Striatal Serotonin 4 Receptor is Increased in Experimental Parkinsonism and Dyskinesia.

Alterations of serotonin type 4 receptor levels are linked to mood disorders and cognitive deficits in several conditions. However, few studies have investigated 5-HT4R alterations in movement disorders. We wondered whether striatal 5-HT4R expression is altered in experimental parkinsonism.

NAVIGATOR: an Italian regional imaging biobank to promote precision medicine for oncologic patients.

NAVIGATOR is an Italian regional project boosting precision medicine in oncology with the aim of making it more predictive, preventive, and personalised by advancing translational research based on quantitative imaging and integrative omics analyses. The project's goal is to develop an open imaging biobank for the collection and preservation of a large amount of standardised imaging multimodal datasets, including computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron emission tomography data, together with the corresponding patient-related and omics-related relevant information extracted from regional healthcare services using an adapted privacy-preserving model. The project is based on an open-source imaging biobank and an open-science oriented virtual research environment (VRE).

Altered Spinal Homeostasis and Maladaptive Plasticity in GFAP Null Mice Following Peripheral Nerve Injury.

The maladaptive response of the central nervous system (CNS) following nerve injury is primarily linked to the activation of glial cells (reactive gliosis) that produce an inflammatory reaction and a wide cellular morpho-structural and functional/metabolic remodeling. Glial acidic fibrillary protein (GFAP), a major protein constituent of astrocyte intermediate filaments (IFs), is the hallmark of the reactive astrocytes, has pleiotropic functions and is significantly upregulated in the spinal cord after nerve injury. Here, we investigated the specific role of GFAP in glial reaction and maladaptive spinal cord plasticity following sciatic nerve spared nerve injury (SNI) in GFAP KO and wild-type (WT) animals.

Neural representation of others during action observation in posterior medial prefrontal cortex.

Making decisions based on the actions of others is critical to daily interpersonal interactions. We investigated the representations of other's actions at single neural level in posterior medial prefrontal cortex (pmPFC) in two monkeys during the observation of actions of another agent, in a social interaction task. Each monkey separately interacted with a human partner.

Dedicated Representation of Others in the Macaque Frontal Cortex: From Action Monitoring and Prediction to Outcome Evaluation.

Social neurophysiology has increasingly addressed how several aspects of self and other are distinctly represented in the brain. In social interactions, the self-other distinction is fundamental for discriminating one's own actions, intentions, and outcomes from those that originate in the external world. In this paper, we review neurophysiological experiments using nonhuman primates that shed light on the importance of the self-other distinction, focusing mainly on the frontal cortex.

Two functions of the primate amygdala in social gaze.

Appropriate gaze interaction is essential for primate social life. Prior studies have suggested the involvement of the amygdala in processing eye cues but its role in gaze behavior during live social exchanges remains unknown. We recorded the activity of neurons in the amygdala of two monkeys as they engaged in spontaneous visual interactions.

Separable neuronal contributions to covertly attended locations and movement goals in macaque frontal cortex.

We investigated the spatial representation of covert attention and movement planning in monkeys performing a task that used symbolic cues to decouple the locus of covert attention from the motor target. In the three frontal areas studied, most spatially tuned neurons reflected either where attention was allocated or the planned saccade. Neurons modulated by both covert attention and the motor plan were in the minority.

Cross Talk at the Cytoskeleton-Plasma Membrane Interface: Impact on Neuronal Morphology and Functions.

The cytoskeleton and its associated proteins present at the plasma membrane not only determine the cell shape but also modulate important aspects of cell physiology such as intracellular transport including secretory and endocytic pathways. Continuous remodeling of the cell structure and intense communication with extracellular environment heavily depend on interactions between cytoskeletal elements and plasma membrane. This review focuses on the plasma membrane-cytoskeleton interface in neurons, with a special emphasis on the axon and nerve endings.

The Puzzling Relationship between Attention and Motivation: Do Motor Biases Matter?

The relationship between attention and incentive motivation has been mostly examined by administering Posner style cueing tasks in humans and varying monetary stakes. These studies found that higher incentives improved performance independently of spatial attention. However, the ability of the cueing task to measure actual attentional orienting has been debated by several groups that have highlighted the function of the motor system in affecting the behavioral features that are commonly attributed to spatial attention.

Neural Intrinsic Timescales in the Macaque Dorsal Premotor Cortex Predict the Strength of Spatial Response Coding.

Our brain continuously receives information over multiple timescales that are differently processed across areas. In this study, we investigated the intrinsic timescale of neurons in the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) of two rhesus macaques while performing a non-match-to-goal task. The task rule was to reject the previously chosen target and select the alternative one.

Coding of Self and Other's Future Choices in Dorsal Premotor Cortex during Social Interaction.

Representing others' intentions is central to primate social life. We explored the role of dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) in discriminating between self and others' behavior while two male rhesus monkeys performed a non-match-to-goal task in a monkey-human paradigm. During each trial, two of four potential targets were randomly presented on the right and left parts of a screen, and the monkey or the human was required to choose the one that did not match the previously chosen target.

Neural activity in macaque medial frontal cortex represents others' choices.

Predicting the behavior of others is a fundamental skill in primate social life. We tested the role of medial frontal cortex in the prediction of other agents' behavior in two male macaques, using a monkey-human interactive task in which their actor-observer roles were intermixed. In every trial, the observer monitored the actor's choice to reject it for a different one when he became the actor on the subsequent trial.

