Pain has not only sensory, but also emotional and cognitive, components. Some studies have explored the effect of pain on time perception, but the results remain controversial. Whether individual pain-related emotional and cognitive factors play roles in this process should also be explored. In this study, we investigated the effect of electrical stimulation–induced pain on interval timing using a temporal bisection task. During each task session, subjects received one of five types of stimulation randomly: no stimulus and 100 and (...) 300 ms of non-painful and painful stimulation. Pain-related emotional and cognitive factors were measured using a series of questionnaires. The proportion of “long” judgments of a 1,200-ms visual stimulus duration was significantly smaller with 300 ms painful stimulation than with no stimulus and 100 ms and 300 ms non-painful stimulation. The point of subjective equality did not differ among sessions, but the average Weber fraction was higher for painful sessions than for no-stimulus session. The pain fear score correlated positively with the PSE under 100 ms non-painful and painful and 300 ms painful stimulation. Pain catastrophizing and pain anxiety scores correlated significantly with the WF under no stimulus and 100 ms non-painful stimulation, respectively. These results suggest that electrical stimulation–induced pain affects temporal sensitivity, and that pain-related emotional and cognitive factors are associated with the processing of time perception. (shrink)

This paper reports the results of a systematic review conducted on articles examining the effects of daytime electric light exposure on alertness and higher cognitive functions. For this, we selected 59 quantitative research articles from 11 online databases. The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO. The results showed that both short-wavelength dominant light exposure and higher intensity white light exposure induced alertness. However, those influences depended on factors like the participants’ homeostatic sleep drive and the time of day the (...) participants received the light exposure. The relationship between light exposure and higher cognitive functions was not as straightforward as the alerting effect. The optimal light property for higher cognitive functions was reported dependent on other factors, such as task complexity and properties of control light. Among the studies with short-wavelength dominant light exposure, ten studies reported beneficial effects on simple task performances, and four studies on complex task performances. Four studies with higher intensity white light exposure reported beneficial effects on simple task performance and nine studies on complex task performance. Short-wavelength dominant light exposure with higher light intensity induced a beneficial effect on alertness and simple task performances. However, those effects did not hold for complex task performances. The results indicate the need for further studies to understand the influence of short-wavelength dominant light exposure with higher illuminance on alertness and higher cognitive functions. (shrink)

ObjectiveProcessing Speed, the ability to perceive and react fast to stimuli in the environment, has been shown to be impaired in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. However, it is unclear whether PS can be improved following targeted treatments for ADHD. Here we examined potential changes in PS following application of transcranial electric stimulation combined with cognitive training in children with ADHD. Specifically, we examined changes in PS in the presence of different conditions of mental fatigue.MethodsWe used a randomized double-blind (...) active-controlled crossover study of 19 unmedicated children with ADHD. Participants received either anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or transcranial random noise stimulation, while completing CT, and the administration order was counterbalanced. PS was assessed before and after treatment using the MOXO-CPT, which measures PS in the presence of various conditions of mental fatigue and cognitive load.ResultstRNS combined with CT yielded larger improvements in PS compared to tDCS combined with CT, mainly under condition of increased mental fatigue. Further improvements in PS were also seen in a 1-week follow up testing.ConclusionThis study provides initial support for the efficacy of tRNS combined with CT in improving PS in the presence of mental fatigue in pediatric ADHD. (shrink)

When words are read, the visual cortex is activated, independent of whether visual or motor associations are elicited. This word-evoked brain activity is significantly influenced by semantic meaning. Such effects occur very early after stimulus presentation (at latencies between 80 and 130 msec), indicating that semantic meaning activates different neuronal assemblies in the human visual cortex when words are processed.

