Floriana Pichiorri

Foundation Santa Lucia | FSL · Neuroelectrical Imaging and Brain Computer Interface Laboratory

Study design Case report. Objectives To report a clinical case of spinal cord infarction due to cocaine use. Setting Spinal Center, IRCCS Fondazione S. Lucia, Rome (Italy). Case presentation Two days after recreational use of cocaine, a 27-year-old Caucasic man was admitted to the emergency department for acute cervical pain, weakness in all fou...

Sensorimotor rhythms-based Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have successfully been employed to address upper limb motor rehabilitation after stroke. In this context, becomes crucial the choice of features that would enable an appropriate electroencephalographic (EEG) sensorimotor activation/engagement underlying the favourable motor recovery. Here,...

Knowledge of motor cortex connectivity is of great value in cognitive neuroscience, in order to provide a better understanding of motor organization and its alterations in pathological conditions. Traditional methods provide connectivity estimations which may vary depending on the task. This work aims to propose a new method for motor connectivity...

Hybrid Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCIs) for upper limb rehabilitation after stroke should enable the reinforcement of “more normal” brain and muscular activity. Here, we propose the combination of corticomuscular coherence (CMC) and intermuscular coherence (IMC) as control features for a novel hybrid BCI for rehabilitation purposes. Multiple electr...

Background Spasticity and neuropathic pain are common in patients after spinal cord injury and negatively affect patients’ quality of life. Gabapentin and baclofen are frequently used to treat these conditions. We present a flumazenil-reversed gabapentin-induced coma case, which, to our knowledge, is the second one described in scientific literatur...

Sensorimotor Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) systems can be beneficial for post-stroke motor recovery. A successful trial on subacute stroke patients carried out at Fondazione Santa Lucia demonstrated clinical and neurophysiological benefits derived from BCI-supported motor imagery (MI) training of the upper limb. A further translational effort led...

The development of usable and accurate brain-computer interface (BCI) systems enables the transfer of this technology to clinical routine. When working with electroencephalographic signals (EEG), an important factor to optimize the signal to noise ratio of the signal is to choose the appropriate spatial filters. Specific aims of this study were (a)...

Brain connectivity has been employed to investigate on post-stroke recovery mechanisms and assess the effect of specific rehabilitation interventions. Changes in interhemispheric coupling after stroke have been related to the extent of damage in the corticospinal tract (CST) and thus, to motor impairment. In this study we aim at defining an index o...

Transcranial cerebellar direct current stimulation (tcDCS) can offer new insights into the cerebellar function and disorders, by modulating noninvasively the activity of cerebellar networks. Taking into account the functional interplay between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex, we addressed the effects of unilateral tcDCS (active electrode pos...

Community structure is a feature of complex networks that can be crucial for the understanding of their internal organization. This is particularly true for brain networks, as the brain functioning is thought to be based on a modular organization. In the last decades, many clustering algorithms were developed with the aim to identify communities in...

The Attention Network Task (ANT) was developed to disentangle the three components of attention identified in the Posner's theoretical model (alerting, orienting and executive control) and to measure the corresponding behavioral efficiency. Several fMRI studies have already provided evidences on the anatomical separability and interdependency of th...

Non-invasive electroencephalographic (EEG) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are a potential tool to support neuronal plasticity after stroke in the sub-acute and even in the chronic state. A few randomized controlled trials have demonstrated the positive effect on motor rehabilitation. Recent data also indicate that BCI training may improve c...

Communication and control of the external environment can be provided via brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to replace a lost function in persons with severe diseases and little or no chance of recovery of motor abilities (ie, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, brainstem stroke). BCIs allow to intentionally modulate brain activity, to train specific bra...

Introduction: To investigate cortical excitability and synaptic plasticity in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) using 5 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (5 Hz-rTMS) and to assess whether specific TMS parameters predict conversion time to Alzheimer's disease (AD). Materials and methods: Forty aMCI patients (single- and mult...

Partial Directed Coherence (PDC) is a powerful estimator of effective connectivity. In neuroscience it is used in different applications with the aim to investigate the communication between brain regions during the execution of different motor or cognitive tasks. When multiple trials are available, PDC can be computed over multiple realizations, p...

The main objective of this roadmap is to provide a global perspective on the BCI field now and in the future. For readers not familiar with BCIs, we introduce basic terminology and concepts. We discuss what BCIs are, what BCIs can do, and who can benefit from BCIs. We illustrate our arguments with use cases to support the main messages. After readi...

This deliverable summarizes the industry contribution to the BNCI Horizon 2020 roadmap based on WP3 issues and related deliverables D3.1, D3.2 and D3.3. The same version of this deliverable is provided in the final BNCI Horizon 2020 roadmap as Appendix B (Industry). Our main goal is to present functional means, mainly for SMEs and policy makers, to...

To evaluate the feasibility of brain-computer interface (BCI)-assisted motor imagery training to support hand/arm motor rehabilitation after stroke during hospitalization. Proof-of-principle study. Neurorehabilitation hospital. Convenience sample of patients (N=8) with new-onset arm plegia or paresis caused by unilateral stroke. The BCI-based inter...

Objective Motor imagery (MI) is assumed to enhance poststroke motor recovery; yet, its benefits are debatable. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can provide instantaneous and quantitative measure of cerebral functions modulated by MI. The efficacy of BCI-monitored MI practice as add-on intervention to usual rehabilitation care was evaluated in a ran...

