Shuo Chen

Bio: Shuo Chen is an academic researcher from University of Maryland, Baltimore. The author has contributed to research in topics: Medicine & White matter. The author has an hindex of 18, co-authored 100 publications receiving 1139 citations. Previous affiliations of Shuo Chen include Emory University & University of Southern California.

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in Computer Games Through Real-Time Anxiety-Based Affective Feedback

Abstract: A number of studies in recent years have investigated the dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) mechanism in computer games to automatically tailor gaming experience to individual player's characteristics. Although most of these existing works focus on game adaptation based on player's performance, affective state experienced by the players could play a key role in gaming experience and may provide a useful indicator for a DDA mechanism. In this article, an affect-based DDA was designed and implemented for computer games. In this DDA mechanism, a player's physiological signals were analyzed to infer his or her probable anxiety level, which was chosen as the target affective state, and the game difficulty level was automatically adjusted in real time as a function of the player's affective state. Peripheral physiological signals were measured through wearable biofeedback sensors and several physiological indices were explored to determine their correlations with anxiety. An experimental study was conducted t...

Association of White Matter With Core Cognitive Deficits in Patients With Schizophrenia

Abstract: Importance Efforts to remediate the multiple cognitive function impairments in schizophrenia should consider white matter as one of the underlying neural mechanisms. Objective To determine whether altered structural brain connectivity is responsible for 2 of the core cognitive deficits in schizophrenia— reduced information processing speed and impaired working memory. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study design took place in outpatient clinics from August 1, 2004, to August 31, 2015. Participants included 166 patients with schizophrenia and 213 healthy control individuals. These participants were from 3 independent cohorts, each of which had its own healthy control group. No participant had current or past neurological conditions or major medical conditions. Patients were diagnosed with either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder as defined by the DSM-IV . Controls had no Axis I psychiatric disorder. Main Outcomes and Measures Mediation analyses and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the associations among processing speed, working memory, and white matter microstructures. Whole-brain and regional diffusion tensor imaging fractional anisotropy were used to measure white matter microstructures. Results Of the study participants, the 166 patients with schizophrenia had a mean (SD) age of 38.2 (13.3) years and the 213 healthy controls had a mean (SD) age of 39.2 (14.0) years. There were significantly more male patients than controls in each of the 3 cohorts (117 [70%] vs 91 [43%]), but there were no significant differences in sex composition among the 3 cohorts. Patients had significantly reduced processing speed (Cohen d = 1.24; P = 6.91 × 10 −30 ) and working memory deficits (Cohen d = 0.83; P = 1.10 × 10 −14 ) as well as a significant whole-brain fractional anisotropy deficit (Cohen d = 0.63; P = 2.20 × 10 −9 ). In schizophrenia, working memory deficit was mostly accounted for by processing speed deficit, but this deficit remained when accounting for working memory (Cohen d = 0.89; P = 2.21 × 10 −17 ). Mediation analyses showed a significant association pathway from fractional anisotropy to processing speed to working memory ( P = 5.01 × 10 −7 ). The strength of this brain-to-cognition pathway in different white matter tracts was strongly associated with the severity of schizophrenia-associated fractional anisotropy deficits in the corresponding white matter tracts as determined by a meta-analysis ( r = 0.85-0.94; all P Conclusions and Relevance Study findings suggest that (1) processing speed contributes to the association between white matter microstructure and working memory in schizophrenia and (2) white matter impairment in schizophrenia is regional tract–specific, particularly in tracts normally supporting processing speed performance.

Selective Attention, Working Memory, and Executive Function as Potential Independent Sources of Cognitive Dysfunction in Schizophrenia.

Abstract: People with schizophrenia demonstrate impairments in selective attention, working memory, and executive function. Given the overlap in these constructs, it is unclear if these represent distinct impairments or different manifestations of one higher-order impairment. To examine this question, we administered tasks from the basic cognitive neuroscience literature to measure visual selective attention, working memory capacity, and executive function in 126 people with schizophrenia and 122 healthy volunteers. Patients demonstrated deficits on all tasks with the exception of selective attention guided by strong bottom-up inputs. Although the measures of top-down control of selective attention, working memory, and executive function were all intercorrelated, several sources of evidence indicate that working memory and executive function are separate sources of variance. Specifically, both working memory and executive function independently contributed to the discrimination of group status and independently accounted for variance in overall general cognitive ability as assessed by the MATRICS battery. These two cognitive functions appear to be separable features of the cognitive impairments observed in schizophrenia.

Functional and effective connectivity: a review.

Abstract: Over the past 20 years, neuroimaging has become a predominant technique in systems neuroscience. One might envisage that over the next 20 years the neuroimaging of distributed processing and connectivity will play a major role in disclosing the brain's functional architecture and operational principles. The inception of this journal has been foreshadowed by an ever-increasing number of publications on functional connectivity, causal modeling, connectomics, and multivariate analyses of distributed patterns of brain responses. I accepted the invitation to write this review with great pleasure and hope to celebrate and critique the achievements to date, while addressing the challenges ahead.

A rating scale for drug-induced akathisia

Abstract: A rating scale for drug-induced akathisia has been derived that incorporates diagnostic criteria for pseudoakathisia, and mild, moderate, and severe akathisia. It comprises items for rating the observable, restless movements which characterise the condition, the subjective awareness of restlessness, and any distress associated with the akathisia. In addition, there is an item for rating global severity. A standard examination procedure is recommended. The inter-rater reliability for the scale items (Cohen's kappa) ranged from 0.738 to 0.955. Akathisia was found in eight of 42 schizophrenic in-patients, and nine had pseudoakathisia, where the typical sense of inner restlessness was not reported.

Molecular origins of cancer: Lung cancer

Abstract: From the Departments of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology (R.S.H., J.V.H., S.M.L.), Cancer Biology (R.S.H., J.V.H.), and Clinical Cancer Prevention (S.M.L.), University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Address reprint requests to Dr. Lippman at the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, Unit 432, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd., Houston, TX 77030, or at slippman@ mdanderson.org.