Affect | EPFL Graph Search

Un affect est un état de l'esprit tel qu'une sensation, une émotion, un sentiment, une humeur (au sens technique d’état moral : déprime, optimisme, anxiété…). Tout état de ce type a un aspect bon ou mauvais (jugement) et ainsi nous influence ou nous motive. Il varie également en force, c'est-à-dire son incidence sur notre motivation à agir ou réagir, et donc sur la conation (effort, volonté). Ces états sont regroupés dans le domaine de l'affectivité, par opposition aux idées abstraites par exemple qui ne sont ressenties ni comme bonnes ni comme mauvaises. Un affect se manifeste soit comme un changement d'état parfois fort mais temporaire (crise), soit au contraire comme un état stable mais de longue durée (stase). Apparu en 1942 dans la langue française, le mot affect n'a longtemps pas été un mot courant mais devient commun de nos jours dans les médias, par américanisme. De plus en plus, la psychologie et les sciences cognitives découvrent les relations entre dimension affective et

Interactions between Personality, Depression, Anxiety and Cognition to Understand Early Stage of Alzheimer's Disease

Valérie Rita Madeleine Zufferey

The multifaceted nature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can lead to wide inter-individual differences in disease manifestation in terms of brain pathology and cognition. The lack of understanding of phenotypic diversity in AD arises from a difficulty in understanding the integration of different levels of network organization (i.e. genes, neurons, synapses, anatomical regions, functions) and in inclusion of other information such as neuropsychiatric characteristics, personal history, information regarding general health or subjective cognitive complaints in a coherent model. Non-cognitive factors, such as personality traits and behavioral and psychiatric symptoms, can be informative markers of early disease stage. It is known that personality can affect cognition and behavioral symptoms. The aim of the paper is to review the different types of interactions existing between personality, depression/anxiety, and cognition and cognitive disorders at behavioral and brain/genetic levels.

BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBL LTD2020

Electrical spinal cord stimulation protocols to regulate neurological functions after spinal cord injury

Salif Axel Komi

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a life-changing event. People who suffer from it lose their abilityto move normally and are subject to life-threatening symptoms. When the insult is not toosevere, partial recovery is possible. Otherwise, for severely affected people, the perspectives toever retrieve normal functions is almost non-existent. A critically important window to promoteplasticity is in the acute phase after the trauma (weeks to months). However, at this stage,people cannot take active part in rehabilitation programs due to their incapacity to activate theirlimbs and to the apparition of severe autonomic symptoms such as orthostatic hypotension.Hence, current activity-based treatments are of little help for this population. Consequently, SCIdramatically affects their autonomy and quality of life on the life-long term.Continuous Epidural Electrical Stimulation (EES) of the spinal cord has been proposed as amethod to reactivate dormant neural networks innervated below the site of injury. It enablesrobust control over locomotion and autonomic functions. In animal models of severe lesion,continuous EES promoted long lasting recovery of motor abilities when coupled with an intensivetraining. In human, its recent application indeed supported overground walking in chronicallyand severely injured people, but only showed limited plastic effects when compared to animals.Why? Recent advances support that continuous EES abolishes proprioceptive feedback thatis essential to promote recovery. Moreover, late treatment of severe injuries consistently fail apromoting recuperation of functions. Alternatively, over the last decade, our laboratory developeda spatio-temporally patterned approach to EES. In addition to restore fine control over motorfunctions, this technique avoids the caveats of continuous EES, and hypothetically opens a windowof opportunity for plasticity to happen. In this thesis, we propose a translation of this concept tohumans. We first demonstrate that spatio-temporal EES restores robust and versatile locomotorcontrol in people with chronic incomplete, though severe, SCI. Furthermore, the results supportan aptitude of this approach to promote long lasting recovery of functions without stimulationafter 5 months of intensive training. We then report on a patient-tailored technology, thatincludes personalized computational models enabling precise pre-operative planning strategies, anew electrode-lead and control softwares. This technology enables restoration of various motorfunctions in people with chronic and motor-complete injuries within few hours after beginningof therapy. Finally, we transfer this targeted approach to the control of blood pressure. Wedemonstrate that closed-loop stimulation protocols support a precise control over arterial bloodpressure in rodents, non-humane primates and humans with severe SCI submitted to challengingcardiovascular conditions. Combined, the results presented in this manuscript open a clinicallyrealistic perspective for the application of EES acutely after injury and to potentially promoterobust recovery in severe SCI.

EPFL2021

Introducing a Paper-Based Programming Language for Computing Education in Classrooms

Noé Duruz, Christian Giang, Aditya Mehrotra, Francesco Mondada, Andrea Mussati

Past research has shown that the use of tangible platforms for computingeducation can enhance students’ interest, engagement and collaboration within workgroups. However, to this day, the adoption of such interfaces in classrooms has remained relatively scarce. This is possibly due to the expenses and efforts necessary to acquire, set up and maintain such platforms. In this context, the use of paper as a principal means of interaction represents an inexpensive and versatile solution, that additionally harnesses the prevalence of paper in classrooms. This work, therefore, introduces PaPL, an easily reproducible platform for paper-based programming languages. The platform was evaluated in two exploratory user studies, where it was used to program the educational robot Thymio. The first study aimed to investigate the interaction of over 100 senior year high school students with the platform under varying conditions of group size and usage constraints. In the second study, the platform was tested with 32 sixth-graders and 2 teachers to evaluate its usage in an authentic context. The results indicate that group size, as well as usage constraints, may affect students’ interaction with the platform. Moreover, the classroom study shows promising results with regard to the use of PaPL in formal education.

ACM2020

Electrical spinal cord stimulation protocols to regulate neurological functions after spinal cord injury

Salif Axel Komi

EPFL2021