Torres Patents

1. US10176299B2– Methods for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders

2. US20170344706A1 – Systems and methods for tracking neuro-development disorders

3. US20170340261A1 – System and method for measuring physiologically relevant motion

4. US201462089031P WO2016094375A1 – Objective and Personalized Longitudinal Assessment of Post-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

5. US10786192B2 – System and method for determining amount of volition in a subject

6. EP3229684B1 – Procédés de mesure d’un mouvement physiologiquement pertinent

 

Peer Reviewed Books

Autism – The Movement Sensing Perspective

Co-edited Book by Elizabeth B Torres and Caroline P Whyatt

CRC Press – Taylor and Francis – Neuroscience Collection

Autism: The Movement Sensing Perspective is the result of a collaborative effort among parents, therapists, clinicians, and researchers from all disciplines in science including physics, engineering, and applied mathematics. This book poses questions regarding the current conceptualization and approach to the study of autism, providing an alternative unifying data-driven framework to diagnoses and treatments grounded in physiological factors, neuroscience and technology.

This book reaches beyond subjective descriptions of autistic phenomena and embraces a new era of objective measurements, analyses, and statistical inferences. The authors harness activities from the nervous systems across the brain and body (often in tandem), and introduce a platform for the comprehensive personalized phenotyping of individuals with autism. The impact of this approach is discussed to advance the development of tailored treatments options, enhance the ability to longitudinally track symptomatology, and to fundamentally empower affected individuals and their families. This book encompasses a new era for autism research and treatments, and our continuous effort to collectively empower and embrace the autistic community.

 

Objective Biometric Methods for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Nervous Systems Disorders

By Elizabeth B Torres

Elsevier Academic Press

Objective Biometric Methods for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Nervous System Disorders provides a new 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 offers 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.

• Provides methods and their implementation using real data and simple computer programs that students and researchers from less technically trained fields can use
• Describes the motivation for methods according to the problem domain in light of existing methods for each chapter, along with their lack of neuroscientific foundation and invalid statistical assumptions
• Features a companion website which contains Appendices with MATLAB codes and data samples to generate the graphics displayed in all chapter figures
• Features videos illustrating the experimental set up for scenarios and methods described in each chapter
• Includes step-by-step explanations of paradigms in each clinical or typical sample population to enable reproducibility of the study across different clinical phenotypes and levels of expertise in sports, the performing arts, or mere individual academic predispositions/preferences

Peer Reviewed E-Books & Book-Chapters

1. Elizabeth B Torres, Rethinking the Study of Volition for Clinical Use, Eds J Lazcko and M Latash Springer (2017)
2. Eds Elizabeth B Torres and Anne M Donnellan, Autism: The Movement Perspective, Frontiers E-Book (2015)
3. Elizabeth B Torres, Johnathan Delafield-Butt, Carolyne Whyatt, Sensory-Motor Aspects of Nervous Systems Disorders: Insights from Biosensors and smart technology in the dynamic assessment of disorders, their progression, and treatment outcomes, Frontiers E-Book (2020)
4. Elizabeth B Torres, Special Issue: Precision Medicine in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Personalized Characterization of Autism from Molecules to Behavior, Journal of Personalized Medicine, MDPI E-Book (2020)

BOOK CHAPTERS BY Elizabeth B Torres  – Neuroscience Series, Autism: The Movement Sensing Approach. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis, Elizabeth B Torres and Caroline P Wyatt (editors)

1. Section I Chapter 1, Why study movement variability in autism  
2. Concluding Remarks to Section I – Top-Down vs Bottom-Up Approaches to Connect Cognition and Somatic Motor Sensations.
3. Section II Chapter 4, Dissecting a social encounter from three different perspectives  
4. Section II Chapter 7, ADOS: The Physiology approach to assess social skills and communication in Autism Spectrum Disorder
5. Preface to Section III – First Things First, Let us Get the Math Right.
6. Section III Chapter 14, Micro-Movements: The s-Spikes as a way to zoom-in the motor trajectories of natural goal-directed behaviors 
7. Section III Chapter 13, Contemporary problems with methods in basic brain science impede progress in ASD research and treatments 
8. Section III Chapter 4, Inherent noise hidden in nervous systems rhythms leads to new strategies for detection and treatments of core motor-sensing traits in ASD 
9. Section IV Chapter 27, Turning the Tables – Autism Shows the Social Deficit of Our Society.
10. Concluding remarks to Section IV.
11. Conclusions.

