Aurora shooting victim benefits from music in brain injury recovery

Yet another interesting video reporting on the use of the rhythmic aspects of music in brain injury recovery...similar to the Gabby Giffords story.  Additional clinical evidence of the importance of temporal processing in the brain.

Research bytes 10-7-10: Recovery of time estimation in TBI

Recovery of time estimation following moderate to severe traumatic brain injury. Anderson, Jonathan W.; Schmitter-Edgecombe, Maureen Neuropsychology, Oct 4, 2010, No Pagination Specified. doi: 10.1037/a0020333

Objective: Accurate time estimation abilities are thought to play an important role in efficient performance of many daily activities. This study investigated the role of episodic memory in the recovery of time estimation abilities following moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Method: Using a prospective verbal time estimation paradigm, TBI participants were tested in the early phase of recovery from TBI and then again approximately one year later. Verbal time estimations were made for filled intervals both within (i.e., 10 s, 25 s) and beyond (i.e., 45 s 60 s) the time frame of working memory. Results: At baseline, when compared to controls, the TBI group significantly underestimated time durations at the 25 s, 45 s and 60 s intervals, indicating that the TBI group perceived less time as having passed than actually had passed. At follow-up, despite the presence of continued episodic memory impairment and little recovery in episodic memory performance, the TBI group exhibited estimates of time passage that were similar to controls. Conclusion: The pattern of data was interpreted at suggesting that episodic memory performance did not play a noteworthy role in the recovery of temporal perception in TBI participants.

Technorati Tags: Psychology, school psychology, educational psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, neurosciences, neurotechnology, neurology, brain, brain function, cognitive abilities, intelligence, IQ brain clock, brain timing, mental timekeeping, brain rhythms, rhythm perception, brain synchrony, brain synchronization, neural synchrony, neural synchronization, brain clock, brain injury, TBI, time estimation

Research bytes 8-18-2010: IQ brain clock and sex/handedness differences and impact on aphasis

Sidiropoulos, K., Ackermann, H., Wannke, M., & Hertrich, I. (2010). Temporal processing capabilities in repetition conduction aphasia. Brain and Cognition, 73(3), 194-202.

This study investigates the temporal resolution capacities of the central-auditory system in a subject (NP) suffering from repetition conduction aphasia. More specifically, the patient was asked to detect brief gaps between two stretches of broadband noise (gap detection task) and to evaluate the duration of two biphasic (WN-3) continuous noise elements, starting with white noise (WN) followed by 3 kHz bandpass-filtered noise (duration discrimination task). During the gap detection task, the two portions of each stimulus were either identical (“intra-channel condition”) or differed (“inter-channel condition”) in the spectral characteristics of the leading and trailing acoustic segments. NP did not exhibit any deficits in the intra-channel condition of the gap detection task, indicating intact auditory temporal resolution across intervals of 1–3 ms. By contrast, the inter-channel condition yielded increased threshold values. Based upon the “multiple-looks” model of central-auditory processing, this profile points at a defective integration window operating across a few tens of milliseconds – a temporal range associated with critical features of the acoustic speech signal such as voice onset time and formant transitions. Additionally, NP was found impaired during a duration discrimination task addressing longer integration windows (ca. 150 ms). Concerning speech, this latter time domain approximately corresponds to the duration of stationary segmental units such as fricatives and long vowels. On the basis of our results we suggest, that the patient’s auditory timing deficits in non-speech tasks may account, at least partially, for his impairments in speech processing.

