DSpace Angular :: Browsing by Author "Rodriguez, Eugenio"

Browsing by Author "Rodriguez, Eugenio"

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Assessing Spatial User Experience for Design Guidelines: A Comparative Study of Outpatient Waiting Rooms With Conventional Versus Modern Features
(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2023) Julia-Nehme, Begona; Yoon, So-Yeon; Cumsille, Patricio; Rodriguez, Eugenio
Objectives: Identify waiting room design features that are most appreciated by outpatients and their companions in conventional and modern waiting rooms. Evaluate if end users evaluate the environment differently from experts and in what aspects. Provide evidence-based design guidelines that orient designers and healthcare managers. Background: Built environments are relevant in patients' evaluation of overall healthcare service. For outpatients, waiting frequently consumes the largest amount of time; thus, waiting room interior design has great potential to enhance their experience. Methods: This study compares perceptions of two types of waiting rooms-conventional and modern-based on the spatial user experience (SUE) model. In the first stage of the study, we compared user evaluations of conventional waiting rooms (n = 137) and modern waiting rooms (n = 426) with respect to the eight SUE model dimensions using multigroup structural equation modeling. In the second stage, an expert ergonomist and two professional interior designers assessed both types of waiting rooms. Results: Results showed that modern waiting rooms were perceived to be significantly better in all SUE dimensions. We also found experts' evaluations were overall consistent with users' perceptions. Discrepancies were only found in temperature perception, signage evaluation, and spatial appreciation. Conclusions: Participants valued modern style waiting room features such as good quality signage, use of armchairs and sofas, a controlled environment, and decoration. We suggest involving end users in the design process to respond to their needs and promote a positive experience. Finally, we provide easy-to-adopt design guidelines to improve patients' waiting room experience.
Beta Oscillations Distinguish Between Two Forms of Mental Imagery While Gamma and Theta Activity Reflects Auditory Attention
(2018) Villena González, Mario; Palacios García, Ismael José; Rodriguez, Eugenio; Lopez, Vladimir
Cortical Oscillatory Activity Is Critical for Working Memory as Revealed by Deficits in Early-Onset Schizophrenia
(SOC NEUROSCIENCE, 2009) Haenschel, Corinna; Bittner, Robert A.; Waltz, James; Haertling, Fabian; Wibral, Michael; Singer, Wolf; Linden, David E. J.; Rodriguez, Eugenio
Impairments in working memory (WM) are a core cognitive deficit in schizophrenia. Neurophysiological models suggest that deficits during WM maintenance in schizophrenia may be explained by abnormalities in the GABAergic system, which will lead to deficits in high-frequency oscillations. However, it is not yet clear which of the three WM phases (encoding, maintenance, retrieval) are affected by dysfunctional oscillatory activity. We investigated the relationship between impairments in oscillatory activity in a broad frequency range (3-100 Hz) and WM load in the different phases of WM in 14 patients with early-onset schizophrenia and 14 matched control participants using a delayed matching to sample paradigm.
Executive Functions and Theory of Mind in Teachers and Non-Teachers
(2023) Barraza, Paulo; Rodriguez, Eugenio
Human teaching is a key behavior for the socialization of cultural knowledge. Previous studies suggest that human teaching behavior would support the development of executive and ToM skills, which in turn would refine the teaching behavior. Given this connection, it raises the question of whether subjects with professional training in teaching also have more efficient executive and ToM systems. To shed light on this issue, in the present study we compared the performance of professional teachers (N = 20, age range = 35-61 years) with a matched control group of non teachers (N = 20, age range: 29-64 years) on tasks measuring working memory (Sternberg Task), cognitive flexibility (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test), executive control (Attention Network Test), along with online ToM skills (Frith-Happe ' Animations Task), emotion recognition (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test) and first-order and second-order ToM (Yoni Task). We found that teachers were significantly more accurate on tasks involving cognitive flexibility (p = .014) and working memory (p = .040), and more efficient on tasks requiring executive control of attention (p = .046), compared to non-teachers. In ToM tasks, differences in accuracy between teachers and non-teachers were not found. But, teachers were slower to respond than non-teachers (about 2 s difference) on tasks involving emotion recognition (p = .0007) and the use of second-order affective ToM (p = .006). Collectively, our findings raise an interesting link between professional teaching and the development of cognitive skills critical for decision making in challenging social contexts such as the classroom. Future research could explore ways to foster teachers' strengths in cognitive flexibility, working memory, and executive control of attention to enhance teaching strategies and student learning outcomes. Additionally, exploring factors behind slower response times in affective ToM tasks can guide teacher-training programs focused on interpersonal skills and improve teacher student interactions.
