Acute hemoglobin responses during bench press exercise across relative loads and sport backgrounds: a cross-sectional functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Purpose To compare acute hemoglobin responses during bench press (BP) exercise among bodybuilders (BB), powerlifters (PL), Paralympic powerlifters (PP), and untrained controls (CON), with emphasis on relative load and sport background. Methods …

Carbon dioxide is a triple vasodilator

Aims Carbon dioxide (CO2) can regulate blood flow and is applied therapeutically in intensive care units to treat brain injury, as well as in balneotherapy for peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and diabetic angiopathy; however, its mode of action …

Cerebral oxygenation response to postural change using continuous near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and its association with falls in older adults

Background Impaired cerebral perfusion during postural changes may contribute to fall risk in older adults. This study used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as a proxy for cerebral blood flow to investigate the association between cerebral …

Comparing the Cognitive and Physiological Effects of Traditional and Virtual Reality Exercise in Overweight/Obese Adults: A Pilot Study

Research suggests that overweight/obese adults (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2) have an elevated risk of cognitive decline. Although exercise is recommended to improve both physical and cognitive health, adherence is often low in this population. Virtual reality …

Data-driven optimization of preschoolers’ hemodynamic response in a VR setup: advancing analytic methods for children’s fNIRS naturalistic data with the AICopt method

Significance Naturalistic fNIRS data acquired on children enable studying real-world behaviors but challenge standard analysis methods such as block averaging and general linear model (GLM). In naturalistic paradigms, events often overlap, whereas …

Decision-Making Styles Shaping College Students’ Sports and Health Consumption Preferences: Behavioral and Neurological Evidence

To investigate the influence of decision-making styles on college students’ sports and health consumption preferences and the underlying cognitive neural mechanisms, this study recruited 39 college students as participants, adopted a one-factor …

Dietary nitrate supplementation reduces performance decline during repeated sprint exercise independent of sex

Dietary nitrate supplementation has been shown to improve endurance exercise performance, but its effects on repeated anaerobic sprints and potential sex-based differences remain underexplored. This study examined whether acute dietary nitrate …

Downhill-walking exercise training in a patient with symptomatic peripheral artery disease: A case report

Introduction: Supervised exercise training (SET) is recommended as first-line therapy for symptomatic peripheral artery disease (PAD), but pain and limited tolerance often restrict the effective training dose. Eccentric exercise, such as downhill …

Effect of acute high-intensity intermittent exercise on choice reaction time and its related prefrontal cortex hemodynamic change

Introduction: An acute bout of exercise is associated with an increased cognitive performance and oxygenation levels in the cortical areas of human brain. Aim of the study: In the current study we evaluated the effect of acute bout of highintensity …

Evaluating and Classifying Gentleness in VR-Based Surgical Simulation: A VR + fNIRS Study

Gentleness, defined as the ability to handle tissues delicately while minimizing unnecessary force, is a critical indicator of surgical proficiency. Objective and real-time assessment of gentleness in virtual reality (VR)-based training can improve …

Exploring cognitive load in anatomy education: a study of 3D virtual reality and 2D learning environments using fNIRS

Introduction: Although virtual reality (VR) is increasingly deployed as a tool for education, little is known about how learning modality influences cognitive processing or whether wearable neuroimaging technologies can accurately classify cognitive …

Face perception and impact of face masks at 6 months post-term age in preterm and term infants (The BabyFace Study)

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed face-to-face interactions, as face masks cover facial zones and affect face perception. Preterm birth is associated with altered face perception, which is important in socio-cognitive development. Use of face …

Hearing Aids Reshape Neural Processing of Emotional Speech Without Improving Emotion Perception

Hearing aids have improved speech intelligibility but not speech emotion perception in older adults with hearing loss. Hearing loss has also been linked to altered brain responses to emotional non-speech sounds, potentially contributing to the speech …

Judicious elevation of ambient carbon dioxide during hypobaric hypoxia to improve oxygenation in airline passengers - a randomized feasibility study

Despite pressurization of airliner cabins, some passengers experience in-flight hypobaric hypoxia with blood oxygen saturation dropping below 90%, potentially causing discomfort and increasing the risk of medical events. Enrichment of the cabin air …

Looking Under the Hood of Elite Rowers: Skeletal Muscle Determinants of Rowing Performance

We aimed to identify the physiological and muscle characteristics associated with mean power output in the final stage of a rowing incremental test in elite rowers. Twenty-two national level rowers (n = 9 female) completed the following assessments …

Sensitive physiological feature analysis related to human–automation trust assessment and discrimination

This study aims to identify physiological features sensitive to human–automation trust (HAT) and to distinguish between high HAT (HHAT) and low HAT (LHAT) levels. A simulated aviation monitoring and takeover task was conducted under a 2 (reliability) …

Sensory modality affects emotional dimension perception and frontoparietal brain responses

The ability to perceive other people’s emotions is essential for social interaction and communication. Emotion perception involves complex cognitive processes triggered by visual, auditory, or both stimuli. However, it remains unclear how people use …

Sex comparisons across different indices of vascular health in recreationally active healthy adults

Introduction The presence of sex differences in various vascular assessments in younger to middle-aged adults is inconsistent in the literature. Purpose Determine whether sex differences are present across four different indices of vascular health. …

Sex differences in NIRS-derived reactive hyperemia across protocols and their association with muscle quality

Introduction Sex-related differences in microvascular reactivity may be influenced by the magnitude of muscle desaturation (ischemic stimulus) during the blood flow occlusion period. Thus, this study used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to assess …

Skeletal muscle microvascular and respiratory responses to exercise in healthy and T2D adults: agreement and reproducibility study of NIRS technologies

Introduction Continuous wave (CW) near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is widely used in skeletal muscle tissue hemodynamic and respiratory research utilizing fixed light scattering assumptions. Purpose Compare reproducibility and technical …