Publications by authors named "Bertotti G"

Context: Migraine is a disabling neurological disorder. Diet may be a factor to consider because measures of diet quality have been linked to both frequency and severity of attacks.

Objectives: To investigate the effects of dietary interventions on the clinical symptoms of migraine, quality of life, and body composition of patients with migraine.

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Article Synopsis
  • Plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) are becoming popular, but their impact on heart and metabolic health is not clearly known.
  • A systematic review of 7 randomized controlled trials involving 369 adults found that replacing meat with PBMAs significantly reduced low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), total cholesterol (TC), and body weight.
  • The study concludes that substituting PBMAs for meat for up to 8 weeks can lead to improvements in cardiometabolic health indicators for adults without cardiovascular diseases.
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Cluster Headache (CH) is a primary headache that causes severe pain. Some evidence suggests that central mechanisms might be involved. The objective of this study was (1) to compare hyperalgesia signs, temporal summation and conditioned pain modulation among episodic (ECH) and chronic CH (CCH) patients and controls, (2) to compare these factors between sides in the patient groups and (3) to compare the psychophysical variables between the groups.

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The objectives were 1) to synthesize quantitative sensory testing results in cluster headache (CH) patients and to identify somatosensory differences from healthy subjects (HS), and 2) between symptomatic and asymptomatic sides in CH patients. Two independent reviewers conducted a literature search in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, and CINAHL databases. Studies with observational designs were included.

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Beetroot juice (BJ) is commonly used as an ergogenic aid in endurance and team sports, however, the effect of this supplement on climbing performance is barely studied. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of acute BJ ingestion on neuromuscular and biochemical variables in amateur male sport climbers. Ten physically active sport climbers (28.

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Electrical imaging of extracellular potentials reveals the activity of electrogenic cells and of networks thereof over several orders of magnitude, both in space and time. On a spatial scale, electrical activity propagates in nanometer-sized nerve fibers (axons, dendrites), which connect cells in a biological network over several millimeters. On a temporal scale, changes of the extracellular potential caused by action potentials occur on a sub-millisecond scale, while network activity may be modulated over seconds.

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Background: Non-pharmacological approaches to PD disease management seem to be a growing and promising field of investigation. Indeed interesting new perspectives are forthcoming from studies on physical rehabilitation and on physical exercise.

Aim: To qualitatively describe the rehabilitation experience of Parkinson Disease patients taking part in a multidisciplinary intensive rehabilitation treatment (MIRT) consisting of four weeks of physical therapy and exercise, with three daily sessions, five days a week.

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Background: Although physical exercise improves motor aspects of Parkinson's disease (PD), it is not clear whether it may also have a neuroprotective effect. Objective. In this 2-year follow-up study, we determined whether intensive exercise in the early stages of the disease slows down PD progression.

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Background: Studies relating to patients with Parkinson disease that assess neuropsychologic, psychologic, and clinical aspects are very uncommon.

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of executive functioning (impaired vs. not impaired) or depression (depressed vs.

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Background: Exercise may decrease the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) in humans and reduce PD symptoms in animal models. The beneficial effects have been linked to increased levels of neurotrophic factors.

Objective: We examined whether intensive rehabilitation treatment reduces motor disability in patients in the early stages of PD and increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) serum levels.

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Goal And Objectives: Parkinsonian patients can be classified in two main subgroups: tremor dominant and akinetic-rigid. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether intensive rehabilitation treatment has the same efficacy in the two subtypes.

Material And Methods: Patients were classified according to tremor: 65 patients with absence of tremor in "on" and "off" state were assigned to Group_1 and 65 patients with tremor were assigned to Group_2.

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Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease in which gait and balance disturbances are relevant symptoms that respond poorly to pharmacological treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a 4-week inpatient multidisciplinary intensive rehabilitation treatment (MIRT) is effective in improving balance and gait and whether improvements persist at a one-year followup. We studied 20 PD inpatients (stage 3 Hoehn-Yahr) who underwent a MIRT.

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A single-domain nanomagnet is a basic example of a system where relaxation from high to low energy is probabilistic in nature even when thermal fluctuations are neglected. The reason is the presence of multiple stable states combined with extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. It is demonstrated that for this system the probability of relaxing from high energies to one of the stable magnetization orientations can be tuned to any desired value between 0 and 1 by applying a small transverse magnetic field of appropriate amplitude.

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In the last decade, a considerable number of articles has shown that exercise is effective in improving motor performance in Parkinson disease. In particular, recent studies have focused on the efficacy of intensive exercise in achieving optimal results in the rehabilitation of patients with Parkinson disease. The effects of intensive exercise in promoting cell proliferation and neuronal differentiation in animal models are reported in a large cohort of studies, and these neuroplastic effects are probably related to increased expression of a variety of neurotrophic factors.