BOOK CHAPTERS BY Elizabeth B Torres  – Elsevier Objective Biometric Methods for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Nervous System Disorders

1. Chapter 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. Chapter 2 – Critical Ingredients for Proper Social Interactions: Rethinking the Mirror Neuron System Theory

3. Chapter 3 – The Case of Autism Spectrum Disorders: When One Cannot Properly Feel the Body and Its Motions From the Start of Life

4. Chapter 4 – The Case of Schizophrenia: Is that My Arm Moving on Purpose or Spontaneously Passing by?

5. Chapter 5 – Learning to Detect Expertise in Sports Aided by the Gift of Our Students

6. Chapter 6 – Rethinking Diagnoses and Treatments of Disorders

7. Chapter 7 – Different Biometrics for Clinical Trials That Measure Volitional Control

8. Chapter 8 – Adding Dynamics to the Principle of Reafference: Recursive Stochastic Feedback Closed Control Loops to Evoke Autonomy

Selected Peer Reviewed Articles

Neonates

1. Torres EB, Smith B, Mistry S, Brincker M, Whyatt CP, (2016) “Neonatal Diagnostics: Towards Dynamic Growth Charts of Neuro-motor control” Pediatr.4:121. DOI 10.3389/fped.2016.00121
2. Supplementary Materials to Neonatal Diagnostics

Autism Diagnostics & Treatments

The data from digitized social interactions can take us beyond the limits of the naked eye and help us capture the autistic capacity for social readiness. Using personalized analytics, we can track the person’s dynamics with biosensors that continuously co-register the micro-movements derived from their biorhythms. More important yet, we can track the spontaneously self-emerging cohesiveness of their social rapport and better inform our decisions on whether and when the socio-motor patterns of autistic people unexpectedly match those of neurotypical controls performing the same social task. Our new unifying statistical methods help us bridge the enormous social gap that current diagnostics, missing this information, have created between autistic and neurotypical people.

1. Bokadia, H., Rai, R., Torres, EB. (2020) “Digitized ADOS: Social Interactions Beyond the Limits of the Naked Eye”, J. Pers. Med. 2020, 10(4), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm10040159
2. Torres EB, Rai R, Mistry S, Gupta B (2020) “Hidden Aspects of the Research-ADOS are Bound to Affect Autism Science” Neural Computation, 32, (3), doi.org/10.1162/neco_a_01263
3. Torres EB, Caballero C., Mistry S. (2020) “Aging with Autism Departs Greatly from Typical Aging”, Sensors-MDPI 20 (2), p 572; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20020572
4. Caballero C., Mistry S., Torres EB. (2020) “Age-dependent Statistical Changes of Involuntary Head Motion Signatures Across Autism and Controls of the ABIDE Repository”, Front. Integr. Neurosci. 14:23. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2020.00023
5. Wu D, Jose JV, Nurnberger JI, Torres EB, (2018) “A biomarker characterizing neurodevelopment with applications to autism” Nature Scientific Reports8, 614, DOI 10.1038/sreps41598-017-18902-w
6. Whyatt C, Torres EB (2018) “Autism Research: An Objective Quantitative Review of Progress and Focus Between 1994 and 2015” Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1526, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01526
7. Caballero C, Mistry S, Vero J, Torres EB, (2018) “Characterization of noise signatures of involuntary head motion in the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange Repository” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 12:7, doi: 10.3389/fnint.2018.00007
8. Torres EB, Mistry S, Caballero-Sanchez C, Whyatt CP, (2017) “Stochastic signatures of involuntary head micro-movements can be used to classify females of ABIDE into different subtypes of neurodevelopmental disorders” Integrative Neuroscience, 11:10. DOI 10.3389/fnint.2017.00010
9. Torres EB, Denisova K, (2016) “Motor noise is rich signal in autism research and pharmacological treatments” Nature Scientific Reports6, Article number: 37422 (2016) DOI 10.1038/srep37422
10. Torres EB, Nguyen J, Mistry S, Whyatt C, Kalampratsidou V and Kolevzon A (2016) “Characterization of the Statistical Signatures of Micro-Movements Underlying Natural Gait Patterns in Children with Phelan McDermid Syndrome: Towards Precision-Phenotyping of Behavior in ASD”. Front. Integr. Neurosci. 10:22. DOI 13389/fnint.2016.00022
11. Torres EB, Brincker M, Isenhower RW, Yanovich P, Stigler KA, Nurnberger J, Jose JV, (2013) “Autism: The micro-movement perspective” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 7:32 DOI 10.3389/fnint.2013.00032
12. Torres EB, Isenhower RW, Yanovich P, Rerigh G, Stigler KA, Nurnberger JI, Jose JV, (2013) “Strategies to develop putative biomarkers to characterize the female phenotype with autism spectrum disorders” The Journal of Neurophysiology, 110 (7): 1646-62 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00059.2013
13. Torres EB, (2015) “Commentary on: An exploration on sensory and movement differences from the perspective of individuals with autism”, 20 March 2015 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2015.00020
14. Torres EB, Donnellan, AM, (2013) “Editorial for research topic “Autism: the movement perspective” 9:12 DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2015.00012
15. Brincker M, Torres EB, (2013) “Noise from the periphery in autism” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience (Opinion) 7:34 DOI 10.3389/fnint.2013.00034
16. Torres EB, Yanovich P, Metaxas D, (2013) “Give spontaneity and self-discovery a chance in ASD: Spontaneous peripheral limb variability as a proxy to evoke centrally driven intentional acts” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 7:46 DOI 10.3389/fnint.2013.00046 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSOaq7A8aVw
17. Torres EB, (2012) “Atypical signatures of motor variability found in an individual with ASD.” Neurocase 19 (2) p 150-165 DOI: 10.1080/13554794.2011.654224