One of the main limitations commonly encountered when dealing with the estimation of brain connectivity is the difficulty to perform a statistical assessment of significant changes in brain networks at a single-subject level. This is mainly due to the lack of information about the distribution of the connectivity estimators at different conditions....

In BCI applications for stroke rehabilitation, BCI systems are used with the aim of providing patients with an instrument that is capable of monitoring and reinforcing EEG patterns generated by motor imagery (MI). In this study we proposed an offline analysis on data acquired from stroke patients subjected to a BCI-assisted MI training in order to...

This deliverable describes the evolution of BCI and BCI-related industry stakeholders towards 2020 focusing on task 3.2 related issues. We evaluate emerging tools, technologies, and synergy fields with regard to their potential transfer to industry and their market impact. Further, current and new target user groups, BCI application scenarios and t...

Recent studies have investigated changes in the human brain network organization during the normal aging. A reduction of the connectivity between brain areas was demonstrated by combining neuroimaging technologies and graph theory. Clustering, characteristic path length and small-worldness are key topological measures and they are widely used in li...

In recent years, network analyses have been used to evaluate brain reorganization following stroke. However, many studies have often focused on single topological scales, leading to an incomplete model of how focal brain lesions affect multiple network properties simultaneously and how changes on smaller scales influence those on larger scales. In...

Motor Imagery (MI) was proposed to enhance motor recovery after stroke. It has been suggested that EEG-based Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) operated by MI can provide monitoring and reinforcement of such task-specific training. A BCI rehabilitation device was specifically developed in our laboratory for recovery of hand function after stroke. Here...

BCI technology can encourage motor training and practice by offering an on-line feedback about brain signals associated with mental practice, motor intention/attempt and other neural recruitment strategies, and thus helping to guide neuroplasticity to improve recovery. To deploy an EEG-based BCI system as an effective post-stroke rehabilitation tra...

Objectives: To determine whether intermittent theta burst stimulation influences cerebral hemodynamics, we investigated changes induced by intermittent theta burst stimulation on the middle cerebral artery cerebral blood flow velocity and vasomotor reactivity to carbon dioxide (CO(2)) in healthy participants. The middle cerebral artery flow veloci...

Lack of a clear analytical metric for identifying artifact free, clean electroencephalographic (EEG) signals inhibits robust comparison of different artifact removal methods and lowers confidence in the results of EEG analysis. An algorithm is presented for identifying clean EEG epochs by thresholding statistical properties of the EEG. Thresholds a...

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) process brain activity in real time, and mediate non-muscular interaction between and individual and the environment. The subserving algorithms can be used to provide a quantitative measurement of physiological or pathological cognitive processes - such as Motor Imagery (MI) - and feed it back the user. In this pape...

Long-term disability is often associated with persistent impairment of an upper limb. In this respect, neurological rehabilitation aims to lessen motor impairment and related disability either by restoring functions with the help of assistive devices to aid daily living activities or by applying rehabilitative protocols based on task-specific train...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by progressive degeneration of motor neurons leading to muscle paralysis. Research in transgenic mice suggests that the muscle actively contributes to the disease onset, but such studies are difficult to pursue in humans and in vitro models would represent a good starting point. In this work we s...

Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) convey a great potential in the field of stroke rehabilitation, where the continuous monitoring of mental tasks execution could support the positive effects of standard therapies. In this paper we combine time-frequency analysis of EEG with the topographic analysis to identify and track task-related patt...

The main purpose of electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) technology is to provide an alternative channel to support communication and control when motor pathways are interrupted. Despite the considerable amount of research focused on the improvement of EEG signal detection and translation into output commands, little is...

We designed the present study to disclose changes in cortical excitability in humans with hypercalcaemia, by delivering repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the primary motor area (M1). In 22 patients with chronic hypercalcaemia related to primary hyperparathyroidism and 22 age-matched healthy subjects 5 Hz-rTMS was delivered at...

Non–Invasive Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCI) convey a great potential in the field of stroke rehabilitation, where the continuous monitoring of mental tasks execution could support the positive effects of standard therapies. In this paper we combine time-frequency analysis of EEG with the topographic analysis to identify and track task–related patt...

To describe an unusual clinical phenotype in an adult harboring 2 compound heterozygous polymerase γ (POLG) mutations. Case report. University-based outpatient neurology clinic and pathology and genetics laboratory. A 27-year-old man presenting with isolated distal myopathy of the upper extremities in the absence of sensory disturbances. Histochemi...

In Parkinson's disease (PD) the urinary dysfunction manifests primarily with symptoms of overactive bladder (OAB). The OAB questionnaire (OAB-q) is a measure designed to assess the impact of OAB symptoms on health-related quality of life. In this study, we quantified the urinary symptoms in a large cohort of PD patients by using the OAB-q short for...

Botulinum toxin type A (BoNT/A) has been proposed as an alternative treatment for sialorrhoea in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In an open-label prospective study, BoNT/A was injected into the parotid glands bilaterally using anatomic landmarks in 26 ALS patients with bulbar symptoms. Two weeks after injection the severity of si...

To find out more about glutamatergic and gabaergic transmission in migraine, in this study we investigated glutamate-dependent short-term synaptic potentiation and GABA-dependent inhibitory cortical interneuron excitability as assessed by 5Hz-rTMS delivered over primary motor cortex (M1) (motor evoked potential, MEP, amplitude facilitation and cort...

In the present study, we propose a methodological approach to assess the functional brain network organization underlying the motor imagery in stroke patients. Functional brain con-nectivity was estimated from high-density EEG signals in a group of patients (N=21) suffering from unilateral cortical infarctions during the grasping imagination with b...