Low-cost inkjet-printed nanostructured biosensor based on CRISPR/Cas12a system for pathogen detection.

The escalating global incidence of infectious diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria, especially in developing countries, emphasises the urgent need for rapid and portable pathogen detection devices. This study introduces a sensitive and specific electrochemical biosensing platform utilising cost-effective electrodes fabricated by inkjet-printing gold and silver nanoparticles on a plastic substrate. The biosensor exploits the CRISPR/Cas12a system for detecting a specific DNA sequence selected from the genome of the target pathogen.

Emerging Biosensing Technologies towards Early Sepsis Diagnosis and Management.

Sepsis is defined as a systemic inflammatory dysfunction strictly associated with infectious diseases, which represents an important health issue whose incidence is continuously increasing worldwide. Nowadays, sepsis is considered as one of the main causes of death that mainly affects critically ill patients in clinical settings, with a higher prevalence in low-income countries. Currently, sepsis management still represents an important challenge, since the use of traditional techniques for the diagnosis does not provide a rapid response, which is crucial for an effective infection management.

Raman spectroscopy and multivariate analysis as potential tool to follow Alzheimer's disease progression.

Raman spectroscopy is an emerging tool in the research and diagnosis of different diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders. In this work, blood serum samples collected from healthy controls and dementia patients were analysed by Raman spectroscopy to develop a classification model for the diagnosis of dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT). Raman spectra were processed by means of multivariate tools for multivariate analysis.

Neurology versus Psychiatry? Hallucinations, Delusions, and Confabulations.

Hallucinations, delusions, and confabulations are common symptoms between neurology and psychiatry. The neurological diseases manifesting with such symptoms (dementia, epilepsy, Korsakoff's disease, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease, migraine, right hemisphere stroke and others) would be the key to understand their biological mechanisms, while the cognitive sciences, neuropharmacology and functional neuroimaging would be the tools of such researches. It is possible to understand the perceptive rules of the mind and the mechanisms of the human consciousness based on these symptoms.

Catastrophe Reaction and Emotionalism.

The catastrophic reaction (CR; a disruptive and uncontrolled behavior triggered by anger, irritability, and hostility) and emotionalism (a condition of uncontrolled crying or laughing) are disorders of the emotional regulation and expression, the prevalence of which is underestimated in neurology. Their occurrence is an additional factor of poor outcome for neurologic patients. Although they have been recognized and completely described in their clinical manifestations more than a century ago, many issues remain unsolved regarding their pathogenesis and the respective role of the brain damage and psychological factors.

Minor Hemisphere Major Syndromes.

A right "minor hemisphere" does not exist as the right hemisphere is dominant for awareness (nosognosia), spatial attention, emotional regulation, facial and voice expressions, visual recognition, and topographical orientation. Without the right hemisphere, the world would be flat, deprived of general and spatial attentions, pointing preferentially to the right side of the space, lacking visual experiences and emotions, exhibiting diminished awareness of the self and environment. Clinical-related syndromes of the right hemisphere are unilateral spatial neglect, object and face visual agnosia, the anosognosia for hemiparesis and/or hemianopia, misidentification syndromes, mania, and other obsessions for the food and the body.

Neurotoxic Weapons and Syndromes.

The modern era of chemical and biological warfare began in World War I with the large-scale production and use of blistering and choking agents (chlorine, phosgene and mustard gases) in the battlefield. International treaties (the 1925 Geneva Protocol, the 1975 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention) banned biological and chemical weapons. However, several countries are probably still engaged in their development.

Memory Profiles after Unilateral Paramedian Thalamic Stroke Infarction: A Comparative Study.

We performed extensive neuropsychological assessment of two male patients (matched for age and educational level) with similar (localization and size) unilateral paramedian ischemic thalamic lesions (AB on the left and SD on the right). Both patients showed severe memory impairments as well as other cognitive deficits. In comparison to SD, AB showed severe impairment of executive functions and a more severe deficit of episodic/anterograde memory, especially in the verbal modality.

Hysteria around the world.

