The authors acknowledge Evan Beisheim, Nicole Capela, Andrew Herbert-Copley for technical and data collection assistance. Project funding was received from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and BlackBerry Ltd., including smartphones used in the study.

This protocol was approved by the Ottawa Health Science Network Research Ethics Board.
1. Preparation
<ol>
	<li>Provide participants with an outline of the research, answer any questions, and obtain informed consent. Record participant characteristics (e.g., age, gender, height, weight, waist girth, leg height from the anterior superior iliac spine to the medial malleolus), identification code, and date on a data sheet. Ensure that the second smartphone that is used to capture video is set to at least a 30 frames per second capture rate.</li>
	<li>Securely attach a phone holster to the participant&#39;s front right belt or pant waist. Start the smartphone application that will be used to collect the sensor data (i.e., data logging or WMMS application) on the mobility measurement smartphone and ensure that the application is running appropriately. Place the smartphone in the holster, with back of the device (rear camera) facing outward.</li>
	<li>Start digital video recording on a second smartphone. For anonymity, record the comparison video without showing the person&#39;s face, but ensure to record all activity transitions. The phone can be handheld.</li>
</ol>
2. Activity Circuit
<ol>
	<li>Follow the participant and video their actions, on the second smartphone, while they perform the following actions, spoken by the investigator:
	<ol>
		<li>From a standing position, shake the smartphone to indicate the start of the trial.</li>
		<li>Continue standing for at least 10 sec. This standing phase can be used for phone orientation calibration 14.</li>
		<li>Walk to a nearby chair and sit down.</li>
		<li>Stand up and walk 60 meters to an elevator.</li>
		<li>Stand and wait for the elevator and then walk into the elevator.</li>
		<li>Take the elevator to the second floor.</li>
		<li>Turn and walk into the home environment.</li>
		<li>Walk into the bathroom and simulate brushing teeth.</li>
		<li>Simulate combing hair.</li>
		<li>Simulate washing hands.</li>
		<li>Dry hands using a towel.</li>
		<li>Walk to the kitchen.</li>
		<li>Take dishes from a rack and place them on the counter.</li>
		<li>Fill a kettle with water from the kitchen sink.</li>
		<li>Place the kettle on the stove element.</li>
		<li>Place bread in a toaster.</li>
		<li>Walk to the dining room.</li>
		<li>Sit at a dining room table.</li>
		<li>Simulate eating a meal at the table.</li>
		<li>Stand and walk back to the kitchen sink.</li>
		<li>Rinse off the dishes and place them in a rack.</li>
		<li>Walk from the kitchen back to the elevator.</li>
		<li>Stand and wait for the elevator and then walk into the elevator.</li>
		<li>Take the elevator to the first floor.</li>
		<li>Walk 50 meters to a stairwell.</li>
		<li>Open the door and enter the stairwell.</li>
		<li>Walk up stairs (13 steps, around landing, 13 steps).</li>
		<li>Open the stairwell door into the hallway.</li>
		<li>Turn right and walk down the hall for 15 meters.</li>
		<li>Turn around and walk 15 meters back to the stairwell.</li>
		<li>Open the door and enter the stairwell.</li>
		<li>Walk down stairs (13 steps, around landing, 13 steps).</li>
		<li>Exit the stairwell and walk into a room.</li>
		<li>Lie on a bed.</li>
		<li>Get up and walk 10 meters to a ramp.</li>
		<li>Walk up the ramp, turn around, then down the ramp (20 meters).</li>
		<li>Continue walking into the hall and open the door to outside.</li>
		<li>Walk 100 meters on the paved pathway.</li>
		<li>Turn around and walk back to the room.</li>
		<li>Walk into the room and stand at the starting point.</li>
		<li>Continue standing, and then shake the smartphone to indicate the end of trial.</li>
	</ol>
	</li>
</ol>
3. Trial Completion
<ol>
	<li>Stop the video recording smartphone and ask the participant to remove and return the smartphone and holster. Stop the data logging or WMMS application on the smartphone. Copy the acquired motion data files and the video file from both phones to a computer for post-processing.</li>
</ol>
4. Post-processing
<ol>
	<li>Synchronize timing between the video and the raw sensor data by determining the time when the shake action started. This shaking movement corresponds to a distinct accelerometer signal and video frame. Check for synchronization error by subtracting the end shake time from the start shake time, for sensor and video data sources. Time differences should be similar between the two data sets.</li>
	<li>Determine actual change-of-state times from the gold-standard video by recording the time difference from the start shake time to the video frame at the transition between activities. Use video editing software to obtain timing to within 0.033 sec (i.e., 30 frames per second video rate). Use WMMS software to generate comparable changes-of-state from the sensor data.</li>
	<li>Generate two data sets, one with true activities and the second with predicted activities, by labeling the activity for each video frame (based on the change of state timing) and then calculating the predicted activity at each video frame time from the WMMS output. For WMMS performance evaluation, calculate true positives, false negatives, true negatives, false positives between the gold-standard activity and WMMS predicted activity. Use these parameters to calculate sensitivity, specificity, and F-score outcomes measures. 
	Note: A tolerance setting of 3 data windows on either side of the window being analyzed can be used for determining change-of-state outcomes, and 2 data windows for classification outcomes. For example, since 1 second data windows were used for the WMMS in this study, 3 sec before and after the current window were examined so that consecutive changes within this tolerance are ignored. The consideration was that changes of state that happen in less than 3 sec can be ignored for gross human movement analysis since these states would be considered transitory.</li>
</ol>

