Biology subjects

Gabrieli, G.

Publications and source records attributed to Gabrieli, G..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Electrical Spinal Imaging (ESI): Analysing spinal cord activity with non-invasive, high-resolution mapping

The spinal cord is the key bridge between the brain and the body. However, scientific understanding of healthy spinal cord function has historically been limited because noninvasive measures of its neural activity have proven exceptionally challenging. In this work, we describe a novel recording and analysis approach to obtain non-invasive, high-resolution images of the electrical activity of the spinal cord in humans (Electrical Spinal Imaging, ESI). ESI is analytically simple, easy to implement, and data-driven: it does not involve template-based strategies prone to produce spurious signals. Using this approach we provide a detailed description and physiological characterization of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the peripheral, spinal and cortical activity elicited by somatosensory stimulation. We also demonstrate that attention modulates post-synaptic activity at spinal cord level. Our method has enabled four new insights regarding spinal cord activity. (1) We identified three distinct responses in the time domain: sP9, sN13 and sP22. (2) The sP9 is a traveling wave reflecting the afferent volley entering the spinal cord through the dorsal root. (3) In contrast, the sN13 and sP22 reflect segmental post-synaptic activity. (4) While the sP9 response is first seen on the dorsal electrodes ipsilateral to the stimulated side, the sN13 and sP22 were not lateralised with respect to the side of stimulation. (5) Unimodal attention strongly modulates the amplitude of the sP22, but not that of the sP9 and sN13 components. The proposed method offers critical insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of somatosensory processing within the spinal cord, paving the way for precise non-invasive functional monitoring of the spinal cord in basic and clinical neurophysiology.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Comparison of wearable and clinical devices for acquisition of peripheral nervous system signals

A key access point to the functioning of the Autonomic Nervous System is the investigation of peripheral signals. Wearable Devices (WDs) enable the acquisition and quantification of peripheral signals in a wide range of contexts, from personal uses to scientific research. WDs have lower costs and higher portability than medical-grade devices. But achievable data quality can be lower, subject to artifacts due to body movements and data losses. It is therefore crucial to evaluate the reliability and validity of WDs before their use in research. In this study we introduce a data analysis procedure for the assessment of WDs for multivariate physiological signals. The quality of cardiac and Electrodermal Activity signals is validated with a standard set of Signal Quality Indicators. The pipeline is available as a collection of open source Python scripts based on the pyphysio package. We apply the indicators for the analysis of signal quality on data simultaneously recorded from a clinical-grade device and two WDs. The dataset provides signals of 6 different physiological measures collected from 18 subjects with WDs. This study indicates the need of validating the use of WD in experimental settings for research and the importance of both technological and signal processing aspects to obtain reliable signals and reproducibility of results.

physiology↗

bioRxiv2020

Maternal Anxious Attachment Style is Associated with Reduced Mother-Child Brain-to-Brain Synchrony

Synchrony in developmental science reflects the coordination of mother and child to the same mental state. Mentalisation processes are influenced by individual attachment styles. A mother with an anxious-related attachment style tends to engage in emotional mentalisation that relies on her childs social cues. During an everyday joint activity of watching television shows together, we hypothesised that anxiously-attached mothers are less able to match their mental state to characters in the shows as their attention is likely detracted from the show and directed towards the child. We predict that this mismatch in mothers and childs emotional states would be reflected in reduced dyadic brain-to-brain synchrony. To test this hypothesis, we profiled mothers Maternal Anxiety score using the Preoccupation and Need for Approval subscales of the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and used functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning with 33 mother-child dyads to measure prefrontal cortex (PFC) synchrony while the dyads watched three 1-min animation videos together. Greater Maternal Anxiety is associated with less synchrony in the medial right prefrontal cluster implicated in mentalisation processes. Anxiously-attached mothers appear to exhibit less brain-to-brain synchrony with their child which suggests differences in intersubjective shared experiences that potentially undermines the quality of bonding during everyday joint activities.

neuroscience↗