Main description:

Objective Biometric Methods for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Nervous System Disorders provides a new and unifying methodological framework, introducing new objective biometrics to characterize patterns of sensory motor control underlying symptoms. Its goal is to radically transform the ways in which disorders of the nervous system are currently diagnosed, tracked, researched and treated. This book introduces new ways to bring the laboratory to the clinical setting, to schools and to settings of occupational and physical therapy. Ready-to-use, graphic user interfaces are introduced to provide outcome measures from wearable sensors that automatically assess in near real time the effectiveness of interventions. Lastly, examples of how the new framework has been effectively utilized in the context of clinical trials are provided.

Contents:

1. The closed feedback loops between the peripheral and the central nervous systems, the principle of reafference and its contribution to the definition of the self 2. Critical ingredients for proper social interactions: Rethinking the mirror neuron system theory 3. The case of autism spectrum disorders: When one cannot properly feel the body and its motions from the start of life 4. The case of schizophrenia: Is that my arm moving on purpose or spontaneously passing by? 5. Learning to be an expert in sports and the performing arts: Teaching sensory-motor physiology to psychology students from the start of their clinical careers 6. Rethinking diagnoses and treatments of disorders: The third (objective) neutral observer assessing the interactions between the examiner and the examinee or the therapist and the client 7. Cutting risk, cost and time in clinical trials with the help of big pharma 8. Adding dynamics to the principle of reafference: Recursive stochastic feedback closed control loops to evoke autonomy