Expectations Change the Signatures and Timing of Electrophysiological Correlates of Perceptual Awareness
(2011) Melloni, Lucia; Schwiedrzik, Caspar M.; Mueller, Notger; Rodriguez, Eugenio; Singer, Wolf
Previous experience allows the brain to predict what comes next. How these expectations affect conscious experience is poorly understood. In particular, it is unknown whether and when expectations interact with sensory evidence in granting access to conscious perception, and how this is reflected electrophysiologically. Here, we parametrically manipulate sensory evidence and expectations while measuring event-related potentials in human subjects to assess the time course of evoked responses that correlate with subjective visibility, the properties of the stimuli, and/or perceptual expectations. We found that expectations lower the threshold of conscious perception and reduce the latency of neuronal signatures differentiating seen and unseen stimuli. Without expectations, this differentiation occurs similar to 300 ms and with expectations similar to 200 ms after stimulus in occipitoparietal sensors. The amplitude of this differentiating response component (P2) decreases as visibility increases, regardless of whether this increase is attributable to enhanced sensory evidence and/or the gradual buildup of perceptual expectations. Importantly, at matched performance levels, responses to seen and unseen stimuli differed regardless of the physical stimulus properties. These findings indicate that the latency of the neuronal correlates of access to consciousness depend on whether access is driven by stimulus saliency or by a combination of expectations and sensory evidence.
Humor Improves Women's but Impairs Men's Iowa Gambling Task Performance
(2019) Flores-Torres, Jorge; Gomez-Perez, Lydia; McRae, Kateri; Lopez, Vladimir; Rubio, Ivan; Rodriguez, Eugenio
The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a popular method for examining real-life decision-making. Research has shown gender related differences in performance, in that men consistently outperform women. It has been suggested that these performance differences are related to decreased emotional control in women compared to men. Given the likely role of emotion in these gender differences, in the present study, we examine the effect of a humor induction on IGT performance and whether the effect of humor is moderated by gender. IGT performance and parameters from the Expectancy Valence Model (EVM) were measured in 68 university students (34 men; mean age 22.02, SD = 4.3 and 34 women; mean age 22.3, SD = 4.1) during a 100 trial-IGT task. Participants were exposed to a brief video before each of the IGT decisions available; one half of the samples (17 men and 17 women) was exposed to 100 humor videos, while the other half was exposed to 100 non-humor videos during the task. We observed a significant interaction between gender and humor, such that under humor, women's performance during the last block (trials 80-100) improved (compared to women under non-humor), whereas men's performance during the last block was worse (compared to men under non-humor). Consistent with previous work, under non-humor, men outperformed women in the last block. Lastly, our EVM results show that humor impacts the learning mechanisms of decision-making differently in men and women. Humor impaired men's ability to acquire knowledge about the payoff structure of the decks, and as a consequence, they were stuck in suboptimal performance. On the other hand, humor facilitated women's ability to explore and to learn from experience, improving performance. These findings deepen our understanding of the mechanisms underlying IGT decision-making and differential effects of humor in men and women.
Non-homogeneous spatial configuration of vibrissae cortical representation in layer IV of the barrel somatosensory cortex
(SOC BIOLGIA CHILE, 2008) Guic, Eliana; Carrasco, Ximena; Rodriguez, Eugenio; Robles, Ignacio; Merzenich, Michael M.