<ol>
	<li>Lara, O. D., Labrador, M. A. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=A+Survey+on+Human+Activity+Recognition+using+Wearable+Sensors.">A Survey on Human Activity Recognition using Wearable Sensors.</a> IEEE Communications Surveys Tutorials. 15 (3), 1192-1209 (2013).</li><li>Foerster, F., Smeja, M., Fahrenberg, J. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Detection+of+posture+and+motion+by+accelerometry:+a+validation+study+in+ambulatory+monitoring.">Detection of posture and motion by accelerometry: a validation study in ambulatory monitoring.</a> Computers in Human Behavior. 15 (5), 571-583 (1999).</li><li>Elsmore, T. F., Naitoh, P. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=.">.</a> Monitoring Activity With a Wrist-Worn Actigraph: Effects of Amplifier Passband and threshold Variations. , (1993).</li><li>Kripke, D. F., Webster, J. B., Mullaney, D. J., Messin, S., Mason, W. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=.">.</a> Measuring sleep by wrist actigraph. , (1981).</li><li>Lockhart, J. W., Pulickal, T., Weiss, G. M. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Applications+of+mobile+activity+recognition.">Applications of mobile activity recognition.</a> Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing. , 1054-1058 (2012).</li><li>Incel, O. D., Kose, M., Ersoy, C. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=A+Review+and+Taxonomy+of+Activity+Recognition+on+Mobile+Phones.">A Review and Taxonomy of Activity Recognition on Mobile Phones.</a> BioNanoScience. 3 (2), 145-171 (2013).</li><li>Yang, C. C., Hsu, Y. L. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=A+Review+of+Accelerometry-Based+Wearable+Motion+Detectors+for+Physical+Activity+Monitoring.">A Review of Accelerometry-Based Wearable Motion Detectors for Physical Activity Monitoring.</a> Sensors. 10 (8), 7772-7788 (2010).</li><li>He, Y., Li, Y. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Physical+Activity+Recognition+Utilizing+the+Built-In+Kinematic+Sensors+of+a+Smartphone.">Physical Activity Recognition Utilizing the Built-In Kinematic Sensors of a Smartphone.</a> International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks. 2013, (2013).</li><li>Vo, Q. V., Hoang, M. T., Choi, D. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Personalization+in+Mobile+Activity+Recognition+System+using+K-medoids+Clustering+Algorithm.">Personalization in Mobile Activity Recognition System using K-medoids Clustering Algorithm.</a> International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks. 2013, (2013).</li><li>Dernbach, S., Das, B., Krishnan, N. C., Thomas, B. L., Cook, D. J. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Simple+and+Complex+Activity+Recognition+through+Smart+Phones.">Simple and Complex Activity Recognition through Smart Phones.</a> , 214-221 (2012).</li><li>Hache, G., Lemaire, E. D., Baddour, N. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Mobility+change-of-state+detection+using+a+smartphone-based+approach.">Mobility change-of-state detection using a smartphone-based approach.</a> IEEE International Workshop on Medical Measurements and Applications Proceedings (MeMeA). , 43-46 (2010).</li><li>Wu, H. H., Lemaire, E. D., Baddour, N. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Change-of-state+determination+to+recognize+mobility+activities+using+a+BlackBerry+smartphone.">Change-of-state determination to recognize mobility activities using a BlackBerry smartphone.</a> , 5252-5255 (2011).</li><li>Wu, H., Lemaire, E. D., Baddour, N. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Activity+Change-of-state+Identification+Using+a+Blackberry+Smartphone.">Activity Change-of-state Identification Using a Blackberry Smartphone.</a> Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering. 32 (4), 265-271 (2012).</li><li>Tundo, M. D., Lemaire, E., Baddour, N. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Correcting+Smartphone+orientation+for+accelerometer-based+analysis.">Correcting Smartphone orientation for accelerometer-based analysis.</a> IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications Proceedings (MeMeA). , 58-62 (2013).</li><li>Tundo, M. D. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=.">.</a> Development of a human activity recognition system using inertial measurement unit sensors on a smartphone. , (2014).</li></ol>

