The number of runners and the incidence of running-related injuries (RRIs) are on the rise. Real-time biofeedback gait retraining offers a promising approach to RRIs prevention. However, due to the diversity in study designs and reported outcomes, there remains uncertainty regarding the efficacy of different forms of feedback on running gait biomechanics. Three databases: MEDLINE, PUBMED, and SPORTDiscus were searched to identify relevant studies published up to March 2024, yielding 4646 articles for review. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Downs and Black Quality checklist. Primary outcomes, including Peak Tibial Acceleration (PTA), Vertical Average Loading Rate (VALR), and Vertical Instantaneous Loading Rate (VILR), were analysed through meta-analysis. 24 studies met the inclusion criteria and were analysed in this review.17 used visual biofeedback (VB) while 14 chose auditory biofeedback (AB). The meta-analysis revealed a reduction in loading variables both immediately following the intervention and after extended training, with both visual and auditory feedback. Notably, the decrease in loading variables was more pronounced post-training and VB proved to be more effective than AB. Real-time biofeedback interventions are effective in lowering loading variables associated with RRIs. The impact is more substantial with sustained training, and VB outperforms AB in terms of effectiveness.

Acetylcholine (ACh) is a prevalent neurotransmitter throughout the nervous system. In the brain, ACh is widely regarded as a potent neuromodulator. In neurons, ACh signals are conferred through a variety of receptors that influence a broad range of neurophysiological phenomena such as transmitter release or membrane excitability. In sensory circuitry, ACh modifies neural responses to stimuli and coordinates the activity of neurons across multiple levels of processing. These factors enable individual neurons or entire circuits to rapidly adapt to the dynamics of complex sensory stimuli, underscoring an essential role for ACh in sensory processing. In the auditory system, histological evidence shows that acetylcholine receptors (AChRs) are expressed at virtually every level of the ascending auditory pathway. Despite its apparent ubiquity in auditory circuitry, investigation of the roles of this cholinergic network has been mainly focused on the inner ear or forebrain structures, while less attention has been directed at regions between the cochlear nuclei and midbrain. In this review, we highlight what is known about cholinergic function throughout the auditory system from the ear to the cortex, but with a particular emphasis on brainstem and midbrain auditory centers. We will focus on receptor expression, mechanisms of modulation, and the functional implications of ACh for sound processing, with the broad goal of providing an overview of a newly emerging view of impactful cholinergic modulation throughout the auditory pathway.

The axons containing arginine vasopressin (AVP) from the hypothalamus innervate a variety of structures including the cerebral cortex, thalamus, hippocampus and amygdala. A plethora amount of evidence indicates that activation of the V1a subtype of the vasopressin receptors facilitates anxiety-like and fear responses. As an essential structure involved in fear and anxiety responses, the amygdala, especially the lateral nucleus of amygdala (LA), receives glutamatergic innervations from the auditory cortex and auditory thalamus where high density of V1a receptors have been detected. However, the roles and mechanisms of AVP in these two important areas have not been determined, which prevents the understanding of the mechanisms whereby V1a activation augments anxiety and fear responses. Here, we used coronal brain slices and studied the effects of AVP on neuronal activities of the auditory cortical and thalamic neurons. Our results indicate that activation of V1a receptors excited both auditory cortical and thalamic neurons. In the auditory cortical neurons, AVP increased neuronal excitability by depressing multiple subtypes of inwardly rectifying K+ (Kir) channels including the Kir2 subfamily, the ATP-sensitive K+ channels and the G protein-gated inwardly rectifying K+ (GIRK) channels, whereas activation of V1a receptors excited the auditory thalamic neurons by depressing the Kir2 subfamily of the Kir channels as well as activating the hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels and a persistent Na+ channel. Our results may help explain the roles of V1a receptors in facilitating fear and anxiety responses. Categories: Cell Physiology.

Developing a validated, standardized, and easily accessible pain assessment tool is the first step toward improving pain management. Since pain measurement is often used as a primary or secondary endpoint in daily clinical practice and clinical trials, accurate and precise pain measurement is of great importance. Therefore, there is a need for a valid, reliable, safe, and low-cost method to measure and assess pain levels more objectively. Traditional measurement tools, still considered the gold standard in clinical pain research, have significant disadvantages, including low sensitivity and higher rates of false responses. Perhaps most importantly, the assumption that general pain is a one-dimensional experience that can be measured with a single-item scale is limiting. Recently, new technologies utilizing smart devices have emerged to improve existing traditional pain outcome measures. The Visual, Auditory, and Tactile Analog Scale (VATAS) was designed to address tactile, auditory, and visual senses. By including multiple senses, it is thought that errors arising from the objectification of pain solely through a single-dimensional scale, such as Visual Analog Scale (VAS), could be eliminated, providing a more standardized and repeatable pain assessment. VATAS has the potential to complement the deficiencies of standard pain measurement methods by appealing to multiple senses. It can provide a more standardized, patient-compliant, and repeatable pain assessment. Furthermore, it can be used for evaluating and recording pain in visually impaired patients and has the potential for data tracking, allowing patients\' pain to be monitored even when they are at home.