Biometrics

1. Ryu J, Vero J, Dobkin R, Torres EB (2019) “Dynamic Digital Biomarkers of Motor and Cognitive Functions in Parkinson’s Disease” Vis.Exp. (149), e59827, doi:10.3791/59827
2. Kalampratsidou V, Torres EB (2018) “Peripheral Network Connectivity Analyses for the Real-Time Tracking of Coupled Bodies in Motion” Sensors, 19(3127), doi: 10.3390/s 1893117
3. Torres EB, Vero J, Rai R (2018) “Statistical Platform for Individualized Behavioral Analyses Using Biophysical Micro-Movement Spikes” Sensors, 18(4), 1025, doi: 10.3390/s 18041025
4. Ryu J, Torres EB, (2018) “Characterization of Sensory-Motor Behavior Under Cognitive Load Using a New Statistical Platform for Studies of Embodied Cognition” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12:115, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00116
5. Torres EB, Isenhower RW, Nguyen J, Whyatt C, Nurnberger JI, Jose JV, Silverstein SM, Papathomas TV, Sage J and Cole J (2016) “Toward Precision Psychiatry: Statistical Platform for the Personalized Characterization of Natural Behaviors.” Front. Neurol. 7:8. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2016.00008
6. Nguyen, Jillian; Majmudar, Ushma; Papathomas, Thomas V; Silverstein, Steven M; Torres EB (2016), ”Schizophrenia: The Micro-movements perspective”, Neuropsychologia, ISSN: 0028-3932, Vol: 85, Page: 310-326. DOI10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.03.003
7. Nguyen J, Majmudar U, Ravaliya J, Papathomas TV, Torres EB, (2016) “Automatically Characterizing Sensory-Motor Patterns Underlying Reach-to-Grasp Movements on a Physical Depth Inversion Illusion”, Hum. Neurosci. 9:694. DOI 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00694
8. Torres EB, (2015) “Objective and personalized longitudinal assessment of a pregnant patient with post severe brain trauma” Front. Hum. Neurosci. 9:128. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00128
9. Amano S, Hong L, Torres EB, (2015) “Behavioral inflexibility and motor dedifferentiation in persons with Parkinson’s disease: bilateral coordination deficits during a unimanual reaching task”. Neuroscience Letters; 585:82-7, DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2014.10.007.
10. Nguyen J, Papathomas TV, Ravaliya J, Torres EB, (2014) “Methods to explore the influence of top-down visual processes on motor behavior” The Journal of Visual Experiments, (86) e51422 DOI:10.3791/51422
11. Torres EB, Cole J, Poizner H (2014). “Motor output variability, deafferentation and putative deficits in kinesthetic reafference in Parkinson’s disease”. Front in Human Neuroscience, 8:823, 61-80, doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00823.
12. Choi K, Torres EB, (2014) “Intentional signal in prefrontal cortex generalizes across different sensory modalities” The Journal of Neurophysiology, DOI: 10.1152/jn.00505.2013
13. Torres EB, (2013) “The rates of chance of stochastic trajectories of acceleration variability are a good predictor of normal aging and of the state of Parkinson’s disease” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 7:50  DOI 10.3389/fnint.2013.00050
14. Hong L, Isenhower RW, Jose JV, Torres EB, (2013) “Cognitive load results in motor overflow in essential tremor” Neurocase 20 (4) p 397-406 DOI:10.1080/13554794.2013.791859
15. Yanovich P, Isenshower R, Sage J, Torres EB, (2013) “Spatial-orientation priming impedes rather than facilitates the spontaneous control of hand-retraction speeds in patients with Parkinson’s disease” PLoS ONE 8(7): e66757 DOI.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066757