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Human activity recognition with a wearable mobility monitoring system has received more attention in recent years due to the technical advances in wearable computing and smartphones and systematic needs for quantitative outcome measures that help with clinical decision-making and health intervention evaluation. The methodology described in this paper was effective for evaluating WMMS development since activity classification errors were found that would not have been present if a broad range of activities of daily living...

Ubiquitous sensing has become an engaging research area due to increasingly powerful, small, low cost computing and sensing equipment&#160;1. Mobility monitoring using wearable sensors has generated a great deal of interest since consumer-level microelectronics are capable of detecting motion characteristics with high accuracy&#160;1. Human activity recognition (HAR) using wearable sensors is a recent area of research, with preliminary studies performed in the 1980s and 1990s 2-4.
Modern smartphones contain the necessary sensors and real-time computation capability for mobility activity recognition. Real-time analysis on the device permits activity classification and data upload without user or investigator intervention. A smartphone with mobility analysis software could provide fitness tracking, health monitoring, fall detection, home or work automation, and self-managing exercise programs 5. Smartphones can be considered inertial measurement platforms for detecting mobile activities and mobile patterns in humans, using generated mathematical signal features calculated with onboard sensor outputs 6. Common feature generation methods include heuristic, time-domain, frequency-domain, and wavelet analysis-based approaches&#160;7.
Modern smartphone HAR systems have shown high prediction accuracies when detecting specified activities&#160;1,5,6,7. These studies vary in evaluation methodology as well as accuracy since most studies have their own training set, environmental setup, and data collection protocol. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, recall, precision, and F-Score are commonly used to describe prediction quality. However, little to no information is available on methods for &#34;concurrent activity&#34; recognition and evaluation of the ability to detect activity changes in real-time 1, for HAR systems that attempt to categorize several activities. Assessment methods for HAR system accuracy vary substantially between studies. Regardless of the classification algorithm or applied features, descriptions of gold standard evaluation methods are vague for most HAR research.
Activity recognition in a daily living environment has not been extensively researched. Most smartphone-based activity recognition systems are evaluated in a controlled manner, leading to an evaluation protocol that may be advantageous to the algorithm rather than realistic to a real-world environment. Within their evaluation scheme, participants often perform only the actions intended for prediction, rather than applying a large range of realistic activities for the participant to perform consecutively, mimicking real-life events.
Some smartphone HAR studies 8,9 group similar activities together, such as stairs and walking, but exclude other activities from the data set. Prediction accuracy is then determined by how well the algorithm identified the target activities. Dernbach et al. 9 had participants write the activity they were about to execute before moving, interrupting continuous change-of-state transitions. HAR system evaluations should assess the algorithm while the participant performs natural actions in a daily living setting. This would permit a real-life evaluation that replicates daily use of the application. A realistic circuit includes many changes-of-state as well as a mix of actions not predicable by the system. An investigator can then assess the algorithm&#39;s response to these additional movements, thus evaluating the algorithm&#39;s robustness to anomalous movements.
This paper presents a Wearable Mobility Monitoring System (WMMS) evaluation protocol that uses a controlled course that reflects real-life daily living environments. WMMS evaluation can then be made under controlled but realistic conditions. In this protocol, we use a third-generation WMMS that was developed at the University of Ottawa and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute 11-15. The WMMS was designed for smartphones with a tri-axis accelerometer and gyroscope. The mobility algorithm accounts for user variability, provides a reduction in the number of false positives for changes-of-state identification, and increases sensitivity in activity categorization. Minimizing false positives is important since the WMMS triggers short video clip recording when activity changes of state are detected, for context-sensitive activity evaluation that further improves WMMS classification. Unnecessary video recording creates inefficiencies in storage and battery use. The WMMS algorithm is structured as a low-computational learning model and evaluated using different prediction levels, where an increase in prediction level signifies an increase in the amount of recognizable actions.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="1314">
	<tbody>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;width:516px;">Smartphone or wearable measurement device</td>
			<td style="width:627px;">Blackberry</td>
			<td style="width:108px;">Z10</td>
			<td style="width:64px;"></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;">Smartphone for video recording</td>
			<td>Blackberry</td>
			<td>Z10 or 9800</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;">Phone holster</td>
			<td>Any</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;">Data logger application for the smartphone</td>
			<td>BlackBerry World - TOHRC Data Logger for BlackBerry 10</td>
			<td></td>
			<td><a href="http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/32013891/?countrycode=CA">http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/32013891/?countrycode=CA</a></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;">Wearable mobility measurement</td>
			<td>Custom Blackberry 10 and Matlab software for mobility monitoring</td>
			<td></td>
			<td><a href="http://www.irrd.ca/cag/smartphone/">http://www.irrd.ca/cag/smartphone/</a></td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="20">
			<td height="20" style="height:20px;">Video editing or analysis software</td>
			<td>Motion Analysis Tools</td>
			<td></td>
			<td><a href="http://www.irrd.ca/cag/mat/">http://www.irrd.ca/cag/mat/</a></td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