Network connectivity, as mapped by the whole brain connectome, plays a crucial role in regulating auditory function. Auditory deprivation such as unilateral hearing loss might alter structural network connectivity; however, these potential alterations are poorly understood. Thirty-seven acoustic neuroma patients with unilateral hearing loss (19 left-sided and 18 right-sided) and 19 healthy controls underwent diffusion-weighted and T1-weighted imaging to assess edge strength, node strength, and global efficiency of the structural connectome. Edge strength was estimated by pair-wise normalized streamline density from tractography and connectomics. Node strength and global efficiency were calculated through graph theory analysis of the connectome. Pure-tone audiometry and word recognition scores were used to correlate the degree and duration of unilateral hearing loss with node strength and global efficiency. We demonstrate significantly stronger edge strength and node strength through the visual network, weaker edge strength and node strength in the somatomotor network, and stronger global efficiency in the unilateral hearing loss patients. No discernible correlations were observed between the degree and duration of unilateral hearing loss and the measures of node strength or global efficiency. These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of structural connectivity in hearing by facilitating visual network upregulation and somatomotor network downregulation after unilateral hearing loss.

UNASSIGNED: Age-related hearing difficulties have a complex etiology that includes degenerative processes in the sensory cochlea. The cochlea comprises the start of the afferent, ascending auditory pathway, but also receives efferent feedback innervation by two separate populations of brainstem neurons: the medial olivocochlear and lateral olivocochlear pathways, innervating the outer hair cells and auditory-nerve fibers synapsing on inner hair cells, respectively. Efferents are believed to improve hearing under difficult conditions, such as high background noise. Here, we compare olivocochlear efferent innervation density along the tonotopic axis in young-adult and aged gerbils (at ~50% of their maximum lifespan potential), a classic animal model for age-related hearing loss.
UNASSIGNED: Efferent synaptic terminals and sensory hair cells were labeled immunohistochemically with anti-synaptotagmin and anti-myosin VIIa, respectively. Numbers of hair cells, numbers of efferent terminals, and the efferent innervation area were quantified at seven tonotopic locations along the organ of Corti.
UNASSIGNED: The tonotopic distribution of olivocochlear innervation in the gerbil was similar to that previously shown for other species, with a slight apical cochlear bias in presumed lateral olivocochlear innervation (inner-hair-cell region), and a broad mid-cochlear peak for presumed medial olivocochlear innervation (outer-hair-cell region). We found significant, age-related declines in overall efferent innervation to both the inner-hair-cell and the outer-hair-cell region. However, when accounting for the age-related losses in efferent target structures, the innervation density of surviving elements proved unchanged in the inner-hair-cell region. For outer hair cells, a pronounced increase of orphaned outer hair cells, i.e., lacking efferent innervation, was observed. Surviving outer hair cells that were still efferently innervated retained a nearly normal innervation.
UNASSIGNED: A comparison across species suggests a basic aging scenario where outer hair cells, type-I afferents, and the efferents associated with them, steadily die away with advancing age, but leave the surviving cochlear circuitry largely intact until an advanced age, beyond 50% of a species\' maximum lifespan potential. In the outer-hair-cell region, MOC degeneration may precede outer-hair-cell death, leaving a putatively transient population of orphaned outer hair cells that are no longer under efferent control.

The brain potential known as mismatch negativity (MMN) is one of the most studied indices of altered brain function in schizophrenia. This review looks at what has been learned about MMN in schizophrenia over the last three decades and why the level of interest and activity in this field of research remains strong. A diligent consideration of available evidence suggests that MMN can serve as a biomarker in schizophrenia, but perhaps not the kind of biomarker that early research supposed. This review concludes that MMN measurement is likely to be most useful as a monitoring and response biomarker enabling tracking of an underlying pathology and efficacy of interventions, respectively. The role of, and challenges presented by, pre-clinical models is discussed as well as the merits of different methodologies that can be brought to bear in pursuing a deeper understanding of pathophysiology that might explain smaller MMN in schizophrenia.