In this study, the affective explicit and implicit attitudes toward electric and gasoline cars are investigated. One hundred sixty-five participants completed an explicit and implicit affective rating task toward pictures of electric and gasoline cars, measurements of sustainability, future and past behaviors, and mindfulness. The results showed a positive emotional attitude for the electric cars compared with the gasoline cars only for the explicit rating but not for the implicit one. Furthermore, factors that correlated to the attitudes were investigated: explicit (...) ratings in car owners correlated with age, degree, sustainability in general, and the expressed intention to purchase an electric car in the future. Implicit attitudes in car owners correlated with the overall score of mindfulness and the dimension of “non-reactivity.” For the non-car owners, explicit attitudes correlated with the expressed intention to purchase an electric car in the future and the mindfulness dimension of “describing”. In this group, the implicit attitude correlated negatively with the mindfulness intention of acting with awareness. This indicates that several different factors should be considered in the development of promotion campaigns for the advantage of sustainable mobility behavior. (shrink)

Helmholtz’ electrically induced extra mass inside a charged hollow sphere, recently evidenced by Mikhailov, is analogous to Mach’s inertial mass. Existence of a corresponding magnetically induced extra mass in an electron flying around an “autistic magnet” is derived. The overall electro-magnetic effect can be covariantly expressed.

In late 1912, Fritz Goos at the Hamburg Physikalisches Staatslaboratorium discovered a systematic dependency of arc-spectra wavelengths on the length of the electric arc used and on its electric parameters, such as, for instance, the current employed. In early 1913, at Heinrich Kayser's better-equipped physical laboratory in Bonn, Goos was able to confirm these effects using a large concave Rowland grating. He was able to establish that variations of between 3 mm and 10 mm in the length of the (...) arc produced wavelength differences of up to 0.02 Å violet shift and -0.007 Å redshift respectively. Further inquiry also revealed a dependency of the wavelength on the region of the arc selected for spectrometric observation. All these surprising effects were soon collectively named ‘pole effect’.As is shown in this paper, the pole effect threatened the validity of the results of the entire research tradition of high-precision spectroscopy which, around 1910, had excelled in establishing several internally coherent systems of wavelength assignments. These wavelength catalogues had been established by spectroscopists such as Heinrich Kayser, Paul Eversheim and their co-workers in Bonn, by August Herman Pfund in Baltimore, and by Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson in Marseille under the aegis of the ‘International Union for Co-Operation in Solar Research’. They had all produced locally consistent, “homogeneous” systems of wavelengths with estimated errors sometimes smaller than 0.001 Å. However, long before 1913, strange non-local inconsistencies had emerged between these systems that were of much greater magnitude than the estimated error. The discovery of the pole effect opened up the possibility that variations in the arc parameters used in the measurements, which the different teams had hitherto not specified, were responsible for the systematic differences, in their respective sets of measurements, coming to up to 0.025 Å.This paper explores the interrelations between local knowledge production, the strategies for the establishment of local coherence, and the ways in which the community of physicists and spectroscopists handled a possible threat to this coherence after 1913. Around 1930, a general agreement was reached about the physical cause of the pole effect, namely Stark effects, caused in turn by intermolecular electric fields of ions in the arc. Much before 1930, however, the community had already succeeded in standardizing the instrumentation used in high-precision spectrometry and had conformed its research practice to such an extent that from 1917 on the pole effect could be routinely circumvented in high-precision spectrometry and interferometry. Thus, experimentation along with its instrumentation, indeed had ‘a life of its own’, independent of the many unsuccessful efforts to explain the pole effect theoretically. (shrink)

Objective: Electrical stimulation potentially delineates epileptogenic cortex through induction of typical seizures. Although frequently employed, its value for epilepsy surgery remains controversial. Similarly, ES is used to identify symptomatogenic zones, but with greater success and a long-standing evidence base. Recent work points to new seizure symptoms such as ictal central apnea that may enhance presurgical hypotheses. The aims of this review are 2-fold: to determine the value of ES-induced seizures in epilepsy surgery and to analyze current evidence on ICA (...) as a new surrogate of symptomatogenic cortex.Methods: Three databases were searched for ESIS. Investigators independently selected studies according to pre-specified criteria. Studies reporting postoperative outcome in patients with ESIS were included in a meta-analysis. For ES-induced apnea, a thorough search was performed and reference list searching was employed.Results: Of 6,314 articles identified for ESIS, 25 were considered eligible to be reviewed in full text. Fourteen studies were included in the qualitative synthesis ; six studies were included in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis showed that favorable outcome is associated with ESIS prior to surgery. In addition, the overall estimation of the occurrence of favorable outcome among cases with ESIS is 68.13%. On the other hand, recent studies have shown that stimulation of exclusively mesial temporal lobe structures elicits central apnea and represents symptomatogenic anatomic substrates of ICA. This is in variance with traditional teaching that mesial temporal ES is non-symptomatogenic.Conclusions: ES is a tool highly likely to aid in the delineation of the epileptogenic zone, since ESIS is associated with favorable postoperative outcomes. There is an urgent need for prospective evaluation of this technique, including effective stimulation parameters and surgical outcomes, that will provide knowledge base for practice. In addition, ES-induced apnea studies suggest that ICA, especially when it is the first or only clinical sign, is an important semiological feature in localizing the symptomatogenic zone to mesial temporal lobe structures, which must be considered in SEEG explorations where this is planned, and in surgical resection strategies. (shrink)

