Brain Organoids: A Game-Changer for Drug Testing.

Neurological disorders are the second cause of death and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Unfortunately, no cure exists for these disorders, but the actual therapies are only able to ameliorate people's quality of life. Thus, there is an urgent need to test potential therapeutic approaches.

Organoids Modeling Stroke in a Petri Dish.

Stroke is a common neurological disorder, the second leading cause of death, and the third leading cause of disability. Unfortunately, the only approved drug for it is tissue plasminogen, but the therapeutic window is limited. In this context, preclinical studies are relevant to better dissect the underlying mechanisms of stroke and for the drug screening of potential therapies.

The spatio-temporal architecture of everyday manual behavior.

In everyday activities, humans move alike to manipulate objects. Prior works suggest that hand movements are built by a limited set of basic building blocks consisting of a set of common postures. However, how the low dimensionality of hand movements supports the adaptability and flexibility of natural behavior is unknown.

Early EEG responses to pre-electoral survey items reflect political attitudes and predict voting behavior.

Self-reports are conventionally used to measure political preferences, yet individuals may be unable or unwilling to report their political attitudes. Here, in 69 participants we compared implicit and explicit methods of political attitude assessment and focused our investigation on populist attitudes. Ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from future voters while they completed a survey that measured levels of agreement on different political issues.

Effects of cognitive workload on heart and locomotor rhythms coupling.

Different physiological signals could be coupled under specific conditions, in some cases related to pathologies or reductions in system complexity. Cardiac-locomotor synchronization (CLS) has been one of the most investigating coupling. The influence of a cognitive task on walking was investigated in dual-task experiments, but how different cognitive tasks may influence CLS has poorly been investigated.

Inkjet-printed fully customizable and low-cost electrodes matrix for gesture recognition.

The use of surface electromyography (sEMG) is rapidly spreading, from robotic prostheses and muscle computer interfaces to rehabilitation devices controlled by residual muscular activities. In this context, sEMG-based gesture recognition plays an enabling role in controlling prosthetics and devices in real-life settings. Our work aimed at developing a low-cost, print-and-play platform to acquire and analyse sEMG signals that can be arranged in a fully customized way, depending on the application and the users' needs.

Analogies and differences between cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and hepatopulmonary syndrome.

Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and hepatopulmonary syndrome are two quite frequent clinical entities that may complicate the course of liver cirrhosis. The common pathophysiological origin and the same clinical presentation make them difficult to compare. Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and hepatopulmonary syndrome may start with dyspnea and breathlessness but the former is characterized by a chronic cardiac dysfunction and the latter by a defect of oxygenation due to pulmonary shunts formation.

Reliability and Agreement of Point and 2-D Shear-Wave Elastography in Assessing the Sciatic Nerve Stiffness.

Information is lacking about the reliability and agreement of different shear-wave elastographic modes in the peripheral nervous system evaluation. The aim of this observational study was to evaluate reproducibility and agreement of two different shear-wave elastographic modes for measuring the sciatic nerve stiffness in patients affected by osteoarthrosis. Two sets of three measurements were conducted bilaterally on the sciatic nerve of 20 patients with point and 2-D shear-wave elastography by a unique expert sonographer.

Accuracy and performance of a new handheld ultrasound machine with wireless system.

We verified the accuracy and performance of a new handheld ultrasound machine, in comparison to a high-end sonographic machine. We performed bilateral measurements of the following tendon districts (supraspinatus, flexor of the middle finger, patellar and Achilles) and of the cross sectional area of the median nerve in 21 patients using a musculoskeletal ultrasound linear scanner of a handheld sonographic machine and a high-end sonographic machine. Two tail T test was used to evaluate whether there were differences in the measurements between the two sonographic machines.

Strain Ultrasound Elastography in the Achilles Tendon of Ankylosing Spondylitis Patients Treated With Anti-TNF-α: A Preliminary Study.

Background/aim: To compare patients affected by ankylosing spondylitis (AS) treated with anti-TNF-α for two years with controls in terms of Achilles tendon stiffness, ultrasound structure and thickness.

Patients And Methods: B-mode ultrasound evaluation and strain ultrasound elastography were performed in longitudinal and transverse planes on 22 Achilles tendons of 11 AS patients and 26 of 13 controls.

Results: There were no significant differences in thickness and stiffness of the Achilles tendon between AS patients and controls, except for an increased thickness in the middle third of the tendon in the AS patients (p=0.

Inhibition of Chemoresistance in Primary Tumor Cells by Extract Noviphenone (NPE®).

Background/aim: Despite improvements in cancer therapy, life expectancy after tumor recurrence remains low. Relapsed cancer is characterized by drug resistance, often mediated through overexpression of multidrug resistance (MDR) genes. Camellia sinensis non fermentatum extract is known for its anticancer properties in several cancer cell lines and might improve cancer therapy outcome after tumor recurrence.

