Publications by authors named "Francesca Battista"

Background: Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is associated with cognitive decline. In contrast, higher levels of neurotrophins, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), may be associated with better brain health. Physical exercise has been associated with elevated levels of BDNF and consequently improved cognitive function, but whether this association is found in T1DM remains unresolved.

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Aim: Higher exercise blood pressure in adults correlates with many cardiometabolic markers. The aim of this study was to investigate the main determinants of longitudinal variations in exercise blood pressure in young athletes.

Methods: A longitudinal retrospective study was conducted on adolescent athletes who underwent at least two sport-related pre-participation screening visits, including exercise testing with a standardized incremental ramp protocol on treadmill.

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Background: An increasing number of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) engage in physical activities and may exercise at high altitudes (HA). The physiological adaptations required at HA and their implications on individuals with CHD, especially during exercise, remain underexplored. This systematic review aims to investigate cardiopulmonary exercise responses to short-term HA exposure in individuals with CHD.

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Navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) has seldom been used to study visuospatial (VS) circuits so far. Our work studied (I) VS functions in neurosurgical oncological patients by using repetitive nTMS (rnTMS), (II) the possible subcortical circuits underneath, and (III) the correspondence between nTMS and direct cortical stimulation (DCS) during awake procedures. We designed a monocentric prospective study, adopting a protocol to use rnTMS for preoperative planning, including VS functions for lesions potentially involving the VS network, including neurosurgical awake and asleep procedures.

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Objective: Epilepsy is commonly associated with low-grade gliomas (LGGs), impacting patients' well-being. While resection is the primary treatment, seizures can persist postoperatively in 27%-55% of cases. The authors aimed to evaluate an electrocorticography (ECoG) and navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS)-tailored supratotal resection (ETT-SpTR) for LGG in controlling seizures, preserving neurological function, and enhancing treatment effectiveness.

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Article Synopsis
  • * KTRs underwent assessments for body composition, health markers, and quality of life at multiple points, with adherence to exercise monitored through video calls and wearables.
  • * Although body composition and kidney function didn't change, KTRs showed improved lipid profiles, blood pressure, fitness, and quality of life, with both monitoring methods effectively maintaining exercise adherence.
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Objective: To investigate the reproducibility of ambulatory BP sub-periods and nocturnal dipping phenotypes assessed twice 3 months apart in young-to-middle-age untreated individuals screened for stage 1 hypertension.

Design And Methods: We investigated 1096, 18-to-45-year old participants from the HARVEST. Their office BP was 145.

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Background: Sport climbing is becoming incredibly popular both in the general population and among athletes. No consensus exists regarding evidence-based sport-specific performance evaluation; therefore, this systematic review was aimed at analyzing determinants of sport climbing performance and evaluation methods by comparing climbers of different levels.

Methods: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched up to December 20,2022.

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Obesity is a disease that is assuming pandemic proportions in recent decades. With the advancement of medicine and increased access to care, average survival has increased, resulting in a larger number of elderly people. As a result, the amount of elderly people living with obesity is increasing, and the morbidity and impact of obesity on ageing implies severe limitations for these people.

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Background: Frontal lobe epilepsy is pharmacoresistant in 30% of cases, constituting 10-20% of epilepsy surgeries. For cases of no lesional epilepsy (negative MRI), frontal lobectomy is a crucial treatment, historically involving Frontal Anatomical Lobectomy (AFL) with a 33.3% complication risk and 55.