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. Materials and methods

2.1. Case history
2.2. Intra-channel gap detection task
2.3. Inter-channel gap detection task
2.4. Duration discrimination task

3. Results

3.1. Intra-channel gap detection task
3.2. Inter-channel gap detection
3.3. Duration discrimination task

4. Discussion
Acknowledgements
References

Rammsayer, T. & Troche, S. (2010, in press) Sex differences in the processing of temporal information in the sub-second range.  Personality and Individual Differences

Processing of temporal information in the sub-second range appears to be controlled by an automatic timing system. The present study examined sex-related differences in this temporal domain. For this purpose, 132 male and 144 female participants ranging in age from 18 to 39 years completed five different psychophysical timing tasks. Reliably better timing performance in males compared to females could be shown for temporal discrimination of empty intervals and rhythm perception. Males’ better performance on temporal discrimination of filled intervals and temporal-order judgment just failed to reach the 5%-level of statistical significance. No indication of a sex-related difference was found for temporal generalisation. Findings are consistent with the notion of a slightly more efficient automatic timing system in males compared to females. Furthermore, with tasks requiring temporal integration across a series of sensory events, a more holistic processing strategy applied by males may also contribute to their performance advantage.

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. Method

2.1. Participants
2.2. Intelligence test
2.3. Psychophysical timing tasks

2.3.1. Duration discrimination
2.3.2. Temporal-discrimination tasks
2.3.3. Temporal-generalisation task
2.3.4. Temporal-order judgment (TOJ)
2.3.5. Rhythm perception

3. Results
4. Discussion
Acknowledgements
References

Westfall, J., Jasper, J. & Zelmanova (2010) Differences in time perception as a function of strength of handedness.  Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 629–633

Research has established that objective measures of time rarely have a perfect correlation with subjective judgments of time. Given that proper time perception appears to depend upon access to right-hemisphere processing (e.g., Harrington, Haaland, & Knight, 1998), the present paper investigates the link between strength of handedness and subjective time judgments. In two distinctive time- associated decision-making tasks, results indicated that mixed-handers (individuals who use their non-dominant hand for at least a few activities), perceived time differently than strong-handers (individuals who use one hand predominantly). These findings signify a link between strength of handedness and different levels of interhemispheric communication, consistent with previous handedness literature, and suggest that researchers studying time perception or problems involving the perception of time should incorporate measures of handedness strength.
Article Outline

1. Introduction

1.1. Strength of handedness and interhemispheric communication

2. Method

2.1. Subjective time perception task
2.2. Delay discounting task
2.3. Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI)

3. Results

3.1. Subjective time perception task
3.2. Delay discounting task

4. Discussion
Acknowledgements
References

Technorati Tags: Psychology, school psychology, educational psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, neurosciences, neurotechnology, neurology, brain, brain function, cognitive abilities, intelligence, IQ brain clock, brain timing, mental timekeeping, brain rhythms, rhythm perception, brain synchrony, brain synchronization, neural synchrony, neural synchronization, brain clock, brain injury, stroke rehabilitation, gender differences

More research supports brain rhythm training benefits for stroke patients.

Research review suggests positive benefits of brain rhythm training (rhythmic auditory stimulation-RAS)/music for stroke rehab. clients.  This is consistent with a prior special report posted at the IQ Brain clock---The efficacy of rhythm-based (mental timing) treatments with subjects with a variety of clinical disorders:  A brief review of theoretical, diagnostic, and treatment research (McGrew & Vega, 2009).

Technorati Tags: Psychology, school psychology, educational psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, neurosciences, neurotechnology, neurology, brain, brain function, cognitive abilities, intelligence, IQ brain clock, brain timing, mental timekeeping, brain rhythms, rhythm perception, brain synchrony, brain synchronization, neural synchrony, neural synchronization, brain clock, brain injury, stroke rehabilitation, RAS, music therapy

Brain rhythm treatment efficacy: Can we fine-tune our brain clocks?

Brain rhythm. Got it? Need it? Is it important? Can you modify your brain rhythm to improve cognitive or motor performance?

I'm pleased to announce the availability of the Institute for Applied Psychometrics Research Report No. 9: The efficacy of rhythm-based (mental timing) treatments with subjects with a variety of clinical disorders: A brief review of theoretical, diagnostic, and treatment research (McGrew & Vega, 2009).