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It has been hypothesized that freezing of gait (FOG) in parkinsonian patients (PD) might be triggered by a breakdown in the normal symmetry of gait. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between asymmetry of gait and FOG and the effects of intensive treadmill treatment on asymmetry. We studied 30 patients with (FOG+) and 30 without (FOG-) freezing in "on" stage.

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A major adverse effect of levodopa therapy is the development of dyskinesia, which affects 30-40% of chronically treated Parkinsonian patients. We hypothesized that our rehabilitation protocol might allow a reduction in levodopa dosage without worsening motor performances, thus reducing frequency and severity of dyskinesias. Ten Parkinsonian patients underwent a 4-week intensive rehabilitation treatment (IRT).

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Goal And Objectives: The present study was devised: (a) to test whether an intensive (60 hours in 4 weeks) multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment (involving physiotherapy, exercises to improve gait and balance using treadmill and stabilometric platform, occupational therapy) for Parkinsonian patients is effective in improving dyskinesia and motor performance compared to a control group undergoing a non-intensive non multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment (30 hours in 4 weeks involving physiotherapy only); and (b) to verify whether rehabilitation may lead to a reduction in levodopa dosage.

Material And Methods: Forty Parkinsonian patients suffering from dyskinesias were admitted to study: 20 for an intensive multidisciplinary (Group1) and 20 for a non-intensive non multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatment (Group2). The rating scales used for the clinical evaluation were: Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scales (UPDRS) II, III, IV, Parkinson's disease disability scale (PDDS), Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS).

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Background: Rehabilitation treatments have acute beneficial effects in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, but whether the effects persist over time is unclear.

Objective: To assess whether an intensive rehabilitation treatment (IRT) is effective in improving motor performance compared with a control group in a 12-month follow-up, to investigate whether a second cycle administered after 1 year has the same efficacy as the first treatment, and to determine whether IRT reduces the need for increasing levodopa dosage.

Methods: A total of 50 PD patients were randomly assigned to 2 groups; 25 participants had 4 weeks of inpatient physical therapy that included treadmill and stabilometric platform training.

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Objective measurements to assess the efficacy of rehabilitation treatment in Parkinson's disease, suitable to be carried out routinely in the clinical setting, are lacking. Metabolic parameters, reflecting the recruitment and co-ordination of muscle fibers, might be simple instrumental measurements suitable for use as outcome markers. Twenty parkinsonian patients underwent a 4-week rehabilitation treatment.

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Freezing is a disabling symptom in patients with Parkinson's disease. We investigated the effectiveness of a new rehabilitation strategy based on treadmill training associated with auditory and visual cues. Forty Parkinsonian patients with freezing were randomly assigned to two groups: Group 1 underwent a rehabilitation program based on treadmill training associated with auditory and visual cues, while Group 2 followed a rehabilitation protocol using cues and not associated with treadmill.

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A novel theoretical approach to magnetization dynamics driven by spin-polarized currents is presented. Complete stability diagrams are obtained for the case where spin torques and external magnetic fields are simultaneously present. Quantitative predictions are made for the critical currents and fields inducing magnetization switching, for the amplitude and frequency of magnetization self-oscillations, and for the conditions leading to hysteretic transitions between self-oscillations and stationary states.

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Functional integration approach to hysteresis.

Phys Rev E Stat Phys Plasmas Fluids Relat Interdiscip Topics

August 1999

A general formulation of scalar hysteresis is proposed. This formulation is based on two steps. First, a generating function g(x) is associated with an individual system, and a hysteresis evolution operator is defined by an appropriate envelope construction applied to g(x), inspired by the overdamped dynamics of systems evolving in multistable free-energy landscapes.

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The stability of large magnetization motions in systems with uniaxial symmetry subject to a circularly polarized radio-frequency field is analytically studied. Instability conditions valid for arbitrary values of the amplitude and frequency of the driving field are derived. In the limit of small motions, these conditions yield Suhl's theory of spin-wave instabilities for the case of ferromagnetic resonance.

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Exact analytical results are presented for the nonlinear large motion of the magnetization vector in a body with uniaxial symmetry subject to a circularly polarized field. The absence of chaos, the existence of pure time-harmonic magnetization modes with no generation of higher-order harmonics, and the existence of quasiperiodic magnetization modes with spontaneous breaking of the rotational symmetry are proven. Application to ferromagnetic resonance and connection with the Stoner-Wohlfarth model are discussed.

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