evaluation of a smartphone-based human activity recognition system in a daily living environment

An evaluation method that includes continuous activities in a daily-living environment was developed for Wearable Mobility Monitoring Systems (WMMS) that attempt to recognize user activities. Participants performed a pre-determined set of daily living actions within a continuous test circuit that included mobility activities (walking, standing, sitting, lying, ascending/descending stairs), daily living tasks (combing hair, brushing teeth, preparing food, eating, washing dishes), and subtle environment changes (opening doors, using an elevator, walking on inclines, traversing staircase landings, walking outdoors). 
To evaluate WMMS performance on this circuit, fifteen able-bodied participants completed the tasks while wearing a smartphone at their right front pelvis. The WMMS application used smartphone accelerometer and gyroscope signals to classify activity states. A gold standard comparison data set was created by video-recording each trial and manually logging activity onset times. Gold standard and WMMS data were analyzed offline. Three classification sets were calculated for each circuit: (i) mobility or immobility, ii) sit, stand, lie, or walking, and (iii) sit, stand, lie, walking, climbing stairs, or small standing movement. Sensitivities, specificities, and F-Scores for activity categorization and changes-of-state were calculated.
The mobile versus immobile classification set had a sensitivity of 86.30% &#177; 7.2% and specificity of 98.96% &#177; 0.6%, while the second prediction set had a sensitivity of 88.35% &#177; 7.80% and specificity of 98.51% &#177; 0.62%. For the third classification set, sensitivity was 84.92% &#177; 6.38% and specificity was 98.17 &#177; 0.62. F1 scores for the first, second and third classification sets were 86.17 &#177; 6.3, 80.19 &#177; 6.36, and 78.42 &#177; 5.96, respectively. This demonstrates that WMMS performance depends on the evaluation protocol in addition to the algorithms. The demonstrated protocol can be used and tailored for evaluating human activity recognition systems in rehabilitation medicine where mobility monitoring may be beneficial in clinical decision-making.