Investigations with electrometers in the 1770s led Volta to envision mobile charge in electrical conductors as a compressible fluid. A pressure-like condition in this fluid, which Volta described as the fluid’s “effort to push itself out” of its conducting container, was the causal agent that makes the fluid move. In this paper I discuss Volta’s use of analogy and imagery in model building, and compare with a successful contemporary conceptual approach to introducing ideas about electric potential in instruction. The (...) concept that today is called “electric potential” was defined mathematically by Poisson in 1811. It was understood after about 1850 to predict the same results in conducting matter as Volta’s pressure-like concept—and to predict electrostatic effects in the exterior space where Volta’s concept had nothing to say. Complete quantification in addition to greater generality made the mathematical concept a superior research tool for scientists. However, its spreading use in instruction has marginalized approaches to model building based on the analogy and imagery resources that students bring into the classroom. Data from pre and post testing in high schools show greater conceptual and confidence gains using the new conceptual approach than using conventional instruction. This provides evidence for reviving Volta’s compressible fluid model as an intuitive foundation which can then be modified to include electrostatic distant action. Volta tried to modify his compressible fluid model to include distant action, using imagery borrowed from distant heating by a flame. This project remained incomplete, because he did not envision an external field mediating the heating. However, pursuing Volta’s strategy of model modification to completion now enables students taught with the new conceptual approach to add distant action to an initial compressible fluid model. I suggest that a partial correspondence to the evolving model sequence that works for beginning students can help illuminate Volta’s use of intermediate explanatory models. (shrink)

The present study aims to determine the key antecedents that affect consumers' electric vehicle (EV) purchasing behavior. In this context, the study expanded the existing framework of TPB (attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control) by incorporating four new variables (product attributes, cognitive status, monetary incentive policies, and nonmonetary incentive policies). At this point, the study is of great importance in terms of understanding consumers' perspectives on EV purchasing behavior and to help policymakers, businesses, and marketers support sustainable production and consumption (...) by creating effective strategies. In addition, this study conducted in Türkiye, which shares similar consumption behaviors with Middle Eastern, Asian, and European societies, provides valuable insights for a rapid transition to the adoption of EVs. In the study, data were collected from 390 respondents with the survey method and the collected data were analyzed using Smart PLS 4.0 and SPSS 26 statistical software. The findings showed that only attitude together with cognitive status, product attributes, and monetary incentives policy contribute to EV purchasing behavior. In light of these findings, it can be argued that there is a need to increase efforts to develop more positive consumer attitudes toward EVs, to enhance their cognitive status, and to promote product attributes to encourage the widespread adoption of EVs. At the same time, monetary incentives policies are an important element in the adoption of EVs and therefore policymakers need to make great efforts. (shrink)

Membrane proteins possess certain features that make them susceptible to the electric fields generated at the level of the plasma membrane. A reappraisal of cell signalling, taking into account the protein interactions with the membrane electrostatic profile, suggests that an electrical dimension is deeply involved in this fundamental aspect of cell biology. At least three types of potentials can contribute to this dimension: (1) the potential across the compact layer of water adherent to membrane surfaces; this potential is affected (...) by classical inducers of cell differentiation, like dimethylsulfoxide and hexamethylenebisacetamide; (2) the potential across the Gouy‐Chapman double layer, which accounts for the effects of extracellular cations in the modulation of differentiation; and (3) the resting potential. This last potential and its governing ion currents can be exploited in localised mechanisms of cell signalling centred on the functional association of integrin receptors with ion channels. (shrink)