As faithful readers of the IQ Brain Clock blog know, I started this mental-timing niche blog after serving as a consultant on a neurotechnology intervention treatment program that produced positive academic outcomes in elementary school-age children (Taub, McGrew & Keith, 2007). Since that time I've systematically tracked research related to the concept of human temporal processing and mental timing--which I often refer to as the "IQ Brain Clock." Whenever I've found a research report of interest I've tried to share it via a short blog post. As these studies accumulated, it became clear there was a huge empirical and theoretical literature base, across a very diverse array of disciplines (e.g., neurorehabilitation, biology, neurobiology, neurochemistry, music perception, psychology, neuropsychology, rehabilitation sciences, etc.) that supported the importance of mental time-keeping in understanding an array of human behaviors. As a scientist this has had me intellectually curious for a number of years.

Yet...the applied hat I also wear constantly gnawed at me regarding the potential applied relevance. Even though there was clear evidence for some kind of neural-based brain timing, were there any practical implications? More specifically, could this research lead to improved diagnoses/classification of clinical disorders (and/or atypical development) in a number of human behavior domains and, furthermore, did it have potential treatment implications. I had seen the potential treatment implications in the Taub et al. study, but that was only one study.

Over the past week I, together with Amy Vega (Clinical Education Director at Interactive Metronome; IM), finally gathered together all the research citations I had been accumulating (over the past 3-4 years) and decided to investigate whether mental timing (temporal processing) research had potential diagnostic implications. More importantly, we wanted to see if mental timing-based treatments (specifically brain rhythm perception and production) had positive implications for education and rehabilitation.

Our "first cut" of this effort is the above IAP Research Report. Below are a few quotes from the report:

does sufficient evidence exist to support the temporal processing (mental timekeeping) theory-diagnosis/classification-treatment three-legged stool? With a few caveats, we believe that collectively the preponderance of positive outcomes (across the 23 listed studies) indicates that rhythm-based mental-timing treatments have merit for clinical use and warrant increased clinical use and research attention

positive treatment outcomes were reported for all four forms of rhythm-based treatment. Positive outcomes were also observed for normal subjects and, more importantly, across a variety of clinical disorders (e.g., aphasia, apraxia, coordination/movement disorders, TBI, CP, Parkinson’s disease,
stroke/CVA, Down’s syndrome, ADHD)

One notable observation of interest is that 15 of the 23 studies (the RAS, AOS-RRT and SMT treatment studies) all employed some form of auditory-based metronome to pace or cue the subjects targeted rhtymic behavior.

We conclude that the use of external metronome-based rhythm tools (tapping to a beat, metronome-based rhythmic pacing, rhythmic-cuing via timed pulses/beats) is a central tool to improving temporal processing and mental-timing.

Our concluding statement was:

given the converging research that points toward a possible neurologically-based domain-general internal mental-timing mechanism (i.e., a potentially modifiable internal brain clock), it is possible that the efficacy of all four classes of rhythm-based treatments are operating (in their own way) on “fine tuning the temporal resolution of the human brain clock.” Our temporal resolution fine-tuning hypothesis is consistent with the temporal resolution power (TRP) hypothesis (Rammsayer & Brandler, 2002, 2007) that indicates that oscillatory brain process are responsible for the efficiency and speed of neural-based information processing. We hypothesize, via the temporal resolution fine-tuning hypothesis, that the positive outcomes for rhythm perception and production based treatments may be due to these treatments increasing the efficiency and speed of information processing in brain-based neural networks responsible for the planning, execution and synchronization of complex human behaviors.

We urge both academic and applied researchers to embrace the temporal processing (mental timing) theory--diagnostic/classification--treatment literature reviewed in this report and increase efforts to understand the links between the three legs of the mental timing stool. The positive effects of current “brain rhythm” treatment programs for many types of disorders, across a variety of human performance domains, is encouraging, particularly when placed in the context of the emerging science and theory of the human brain clock.

We consider this report as a first step--providing the foundation for future expanded manuscripts and potential research. The PDF text of the report can be downloaded or viewed by clicking here. The report also includes three appendices. Appendix A (click here), B (click here), and C (click here). Please note that Appendix A and B are large (approx 11 and 9 MB each) and you might want to download then when hooked directly to the internet (not via wifi).