The study protocol was conducted with a convenience sample of fifteen able-bodied participants whose average weight was 68.9 (&#177; 11.1) kg, height was 173.9 (&#177; 11.4) cm, and age was 26 (&#177; 9) years, recruited from The Ottawa Hospital and University of Ottawa staff and students. A smartphone captured sensor data at a variable 40-50 Hz rate. Sample rate variations are typical for smartphone sensor sampling. A second smartphone was used to record digital video at 1280x720 (720p) resolution.
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Evaluation of a Smartphone-based Human Activity Recognition System in a Daily Living Environment

A standardized evaluation method was developed for Wearable Mobility Monitoring Systems (WMMS) that includes continuous activities in a realistic daily living environment. Testing with a series of daily living activities can decrease activity recognition sensitivity; therefore, realistic testing circuits are encouraged for valid evaluation of WMMS performance.

An evaluation method that includes continuous activities in a daily-living environment was developed for Wearable Mobility Monitoring Systems (WMMS) that ...

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8.8K Views.  University of Ottawa. A standardized evaluation method was developed for Wearable Mobility Monitoring Systems (WMMS) that includes continuous activities in a realistic daily living environment. Testing with a series of daily living activities can decrease activity recognition sensitivity; therefore, realistic testing circuits are encouraged for valid evaluation of WMMS performance.

Video: Evaluation of a Smartphone-based Human Activity Recognition System in a Daily Living Environment

Construction of Microdrive Arrays for Chronic Neural Recordings in Awake Behaving Mice

State-of-the-art electrophysiological recordings from the brains of freely behaving animals allow researchers to simultaneously examine local field potentials (LFPs) from populations of neurons and action potentials from individual cells, as the animal engages in experimentally relevant tasks. Chronically implanted microdrives allow for brain recordings to last over periods of several weeks. Miniaturized drives and lightweight components allow for these long-term recordings to occur in small mammals, such as mice. By using tetrodes, which consist of tightly braided bundles of four electrodes in which each wire has a diameter of 12.5 &mu;m, it is possible to isolate physiologically active neurons in superficial brain regions such as the cerebral cortex, dorsal hippocampus, and subiculum, as well as deeper regions such as the striatum and the amygdala. Moreover, this technique insures stable, high-fidelity neural recordings as the animal is challenged with a variety of behavioral tasks. This manuscript describes several techniques that have been optimized to record from the mouse brain. First, we show how to fabricate tetrodes, load them into driveable tubes, and gold-plate their tips in order to reduce their impedance from M&Omega; to K&Omega; range. Second, we show how to construct a custom microdrive assembly for carrying and moving the tetrodes vertically, with the use of inexpensive materials. Third, we show the steps for assembling a commercially available microdrive (Neuralynx VersaDrive) that is designed to carry independently movable tetrodes. Finally, we present representative results of local field potentials and single-unit signals obtained in the dorsal subiculum of mice. These techniques can be easily modified to accommodate different types of electrode arrays and recording schemes in the mouse brain.

The design and assembly of microdrives for in vivo electrophysiological recordings of brain signals from the mouse is described. By attaching microelectrode bundles to sturdy driveable carriers, these techniques allow for long-term and stable neural recordings. The lightweight design allows for unrestricted behavioral performance by the animal following drive implantation.

State-of-the-art electrophysiological recordings from the brains of freely behaving animals allow researchers to simultaneously examine local field ...

Two-photon Calcium Imaging in Mice Navigating a Virtual Reality Environment

In recent years, two-photon imaging has become an invaluable tool in neuroscience, as it allows for chronic measurement of the activity of genetically identified cells during behavior1-6. Here we describe methods to perform two-photon imaging in mouse cortex while the animal navigates a virtual reality environment. We focus on the aspects of the experimental procedures that are key to imaging in a behaving animal in a brightly lit virtual environment. The key problems that arise in this experimental setup that we here address are: minimizing brain motion related artifacts, minimizing light leak from the virtual reality projection system, and minimizing laser induced tissue damage. We also provide sample software to control the virtual reality environment and to do pupil tracking. With these procedures and resources it should be possible to convert a conventional two-photon microscope for use in behaving mice.

Here we describe the experimental procedures involved in two-photon imaging of mouse cortex during behavior in a virtual reality environment.