Computational Neuroscience

1. Torres EB, (2013) “Signatures of movement variability anticipate hand speed according to levels of intent” Journal of Behavioral Brain Functions 9:10 DOI:10.1186/174490819-10
2. Torres EB, Quian Quiroga R, Cui H, Buneo C, (2013) “Neural correlates of learning and trajectory planning in the posterior parietal cortex” Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 7:39DOI 10.3389/fnint.2013.00039
3. Torres EB, (2011) “Two classes of movements in motor control” Experimental Brain Research 215:269-283 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-011-2892-8
4. Torres EB, Heilman KM, Poizner H (2011) “Impaired endogenously-evoked automated reaching in Parkinson’s disease” J of Neuroscience 31:17848-17863 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1150-11.2011
5. Torres EB, Raymer A, Rothi LG, Heilman KM, Poizner H (2010) “Sensory-Spatial Transformations in the Left Posterior Parietal Cortex May Contribute to Reach Timing” Journal of Neurophysiology 104:2375-2388 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00089.2010
6. Torres EB, (2010) “New symmetry of intended curved reaches” Journal of Behavioral Brain Functions 6:31, p.1-20) DOI:10.1186/1744-9081-6-21
7. Torres EB, Ganguly K, José JV, Carmena JM (2008) “From multiple neural cortical networks to motor mechanical behavior: the importance of inherent learning over separable space-time length scales” BMC Neuroscience, 9 (Suppl 1): p70 DOI:10.1186/1471-2202-9-S1-P70
8. Torres EB, Andersen R, (2006) “Space-time separation during obstacle-avoidance learning in monkeys” Journal of Neurophysiology 96: 2613-2632 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00188.2006
9. Torres EB, Zipser D (2004) “Simultaneous control of hand displacements and rotations in orientation-matching experiments” Journal of Applied Physiology 96: 1978-1987, Selected for commentary in Highlighted Topic “Neural Control of Movement” DOI:1152/japplphysiol.00872.2003
10. Torres EB, Zipser D (2002) “Reaching to grasp with a multi-jointed arm (I): A computational model” Journal of Neurophysiology 88: 2355-2387 DOI:10.1152/jn.00030.2002

Selected Conference Proceedings (Peer Reviewed Long Papers)

1. Invited Symposium at the Cognitive Science Society Conference (July 31, 2020). New measures for the fundamentals of human performance Gray, Wayne; Perez, Ray; Rahman, Roussel; Sims, Chris; Torres, Elizabeth; Wiltshire, Travis, CogSci and AI, 2020.
2. Kalampratsidou V, Torres EB (2020) “Sonification of heart rate variability can entrain bodies in motion”, Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Movement Computing, MOCO ’20 Association for Computing Machinery
3. Bockadia H, Cole J, Torres EB (2020) “Neural Connectivity Evolution during Adaptive Learning with and without Proprioception”, Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Movement Computing, MOCO ’20 Association for Computing Machinery
4. Kalampratsidou V, Torres EB (2019) “Bodies in Motion to The Sound of Music”, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Movement Computing, MOCO ’19 Association for Computing Machinery
5. Ryu J, Vero J, Torres EB, (2017) “Methods for Tracking Dynamically Coupled Brain-Body Activities during Natural Movement” Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Movement Computing, MOCO ’17, June 28-30, 2017, London, United Kingdom, Association for Computing Machinery ACM DOI10.1145/3077981.3078054
6. Whyatt CP, Torres EB, (2017) “The social-dance: Decomposing Naturalistic dyadic interaction dynamics to the micro-level “Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Movement Computing, MOCO ’17, June 28-30, 2017, London, United Kingdom, Association for Computing Machinery ACM DOI 10.1145/3077981.3078054
7. Kalampratsidou V, Torres EB (2016) “Outcome measures of deliberate and spontaneous motions” Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Movement Computing, MOCO ’16, July 5-6, 2016, Thessaloniki, Greece, Association for Computing Machinery ACM DOI 10.1145/2948910.2948930