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Objective: The onco-functional balance represents the primary goal in neuro-oncology. The increasing use of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) allows the noninvasive characterization of cortical functional anatomy, and its reliability for motor and language mapping has previously been validated. Calculation and arithmetic processing has not been studied with nTMS so far.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the long-term outcomes of two surgical procedures for congenital heart diseases: the Fontan procedure and the one-and-half ventricle repair (1.5VR), focusing on young patients with borderline hypoplastic right ventricle (HRV).
  • - It involved a retrospective analysis of cardiopulmonary exercise tests (CPETs) from 43 patients over a 10-year follow-up, comparing cardiorespiratory fitness and efficiency among those who underwent each procedure.
  • - Results showed that after 10 years, patients who had the 1.5VR demonstrated better cardiorespiratory fitness and efficiency than those who had Fontan procedures, indicating potential superiority of 1.5VR for selected patients
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Purpose: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is a critical marker of overall health and a key predictor of morbidity and mortality, but the existing prediction equations for CRF are primarily derived from general populations and may not be suitable for patients with obesity.

Methods: Predicted CRF from different non-exercise prediction equations was compared with measured CRF of patients with obesity who underwent maximal cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). Multiple linear regression was used to develop a population-specific nonexercise CRF prediction model for treadmill exercise including age, sex, weight, height, and physical activity level as determinants.

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Background: The aim of this paper was to understand the role of prophylaxis with levetiracetam at skin incision in preventing convulsive intraoperative seizures (IOS) during neurosurgical procedures with and without intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM).

Methods: Authors retrospectively reviewed the Institutional database for cases of supratentorial brain tumors undergoing surgical resection performed from January 2021 to October 2022. Patients were operated on both under general anesthesia and awake, using motor-evoked potentials (MEP) and direct cortical stimulation for cortical mapping.

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Background: Whether healthy metabolic status is stable or only temporary is still controversial. The aim of the present study was to determine the frequency of the transition from metabolically healthy to metabolically unhealthy status, or vice versa, over the long term.

Methods: We examined 970 individuals of 18 to 45 years of age.

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Background And Aims: Transient increases (overshoot) in respiratory gas analyses have been observed during exercise recovery, but their clinical significance is not clearly understood. An overshoot phenomenon of the respiratory exchange ratio (RER) is commonly observed during recovery from maximal cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET), but it has been found reduced in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). The aim of the study was to analyze the clinical significance of these RER recovery parameters and to understand if these may improve the risk stratification of patients with HFrEF.

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Aims: To investigate the prevalence of metabolically healthy overweight/obesity and to study its longitudinal association with major adverse cardiovascular and renal events (MARCE).

Methods And Results: The study was conducted in 1210 young-to-middle-age subjects grouped according to their BMI and metabolic status. The risk of MARCE was evaluated during 17.

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Purpose Of Review: The purpose of this review and meta-analysis is to characterize the changes in body composition of children and adolescents who underwent bariatric surgery and identify possible negative effects of performing this procedure during pediatric ages.

Recent Findings: Bariatric surgery in children and adolescents is an emerging strategy to promote higher and faster body weight and fat mass losses. However, possible negative effects usually observed in surgical patients' muscle-skeletal system raise a major concern perform this intervention during growth.

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Background: Drug-resistant epilepsy is a common condition in patients with brain neoplasms. The pathogenesis of tumor-associated seizures is poorly understood. Among the possible pathogenetic mechanisms, the increase in glutamate concentration has been proposed.

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Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is a strong predictor of morbidity and mortality in patients with obesity. This study investigates the CRF range and its clinical determinants in patients with obesity. Moreover, a practical proposal for CRF interpretation is provided.

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Differentiating between ECG patterns related to athletes' heart remodeling and pathological findings is a challenge in sports cardiology. As the significance of fragmented complex in athletes remains uncertain, this study aimed to assess the presence of fragmented QRS in lead V (fQRSV) among young athletes and its association with heart adaptations and arrhythmias. Young athletes referred for annual pre-participation screening receiving a maximal exercise testing and transthoracic echocardiography from January 2015 to March 2021 were included.

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Background: Different approaches are used to classify obesity severity. The Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) considers medical, physical and psychological parameters. A new modified EOSS with a different functional evaluation method, measuring Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF), has been recently proposed, EOSS-CRF.

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