In recent years, two-photon imaging has become an invaluable tool in neuroscience, as it allows for chronic measurement of the activity of genetically ...

Development of a Virtual Reality Assessment of Everyday Living Skills

Cognitive impairments affect the majority of patients with schizophrenia and these impairments predict poor long term psychosocial outcomes.&#160; Treatment studies aimed at cognitive impairment in patients with schizophrenia not only require demonstration of improvements on cognitive tests, but also evidence that any cognitive changes lead to clinically meaningful improvements.&#160; Measures of &#8220;functional capacity&#8221; index the extent to which individuals have the potential to perform skills required for real world functioning. &#160;Current data do not support the recommendation of any single instrument for measurement of functional capacity.&#160; The Virtual Reality Functional Capacity Assessment Tool (VRFCAT) is a novel, interactive gaming based measure of functional capacity that uses a realistic simulated environment to recreate routine activities of daily living. Studies are currently underway to evaluate and establish the VRFCAT&#8217;s sensitivity, reliability, validity, and practicality.&#160;This new measure of functional capacity is practical, relevant, easy to use, and has several features that improve validity and sensitivity of measurement of function in clinical trials of patients with CNS disorders.

A challenge for proving treatment efficacy for cognitive impairments in schizophrenia is finding the optimizing measurement of skills related to everyday functioning.&#160; The Virtual Reality Functional Capacity Assessment Tool (VRFCAT) is an interactive gaming based computerized measure aimed at skills associated with everyday functioning, including baseline impairments and treatment related changes.

Cognitive impairments affect the majority of patients with schizophrenia and these impairments predict poor long term psychosocial outcomes.&#160; ...

Measurement of Fronto-limbic Activity Using an Emotional Oddball Task in Children with Familial High Risk for Schizophrenia

Adolescence is a critical developmental period where the early symptoms of schizophrenia frequently emerge. First-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia who are at familial high risk (FHR) may show similar cognitive and emotional changes. However, the neurological changes underlying the emergence of these symptoms remain unclear. This study sought to identify differences in frontal, striatal, and limbic regions in children and adolescents with FHR using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Groups of 21 children and adolescents at FHR and 21 healthy controls completed an emotional oddball task that relied on selective attention and the suppression of task-irrelevant emotional information. The standard oddball task was modified to include aversive and neutral distractors in order to examine potential group differences in both emotional and executive processing. This task was designed specifically to allow for children and adolescents to complete by keeping the difficulty and emotional image content age-appropriate. Furthermore, we demonstrate a technique for suitable fMRI registration for children and adolescent participants. This paradigm may also be applied in future studies to measure changes in neural activity in other populations with hypothesized developmental changes in executive and emotional processing.

This paper describes how to use the emotional oddball task and fMRI to measure brain activation in children and adolescents at familial high risk for schizophrenia (FHR).&#160;FMRI was used to measure differences in fronto-striato-limbic regions during an emotional oddball task. Children with FHR exhibited abnormal functional activation during adolescence.

Adolescence is a critical developmental period where the early symptoms of schizophrenia frequently emerge. First-degree relatives of people with ...

A Protocol for Housing Mice in an Enriched Environment

Environmental enrichment (EE) is a housing environment for mice that boosts mental and physical health compared to standard laboratory housing. Our recent studies demonstrate that environmental enrichment decreases adiposity, increases energy expenditure, resists diet induced obesity, and causes cancer remission and inhibition in mice. EE typically consists of larger living space, a variety of &#8216;toys&#8217; to interact with, running wheels, and can include a number of other novel environmental changes. All of this fosters a more complex social engagement, cognitive and physical stimulations. Importantly, the toy location and type of toy is changed regularly, which encourages the mice to adapt to a frequently changing and novel environment. Many variables can be manipulated in EE to promote health effects in mice. Thus these approaches are difficult to control and must be properly managed to successfully replicate the associated phenotypes. Therefore, the goal of this video is to demonstrate how EE is properly set up and maintained to assure a complex, challenging, and controlled environment so that other researchers can easily reproduce the protective effects of EE against obesity and cancer.

Environmental enrichment for mice requires a complex and challenging setup, as well as comprehensive husbandry and handling techniques to assure robust metabolic and anti-cancer effects in the mice. This protocol provides detailed procedures to reproduce the above mentioned effects in mice.