Finally, we would be remiss if we did not report our potential conflicts of interest. These are noted on the cover page of the report. Amy Vega is Clinical Education Director for Interactive Metronome (IM), one of the four major brain rhythm interventions covered in this brief research report. Myself, I'm not employed by IM, but I do serve on the IM Scientific Advisory board.

Enjoy the report. Tune up your brain...get it in rhythm with this emerging field of brain-based science and applied technology.

PS - Appendix B includes "foundational" basic or theoretical mental timing research reports. Unfortunately, our PDF software technology did not allow for the integration of all the PDF files in this appendix. If you want the read the additional six manuscripts, they can be found under the Key Research Articles section of this blog---they are designated with an asterisk (*)

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, neurotechnology, brain fitness, brain rhythm, rhythm perception, rhythm production, mental time-keeping, brain clock, interval timing, metronome pacing, metronome treatments

NIH funds TBI treatment studies

http://www.psycport.com/showArticle.cfm?xmlFile=knightridder%5F2009%5F01%5F02%5F%5F0000%2D0594%2DTB%2DStudy%2Dto%2Dpinpoint%2Dbest%2Drehab%2Dtreatments%2Dfor%2Dtraumatic%2Dbrain%2Dinjuries%2D0102%2Exml&provider=

Sent from KMcGrew iPhone (IQMobile). (If message includes an image-
double click on it to make larger-if hard to see)

Brain Clock Research Bytes #3: Timing-based interventions improve gait (Parkinsons), stroke rehab, and golf

I've found a number of new (or recent) studies supporting the importance of the brain clock in a variety of areas. Below are the brief bytes....check out articles for detailed information.

Yet another study (Hausdorff et al., 2007) dealing with Parkinson's (a clinical disordery that appears to involve a dysfunctional internal timing-click here for prior posts), this time the use of the RAS (rapid auditory stimulation) therapy to improve gait functioning.

• Abstract: Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) walk with a shortened stride length and high stride-to-stride variability, a measure associated with fall risk. Rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) improves stride length but the effects on stride-to-stride variability, a marker of fall risk, are unknown. The effects of RAS on stride time variability, swing time variability and spatial-temporal measures were examined during 100-m walks with the RAS beat set to 100 and 110% of each subject’s usual cadence in 29 patients with idiopathic PD and 26 healthy age-matched controls. Carryover effects were also evaluated. During usual walking, variability was significantly higher (worse) in the patients with PD compared with the controls (P < 0.01). For the patients with PD, RAS at 100% improved gait speed, stride length and swing time (P < 0.02) but did not significantly affect variability. With RAS at 110%, reductions in variability were also observed (P < 0.03) and these effects persisted 2 and 15 min later. In the control subjects, the positive effects of RAS were not observed. For example, RAS increased stride time variability at 100 and 110%. These results demonstrate that RAS enables more automatic movement and reduces stride-to-stride variability in patients with PD. Further, these improvements are not simply a by-product of changes in speed or stride length. After walking with RAS, there also appears to be a carryover effect that supports the possibility of motor plasticity in the networks controlling rhythmicity in PD and the potential for using RAS as an intervention to improve mobility and reduce fall risk.

The original Libkuman et al. (2002) study (well designed IMHO) demonstrating the positive effects of the brain-clock based Groove treament (based on the Interactive Metronome technology) on improved golf performance. [see conflict of interest disclosure post]

• Abstract: In this experiment, the authors investigated the influence of training in timing on performance accuracy in golf. During pre- and posttesting, 40 participants hit golf balls with 4 different clubs in a golf course simulator. The dependent measure was the distance in feet that the ball ended from the target. Between the pre- and posttest, participants in the experimental condition received 10 hr of timing training with an instrument that was designed to train participants to tap their hands and feet in synchrony with target sounds. The participants in the control condition read literature about how to improve their golf swing. The results indicated that the participants in the experimental condition significantl improved their accuracy relative to the participants in the control condition, who did not show any improvement. We concluded that training in timing leads to improvement in accuracy, and that our results have implications for training in golf as well as other complex motor activities.

