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qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance

OBJECTIVES: Attentional and memory functions are important aspects of neural plasticity that, theoretically, should be amenable to pharmacopuncture treatments. A previous study from our laboratory suggested that quantitative electroencephalographic (qEEG) measurements of theta/beta ratio (TBR), an i...

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Autores principales: Gorantla, Vasavi R., Bond, Vernon, Dorsey, James, Tedesco, Sarah, Kaur, Tanisha, Simpson, Matthew, Pemminati, Sudhakar, Millis, Richard M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Korean Pharmacopuncture Institute (KPI) 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6820472/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31673447
http://dx.doi.org/10.3831/KPI.2019.22.022
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author Gorantla, Vasavi R.
Bond, Vernon
Dorsey, James
Tedesco, Sarah
Kaur, Tanisha
Simpson, Matthew
Pemminati, Sudhakar
Millis, Richard M.
author_facet Gorantla, Vasavi R.
Bond, Vernon
Dorsey, James
Tedesco, Sarah
Kaur, Tanisha
Simpson, Matthew
Pemminati, Sudhakar
Millis, Richard M.
author_sort Gorantla, Vasavi R.
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Attentional and memory functions are important aspects of neural plasticity that, theoretically, should be amenable to pharmacopuncture treatments. A previous study from our laboratory suggested that quantitative electroencephalographic (qEEG) measurements of theta/beta ratio (TBR), an index of attentional control, may be indicative of academic performance in a first-semester medical school course. The present study expands our prior report by extracting and analyzing data on frontal theta and beta asymmetries. We test the hypothesis that the amount of frontal theta and beta asymmetries (fTA, fBA), are correlated with TBR and academic performance, thereby providing novel targets for pharmacopuncture treatments to improve cognitive performance. METHODS: Ten healthy male volunteers were subjected to 5–10 min of qEEG measurements under eyes-closed conditions. The qEEG measurements were performed 3 days before each of first two block examinations in anatomy-physiology, separated by five weeks. Amplitudes of the theta and beta waveforms, expressed in μV, were used to compute TBR, fTA and fBA. Significance of changes in theta and beta EEG wave amplitude was assessed by ANOVA with post-hoc t-testing. Correlations between TBR, fTA, fBA and the raw examination scores were evaluated by Pearson’s product-moment coefficients and linear regression analysis. RESULTS: fTA and fBA were found to be negatively correlated with TBR (P<0.03, P<0.05, respectively) and were positively correlated with the second examination score (P<0.03, P=0.1, respectively). CONCLUSION: Smaller fTA and fBA were associated with lower academic performance in the second of two first-semester medical school anatomy-physiology block examination. Future studies should determine whether these qEEG metrics are useful for monitoring changes associated with the brain’s cognitive adaptations to academic challenges, for predicting academic performance and for targeting phamacopuncture treatments to improve cognitive performance.
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spelling pubmed-68204722019-10-31 qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance Gorantla, Vasavi R. Bond, Vernon Dorsey, James Tedesco, Sarah Kaur, Tanisha Simpson, Matthew Pemminati, Sudhakar Millis, Richard M. J Pharmacopuncture Original Article OBJECTIVES: Attentional and memory functions are important aspects of neural plasticity that, theoretically, should be amenable to pharmacopuncture treatments. A previous study from our laboratory suggested that quantitative electroencephalographic (qEEG) measurements of theta/beta ratio (TBR), an index of attentional control, may be indicative of academic performance in a first-semester medical school course. The present study expands our prior report by extracting and analyzing data on frontal theta and beta asymmetries. We test the hypothesis that the amount of frontal theta and beta asymmetries (fTA, fBA), are correlated with TBR and academic performance, thereby providing novel targets for pharmacopuncture treatments to improve cognitive performance. METHODS: Ten healthy male volunteers were subjected to 5–10 min of qEEG measurements under eyes-closed conditions. The qEEG measurements were performed 3 days before each of first two block examinations in anatomy-physiology, separated by five weeks. Amplitudes of the theta and beta waveforms, expressed in μV, were used to compute TBR, fTA and fBA. Significance of changes in theta and beta EEG wave amplitude was assessed by ANOVA with post-hoc t-testing. Correlations between TBR, fTA, fBA and the raw examination scores were evaluated by Pearson’s product-moment coefficients and linear regression analysis. RESULTS: fTA and fBA were found to be negatively correlated with TBR (P<0.03, P<0.05, respectively) and were positively correlated with the second examination score (P<0.03, P=0.1, respectively). CONCLUSION: Smaller fTA and fBA were associated with lower academic performance in the second of two first-semester medical school anatomy-physiology block examination. Future studies should determine whether these qEEG metrics are useful for monitoring changes associated with the brain’s cognitive adaptations to academic challenges, for predicting academic performance and for targeting phamacopuncture treatments to improve cognitive performance. The Korean Pharmacopuncture Institute (KPI) 2019-09 2019-09-30 /pmc/articles/PMC6820472/ /pubmed/31673447 http://dx.doi.org/10.3831/KPI.2019.22.022 Text en © 2019 Korean Pharmacopuncture Institute This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Gorantla, Vasavi R.
Bond, Vernon
Dorsey, James
Tedesco, Sarah
Kaur, Tanisha
Simpson, Matthew
Pemminati, Sudhakar
Millis, Richard M.
qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance
title qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance
title_full qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance
title_fullStr qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance
title_full_unstemmed qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance
title_short qEEG Measures of Attentional and Memory Network Functions in Medical Students: Novel Targets for Pharmacopuncture to Improve Cognition and Academic Performance
title_sort qeeg measures of attentional and memory network functions in medical students: novel targets for pharmacopuncture to improve cognition and academic performance
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6820472/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31673447
http://dx.doi.org/10.3831/KPI.2019.22.022
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