In the present experiments we studied exclusive and overlapping cortical representational areas of the vibrissae in layer IV cells, across the entire barrel subfield of the rat somatosensory cortex, looking for evidences that would challenge the present assumptions of homogeneity and symmetry among cortical columns in this sensorial system. Our main findings were that in layer IV of the rat barrel cortex: A) Size of vibrissae cortical representational areas (X=0.4174mm(2); SD=0.025) was not homogeneous, vibrissae in dorsal rows (A-B) had significantly smaller areas than those in ventral rows (D-E), a pattern that repeated itself in arcs 1-4. B) This difference arises from vibrissal representational overlap, and not from variations in exclusive zones, which are surprisingly homogeneous in size across the barrel cortex (X=0.079mm(2); SD=0.0075), C) The extent of overlapping cortical areas varied systematically, with intra-row overlapping areas having a predominant bias (71.4% of total overlapping) independent of area sizes. Accordingly, vibrissae shared receptive fields with an average of 1.15 vibrissae in the same row and 0.38 in the same arc. Barrel cortex has been viewed operationally as a conglomerate of essentially homogenous cortical columns that interact equivalently in the ire and row dimensions. Our simple but global cortical reconstructions show that this predominant view should be revised. We postulate that the vibrissae/barrels spatial disposition in rows and arcs has a relevant functional meaning, related to different sensory capabilities.
Plasticity in primary somatosensory cortex resulting from environmentally enriched stimulation and sensory discrimination training
(2008) Guic, Eliana; Carrasco, Ximena; Rodriguez, Eugenio; Robles, Ignacio; Merzenich, Michael M.
We studied primary-somatosensory cortical plasticity due to selective stimulation of the sensory periphery by two procedures of active exploration in adult rats. Subjects, left with only three adjacent whiskers, were trained in a roughness discrimination task or maintained in a tactile enriched environment. Either training or enrichment produced 3-fold increases in the barrel cortex areas of behaviorally-engaged whisker representations, in their zones of overlap, While the overall areas of representation expanded dramatically, the domains of exclusive principal whisker responses were virtually identical in enriched vs normal rats and were significantly smaller than either group in roughness discrimination-trained rats. When animals were trained or exposed to enriched environments with the three whiskers arrayed in an arc or row, very equivalent overlaps in representations were recorded across their greatly-enlarged whisker representation zones. This equivalence in distortion in these behavioral preparations is in contradistinction to the normal rat, where overlap is strongly biased only along rows, probably reflecting the establishment of different relations with the neighboring cortical columns. Overall, plasticity phenomena are argued to be consistent with the predictions of competitive Hebbian network plasticity.
Right but basically wrong: Comments on canales et al., A critical assessment of the hypothesis consciousness by synchrony
(SOC BIOLGIA CHILE, 2007) Rodriguez, Eugenio; Cortes, Jost
Synchronization of neural activity across cortical areas correlates with conscious perception
(SOC NEUROSCIENCE, 2007) Melloni, Lucia; Molina, Carlos; Pena, Marcela; Torres, David; Singer, Wolf; Rodriguez, Eugenio
Subliminal stimuli can be deeply processed and activate similar brain areas as consciously perceived stimuli. This raises the question which signatures of neural activity critically differentiate conscious from unconscious processing. Transient synchronization of neural activity has been proposed as a neural correlate of conscious perception. Here we test this proposal by comparing the electrophysiological responses related to the processing of visible and invisible words in a delayed matching to sample task. Both perceived and nonperceived words caused a similar increase of local (gamma) oscillations in the EEG, but only perceived words induced a transient long-distance synchronization of gamma oscillations across widely separated regions of the brain. After this transient period of temporal coordination, the electrographic signatures of conscious and unconscious processes continue to diverge. Only words reported as perceived induced (1) enhanced theta oscillations over frontal regions during the maintenance interval, (2) an increase of the P300 component of the event-related potential, and (3) an increase in power and phase synchrony of gamma oscillations before the anticipated presentation of the test word. We propose that the critical process mediating the access to conscious perception is the early transient global increase of phase synchrony of oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency range.
Ten years of Nature Reviews Neuroscience: insights from the highly cited
(2010) Luo, Liqun; Rodriguez, Eugenio; Jerbi, Karim; Lachaux, Jean-Philippe; Martinerie, Jacques; Corbetta, Maurizio; Shulman, Gordon L.; Piomelli, Daniele; Turrigiano, Gina G.; Nelson, Sacha B.; Joels, Marian; de Kloet, E. Ronald; Holsboer, Florian; Amodio, David M.; Frith, Chris D.; Block, Michelle L.; Zecca, Luigi; Hong, Jau-Shyong; Dantzer, Robert; Kelley, Keith W.; Craig, A. D. (Bud)
To celebrate the first 10 years of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, we invited the authors of the most cited article of each year to look back on the state of their field of research at the time of publication and the impact their article has had, and to discuss the questions that might be answered in the next 10 years. This selection of highly cited articles provides interesting snapshots of the progress that has been made in diverse areas of neuroscience. They show the enormous influence of neuroimaging techniques and highlight concepts that have generated substantial interest in the past decade, such as neuroimmunology, social neuroscience and the 'network approach' to brain function. These advancements will pave the way for further exciting discoveries that lie ahead.
