Navegando por Autor "Pereira, Antonio"

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Aprendizado da leitura e da escrita: a ciência em interfaces
(2017-03-09) Naschold, Angela Chuvas; Pereira, Antonio; Guaresi, Ronei; Pereira, Vera Wannmacher
Esta obra é resultado, portanto, de um conjunto de pesquisas que investem numa reanálise das práticas de ensino da leitura e da escrita à luz das descobertas de estudos sobre o cérebro humano. Ao que nos parece, um ensino que prestigie ensino explícito e fonêmico da correspondência grafema-fonema e, ainda, que busque a ampliação dos índices de consciência linguística tem maior chance de sucesso tanto no aprendizado típico quanto atípico da leitura e da escrita.
Avaliação da usabilidade de um sistema eletrônico interativo para auxiliar na reabilitação motora e cognitiva de pacientes com acidente vascular cerebral
(Universidade de Aveiro, 2019-04-01) Fonseca, Luiza Gabriela de Araújo; Silva, Aline Layze Pereira; Oliveira, Victor Galdino; Pantoja, André Luis Hernandez; Bahia, Carlomagno Pacheco; Dantas, Rummenigge Rudson; Rosa, José Guilherme da Silva Santa; Pereira, Antonio
Introdução: Os Serious games são cada vez mais usados como adjuvantes para suplementar terapias tradicionais. Uma das etapas mais importantes para sua implementação é a avaliação de usabilidade com uma amostra de usuários. OBJETIVOS: Avaliar a usabilidade de um serious game voltado para a reabilitação motora de pacientes pós-acidente vascular cerebral (AVC). METODOLOGIA: 21 indivíduos avaliaram o jogo digital “O Caçador de Relíquias Perdidas” que utiliza a luva multissensorial “NEDGlove”, ambos desenvolvidos pelo grupo de pesquisa NeuroErgoDesign, da UFRN. Os participantes foram submetidos a duas sessões de 5 minutos com o jogo. Para análise estatística, utilizamos o teste de Wilcoxon e correlação de Spearman. RESULTADOS: Existem correlações significativas entre o grau de experiência e os aspectos visuais, concentração, adaptação e imersão ao ambiente virtual. Evidenciou-se, também, correlação entre o funcionamento do hardware e software com o desempenho na tarefa. CONCLUSÃO: Os resultados de usabilidade do sistema com indivíduos saudáveis credenciam o sistema para ser testado com sua população-alvo, pacientes em reabilitação pós-AVC
Comprehensive Analysis of Tissue Preservation and Recording Quality from Chronic Multielectrode Implants
(2011) Freire, Marco Aurelio M.; Morya, Edgard; Santos, Jose Ronaldo; Guimaraes, Joanilson S.; Lemos, Nelson A. M.; Sameshima, Koichi; Pereira, Antonio; Ribeiro, Sidarta Tollendal Gomes; Nicolelis, Miguel A. L.
Multielectrodes have been used with great success to simultaneously record the activity of neuronal populations in awake, behaving animals. In particular, there is great promise in the use of this technique to allow the control of neuroprosthetic devices by human patients. However, it is crucial to fully characterize the tissue response to the chronic implants in animal models ahead of the initiation of human clinical trials. Here we evaluated the effects of unilateral multielectrode implants on the motor cortex of rats weekly recorded for 1–6 months using several histological methods to assess metabolic markers, inflammatory response, immediate-early gene (IEG) expression, cytoskeletal integrity and apoptotic profiles. We also investigated the correlations between each of these features and firing rates, to estimate the impact of post-implant time on neuronal recordings. Overall, limited neuronal loss and glial activation were observed on the implanted sites. Reactivity to enzymatic metabolic markers and IEG expression were not significantly different between implanted and non-implanted hemispheres. Multielectrode recordings remained viable for up to 6 months after implantation, and firing rates correlated well to the histochemical and immunohistochemical markers. Altogether, our results indicate that chronic tungsten multielectrode implants do not substantially alter the histological and functional integrity of target sites in the cerebral cortex.
Contando histórias com realidade aumentada: estratégia para promover a ﬂuência da leitura infantil
(2015) Naschold, Angela Chuvas; Balen, Sheila; Campos, André; Santos, Selan Rodrigues dos; Soltoski, Michele; Brazorotto, Joseli; Pereira, Antonio
O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir o papel das tecnologias digitais no incentivo à leitura infantil. A compreensão textual de estudantes brasileiros é muito precária, e são necessárias medidas eficazes para melhorar esse quadro. Uma estratégia é fomentar a leitura desde os primeiros anos de escola, na esperança de que melhorias na fluência, na construção de vocabulário e no desenvolvimento de atração pela narrativa textual possam contribuir para a criação de uma sociedade leitora. Neste trabalho, discutimos e apresentamos uma proposta de utilização de uma tecnologia digital em particular, a realidade aumentada, que cria uma nova perspectiva de interação com o livro como objeto físico, para melhorar a fluência da leitura e auxiliar a melhorar os índices de compreensão leitora dos estudantes brasileiros.
