Clinical Neurosciences

Background: Previous literature has indicated abnormalities in facial emotion recognition abilities, as well as deficits in basic visual processes in major depression. However, the literature is unclear on a number of important factors including whether or not these abnormalities represent deficient or enhanced emotion recognition abilities compared to control populations, and the degree to which basic visual deficits might impact this process. Methods: The present study investigated emotion recognition abilities for angry versus neutral facial expressions in a sample of undergraduate students with Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) scores indicative of moderate depression (i.e. Z 20), compared to matched low-BDI-II score (i.e. r2) controls via the Bubbles Facial Emotion Perception Task. Results: Results indicated unimpaired behavioural performance in discriminating angry from neutral expressions in the high depressive symptoms group relative to the minimal depressive symptoms group, despite evidence of an abnormal pattern of visual facial information usage. Limitations: The generalizability of the current findings is limited by the highly structured nature of the facial emotion recognition task used, as well as the use of an analog sample undergraduates scoring high in self-rated symptoms of depression rather than a clinical sample. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that basic visual processes are involved in emotion recognition abnormalities in depression, demonstrating consistency with the emotion recognition literature in other psychopathologies (e.g. schizophrenia, autism, social anxiety). Future research should seek to replicate these findings in clinical populations with major depression, and assess the association between aberrant face gaze behaviours and symptom severity and social functioning.

We analyzed a 10-year stroke administrative dataset to examine trends in admissions, mortality, and discharge destination in Canada. We conducted an analysis of hospital administrative data from April 1st 2003 to March 31st 2013 from the Canadian Institute of Health Information's Discharge Abstract Database. Ten-year trends for population-based age- and sex-standardized admission rates were calculated. We reviewed 10-year trends in absolute stroke admissions for differences between provinces and age groups. Stroke 30-day in-hospital mortality rates were calculated and adjusted for sex, age, stroke type and comorbidities. We documented changes in discharge location for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke patients discharged from acute care. The rate of hospital admissions has declined from 140.2 to 117.5 (per 100,000 people). The number of absolute stroke admissions within provinces increased in Alberta and British Columbia (21.7% and 16.2% respectively). The proportion of stroke pat...

The DreamThrower is a novel technology that explores virtually creating, throwing and catching dreams. It detects users' dream state by measuring rapid eye movement (REM). Once the dream state is detected, sound and light stimuli is played to alter the dream. Users report on their dream, and they can send the stimuli that they have used to another person via an on-line website. A working prototype accurately detects REM sleep. Based on preliminary results, the sound and light stimuli were found to have little influence on their dreams. Our prototype's ability to detect REM effectively coupled to a social network to share dream stimuli opens up a fun game environment even if the stimuli itself does not have a significant impact. Instead, user engagement with the social network may be sufficient to alter dreams. Further studies are needed to determine whether stimulus during REM can be created to alter dreams significantly.