Non‐invasive brain stimulation is used to modulate brain excitation and inhibition and to improve cognitive functioning. The effectiveness of the enhancement due to transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is still controversial, but the technique seems to have large potential for improvement and more specific applications. In particular, it has recently been used by athletes, both beginners and professionals. This paper analyses the ethical issues related to tDCS enhancement, which depend on its specific features: ease of use, immediate effect, non‐detectability and (...) great variability of effects. If tDCS were to become widespread, there could be some potential side effects, especially the rise of inequality in many selective competitive contexts. I discuss two possible scenarios to counter this effect: that of prohibition and that of compensation, each supported by reasons and arguments that seem plausible and worthy of consideration. In conclusion, I show why I think the scenario of compensation is the preferable one. (shrink)

Cranial electrical stimulation has been applied at various current levels in both adults and children with neurological conditions with seemingly promising but somewhat inconsistent results. Stimulation-induced spatial electric fields within a specific brain region are likely a significant contributing factor for the biological effects. Although several simulation models have been used to predict EF distributions in the brain, these models actually have not been validated by in vivo CES-induced EF measurements in the live human brain. This study directly (...) measured the CES-induced voltage changes with implanted stereotactic-electroencephalographic electrodes in twenty-one epilepsy participants and then compared these measured values with the simulated ones obtained from the personalized models. In addition, we further investigated the influence of stimulation frequency, intensity, electrode montage and age on EFs in parts of participants. We found both measured voltages and EFs obtained in vivo are highly correlated with the predicted ones in our cohort. In white matter and gray matter, the measured voltages linearly increased when the stimulation intensity increased from 5 to 500 μA but showed no significant changes with changing stimulation frequency from 0.5 to 200 Hz. Electrode montage, but not age, significantly affects the distribution of the EFs. Our in vivo measurements demonstrate that the individualized simulation model can reliably predict the CES-induced EFs in both adults and children. It also confirms that the CES-induced EFs highly depend on the electrode montages and individual anatomical features. (shrink)

Functional electrical stimulation (FES), a method for inducing muscle contraction, has been successfully used in gait rehabilitation for patients with deficits after neurological disorders and several clinical studies have found that it can improve gait function after stroke and spinal cord injury. However, FES gait training is not suitable for patients with walking difficulty, such as those with severe motor paralysis of the lower limbs. We have previously shown that action observation combined with motor imagery (AO + MI) of (...) walking induces walking-related cortical activity. Therefore, we combined FES, which alternately generates dorsiflexion and plantar flexion, with AO + MI as an alternative to gait training. The present study investigates the transient effects of 20-min of FES simultaneously with and without AO + MI of walking on corticospinal and spinal reflex excitability in able-bodied participants. We measured motor evoked potentials and Hoffmann-reflexes to assess corticospinal and spinal reflex excitability at rest before and after the 20-min FES with and without the AO + MI. Our results show that FES without AO + MI did not change excitability (p > 0.05), while FES with AO + MI facilitated corticospinal excitability (p < 0.05). This facilitation likely occurred due to the synchronization of sensory inputs from FES and cortical activity during AO + MI. Facilitation was observed only in the dorsiflexor but not the plantar flexor muscle (p < 0.05), suggesting muscle specificity of the facilitation. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of combining FES with AO + MI and pave the way for novel neurorehabilitation strategies for patients with neurological gait deficits. (shrink)

Seeking a historical-philosophical approach to science teaching, narrative texts have been used as pedagogical tools to improve the learning experience of students. A review of the literature of different types of narrative texts and their different rates of effectiveness in science education is presented. This study was developed using the so-called Historical Narrative as a tool to introduce science content from a historical-philosophical approach, aiming to discuss science as a human construction. This project was carried out in a 9th grade (...) Physics class in K-12 school, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The steps involved in constructing a Historical Narrative based on the controversy over animal electrical fluid between Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta is reported herein. Finally, qualitative research results of the activities inspired by this Historical Narrative are presented with the purpose of answering the research question: to what extent do Historical Narratives support and enhance discussions about the Nature of Science, through teaching the scientific content in a historical-philosophical approach with 9th grade students? The results indicate that Historical Narrative, based on historical episodes, is a good “door opener” to teach scientific content in a historical-philosophical approach, introducing discussions about the Nature of Science without neglecting the scientific content or simplifying the discussions about the NOS. (shrink)