65 results match your criteria: "Center for Exploratory Research[Affiliation]"

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been frequently reported as co-occurring with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, ASD-comorbid ADHD is difficult to diagnose since clinically significant symptoms are similar in both disorders. Therefore, we propose a classification method of differentially recognizing the ASD-comorbid condition in ADHD children.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a technique that measures changes in blood oxygen levels to understand brain activity, but it can be affected by non-neuronal physiological signals, especially in the low-frequency range (0.01 to 0.15 Hz).
  • Researchers explored the relationship between fNIRS signals from the prefrontal cortex and the peripheral photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals from the ear to identify and reduce systemic noise in fNIRS data.
  • The study found a strong correlation between fNIRS and peripheral PPG signals, notably in specific brain regions during tasks, showing that using PPG signals helped reduce noise significantly and maintain the validity of fNIRS findings in spatial
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In finger vein authentication technology, near-infrared rays penetrate the finger and are absorbed by the hemoglobin in blood. The veins appear as dark areas. The finger vein pattern images of patients with various diseases were acquired; a new evaluation method applying image processing technique ("E value") was developed, and it was examined whether the patterns have any characteristics differentiating them from those of healthy volunteers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is affected by motion artifacts and physiological noises, which reduce its effectiveness in detecting brain activity and increase the chance of statistical errors.
  • To tackle this issue, researchers developed an adaptive algorithm that identifies and selects noise-free blocks from fNIRS data, allowing for better analysis while maintaining sample size.
  • The algorithm uses specific noise criteria and was successfully validated with datasets from children with ADHD, optimizing the analysis for reproducibility across varying conditions and datasets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers created a new system-on-chip (SoC) that integrates LED and avalanche photodiode (APD) modules, enhancing the flexibility of a wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) system without fiber optics.
  • The SoC employs techniques like time division and lock-in methods for sensitive signal detection at various wavelengths and locations, allowing for autonomous measurements in areas with hair.
  • Users can easily modify the system by connecting multiple exchangeable modules in different configurations to suit various measurement needs, leveraging features like automatic power control and gain adjustment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • A new measurand called the SD distance independent (SID) measurand is proposed for cw-NIRS, offering a more reliable way to measure changes in hemoglobin concentration without being affected by variations in source-detector distance.
  • Unlike the conventional measurand, which can be influenced by the human scalp and requires a fixed SD distance, the SID measurand allows for data comparison across different setups.
  • The effectiveness of the SID measurand was validated through both a layered phantom study and a human study, showing its reliability in measuring brain activity during tasks while maintaining distance independence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Prefrontal Function Engaging in External-Focused Attention in 5- to 6-Month-Old Infants: A Suggestion for Default Mode Network.

Front Hum Neurosci

January 2017

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Keio UniversityYokohama, Japan; Center for Life-Span Development of Communication Skills, Keio UniversityYokohama, Japan; Global Centre for Advanced Research on Logic and Sensibility, Keio UniversityTokyo, Japan.

The present study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure 5- to 6-month-old infants' hemodynamic response in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) to visual stimuli differing in saliency and social value. Nineteen Japanese 5- to 6-month-old infants watched video clips of Peek-a-Boo (social signal) performed by an anime character (AC) or a human, and hand movements without social signal performed by an AC. The PFC activity of infants was measured by 22-channel fNIRS, while behaviors including looking time were recorded simultaneously.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Vulnerable plaques are key factors for ischemic diseases. Thus, their precise detection is necessary for the diagnosis of such diseases. Immunoglobulin G (IgG)-based imaging probes have been developed for imaging biomolecules related to plaque formation for the diagnosis of atherosclerosis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Noninvasive cell analyses are increasingly important in the medical field. A coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscope is the noninvasive imaging equipment and enables to obtain images indicating molecular distribution. However, due to low-signal intensity, it is still challenging to obtain images of the fingerprint region, in which many spectrum peaks correspond to compositions of a cell.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Virtually transparent surgical instruments in endoscopic surgery with augmentation of obscured regions.

Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg

October 2016

Faculty of Science and Engineering in the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

Purpose: We developed and evaluated a visual compensation system that allows surgeons to visualize obscured regions in real time, such that the surgical instrument appears virtually transparent.

Methods: The system consists of two endoscopes: a main endoscope to observe the surgical environment, and a supporting endoscope to render the region hidden from view by surgical instruments. The view captured by the supporting endoscope is transformed to simulate the view from the main endoscope, segmented to the shape of the hidden regions, and superimposed to the main endoscope image so that the surgical instruments look transparent.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A device for co-culturing autonomic neurons and cardiomyocytes using micro-fabrication techniques.

Integr Biol (Camb)

March 2016

Department of Precision Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.

It is still unclear how the activity of sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons influences the activity of cardiomyocytes in culture. We developed a device for co-culturing sympathetic neurons, parasympathetic neurons, and cardiomyocytes using micro-fabrication techniques. Morphological connections between each type of autonomic neuron and the cardiomyocytes were observed by immunostaining.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Improvements to the performance of conventional computers have mainly been achieved through semiconductor scaling; however, scaling is reaching its limitations. Natural phenomena, such as quantum superposition and stochastic resonance, have been introduced into new computing paradigms to improve performance beyond these limitations. Here, we explain that the uncertain behaviours of devices due to semiconductor scaling can improve the performance of computers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Atherogenic cardiovascular diseases are the major cause of mortality. Prevention and prediction of incidents is important; however, biomarkers that directly reflect the disease progression remain poorly investigated. To elucidate molecular determinants of atherogenesis, proteomic approaches are advantageous by using model animals for comparing changes occurring systematically (bloodstream) and locally (lesion) in accordance with the disease progression stages.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Previous neuroimaging studies in adults have revealed that first and second languages (L1/L2) share similar neural substrates, and that proficiency is a major determinant of the neural organization of L2 in the lexical-semantic and syntactic domains. However, little is known about neural substrates of children in the phonological domain, or about sex differences. Here, we conducted a large-scale study (n = 484) of school-aged children using functional near-infrared spectroscopy and a word repetition task, which requires a great extent of phonological processing.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF