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Symmetry
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Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience
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Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Life Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2021) | Viewed by 17957

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Esperanza Navarro-Pardo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Interests: clinical psychology; aging; frailty; developmental psychology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Symmetry features articles about the application of mathematical modelling and symmetry in neuroscience, focusing on the multidisciplinary approaches of cognitive development throughout the life span. First, we are interested in studying cognitive development as a field of neuroscience and psychology which includes, among others, information processing, executive functioning and problem solving, perceptual skills, attention changes, language, brain development, metacognition, socio-emotional cognition, cognitive reserve, and cognitive frailty, analyzed both empirically and theoretically in order to evaluate how human beings think, understand, and process the world around them.

In addition, another of our goals is to achieve a better understanding of successful cognitive aging, as it is currently a central issue in the field of public health. We are also interested in describing the importance of studying cognitive development in relation to how not only age but also gender modulate cognition, which may involve biological and cognitive differences between men and women and be reflected in cognitive functions with advantages in certain domains for each gender (i.e., spatial and mathematical skills, emotional and verbal skills, etc.). Finally, we are also interested in testing the influence of psychosocial variables on cognitive development (education level, work activity, social support, lifestyle, psychological wellbeing, physical activity, etc.).

We encourage researchers to apply a wide range of statistical and mathematical tools, and in particular to develop mathematical and statistical models including the concept of symmetry for a better understanding of such a complex phenomenon as cognitive changes throughout life.

text

 

Prof. Dr. Esperanza Navarro-Pardo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cognitive psychology
  • higher cognitive functions
  • lifespan
  • neuroscience
  • statistics and mathematical modelling
  • symmetry

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

4 pages, 205 KiB  
Editorial
Editorial of Special Issue “Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience”
by Esperanza Navarro-Pardo
Symmetry 2022, 14(5), 961; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14050961 - 9 May 2022
Viewed by 1408
Abstract
The first article is “Spectral Clustering Reveals Different Profiles of Central Sensitization in Women with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)” [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

10 pages, 3595 KiB  
Article
Spectral Clustering Reveals Different Profiles of Central Sensitization in Women with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
by Oscar J. Pellicer-Valero, José D. Martín-Guerrero, César Fernández-de-las-Peñas, Ana I. De-la-Llave-Rincón, Jorge Rodríguez-Jiménez, Esperanza Navarro-Pardo and Margarita I. Cigarán-Méndez
Symmetry 2021, 13(6), 1042; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym13061042 - 9 Jun 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2150
Abstract
Identification of subgroups of patients with chronic pain provides meaningful insights into the characteristics of a specific population, helping to identify individuals at risk of chronification and to determine appropriate therapeutic strategies. This paper proposes the use of spectral clustering (SC) to distinguish [...] Read more.
Identification of subgroups of patients with chronic pain provides meaningful insights into the characteristics of a specific population, helping to identify individuals at risk of chronification and to determine appropriate therapeutic strategies. This paper proposes the use of spectral clustering (SC) to distinguish subgroups (clusters) of individuals with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), making use of the obtained patient profiling to argue about potential management implications. SC is a powerful algorithm that builds a similarity graph among the data points (the patients), and tries to find the subsets of points that are strongly connected among themselves, but weakly connected to others. It was chosen due to its advantages with respect to other simpler clustering techniques, such as k-means, and the fact that it has been successfully applied to similar problems. Clinical (age, duration of symptoms, pain intensity, function, and symptom severity), psycho-physical (pressure pain thresholds—PPTs—over the three main nerve trunks of the upper extremity, cervical spine, carpal tunnel, and tibialis anterior), psychological (depressive levels), and motor (pinch tip grip force) variables were collected in 208 women with clinical/electromyographic diagnosis of CTS, whose symptoms usually started unilaterally but eventually evolved into bilateral symmetry. SC was used to identify clusters of patients without any previous assumptions, yielding three clusters. Patients in cluster 1 exhibited worse clinical features, higher widespread pressure pain hyperalgesia, higher depressive levels, and lower pinch tip grip force than the other two. Patients in cluster 2 showed higher generalized thermal pain hyperalgesia than the other two. Cluster 0 showed less hypersensitivity to pressure and thermal pain, less severe clinical features, and more normal motor output (tip grip force). The presence of subgroups of individuals with different altered nociceptive processing (one group being more sensitive to pressure pain and another group more sensitive to thermal pain) could lead to different therapeutic programs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience)
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12 pages, 1748 KiB  
Article
Monte Carlo Simulation of a Modified Chi Distribution Considering Asymmetry in the Generating Functions: Application to the Study of Health-Related Variables
by Nuria Ortigosa, Marcos Orellana-Panchame, Juan Carlos Castro-Palacio, Pedro Fernández de Córdoba and J. M. Isidro
Symmetry 2021, 13(6), 924; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym13060924 - 22 May 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3562
Abstract
Random variables in biology, social and health sciences commonly follow skewed distributions. Many of these variables can be represented by exGaussian functions; however, in practice, they are sometimes considered as Gaussian functions when statistical analysis is carried out. The asymmetry can play a [...] Read more.
Random variables in biology, social and health sciences commonly follow skewed distributions. Many of these variables can be represented by exGaussian functions; however, in practice, they are sometimes considered as Gaussian functions when statistical analysis is carried out. The asymmetry can play a fundamental role which can not be captured by central tendency estimators such as the mean. By means of Monte Carlo simulations, the effect of a small asymmetry in the generating functions of the chi distribution is studied. To this end, the k generating functions are taken as exGaussian functions. The limits of this approximation are tested numerically for the practical case of three health-related variables: one physical (body mass index) and two cognitive (verbal fluency and short-term memory). This work is in line with our previous works on a physics-inspired mathematical model to represent the reaction times of a group of individuals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience)
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17 pages, 976 KiB  
Article
Global Cognitive Functioning versus Controlled Functioning throughout the Stages of Development
by Isabel Maria Introzzi, María Marta Richard’s, Ana García-Coni, Yesica Aydmune, Florencia Stelzer, Lorena Canet-Juric, Eliana Vanesa Zamora, María Laura Andrés, María Fernanda López-Ramón and Esperanza Navarro-Pardo
Symmetry 2020, 12(12), 1952; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12121952 - 26 Nov 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1982
Abstract
According to the All or None Hypothesis (Diamond, 2009), the cognitive system can operate in a global manner that is not very discriminate or in a more discriminate mode that demands greater precision, control, and cognitive effort. There are five corollaries to this [...] Read more.
According to the All or None Hypothesis (Diamond, 2009), the cognitive system can operate in a global manner that is not very discriminate or in a more discriminate mode that demands greater precision, control, and cognitive effort. There are five corollaries to this hypothesis that describe, in an operative way, the conditions under which the controlled mode of functioning in the cognitive domain can be activated and thus tested. Given the impact this theory has generated and the absence of studies analyzing the corollaries in a collective and systematic way at different stages of development, this study was proposed, first of all, to test three of these corollaries in children, adolescents and adults and, secondly, to analyze the changes in the controlled mode of functioning during these three stages of development. To this end, the Fingers Task, a modified version of Arrows Task (with two rules: response ipsilateral where the stimulus is presented, symmetry; and response contralateral, asymmetry), was administered to a sample of 123 participants (43 children, 44 adolescents, and 36 adults). In general, the results verify the corollaries and identify the changes that the controlled mode of functioning experiences at different stages of development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience)
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15 pages, 2897 KiB  
Article
Mathematical Modeling for Neuropathic Pain: Bayesian Linear Regression and Self-Organizing Maps Applied to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
by Oscar J. Pellicer-Valero, José D. Martín-Guerrero, Margarita I. Cigarán-Méndez, Carmen Écija-Gallardo, César Fernández-de-las-Peñas and Esperanza Navarro-Pardo
Symmetry 2020, 12(10), 1581; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12101581 - 23 Sep 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2842
Abstract
A better understanding of the connection between risk factors associated with pain and function may assist therapists in optimizing therapeutic programs. This study applied mathematical modeling to analyze the relationship of psychological, psychophysical, and motor variables with pain, function, and symptom severity using [...] Read more.
A better understanding of the connection between risk factors associated with pain and function may assist therapists in optimizing therapeutic programs. This study applied mathematical modeling to analyze the relationship of psychological, psychophysical, and motor variables with pain, function, and symptom severity using Bayesian linear regressions (BLR) and self-organizing maps (SOMs) in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The novelty of this work was a transfer of the symmetry mathematical background to a neuropathic pain condition, whose symptoms can be either unilateral or bilateral. Duration of symptoms, pain intensity, function, symptom severity, depressive levels, pinch tip grip force, and pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) over the ulnar, radial, and median nerve trunks, the cervical spine, the carpal tunnel, and the tibialis anterior were collected in 208 women suffering from CTS. The first BLR model revealed that symptom severity, PPTs over the radial nerve, and function had significant correlations with pain intensity. The second BLR showed that symptom severity, depressive levels, pain intensity, and years with pain were associated with function. The third model demonstrated that pain intensity and function were associated with symptom severity. The SOMs visualized these correlations among variables, i.e., clinical, psychophysical, and physical, and identified a subgroup of women with CTS exhibiting worse clinical features, higher pressure sensitivity, and lower pinch tip grip force. Therefore, the application of mathematical modeling identified some interactions among the intensity of pain, function, and symptom severity in women with CTS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience)
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15 pages, 3230 KiB  
Article
Simultaneously Spatiospectral Pattern Learning and Contaminated Trial Pruning for Electroencephalography-Based Brain Computer Interface
by Chun-Ping Shieh, Shih-Hung Yang, Yu-Shun Liu, Yun-Ting Kuo, Yu-Chun Lo, Chao-Hung Kuo and You-Yin Chen
Symmetry 2020, 12(9), 1387; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12091387 - 20 Aug 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2263
Abstract
Electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain computer interfaces (BCIs) translate motor imagery commands into the movements of an external device (e.g., a robotic arm). The automatic design of spectral and spatial filters is a challenging task, as the frequency bands of the spectral filters must be [...] Read more.
Electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain computer interfaces (BCIs) translate motor imagery commands into the movements of an external device (e.g., a robotic arm). The automatic design of spectral and spatial filters is a challenging task, as the frequency bands of the spectral filters must be predefined by previously published studies and given that they may be affected during trials by artifacts and improper motor imagery (MI). This study aimed to eliminate the contaminated trials automatically during classifier training, and to simultaneously learn the spectral and spatial patterns without the need for predefined frequency bands. Compared with previous studies that measured the discriminative power of a frequency band based on mutual information, this study determined the difference of the class conditional probability density function between two MI classes. This information was further shared to measure the contamination level of the trial that simplified the computation. A particle-based approximation technique iteratively constructed a filter bank that extracted discriminative features, and simultaneously removed potentially contaminated trials. The particle weight was estimated by an analysis of variance F-test instead of mutual information as commonly used in previous studies. The experimental results of a publicly available dataset revealed that the proposed method outperformed the other BCI in terms of the classification accuracy. Asymmetrical spatial patterns were found on left- versus right-hand MI classifications. The learnt spectral and spatial patterns were consistent with prior neurophysiological knowledge. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience)
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Graphical abstract

6 pages, 507 KiB  
Article
The ⊥-Illusion Is Not a T-Illusion
by Klaus Landwehr
Symmetry 2020, 12(8), 1330; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12081330 - 10 Aug 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2321
Abstract
Variants of the capital Latin letter T were prepared with the straight strokes replaced by J-, C-, or S-curves, mimicking handwritten Ts. These were used to test the hypothesis that the overestimation of the length of the T’s undivided line, relative to the [...] Read more.
Variants of the capital Latin letter T were prepared with the straight strokes replaced by J-, C-, or S-curves, mimicking handwritten Ts. These were used to test the hypothesis that the overestimation of the length of the T’s undivided line, relative to the length of its divided line may be understood as an adaptation to a corresponding letter schema. The illusion was greater for S-curve Ts than for C- and J-curve Ts, suggesting that approximate bilateral mirror symmetry is more important for the illusion to occur than letterness. Despite the illusion, observers were quite sensitive to the different lengths of the Ts’ curves. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Mathematical Modelling and Symmetry in Neuroscience)
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