants are able to sense the presence of a potential stimulus in the environment and to plan the tendrils' movements depending on properties such as its thickness, the mechanisms underlying thickness sensing in climbing plants have yet to be uncovered. The current research set out to use three-dimensional kinematical analysis to investigate if and in what way the root system contributed to thickness sensing. Experiment 1 was designed to confirm that the movement of the tendrils of pea plants (Pisum sativum L.) is planned and controlled on the basis of stimulus thickness when the stimulus is inserted into the substrate. Experiment 2 was designed to investigate what happens when the stimulus is lifted to the ground so as to impede the root system from sensing it. The results confirmed that tendrils' kinematics depend on thickness when the stimulus is available to the root system but not when it is unavailable to it. These findings suggest that the root system plays a pivotal role in sensing the presence and the thickness of a stimulus and that the information perceived affects the planning and the execution of the climbing plants' reach-to-grasp movements. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).


Assuntos
Pisum sativum , Fenômenos Fisiológicos Vegetais , Raízes de Plantas , Plantas
10.
Animals (Basel) ; 11(7)2021 Jun 22.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34206479

RESUMO

In this article we adapt a methodology customarily used to investigate movement in animals to study the movement of plants. The targeted movement is circumnutation, a helical organ movement widespread among plants. It is variable due to a different magnitude of the trajectory (amplitude) exhibited by the organ tip, duration of one cycle (period), circular, elliptical, pendulum-like or irregular shape and the clockwise and counterclockwise direction of rotation. The acquisition setup consists of two cameras used to obtain a stereoscopic vision for each plant. Cameras switch to infrared recording mode for low light level conditions, allowing continuous motion acquisition during the night. A dedicated software enables semi-automatic tracking of key points of the plant and reconstructs the 3D trajectory of each point along the whole movement. Three-dimensional trajectories for different points undergo a specific processing to compute those features suitable to describe circumnutation (e.g., maximum speed, circumnutation center, circumnutation length, etc.). By applying our method to the approach-to-grasp movement exhibited by climbing plants (Pisum sativum L.) it appears clear that the plants scale movement kinematics according to the features of the support in ways that are adaptive, flexible, anticipatory and goal-directed, reminiscent of how animals would act.

11.
Neurorehabil Neural Repair ; 35(4): 334-345, 2021 04.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33655789

RESUMO

BACKGROUND: Robotic systems combined with Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) showed promising results on upper-limb motor recovery after stroke, but adequately-sized randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are still missing. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether arm training supported by RETRAINER, a passive exoskeleton integrated with electromyograph-triggered functional electrical stimulation, is superior to advanced conventional therapy (ACT) of equal intensity in the recovery of arm functions, dexterity, strength, activities of daily living, and quality of life after stroke. METHODS: A single-blind RCT recruiting 72 patients was conducted. Patients, randomly allocated to 2 groups, were trained for 9 weeks, 3 times per week: the experimental group performed task-oriented exercises assisted by RETRAINER for 30 minutes plus ACT (60 minutes), whereas the control group performed only ACT (90 minutes). Patients were assessed before, soon after, and 1 month after the end of the intervention. Outcome measures were as follows: Action Research Arm Test (ARAT), Motricity Index, Motor Activity Log, Box and Blocks Test (BBT), Stroke Specific Quality of Life Scale (SSQoL), and Muscle Research Council. RESULTS: All outcomes but SSQoL significantly improved over time in both groups (P < .001); a significant interaction effect in favor of the experimental group was found for ARAT and BBT. ARAT showed a between-group change of 11.5 points (P = .010) at the end of the intervention, which increased to 13.6 points 1 month after. Patients considered RETRAINER moderately usable (System Usability Score of 61.5 ± 22.8). CONCLUSIONS: Hybrid robotic systems, allowing to perform personalized, intensive, and task-oriented training, with an enriched sensory feedback, was superior to ACT in improving arm functions and dexterity after stroke.