Environmental enrichment (EE) is a housing environment for mice that boosts mental and physical health compared to standard laboratory housing. Our recent ...

A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition

An unusual sensory space is one of the effective tools to uncover the mechanism of adaptability of humans to a novel environment. Although most of the previous studies have used special spectacles with prisms to achieve unusual spaces in the visual domain, a methodology for studying the adaptation to unusual auditory spaces has yet to be fully established. This study proposes a new protocol to set-up, validate, and use a left-right reversed stereophonic system using only wearable devices, and to study the adaptation to left-right reversed audition with the help of neuroimaging. Although individual acoustic characteristics are not yet implemented, and slight spillover of unreversed sounds is relatively uncontrollable, the constructed apparatus shows high performance in a 360&#176; sound source localization coupled with hearing characteristics with little delay. Moreover, it looks like a mobile music player and enables a participant to focus on daily life without arousing curiosity or drawing attention of other individuals. Since the effects of adaptation were successfully detected at the perceptual, behavioral, and neural levels, it is concluded that this protocol provides a promising methodology for studying adaptation to left-right reversed audition, and is an effective tool for uncovering the adaptability of humans to a novel environments in the auditory domain.

The present study proposes a protocol to investigate the adaptation to left-right reversed audition achieved only by wearable devices, using neuroimaging, which can be an effective tool for uncovering the adaptability of humans to a novel environment in the auditory domain.

An unusual sensory space is one of the effective tools to uncover the mechanism of adaptability of humans to a novel environment. Although most of the ...

Use of a Video Scoring Anchor for Rapid Serial Assessment of Social Communication in Toddlers

Reciprocal social behavior (RSB), an early-emerging capacity to engage in social contingency&#8212;which is foundational for both social learning and social competency&#8212;is hypothesized to be disrupted in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The ability to quantify the full range of RSB during the toddler period, when core symptoms of ASD often arise, is pivotal for evaluating early risk for ASD, characterizing social development, and tracking response to early interventions. However, important parameters of variation in RSB&#8212;especially prior to the development of verbal language&#8212;can be nuanced and difficult to characterize using questionnaire-based methods. To address this challenge, we developed a system for measuring quantitative variation in RSB in toddlers (ages 18 - 30 months) that incorporated not only standard questionnaire data from caregivers but also a novel set of video-referenced items, through which a respondent compares the behavior of a subject to that observed in a short video of a young child manifesting a highly competent level of social communication. Testing of this measure in a general population sample of twins confirmed that both the video-referenced items and the RSB Total Score (video-referenced items plus non-video-referenced items) displayed unimodal, continuous distributions, strong internal consistency, marked preservation of individual differences, and extremely high heritability. In addition, video-referenced items were particularly sensitive to quantifying incremental changes in social communication, a major element of RSB, over the course of early childhood development. Scores on the vrRSB clearly differentiated children with and without ASD and these data comprise an initial validation of this promising method for quantifying early RSB&#8212;cross-sectionally, over time, and as a function of early intervention.

Here we present a protocol for administration of the video-referenced rating of reciprocal social behavior (vrRSB) using a paper or online version. This survey quantifies RSB, a prerequisite for social competence, in toddlers through &#34;video-referenced&#34; items whereby a subject is compared to a reference child shown in a three-minute video.

Reciprocal social behavior (RSB), an early-emerging capacity to engage in social contingency&#8212;which is foundational for both social learning and ...

Measuring the Kinematics of Daily Living Movements with Motion Capture Systems in Virtual Reality

The inability to complete instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) is a precursor to various neuropsychological diseases. Questionnaire-based assessments of IADL are easy to use but prone to subjective bias. Here, we describe a novel virtual reality (VR) test to assess two complex IADL tasks: handling financial transactions and using public transportation. While a participant performs the tasks in a VR setting, a motion capture system traces the position and orientation of the dominant hand and head in a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. Kinematic raw data are collected and converted into &#39;kinematic performance measures,&#39; i.e., motion trajectory, moving distance, and time to completion. Motion trajectory is the path of a particular body part (e.g., dominant hand or head) in space. Moving distance refers to the total distance of the trajectory, and time to completion is how long it took to complete an IADL task. These kinematic measures could discriminate patients with cognitive impairment from healthy controls. The development of this kinematic measuring protocol allows detection of early IADL-related cognitive impairments.