The development of neural synchrony reflects late maturation and restructuring of functional networks in humans
(NATL ACAD SCIENCES, 2009) Uhlhaas, Peter J.; Roux, Frederic; Singer, Wolf; Haenschel, Corinna; Sireteanu, Ruxandra; Rodriguez, Eugenio
Brain development is characterized by maturational processes that span the period from childhood through adolescence to adulthood, but little is known whether and how developmental processes differ during these phases. We analyzed the development of functional networks by measuring neural synchrony in EEG recordings during a Gestalt perception task in 68 participants ranging in age from 6 to 21 years. Until early adolescence, developmental improvements in cognitive performance were accompanied by increases in neural synchrony. This developmental phase was followed by an unexpected decrease in neural synchrony that occurred during late adolescence and was associated with reduced performance. After this period of destabilization, we observed a reorganization of synchronization patterns that was accompanied by pronounced increases in gamma-band power and in theta and beta phase synchrony. These findings provide evidence for the relationship between neural synchrony and late brain development that has important implications for the understanding of adolescence as a critical period of brain maturation.
The Dual Facet of Gamma Oscillations: Separate Visual and Decision Making Circuits as Revealed by Simultaneous EEG/fMRI
(2014) Castelhano, Joao; Duarte, Isabel Catarina; Wibral, Michael; Rodriguez, Eugenio; Castelo-Branco, Miguel
It remains an outstanding question whether gamma-band oscillations reflect unitary cognitive processes within the same task. EEG/MEG studies do lack the resolution or coverage to address the highly debated question whether single gamma activity patterns are linked with multiple cognitive modules or alternatively each pattern associates with a specific cognitive module, within the same coherent perceptual task. One way to disentangle these issues would be to provide direct identification of their sources, by combining different techniques. Here, we directly examined these questions by performing simultaneous EEG/fMRI using an ambiguous perception paradigm requiring holistic integration. We found that distinct gamma frequency sub-bands reflect different neural substrates and cognitive mechanisms when comparing object perception states vs. no categorical perception. A low gamma sub-band (near 40 Hz) activity was tightly related to the decision making network, and in particular the anterior insula. A high gamma sub-band (approximate to 60 Hz) could be linked to early visual processing regions. The demonstration of a clear functional topography for distinct gamma sub-bands within the same task shows that distinct gamma-band modulations underlie sensory processing and perceptual decision mechanisms. Hum Brain Mapp 35:5219-5235, 2014. 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
To Perceive or Not Perceive: The Role of Gamma-band Activity in Signaling Object Percepts
(2013) Castelhano, Joao; Rebola, Jose; Leitao, Bruno; Rodriguez, Eugenio; Castelo-Branco, Miguel
The relation of gamma-band synchrony to holistic perception in which concerns the effects of sensory processing, high level perceptual gestalt formation, motor planning and response is still controversial. To provide a more direct link to emergent perceptual states we have used holistic EEG/ERP paradigms where the moment of perceptual "discovery'' of a global pattern was variable. Using a rapid visual presentation of short-lived Mooney objects we found an increase of gamma-band activity locked to perceptual events. Additional experiments using dynamic Mooney stimuli showed that gamma activity increases well before the report of an emergent holistic percept. To confirm these findings in a data driven manner we have further used a support vector machine classification approach to distinguish between perceptual vs. non perceptual states, based on time-frequency features. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were all above 95%. Modulations in the 30-75 Hz range were larger for perception states. Interestingly, phase synchrony was larger for perception states for high frequency bands. By focusing on global gestalt mechanisms instead of local processing we conclude that gamma-band activity and synchrony provide a signature of holistic perceptual states of variable onset, which are separable from sensory and motor processing.

Browsing by Author "Rodriguez, Eugenio"

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