And yet another positive RAS stroke study by the Thaut et al. (2007) research group

• Abstract: Objectives: The effectiveness of 2 different types of gait trainingi n stroke rehabilitation, rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) versus neurodevelopmental therapy (NDT)/Bobath-based training, was compared in 2 groups of hemiparetic stroke patients over a 3-week period of daily training (RAS group, n = 43; NDT/Bobath group =35). Methods.Mean entry date into the study was 21.3 days poststroke for the RAS group and 22.3 days for the control group. Patients entered the study as soon as they were able to complete 5 stride cycles with handheld assistance. Patients were closely equated by age, gender,and lesion site. Motor function in both groups was preassessed by the Barthel Index and the Fugl-Meyer Scales. Results. Pre- to posttest measures showed a significant improvement in the RAS group for velocity (P = .006), stride length (P = .0001), cadence (P = .0001) and symmetry (P = .0049) over the NDT/Bobath group. Effect sizes for RAS over NDT/Bobath training were 13.1 m/min for velocity, 0.18 m for stride length, and 19 steps/min for cadence. Conclusions. The data show that after 3 weeks of gait training, RAS is an effective therapeutic method to enhance gait training in hemiparetic stroke rehabilitation. Gains were significantly higher for RAS compared to NDT/Bobath training.
  

SciAmMind brain injury issue

Thanks to MIND HACKS for the FYI about a special issue of Sci.
America:Mind dealing with new treatments for brain injuries.

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/12/sciammind_on_brain_i.html

Sent from KMcGrew iPhone (IQMobile)

New TBI prevalence figures

Thanks to the BRAIN INJURY blog for this new info.

http://braininjury.blogs.com/braininjury/2008/12/new-statistics-on-prevalence-of-traumatic-brain-injury-in-us.html

Sent from KMcGrew iPhone (IQMobile)

New national center for parents

Sent from KMcGrew iPhone (IQMobile)
>

> Thanks to the BRAIN INJURY blog for this FYI
>
> http://braininjury.blogs.com/braininjury/2008/10/assistance-for-parents-with-disabilities.html
>
>
> Sent from KMcGrew iPhone (IQMobile)

Brain Injury conferences

Check out the BRAIN INJURY blog for some upcomming conferences.

http://braininjury.blogs.com/braininjury/2008/10/brain-injury-co.html

Sent from KMcGrew iPhone (IQMobile)

TBI webcast info

Thanks to Brain Injury Blog for tip regarding webcast dealing with the silent epidemic of TBI.

Sent from KMcGrew iPhone

Brain injury - perseveration

An example of brain injury related perseveration....not really a laughing matter. Check out the Brain Injury blog for up-to-date information related to BI. It is an excellent blog

IQ's Corner random tidbits from mind blogosphere 12-21-07

Check out my semi-consistent "random tidbits from the mind blogosphere" over at my sister blog...IQ's Corner.

Time Doc Byte # 3 - Brain clock importance and clinical groups

Here is my third Time Doc Byte. Categories - "importance" of the human brain clock and mental time-keeping; relevance to clinical groups/populations

This time the quotes come from a chapter from Meck (2003); Introduction to edited book - Functional and Neural Mechanisms of Interval Timing - yep, I've got the book and am hoping I can get through the technical and deep material - the book is listed as a "recommended book" on the right side of this blog).

Underline or italic emphasis added by blogmaster.

• The term interval timing is used to describe the temporal discrimination processes involved in the estimation and reproduction of relatively short during the seconds-to-minutes range that form the fabric of our everyday existence and unite our mental representations of actions and rhythmical structures.

• Human learning and memory is highly sensitive to temporal factors, and oscillator-based models have been proposed for the coding of serial order in memory...In addition, deficits in learning, memory, set shifting, and interval timing have been observed in a variety of patient populations with damage to the basal ganglia, including Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease patients, as well as other cortical and subcortical brain structures affected by Alzheimer's disease, injury, and stroke.