We designed a virtual reality test to assess instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) with a motion capture system. We propose a detailed kinematic analysis to interpret the participant&#39;s various movements, including trajectory, moving distance, and time to completion to evaluate IADL capabilities.

The inability to complete instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) is a precursor to various neuropsychological diseases. Questionnaire-based ...

Novel Object Recognition and Object Location Behavioral Testing in Mice on a Budget

Ethologically relevant behavioral testing is a critical component of any study that uses mouse models to study the cognitive effects of various physiological or pathological changes. The object location task (OLT) and the novel object recognition task (NORT) are two effective behavioral tasks commonly used to reveal the function and relative health of specific brain regions involved in memory. While both of these tests exploit the inherent preference of mice for the novelty to reveal memory for previously encountered objects, the OLT primarily evaluates spatial learning, which relies heavily on hippocampal activity. The NORT, in contrast, evaluates non-spatial learning of object identity, which relies on multiple brain regions. Both tasks require an open-field-testing arena, objects with equivalent intrinsic value to mice, appropriate environmental cues, and video recording equipment and the software. Commercially available systems, while convenient, can be costly. This manuscript details a simple, cost-effective method for building the arenas and setting up the equipment necessary to perform the OLT and NORT. Furthermore, the manuscript describes an efficient testing protocol that incorporates both OLT and NORT and provides typical methods for data acquisition and analysis, as well as representative results. Successful completion of these tests can provide valuable insight into the memory function of various mouse model systems and appraise the underlying neural regions that support these functions.

Here we provide a protocol which includes comprehensive instructions for the economical establishment of murine object location and novel object recognition behavioral testing, including the design, cost, and construction of required equipment as well as execution of behavioral testing, data collection, and analysis.

Ethologically relevant behavioral testing is a critical component of any study that uses mouse models to study the cognitive effects of various ...

Impact of High-intensity Interval Exercise and Moderate-Intensity Continuous Exercise on the Cardiac Troponin T Level at an Early Stage of Training

An elevation in cardiac troponin T (cTnT), as a highly specific biomarker of cardiomyocyte damage, after moderate-intensity continuous exercise (MCE) has been described. The exercise-induced cTnT response distorts the diagnostic role of the cTnT assay. Although high-intensity interval exercise (HIE) is growing in popularity and concerns remain about its safety, available data related to cTnT release after HIE is limited, which hampers the use of HIE as a health intervention. Here, we present three representative HIE protocols [traditional HIE (repeated 4 min cycling at 90% V&#775;O2max interspersed with 3 min rest, 200 kJ/session); sprint interval exercise (SIE, repeated 1 min cycling at 120% V&#775;O2max interspersed with 1.5 min rest, 200 kJ/session); and repeated sprint exercise (RSE, 40 x 6 s all-out sprints interspersed with 9 s rest)] and one representative MCE protocol (continuous cycling exercise at an intensity of 60% V&#775;O2max, 200 kJ/session). Forty-seven sedentary, overweight young women were randomly assigned to one of four groups (HIE, SIE, RSE, and MCE). Six bouts of respective exercise were performed by every single group, with each being 48 h apart. Meanwhile, for four groups, the duration of the entire testing period was identical, being 10 days. Before and after the first and final exercise bouts, an assessment was conducted of cTnT. The current study provides a frame of reference giving a clear picture of how a specific exercise session affects the circulating cTnT concentration at the early stage of training. The information may assist with clinical interpretations of post-exercise cTnT elevation and guide the prescription of exercise, especially for HIE.

Here, we present protocols of high-intensity interval and moderate-intensity continuous exercise to observe the response of circulating cardiac troponin T (cTnT) concentration to acute exercise over 10 days. The information may assist with clinical interpretations of post-exercise cTnT elevation and guide the prescription of exercise.

An elevation in cardiac troponin T (cTnT), as a highly specific biomarker of cardiomyocyte damage, after moderate-intensity continuous exercise (MCE) has ...