Copaiba Oil-Resin Treatment Is Neuroprotective and Reduces Neutrophil Recruitment andMicroglia Activation after Motor Cortex Excitotoxic Injury
(2012-11-16) Guimarães-Santos, Adriano; Santos, Diego Siqueira; Santos, Ijair Rogério; Lima, Rafael Rodrigues; Pereira, Antonio; Moura, Lucinewton Silva de; Carvalho Jr., Raul Nunes; Lameira, Osmar; Gomes-Leal, Walace
The oil-resin of Copaifera reticulata Ducke is used in the Brazilian folk medicine as an anti-inflammatory and healing agent. However, there are no investigations on the possible anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective roles of copaiba oil-resin (COR) after neural disorders.We have investigated the anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects of COR following an acute damage to the motor cortex of adult rats. Animals were injected with the neurotoxin N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) (n = 10) and treated with a single dose of COR (400 mg/kg, i.p.) soon after surgery (Group 1) or with two daily doses (200 mg/kg, i.p.) during 3 days (Group 2) alter injury. Control animals were treated with vehicle only. COR treatment induced tissue preservation and decreased the recruitment of neutrophils and microglial activation in the injury site compared to vehicle animals. The results suggest that COR treatment induces neuroprotection by modulating inflammatory response following an acute damage to the central nervous system.
Effect of chronic stress during adolescence in prefrontal cortex structure and function
(2017) Folha, Otávio Augusto de Araújo Costa; Bahia, Carlomagno Pacheco; Aguiar, Gisele Priscila Soares de; Herculano, Anderson Manoel; Coelho, Nicole Leite Galvão; Sousa, Maria Bernardete Cordeiro de; Shiramizu, Victor Kenji Medeiros; Galvão, Ana Cecília de Menezes; Carvalho, Walther Augusto de; Pereira, Antonio
Critical periods of plasticity (CPPs) are defined by developmental intervals wherein neuronal circuits are most susceptible to environmental influences. The CPP of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which controls executive functions, extends up to early adulthood and, like other cortical areas, reflects the maturation of perineuronal nets (PNNs) surrounding the cell bodies of specialized inhibitory interneurons. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the effect of chronic stress on both structure and function of the adolescent’s rat PFC. We subjected P28 rats to stressful situations for 7, 15 and 35 days and evaluated the spatial distribution of histochemically-labeled PNNs in both the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC) and the Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC) and PFC-associated behavior as well. Chronic stress affects PFC development, slowing PNN maturation in both the (MPFC) and (OFC) while negatively affecting functions associated with these areas. We speculate upon the risks of prolonged exposure to stressful environments in human adolescents and the possibility of stunted development of executive functions.
A importância do sistema nervoso para as políticas judiciárias do país
(12-12-10) Pereira, Antonio
Segundo pesquisa divulgada recentemente pelo Senado Federal, a opinião de quase 90% dos entrevistados é de que a maioridade penal deve ser reduzida no Brasil. Um resultado parecido com esse é provável de ser alcançado em qualquer roda de conversa informal quando o assunto vem à tona. Afinal, as pessoas estão perplexas e frustradas com o fato de que cada vez mais pessoas aparentemente adultas cometem crimes e, no final das contas, não têm a retribuição adequada para o crime que cometeram, sendo tratadas de maneira "privilegiada" pela justiça.
Minocycline treatment reduces white matter damage after excitotoxic striatal injury
(2010) Guimarães, Joanilson S.; Freire, Marco Aurelio M.; Lima, Rafael R.; Picanço-Diniz, Cristovam W.; Pereira, Antonio; Gomes-Leal, Walace
We investigated the protective effects of minocycline following white matter damage (WMD) in the rat striatum. Excitotoxic lesions were induced by N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) microinjections and caused striatal damage, concomitant with microglial/ macrophage activation. The excitotoxic lesion both damaged oligodendrocytes (Tau-1+ cells) and caused a decrease in tissue reactivity for myelin basic protein (MBP) after postlesional day 3 (PLD). Treatment with the semi-synthetic tetracycline antibiotic minocycline, however, led to oligodendrocyte preservation and decreased myelin impairment. Taken together, these results suggest that white matter damage (WMD) is an important component of the physiopathology of acute striatal damage and that microglial/ macrophage activation contributes to this pathological phenomenon.