• ...understanding temporal integration by the brain will be among the premier topics to unite systems, cellular, computational, and cognitive neuroscience over the next decade.

• It is interesting to note that some researchers have argued that a primary function of the internal clock is to allow for the efficient transfer of information from one stage of information processing to another at regularly spaced intervals.
  

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, interval timing, brain clock, mental time keeping, Parkinsons, Huntingtons, Alzheimers, stroke, brain injury, temporal processing, Time Doc Byte

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Stroke patients and metronome training

I just ran across an article (actually based on an email tip via the mental timing grapevine) for a 2002 article by Thaut et al. in Neuropsychologia that supports the use of synchronized metronome tapping (SMT) methods to improve motor coordination in patients with strokes.

In the article, the authors goal was to "investigate the effect of rhythm on the control of paretic arm movements in stroke patients." The basis for this intervention was prior research that had suggested that:

• "a rhythmic model of rehabilitative motor training, has shown significant improvements in gait function of stroke patients. In this model, rhythm functions as a sensory cue to induce temporal stability and enhance the temporal organization of motor control in the nervous system by translating the temporal structure of movement patterns into temporally isomorphic auditory rhythmic patterns to entrain the movement in question. Similar models have been successfully used in high-performance motor skill learning in sports and music."

In a sample of 21 hemispheric stroke patients, the researchers found that:

• "the observed changes in timing and trajectory control strongly suggest that the structured time information in auditory rhythm added significant kinematic stability to the patient’s paretic arm reaching motions. These changes were not present during the non-rhythmic condition...Our data suggest, therefore, that auditory rhythm may offer an essential component of enhanced sensorimotor control to make hemiparetic arm training more effective."

The results of this study provide indirect support for the use of the Interactive Metronome SMT-based program in stroke patients with motor control impairment. (click here for other IM-related prior posts on this blog). Of course, all of this makes sense in the context of the extant research literature on temporal processing and the IQ Brain Clock (click here to enter the wonderful world of the IQ Brain Clock EWOK)

Click here for IM-related conflict of interest statement.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, rehabilitation, strokes, motor function, metronome, Interactive Metronome, rhythmicity, neuroscience, neuropsychology, stroke rehab, speech and language

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Best of the brain

Thanks to Mind Hacks for the FYI tip regarding the recent publication - Best of the Brain from Scientific American


Technorati Tags: psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, educaitonal psychology, school psychology, Scientific American, brain

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Random tidbits from mind blogosphere 7-3-07

• Thanks to the Brain Injury blog for the tip re: the availability (on-line) of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center video - Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury
  

• The 12th Edition of the Brain Blogging brain carnival is now available for review. Speaking of brain carnivals, the 26th issue of Encephalon is also now ready for viewing
• Interesting post over on Positive Technology Journal on journal article dealing with virtual reality as a leisure activity for individuals with disabilities.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, intelligence, cognition, brain injury, TBI, virutal reality, brain carnivals

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Random tidbits from the mind blogsphere - 5-31-07

• Check out the Brain Injury blog for a post regarding a possible link between Parkinson's disease and head trauma.
• Thanks again to the great DI blog for a post regarding the neural substrates of symbol use
• ENL blog has an interesting post on how video game training may increase visual span
• Thanks to Mind Hacks for the FYI re: a New York Times book review of a new book on neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to re-organize itself after neurological insult/brain injury.
• More on new books. The Neuroethics and Law Blog reports information regarding a new book (Intervening in the brain) on the emerging ethical issues surrounding our increased intervention in the brain via neurotechnology.
• Omni Brain highlights a recent study dealing with the impact of training executive function abilities in young children.

Technorati Tags: psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, educational psychology, brain injury, video games, Gv, visual-spatial, neurotechnology, executive function


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DC Brain Injury Awareness day - March 13

Thanks to the Brain Injury blog, a blog that has been very vocal regarding concussions in the sports (esp. the NFL) and the status of returning war vets with brain injuries, for the reminder about Brain Injury Awareness Day in Washington, DC on March 13.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscince, brain, brain injury, intelligence, neurology

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