Following repetitive visual stimulation, post hoc phase analysis finds that visually evoked response magnitudes vary with the cortical alpha oscillation phase that temporally coincides with sensory stimulus. This approach has not successfully revealed an alpha phase dependence for auditory evoked or induced responses. Here, we test the feasibility of tracking alpha with scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings and play sounds phase-locked to individualized alpha phases in real-time using a novel end-point corrected Hilbert transform (ecHT) algorithm implemented on a research device. Based on prior work, we hypothesize that sound-evoked and induced responses vary with the alpha phase at sound onset and the alpha phase that coincides with the early sound-evoked response potential (ERP) measured with EEG. Thus, we use each subject\'s individualized alpha frequency (IAF) and individual auditory ERP latency to define target trough and peak alpha phases that allow an early component of the auditory ERP to align to the estimated poststimulus peak and trough phases, respectively. With this closed-loop and individualized approach, we find opposing alpha phase-dependent effects on the auditory ERP and alpha oscillations that follow stimulus onset. Trough and peak phase-locked sounds result in distinct evoked and induced post-stimulus alpha level and frequency modulations. Though additional studies are needed to localize the sources underlying these phase-dependent effects, these results suggest a general principle for alpha phase-dependence of sensory processing that includes the auditory system. Moreover, this study demonstrates the feasibility of using individualized neurophysiological indices to deliver automated, closed-loop, phase-locked auditory stimulation.

The vigilance decrement, a temporal decline in detection performance, has been observed across multiple sensory modalities. Spatial uncertainty about the location of task-relevant stimuli has been demonstrated to increase the demands of vigilance and increase the severity of the vigilance decrement when attending to visual displays. The current study investigated whether spatial uncertainty also increases the severity of the vigilance decrement and task demands when an auditory display is used. Individuals monitored an auditory display to detect critical signals that were shorter in duration than non-target stimuli. These auditory stimuli were presented in either a consistent, predictable pattern that alternated sound presentation from left to right (spatial certainty) or an inconsistent, unpredictable pattern that randomly presented sounds from the left or right (spatial uncertainty). Cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) was measured to assess the neurophysiological demands of the task. A decline in performance and CBFV was observed in both the spatially certain and spatially uncertain conditions, suggesting that spatial auditory vigilance tasks are demanding and can result in a vigilance decrement. Spatial uncertainty resulted in a more severe vigilance decrement in correct detections compared to spatial certainty. Reduced right-hemispheric CBFV was also observed during spatial uncertainty compared to spatial certainty. Together, these results suggest that auditory spatial uncertainty hindered performance and required greater attentional demands compared to spatial certainty. These results concur with previous research showing the negative impact of spatial uncertainty in visual vigilance tasks, but the current results contrast recent research showing no effect of spatial uncertainty on tactile vigilance.

UNASSIGNED: Fascinations for or aversions to particular sounds are a familiar feature of autism, as is an ability to reproduce another person\'s utterances, precisely copying the other person\'s prosody as well as their words. Such observations seem to indicate not only that autistic people can pay close attention to what they hear, but also that they have the ability to perceive the finer details of auditory stimuli. This is consistent with the previously reported consensus that absolute pitch is more common in autistic individuals than in neurotypicals. We take this to suggest that autistic people have perception that allows them to pay attention to fine details. It is important to establish whether or not this is so as autism is often presented as a deficit rather than a difference. We therefore undertook a narrative literature review of studies of auditory perception, in autistic and nonautistic individuals, focussing on any differences in processing linguistic and nonlinguistic sounds.
UNASSIGNED: We find persuasive evidence that nonlinguistic auditory perception in autistic children differs from that of nonautistic children. This is supported by the additional finding of a higher prevalence of absolute pitch and enhanced pitch discriminating abilities in autistic children compared to neurotypical children. Such abilities appear to stem from atypical perception, which is biased toward local-level information necessary for processing pitch and other prosodic features. Enhanced pitch discriminating abilities tend to be found in autistic individuals with a history of language delay, suggesting possible reciprocity. Research on various aspects of language development in autism also supports the hypothesis that atypical pitch perception may be accountable for observed differences in language development in autism.
UNASSIGNED: The results of our review of previously published studies are consistent with the hypothesis that auditory perception, and particularly pitch perception, in autism are different from the norm but not always impaired. Detail-oriented pitch perception may be an advantage given the right environment. We speculate that unusually heightened sensitivity to pitch differences may be at the cost of the normal development of the perception of the sounds that contribute most to early language development.
UNASSIGNED: The acquisition of speech and language may be a process that normally involves an enhanced perception of speech sounds at the expense of the processing of nonlinguistic sounds, but autistic children may not give speech sounds this same priority.