Non-visual exploration of novel objects increases the levels of plasticity factors in the rat primary visual cortex
(2018-10-16) Pereira, Catia M.; Freire, Marco A.M.; Santos, José R.; Guimarães, Joanilson S.; Dias-Florencio, Gabriella; Santos, Sharlene; Pereira, Antonio; Ribeiro, Sidarta Tollendal Gomes
Background. Historically, the primary sensory areas of the cerebral cortex have been exclusively associated with the processing of a single sensory modality. Yet, the presence of tactile responses in the primary visual (V1) cortex has challenged this view, leading to the notion that primary sensory areas engage in cross-modal processing, and that the associated circuitry is modifiable by such activity. To explore this notion, here we assessed whether the exploration of novel objects in the dark induces the activation of plasticity markers in the V1 cortex of rats. Methods. Adult rats were allowed to freely explore for 20 min a completely dark box with four novel objects of different shapes and textures. Animals were euthanized either 1 (nD5) or 3 h (nD5) after exploration. A control group (nD5) was placed for 20 min in the same environment, but without the objects. Frontal sections of the brains were submitted to immunohistochemistry to measure protein levels of egr-1 and c-fos, and phosphorylated calcium-dependent kinase (pCaKMII), in V1 cortex. Results. The amount of neurons labeled with monoclonal antibodies against c-fos, egr-1 or pCaKMII increased significantly in V1 cortex after one hour of exploration in the dark. Three hours after exploration, the number of labeled neurons decreased to basal levels. Conclusions. Our results suggest that non-visual exploration induces the activation of immediate-early genes in V1 cortex, which is suggestive of cross-modal processing in this area. Besides, the increase in the number of neurons labeled with pCaKMII may signal a condition promoting synaptic plasticity.
Overweight People Have Low Levels of Implicit Weight Bias, but Overweight Nations Have High Levels of Implicit Weight Bias
(2013-12-17) Marini, Maddalena; Sriram, Natarajan; Schnabel, Konrad; Maliszewski, Norbert; Devos, Thierry; Ekehammar, Bo; Wiers, Reinout; HuaJian, Cai; Somogyi, Mónika; Shiomura, Kimihiro; Schnall, Simone; Neto, Félix; Bar-Anan, Yoav; Vianello, Michelangelo; Ayala, Alfonso; Dorantes, Gabriel; Park, Jaihyun; Kesebir, Selin; Pereira, Antonio; Tulbure, Bogdan; Ortner, Tuulia; Stepanikova, Irena; Greenwald, Anthony G.; Nosek, Brian A.
Although a greater degree of personal obesity is associated with weaker negativity toward overweight people on both explicit (i.e., self-report) and implicit (i.e., indirect behavioral) measures, overweight people still prefer thin people on average. We investigated whether the national and cultural context – particularly the national prevalence of obesity – predicts attitudes toward overweight people independent of personal identity and weight status. Data were collected from a total sample of 338,121 citizens from 71 nations in 22 different languages on the Project Implicit website (https://implicit.harvard.edu/) between May 2006 and October 2010. We investigated the relationship of the explicit and implicit weight bias with the obesity both at the individual (i.e., across individuals) and national (i.e., across nations) level. Explicit weight bias was assessed with self-reported preference between overweight and thin people; implicit weight bias was measured with the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The national estimates of explicit and implicit weight bias were obtained by averaging the individual scores for each nation. Obesity at the individual level was defined as Body Mass Index (BMI) scores, whereas obesity at the national level was defined as three national weight indicators (national BMI, national percentage of overweight and underweight people) obtained from publicly available databases. Across individuals, greater degree of obesity was associated with weaker implicit negativity toward overweight people compared to thin people. Across nations, in contrast, a greater degree of national obesity was associated with stronger implicit negativity toward overweight people compared to thin people. This result indicates a different relationship between obesity and implicit weight bias at the individual and national levels.
Topography and architecture of visual and somatosensory areas of the agouti
(2014-01-29) Dias, I.A.; Bahia, C.P.; Franca, J.G.; Houzel, J.C.; Lent, R.; Mayer, A.O.; Santiago, L.F.; Silveira, L.C.L.; Picanço-Diniz, C.W.; Pereira, Antonio
We analyzed the organization of the somatosensory and visual cortices of the agouti, a diurnal rodent with a relatively big brain, using a combination of multiunit microelectrode recordings and histological techniques including myelin and cytochrome oxidase staining. We found multiple representations of the sensory periphery in the parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes. While the agouti's primary (V1) and secondary visual areas seemed to lack any obvious modular arrangement, such as blobs or stripes, which are found in some primates and carnivores, the primary somatosensory area (S1) was internally subdivided in discrete regions, isomorphically associated with peripheral structures. Our results confirm and extend previous reports on this species, and provide additional data to understand how variations in lifestyle can influence brain organization in rodents.
A video-tracking based serious game for motor rehabilitation of post-stroke hand impairment
(2012) Souza, Alyson M. de C.; Gadelha, Matheus A.; Coutinho, Edson A. G.; Santos, Selan R. dos; Pantoja, Andr´e L. H.; Pereira, Antonio
This work describes the development of a serious game focused on health treatment. The Handcopter Game was designed to support the recovery of motor function in patients who have suffered a stroke recently. We propose a non-conventional low cost input device to function as the game controller. It detects the patient’s hand movements via computer vision algorithms and map that to movements of the game character in the virtual environment. The premise is that the gameplay makes patients execute hand movements typically found in a physiotherapy session. We also discuss how to use this game as part of the patient’s treatment. Finally, we present the results collected when real patients played the game as part of their recovery treatment.

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Navegando por Autor "Pereira, Antonio"