Assuntos
Terapia por Estimulação Elétrica , Eletromiografia , Terapia por Exercício , Exoesqueleto Energizado , Recuperação de Função Fisiológica , Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral , Acidente Vascular Cerebral/terapia , Extremidade Superior , Atividades Cotidianas , Adulto , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Terapia Combinada , Terapia por Estimulação Elétrica/instrumentação , Terapia por Estimulação Elétrica/métodos , Terapia por Exercício/instrumentação , Terapia por Exercício/métodos , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Avaliação de Resultados em Cuidados de Saúde , Qualidade de Vida , Recuperação de Função Fisiológica/fisiologia , Robótica , Método Simples-Cego , Acidente Vascular Cerebral/fisiopatologia , Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral/instrumentação , Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral/métodos , Extremidade Superior/fisiopatologia
12.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun ; 564: 86-91, 2021 07 30.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32747088

RESUMO

At first glance, plants seem relatively immobile and, unlike animals, unable to interact with the surroundings or escape stressful environments. But, although markedly different from those of animals, movement pervades all aspects of plant behaviour. Here, we focused our investigation on the approaching movement of climbing plants, that is the movement they perform to reach-to-climb a support. In particular, we examined whether climbing plants evolved a motor accuracy mechanism as to improve the precision of their movement and how this eventually differs from animal species. For this purpose, by means of three-dimensional kinematical analysis, we investigated whether climbing plants have the ability to correct online their movement by means of secondary submovements, and if their frequency production is influenced by the difficulty of the task. Results showed, not only that plants correct their movement in flight, but also that they strategically increase the production of secondary submovements when the task requires more precision, exactly as humans do. These findings support the hypothesis that the movement of plants is far cry from being a simple cause-effect mechanism, but rather is appropriately planned, controlled and eventually corrected.


Assuntos
Movimento/fisiologia , Pisum sativum/fisiologia
13.
JMIR Biomed Eng ; 6(2): e15417, 2021 May 11.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38907377

RESUMO

BACKGROUND: Smartphone use is widely spreading in society. Their embedded functions and sensors may play an important role in therapy monitoring and planning. However, the use of smartphones for intrapersonal behavioral and physical monitoring is not yet fully supported by adequate studies addressing technical reliability and acceptance. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to identify and discuss technical issues that may impact on the wide use of smartphones as clinical monitoring tools. The focus is on the quality of the data and transparency of the acquisition process. METHODS: QuantifyMyPerson is a platform for continuous monitoring of smartphone use and embedded sensors data. The platform consists of an app for data acquisition, a backend cloud server for data storage and processing, and a web-based dashboard for data management and visualization. The data processing aims to extract meaningful features for the description of daily life such as phone status, calls, app use, GPS, and accelerometer data. A total of health subjects installed the app on their smartphones, running it for 7 months. The acquired data were analyzed to assess impact on smartphone performance (ie, battery consumption and anomalies in functioning) and data integrity. Relevance of the selected features in describing changes in daily life was assessed through the computation of a k-nearest neighbors global anomaly score to detect days that differ from others. RESULTS: The effectiveness of smartphone-based monitoring depends on the acceptability and interoperability of the system as user retention and data integrity are key aspects. Acceptability was confirmed by the full transparency of the app and the absence of any conflicts with daily smartphone use. The only perceived issue was the battery consumption even though the trend of battery drain with and without the app running was comparable. Regarding interoperability, the app was successfully installed and run on several Android brands. The study shows that some smartphone manufacturers implement power-saving policies not allowing continuous sensor data acquisition and impacting integrity. Data integrity was 96% on smartphones whose power-saving policies do not impact the embedded sensor management and 84% overall. CONCLUSIONS: The main technological barriers to continuous behavioral and physical monitoring (ie, battery consumption and power-saving policies of manufacturers) may be overcome. Battery consumption increase is mainly due to GPS triangulation and may be limited, while data missing because of power-saving policies are related only to periods of nonuse of the phone since the embedded sensors are reactivated by any smartphone event. Overall, smartphone-based passive sensing is fully feasible and scalable despite the Android market fragmentation.