In the 20th century the term hysteria declined and the interest in the hysteria-related diseases decreased in comparison to the florid period of studies that was inspired by Charcot's legacy in the second half of the 19th century. Scientific interest has once again increased in the 21st century, and dissociative and somatoform disorders (previously indicated as hysteria or hysterical neurosis) have come to be regarded as conditions that are known to be much more prevalent than formerly estimated. Available current epidemiological data from several countries on different continents (adopting DSM criteria for diagnosis) suggest not only that the prevalence is probably similar, but also that there is a consistency in their clinical manifestation around the world and across different cultures, social classes, and institutional settings.

The perception of facial emotions--cues from the left amygdaloid complex.

The history and the behavioral profile of 2 patients with brain abnormalities in the region of the left amygdaloidal complex might suggest that the dysfunction of the neural pathways related to the left amygdala has to occur at an early developmental stage to result in impaired emotional judgments of facial expressions. This is in line with the hypothesis that emotional information processing is based on a distributed neural network which, during ontogenesis, gradually expands from the amygdala and the amygdaloidal complex to further components of the limbic system.

The achromatic 'philosophical zombie', a syndrome of cerebral achromatopsia with color anopsognosia.

We describe a patient with persistent cerebral achromatopsia occurring after bilateral occipital strokes. Blinded color recognition was assessed with a computerized experimental paradigm and the patient reported the degree of confidence in the response exactness on a visual percent scale. Color recognition was accurate and above chance (Fisher's exact test, p < 0.

Alcoholism between Fiction and Reality.

Alcoholism has always been emphasized in literature, narratives, and theater as its prevalence and related disability are very high, is found throughout the world, and affects women and men of all ages and social classes. There is a tragic or romantic fascination in the deep sense of personal failure that drinking is able to relieve and in the uncontrollable inability to stop drinking. These aspects have been portrayed well by fictional alcoholics in movies and novels.

The "Altitudinal Anton's syndrome": coexistence of anosognosia, blindsight and left inattention.

We describe a 69-year-old patient with superior altitudinal hemianopia who contentiously denied having any visual impairment after stroke in the lower banks of both calcarine fissures. Although the patient did not produce intentional responses to visual stimuli in the blind fields, he showed reduced reaction times to stimuli presented in the inferior visual fields when they were primed by identical stimuli in the superior blind fields. Furthermore he showed left extinction to the double stimulation and delayed reaction times for left unprimed stimuli in the inferior fields.

Confabulations after bilateral consecutive strokes of the lenticulostriate arteries.

We describe the case of a 75-year-old woman who manifested persistent confabulations after two consecutive strokes encompassing the area of the lenticulostriate arteries territory on both hemispheres. Findings reported on this rare clinical syndrome suggest that fantastic confabulations and delusional thoughts may arise after bilateral damage of subcortical nonthalamic structures.

Assessment of post-stroke fatigue: the fatigue scale for motor and cognitive functions.

Background/aims: Post-stroke fatigue (PSF) is an important but still controversial issue since knowledge on its nature is still humble. The aim of the present study was to characterize PSF beyond the subacute phase.

Methods: Thirty-one stroke patients (gender: 6 female, 25 male; age range: 35-76 years; 28 patients with ischemic stroke, 3 patients with hemorrhagic stroke; mean delay after stroke: 50.

When solving 22-7 is much more difficult than 99-12.

We describe the case of a 69-year-old professor of mathematics (GV) who was examined 2 years after left-hemispheric capsular-thalamic haemorrhage. GV showed disproportionate impairment in subtractions requiring borrowing (22 - 7). For large subtraction problems without borrowing (99 - 12) performance was almost flawless.

Mood disorders after stroke.

Mood disorders occurring after stroke are a major concern to public health as they are frequent, difficult to diagnose and to treat, and have high impact on the quality of life of patients and caregivers. The association of manic symptoms (rare) in the acute phase of stroke with strategic locations within the right hemisphere is clinically significant. However, the link among poststroke depression and anxiety (most prevalent), brain circuitries, clinical signs and individual psychological factors is not yet disentangled.