Liverpool Hope University

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a significant neurological condition that is marked by the gradual decline of memory and cognitive function, with a higher incidence observed in older individuals. The mental deterioration associated with this condition is irreversible, resulting in substantial consequences for both affected individuals and society as a whole. Despite relentless research efforts, a definitive cure for AD remains elusive. However, interventions targeting the early stages of the disease have shown promise in slowing its progression. Deep learning-based approaches introduced better results for the early identification of AD stages, which can be curable. Due to less annotated data, those models have many problems regarding model over-fitting and class imbalance issues, directly impacting the model's performance. Researchers developed transfer learning-based approaches to overcome those issues, which can produce improved results on fewer annotated data samples. The primary motivation behind this article is to provide a review of the article, which is directly based on the transfer learning techniques for classifying AD stages using MRI and PET modalities. This article also provides a complete review of pre-processing tools for data extraction. It discusses the challenges that affect the performance of the models, as well as generalization challenges and biases in transfer learning.

The negative effect of anxiety on performance has been explained via distraction (e.g., attentional control theory), self-focus (e.g., reinvestment theory), or an interaction of these mechanisms (e.g., interactionist hypothesis). For the first time, athletes’ qualitative perception of all three mechanisms was explored. Ten amateur netball players completed an individual semistructured interview. Thematic analysis revealed three superordinate themes (distraction, self-focus, and interaction), two middle themes (sources and failure mechanisms), and a total of 10 subthemes (internal distractions, external distractions, impaired attentional control, overloaded attention, conscious motor processing, movement self-consciousness, deautomatization, distraction-induced self-focus, self-focus-induced distraction, and overload from simultaneous self-focus and distraction). Results suggest athletes notice instances of self-focus, distraction, and interactionist mechanisms. Interestingly, distraction and self-focus appeared to manifest a bidirectional relationship, whereby self-focus can be distracting and distraction can induce self-focus. This novel finding offers progress toward integrated rather than mutually exclusive conceptualizations of anxiety–performance mechanisms.

At present, the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease involves only symptomatic medications which have continually demonstrated little efficacy, primarily due to the presence of biological barriers. Despite efforts, researchers have yet to discover a therapeutic treatment that delays neurodegenerative progression or restores associated Alzheimer neuropathological processes. For centuries, Hericium erinaceus (HE) has been used predominantly in Asian countries for its culinary and medicinal purposes; however, this mushroom has not yet been utilised in western pharmacology. This review systematically investigates evidence pertaining to the use of HE as a potential future therapeutic treatment for the prevention and delayed progression of Alzheimer’s disease, by highlighting any fundamental neurotrophic and neuroprotective properties. In total, three human clinical trials and thirteen animal-model studies were included in review. The use of HE demonstrated positive significant differences in results obtained from behavioural, histological and biochemical assessments from both human clinical trials and animal model studies accentuating its utility for the improvement of cognitive function. In addition, erinacine-A-enriched HE appears to demonstrate the highest bioactive potency of all HE extracted compounds, providing the greatest effects while also showing transportability ease across biological barriers. In conclusion, evidence suggests that intake of HE may be an appropriate and relevant future therapeutic treatment for the prevention and delayed progression of Alzheimer’s disease; however, continued research is necessary to provide further significant evidence of this relationship, through an increased quantity of human clinical trials.