14.
Sensors (Basel) ; 20(11)2020 Jun 05.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32517139

RESUMO

Rehabilitation of the upper limb is an important aspect of the therapy for people affected by neuromotor diseases for the recovery of the capability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs). Nonetheless, the costs associated with the administration of rehabilitation therapy and the increasing number of patients highlight the need for new solutions. Technology-based solutions and, in particular, telerehabilitation could strongly impact in this field. In this paper, a new system based on radiofrequency (RF) technology is presented which is able to effectively provide home-based telerehabilitation and extract meaningful information on the therapy execution performance. The technology has been tuned to the needs of the rehabilitation system, optimizing the hardware, the communication protocol and the software control. A methodology for extracting the execution time of the rehabilitation tasks, the distance covered by the patient's hand in each subtask and the velocity profile is presented. The results show that a highly usable system for the rehabilitation of the upper limb has been developed using the RF technology and that performance metrics can be reliably extracted by the acquired signals.


Assuntos
Dispositivo de Identificação por Radiofrequência , Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral , Atividades Cotidianas , Mãos , Humanos , Extremidade Superior
15.
Brain Sci ; 10(6)2020 Jun 16.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32560198

RESUMO

Atypical motor patterns are potential early markers and predictors of later diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This study aimed to investigate the early motor trajectories of infants at high-risk (HR) of ASD through MOVIDEA, a semi-automatic software developed to analyze 2D and 3D videos and provide objective kinematic features of their movements. MOVIDEA was developed within the Italian Network for early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder (NIDA Network), which is currently coordinating the most extensive surveillance program for infants at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). MOVIDEA was applied to video recordings of 53 low-risk (LR; siblings of typically developing children) and 50 HR infants' spontaneous movements collected at 10 days and 6, 12, 18, and 24 weeks. Participants were grouped based on their clinical outcome (18 HR received an NDD diagnosis, 32 HR and 53 LR were typically developing). Results revealed that early developmental trajectories of specific motor parameters were different in HR infants later diagnosed with NDDs from those of infants developing typically. Since MOVIDEA was useful in the association of quantitative measures with specific early motor patterns, it should be applied to the early detection of ASD/NDD markers.

16.
Psychon Bull Rev ; 27(5): 966-973, 2020 Oct.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32542481

RESUMO

Speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) is the tendency for decision speed to covary with decision accuracy. SAT is an inescapable property of aimed movements being present in a wide range of species, from insects to primates. An aspect that remains unsolved is whether SAT extends to plants' movement. Here, we tested this possibility by examining the swaying in circles of the tips of shoots exhibited by climbing plants (Pisum sativum L.) as they approach to grasp a potential support. In particular, by means of three-dimensional kinematical analysis, we investigated whether climbing plants scale movement velocity as a function of the difficulty to coil a support. Results showed that plants are able to process the properties of the support before contact and, similarly to animal species, strategically modulate movement velocity according to task difficulty.


Assuntos
Fenômenos Biomecânicos/fisiologia , Movimento/fisiologia , Pisum sativum/fisiologia
17.
Brain Sci ; 10(4)2020 Mar 31.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32244544

RESUMO

Early detecting the presence of neurodevelopmental disorders plays an important role in the effectiveness of the treatment. In this paper, we present a novel tool to extract motion features using single camera video recordings of infants. The Movidea software was developed to allow the operator to track the movement of end-effectors of infants in free moving conditions and extract movement features automatically. Movidea was used by different operators to analyze a set of video recordings and its performance was evaluated. The results showed that Movidea performance did not vary with the operator, and the tracking was also stable in home-video recordings. Even if the setup allowed for a two-dimensional analysis, most of the informative content of the movement was maintained. The reliability of the measures and features extracted, as well as the easiness of use, may boost the uptake of the proposed solution in clinical settings. Movidea overcomes the current limitation in the clinical practice in early detection of neurodevelopmental disorders by providing objective measures based on reliable data, and adds a new tool for the motor analysis of infants through unobtrusive technology.