Reliability of quantitative point shear-wave ultrasound elastography on vastus medialis muscle and quadriceps and patellar tendons.

Aim: The aim of this work was to evaluate the reliability of pSWE in assessing the stiffness of the vastus medialis muscle and of the quadriceps and patellar tendons.

Material And Methods: For this purpose, 18 subjects (9 males and 9 females of 57±22 years) in good clinical conditions were included in this study. pSWE examination was conducted by a unique expert operator with more than ten years of experience in musculoskeletal ultrasound.

Differences in carotid atherosclerosis between patients with ankylosing spondylitis treated with tumor necrosis factor-α antagonists and healthy matched controls.

An increased vascular risk is present in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). In this report, we evaluate the presence and grade of atherosclerosis in patients with AS, uninterruptedly treated with tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) antagonists for 2 years, in comparison to that in a nontreated group of healthy controls.Fourteen patients with AS and 14 healthy controls underwent carotid sonography to measure intima-media thickness (IMT) and to evaluate the presence of plaque.

Diagnostic approach to neuropsychiatric lupus erythematosus: what should we do?

Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus is a diagnostic challenge due to the multifarious neurological and psychiatric manifestations that define it but, when suspected, diagnostic imaging can give a fundamental help. The advancements and variety of neuroimaging techniques allow us to perform more and more accurate evaluations of structure, perfusion, and metabolism of the brain and to detect cerebral and spinal lesions. Moreover, vascular districts of the neck and the brain, as well as the electrical brain and peripheral muscle activity may be accurately investigated, thus giving us a wide panoramic view.

An ultrasound automated method for non-invasive assessment of carotid artery pulse wave velocity.

To validate the clinical applicability and feasibility of an automated ultrasound (US) method in measuring the arterial stiffness of patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases, comparing automated measurements performed by a rheumatologist without experience in vascular sonography with those obtained by a sonographer experienced in vascular US, using a standardized manual method. Twenty subjects affected by different chronic inflammatory rheumatic disorders were consecutively recruited. For each patient, the arterial stiffness of both common carotids was manually calculated.

Portopulmonary hypertension and hepatorenal syndrome. Two faces of the same coin.

Portopulmonary hypertension and hepatorenal syndrome are both severe local hypertensive complications of liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension. Both are characterized by vasoconstrictive manifestations regarding pulmonary and renal vascular network, respectively. This review addresses the mechanisms underlying the development of vasoconstriction that leads to local vascular hypertension in the lung and in the kidney with the result of organ dysfunction.

Targeting the EWS-ETS transcriptional program by BET bromodomain inhibition in Ewing sarcoma.

Ewing sarcomas (ES) are highly malignant bone or soft tissue tumors. Genetically, ES are defined by balanced chromosomal EWS/ETS translocations, which give rise to chimeric proteins (EWS-ETS) that generate an oncogenic transcriptional program associated with altered epigenetic marks throughout the genome. By use of an inhibitor (JQ1) blocking BET bromodomain binding proteins (BRDs) we strikingly observed a strong down-regulation of the predominant EWS-ETS protein EWS-FLI1 in a dose dependent manner.

PI3K/AKT signaling modulates transcriptional expression of EWS/FLI1 through specificity protein 1.

Ewing sarcoma (ES) is the second most frequent bone cancer in childhood and is characterized by the presence of the balanced translocation t(11;22)(q24;q12) in more than 85% of cases, generating a dysregulated transcription factor EWS/FLI1. This fusion protein is an essential oncogenic component of ES development which is necessary for tumor cell maintenance and represents an attractive therapeutic target. To search for modulators of EWS/FLI1 activity we screened a library of 153 targeted compounds and identified inhibitors of the PI3K pathway to directly modulate EWS/FLI1 transcription.

Effect of itraconazole on mouse mesencephalic neurons.

Neuronal cells have complex geometrical shapes, long processes such as axons and dendrites, and as a response to specific stimuli, they go through polarized neuronal migration that influences connectivity and information processing. Recently, it has been discovered that itraconazole, a widely used systemic antifungal drug, has an effect on cell morphology, acting as an inhibitor of the morphogen Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) and of the mammalian target of rapamycin mTOR pathways. In this paper we evaluated the effect of itraconazole on mouse mesencephalic dopaminergic neurons following their neurite outgrowth and functional activity by [(3)H] DA uptake.

Tumours of the spleen.

The spleen has been considered a 'forgotten organ' even if it is included and well demonstrated on every CT and MRI of the abdomen. Tumours of the spleen are rare; however, radiologists need to be aware of the main tumoral features and patterns in order to try to distinguish between benign and malignant masses often discovered incidentally. The principal tumoral masses, benign (cysts, haemangiomas, litteral cell angioma, lymphangioma) and malignant (lymphoma, metastases haemangiosarcoma), are described.