Mar. 2021. How does prior knowledge influence children’s curiosity?
Wang, J., Yang, Y., Macias, C., & Bonawitz, E. (2021). Children with more uncertainty in their intuitive theories seek domain-relevant information. Psychological Science.

Jan. 2021. Does hearing and seeing numbers at once help babies with number?
Wang, J., & Feigenson, L. (2021). Dynamic changes in numerical acuity in 4-month-old infants. Infancy.

Aug. 2020. When is our intuitive sense of number linked to school math performance?
Wang, J., Halberda, J., & Feigenson, L. (2021). Emergence of the Link Between the Approximate Number System and Symbolic Math Ability. Child Development. (PDF)

Oct. 2019. What do babies know about counting before they can count?
Wang, J., & Feigenson, L. (2019). Infants recognize counting as numerically relevant. Developmental Science. (PDF)

Selected Media Coverage:
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/28/children-understand-fundamental-aspect-about-counting-long-before-they-can-say-numbers-out-loud-researcher-says/
BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-50182681​
Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/babies-may-understand-counting-they-fully-understand-numbers-180973428/
Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/toddlers-counting-numbers-childhood-brains-study-a9169121.html?amp
Education Week: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2019/10/infants_understand_counting.html
​

Jul. 2019. What do people intuitively think about the origins of human knowledge?
Wang, J. & Feigenson, L (2019). Is empiricism innate? Preference for nurture over nature in people’s beliefs about the origins of human knowledge. Open Mind.(PDF)

May. 2018. Can training enhance preverbal infants’ numerical performance?
Wang, J., Libertus, M. & Feigenson, L. (2018). Hysteresis-induced Changes in Infants’ Approximate Number Precision. Cognitive Development. (PDF)
​
Apr. 2017. Is precision in approximating numbers associated with mathematics even in gifted populations?
Wang, J., Halberda, J., & Feigenson, L. (2017). Approximate number sense correlates with math performance in gifted adolescents. Acta Psychologica. (PDF)
​
Jun. 2016. Is the primitive sense of number we have causally related to mathematics?
Wang, J., Odic, D., Halberda, J. & Feigenson, L. (2016). Changing the Precision of Preschoolers’ Approximate Number System Representations Changes their Symbolic Math Performance. Journal of  Experimental Child Psychology. (PDF)

Also check out the following correspondences:
Merkley, R., Matejko, A. A., & Ansari, D. (2017). Strong causal claims require strong evidence: A commentary on Wang and colleagues. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Wang, J., Odic, D., Halberda, J. & Feigenson, L. (2017). Better together: Multiple lines of evidence for a link between approximate and exact number representations. A reply to Merkley, Matejko & Ansari.  Journal of  Experimental Child Psychology. (PDF)

Check out Panamath.org if you want to experience a similar blue-and-yellow-dots game!
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Selected Media Coverage:
Baltimore Sun: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-hs-math-game-20160724-story.html
WJLA: http://wjla.com/features/spotlight-on-education/researchers-at-johns-hopkins-develop-game-that-can-potentially-help-children-with-math
JHU Hub: http://hub.jhu.edu/2016/06/15/simple-exercise-makes-kids-better-at-math
The Independent: http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/the-simple-dot-test-that-can-massively-improve-a-childs-maths-skills–WJ4LCbVq8EZ
Aol. : http://www.aol.com/article/2016/06/19/simple-computer-game-shown-to-boost-kids-math-scores/21397973/
London Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3643721/The-five-minute-game-make-child-better-maths.html
ABC 2: http://www.abc2news.com/news/in-focus/study-finds-simple-game-can-improve-kids-math-skills
WTOP: http://wtop.com/health/2016/06/study-a-simple-game-could-boost-childrens-math-skills/
Futurity: http://www.futurity.org/math-game-1184302-2/
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/383293861.html
Science Daily: ​https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160615112313.htm