18.
Sci Rep ; 9(1): 16570, 2019 11 12.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31719580

RESUMO

Although plants are essentially sessile in nature, these organisms are very much in tune with their environment and are capable of a variety of movements. This may come as a surprise to many non-botanists, but not to Charles Darwin, who reported that plants do produce movements. Following Darwin's specific interest on climbing plants, this paper will focus on the attachment mechanisms by the tendrils. We draw attention to an unsolved problem in available literature: whether during the approach phase the tendrils of climbing plants consider the structure of the support they intend to grasp and plan the movement accordingly ahead of time. Here we report the first empirical evidence that this might be the case. The three-dimensional (3D) kinematic analysis of a climbing plant (Pisum sativum L.) demonstrates that the plant not only perceives the support, but it scales the kinematics of tendrils' aperture according to its thickness. When the same support is represented in two-dimensions (2D), and thus unclimbable, there is no evidence for such scaling. In these circumstances the tendrils' kinematics resemble those observed for the condition in which no support was offered. We discuss these data in light of the evidence suggesting that plants are equipped with sensory mechanisms able to provide the necessary information to plan and control a movement.


Assuntos
Pisum sativum/fisiologia , Pontos de Referência Anatômicos , Fenômenos Biomecânicos , Movimento , Pisum sativum/anatomia & histologia
19.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng ; 66(12): 3290-3300, 2019 12.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31180833

RESUMO

OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate a hybrid robotic system for arm recovery after stroke, combining ElectroMyoGraphic (EMG)-triggered functional electrical stimulation (FES) with a passive exoskeleton for upper limb suspension. METHODS: The system was used in a structured exercise program resembling activities of daily life. Exercises execution was continuously controlled using angle sensor data and radio-frequency identification technology. The training program consisted of 27 sessions lasting 30 min each. Seven post-acute stroke patients were recruited from two clinical sites. The efficacy of the system was evaluated in terms of action research arm test, motricity index, motor activity log, and box & blocks tests. Furthermore, kinematics-based and EMG-based outcome measures were derived directly from data collected during training sessions. RESULTS: All patients showed an improvement of motor functions at the end of the training program. After training, the exercises were in most cases executed faster, smoother, and with an increased range of motion. Subjects were able to trigger FES, but in some cases, they did not maintain the voluntary effort during task execution. All subjects but one considered the system usable. CONCLUSION: The preliminary results showed that the system can be used in a clinical environment with positive effects on arm functional recovery. However, only the final results of the currently ongoing clinical trial will unveil the system's full potential. SIGNIFICANCE: The presented hybrid robotic system is highly customizable, allows to monitor the daily performance, requires low supervision of the therapist, and might have the potential to enhance arm recovery after stroke.


Assuntos
Terapia por Estimulação Elétrica , Exoesqueleto Energizado , Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral , Extremidade Superior/fisiopatologia , Adolescente , Adulto , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Terapia por Estimulação Elétrica/instrumentação , Terapia por Estimulação Elétrica/métodos , Eletromiografia , Desenho de Equipamento , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Acidente Vascular Cerebral/fisiopatologia , Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral/instrumentação , Reabilitação do Acidente Vascular Cerebral/métodos , Análise e Desempenho de Tarefas , Adulto Jovem
20.
JMIR Ment Health ; 6(2): e9819, 2019 Feb 20.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30785404

RESUMO

BACKGROUND: Mobile Therapeutic Attention for Patients with Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia (m-RESIST) is an EU Horizon 2020-funded project aimed at designing and validating an innovative therapeutic program for treatment-resistant schizophrenia. The program exploits information from mobile phones and wearable sensors for behavioral tracking to support intervention administration. OBJECTIVE: To systematically review original studies on sensor-based mHealth apps aimed at uncovering associations between sensor data and symptoms of psychiatric disorders in order to support the m-RESIST approach to assess effectiveness of behavioral monitoring in therapy. METHODS: A systematic review of the English-language literature, according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, was performed through Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases. Studies published between September 1, 2009, and September 30, 2018, were selected. Boolean search operators with an iterative combination of search terms were applied. RESULTS: Studies reporting quantitative information on data collected from mobile use and/or wearable sensors, and where that information was associated with clinical outcomes, were included. A total of 35 studies were identified; most of them investigated bipolar disorders, depression, depression symptoms, stress, and symptoms of stress, while only a few studies addressed persons with schizophrenia. The data from sensors were associated with symptoms of schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Although the data from sensors demonstrated an association with the symptoms of schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and depression, their usability in clinical settings to support therapeutic intervention is not yet fully assessed and needs to be scrutinized more thoroughly.

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