C. Shawn Green, Bavelier, Daphne , Kramer, Arthur F. , Vinogradov, Sophia , Ansorge, Ulrich , Ball, Karlene K. , UlrikeBingel, , Chein, Jason M. , Colzato, Lorenza S. , Edwards, Jerri D. , Facoetti, Andrea , Gazzaley, Adam , Gathercole, Susan E. , Gori, Paolo Ghisletta Simone , Granic, Isabela , Hillman, Charles H. , Hommel, Bernhard , Jaeggi, Susanne M. , Kanske, Philipp , Karbach, Julia , Kingstone, Alan , Kliegel, Matthias , Klingberg, Torkel , Kühn, Simone , Levi, Dennis M. , Mayer, Richard E. , McLaughlin, Anne Collins , McNamara, Danielle S. , Morris, Martha Clare , Nahum, Mor , Newcombe, Nora S. , Panizzutti, Rogerio , Prakash, Ruchika Shaurya , Rizzo, Albert , Schubert, Torsten , Seitz, Aaron R. , Short, Sarah J. , Singh, Ilina , Slotta, James D. , Strobach, Tilo , Thomas, Michael S. C. , Tipton, Elizabeth , Tong, Xin , Vlach, Haley A. , Wetherell, Julie Loebach , Wexler, Anna , and Witt, Claudia M.. 11/19/2018.
“Improving Methodological Standards In Behavioral Interventions For Cognitive Enhancemen”. Journal Of Cognitive Enhancement.
10.1007%2Fs41465-018-0115-y.
Publisher's Version Abstract There is substantial interest in the possibility that cognitive skills can be improved by dedicated behavioral training. Yet despite the large amount of work being conducted in this domain, there is not an explicit and widely agreed upon consensus around the best methodological practices. This document seeks to fill this gap. We start from the perspective that there are many types of studies that are important in this domain—e.g., feasibility, mechanistic, efficacy, and effectiveness. These studies have fundamentally different goals, and, as such,the best-practice methods to meet those goals will also differ. We thus make suggestions in topics ranging from the design and implementation of control groups, to reporting of results, to dissemination and communication, taking the perspective that the best practices are not necessarily uniform acrossall study types.We also explicitly recognize and discuss the fact that there are methodological issues around which we currently lack the theoretical and/or empirical foundation to determine best practices (e.g., as pertains to assessing participant expectations). For these, we suggest important routes forward, including greater interdisciplinary collaboration with individuals from domains that face related concerns. Our hope is that these recommendations will greatly increase the rate at which science in this domain advances.
Gambacorta C., Nahum M., , Vedamurthy I., , Bayliss J., , Jordan JT., , Bavelier D., , and DM., Levi . 2018.
“ An Action Video Game For The Treatment Of Amblyopia In Children: A Feasibility Study”. Vision Research, 148, Pp. 1-14. .
Publisher's Version Abstract The gold-standard treatment for childhood amblyopia remains patching or penalizing the fellow eye, resulting in an average of about a one line (0.1 logMAR) improvement in visual acuity following ≈120 h of patching in children 3–8 years old. However, compliance with patching and other treatment options is often poor. In contrast, fast-paced action video games can be highly engaging, and have been shown to yield broad-based improvements in vision and attention in adult amblyopia. Here, we pilot-tested a custom-made action video game to treat children with amblyopia. Twenty-one (n = 21) children (mean age 9.95 ± 3.14 [se]) with unilateral amblyopia (n = 12 anisometropic and n = 9 strabismic) completed 20 h of game play either monocularly, with the fellow eye patched (n = 11), or dichoptically, with reduced contrast to the fellow eye (n = 10). Participants were assessed for visual acuity (VA), stereo acuity and reading speed at baseline, and following 10 and 20 h of play. Additional exploratory analyses examined improvements after 6–10 weeks of completion of training (follow-up). Following 20 h of training, VA improved, on average, by 0.14 logMAR (≈38%) for the dichoptic group and by 0.06 logMAR (≈15%) for the monocular group. Similarly, stereoacuity improved by 0.07 log arcsec (≈17%) following dichoptic training, and by 0.06 log arcsec (≈15%) following monocular training. Across both treatment groups, 7 of the 12 individuals with anisometropic amblyopia showed improvement in stereoacuity, whereas only 1 of the 9 strabismic individuals improved. Most improvements were largely retained at follow-up. Our feasibility study therefore suggests that the action video game approach may be used as an effective adjunct treatment for amblyopia in children, achieving results similar to those of the gold-standard treatment in shorter duration.
Lowry A. Kirkby, Luongo, Francisco J. , Lee, Morgan B. , Nahum, Mor , Van Vleet, Thomas M. , Rao, Vikram R. , Dawes, Heather E. , Chang, Edward F. , and Sohal, Vikaas S. . 2018.
“An Amygdala-Hippocampus Subnetwork That Encodes Variation In Human Mood”. Cell, 175, Pp. 1–13.
Abstract Human brain networks that encode variation in mood on naturalistic timescales remain largely unexplored. Here we combine multi-site, semi-chronic, intracra- nial electroencephalography recordings from the human limbic system with machine learning methods to discover a brain subnetwork that correlates with variation in individual subjects’ self-reported mood over days. First we defined the subnetworks that influence intrinsic brain dynamics by identifying regions that showed coordinated changes in spec- tral coherence. The most common subnetwork, found in 13 of 21 subjects, was characterized by b-frequency coherence (13-30 Hz) between the amygdala and hippocampus. Increased variability of this subnetwork correlated with worsening mood across these 13 subjects. Moreover, these subjects had significantly higher trait anxiety than the 8 of 21 for whom this amygdala-hippocampus subnetwork was absent. These results demonstrate an approach for extracting network-behavior relationships from complex datasets, and they reveal a conserved sub- network associated with a psychological trait that significantly influences intrinsic brain dynamics and encodes fluctuations in mood.