Corrigendum to "The Efficacy of Inositol and N-Acetyl Cysteine Administration (Ovaric HP) in Improving the Ovarian Function in Infertile Women with PCOS with or without Insulin Resistance".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1155/2014/141020.].

In-bag manual versus uncontained power morcellation for laparoscopic myomectomy: randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To evaluate whether manualin-bag morcellation could be efficiently proposed as alternative to the uncontained power technique.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Academic hospital.

Automatic comparison of stimulus durations in the primate prefrontal cortex: the neural basis of across-task interference.

Rhesus monkeys performed two tasks, both requiring a choice between a red square and a blue circle. In the duration task, the two stimuli appeared sequentially on each trial, for varying durations, and, later, during the choice phase of the task, the monkeys needed to choose the one that had lasted longer. In the matching-to-sample task, one of the two stimuli appeared twice as a sample, with durations matching those in the duration task, and the monkey needed to choose that stimulus during the choice phase.

The Efficacy of Inositol and N-Acetyl Cysteine Administration (Ovaric HP) in Improving the Ovarian Function in Infertile Women with PCOS with or without Insulin Resistance.

Objective. Substances such as inositol and N-acetylcysteine (NAC) have been recently shown to be effective in treatment of PCOS patients. The aim of this prospective trial is to evaluate the efficacy of NAC + Inositol + folic acid on ovulation rate and menstrual regularity in PCOS patients with and without insulin resistance.

Prevalence and molecular identification of Cryptosporidium isolates from pet lizards and snakes in Italy.

In order to acquire prevalence and genetic data on Cryptosporidium infections in captive lizards and snakes kept as pets, a survey was conducted on 150 individual reptiles from southern Italy. Fecal samples were preserved in 5% formalin and analyzed using a commercial immunofluorescence assay (IFA) for the detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts. IFA revealed the presence of Cryptosporidium oocysts in nine of the 150 samples examined (6.

FLOTAC can detect parasitic and pseudoparasitic elements in reptiles.

Reptiles have increased in popularity worldwide; snakes and lizards are frequently used as pets. As a consequence of their popularity, the interest of the scientific community in these animals has increased. In order to acquire epidemiological data on the parasitic infections affecting reptiles in Italy a survey was carried out in 125 snakes and 25 lizards bred in the Campania region of southern Italy.

Administration of a monomeric CCL2 variant to EAE mice inhibits inflammatory cell recruitment and protects from demyelination and axonal loss.

Based on gene expression data, we tested the P8A-CCL2 variant of the chemokine CCL2, able to interfere with the chemotactic properties of the parental molecule, in relapsing-remitting (RR)-EAE SJL. Only preventive treatment significantly delayed disease onset in a dose dependent manner. P8A-CCL2 administration, however, decreased demyelination, axonal loss and number of CNS infiltrating T cells and macrophages.

Giardia and Cryptosporidium in inflowing water and harvested shellfish in a lagoon in Southern Italy.

Giardia and Cryptosporidium spp. are important enteric protozoan pathogens for humans and animals, and have been found to contaminate water as well as edible shellfish all over the world. This is the first study to simultaneously investigate the presence of Giardia and Cryptosporidium in inflowing water and harvested shellfish in a geographically closed environment (Varano Lagoon, Southern Italy).

An engineered monomer of CCL2 has anti-inflammatory properties emphasizing the importance of oligomerization for chemokine activity in vivo.

We demonstrated recently that P8A-CCL2, a monomeric variant of the chemokine CCL2/MCP-1, is unable to induce cellular recruitment in vivo, despite full activity in vitro. Here, we show that this variant is able to inhibit CCL2 and thioglycollate-mediated recruitment of leukocytes into the peritoneal cavity and recruitment of cells into lungs of OVA-sensitized mice. This anti-inflammatory activity translated into a reduction of clinical score in the more complex inflammatory model of murine experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

Interleukin-6 protects against paclitaxel, cisplatin and vincristine-induced neuropathies without impairing chemotherapeutic activity.

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the potential neuroprotective effect of IL-6 on chemotherapy induced neuropathy (CIN). IL-6 was compared to four-methylcatechol (4-MC)-a known inducer of NGF secretion previously shown to exhibit neuroprotective effects in CIN models.

Methods: Three CIN models were used; two in rats (cisplatin and vincristine) and one in mice (paclitaxel).

[Exercise stress test and dobutamine stress echocardiography for the prognostic stratification after uncomplicated acute myocardial infarction].

Background: Exercise stress test and dobutamine stress echocardiography are usually performed early after an uncomplicated acute myocardial infarction in the prognostic stratification of patients to define the optimal diagnostic and therapeutic procedure. The aim of this study was to evaluate if the association of an imaging test could increase exercise test capability to identify patients with residual ischemia and patients at high risk of events in the follow-up.

Methods: Four hundred and forty-two consecutive patients underwent exercise stress testing and dobutamine stress echocardiography before discharge and subsequently coronary angiography within 30 days.

Arrest of preterm labor in rat and mouse by an oral and selective nonprostanoid antagonist of the prostaglandin F2alpha receptor (FP).

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the tocolytic effect of AS604872, an orally active, potent, and selective prostanoid prostaglandin F2alpha receptor (FP) antagonist.

Study Design: Compound AS604872 was characterized and tested for its ability to block uterine contraction and delay preterm parturition in rodent models.

Results: AS604872 inhibited spontaneous uterine contractions in pregnant rat near term.