Interplay among Anxiety, Digital Environmental Exposure, and Cognitive Control: Implications of Natural Settings.

Inhibitory control performance may differ greatly as a function of individual differences such as anxiety. Nonetheless, how cognitive control proficiency might be influenced by exposure to various environments and how anxiety traits might impact these effects remain unexplored. A cohort of thirty healthy volunteers participated in the study.

Dual-Process Theory of Thought and Inhibitory Control: An ALE Meta-Analysis.

The dual-process theory of thought rests on the co-existence of two different thinking modalities: a quick, automatic, and associative process opposed to a slow, thoughtful, and deliberative process. The increasing interest in determining the neural foundation of the dual-process distinction has yielded mixed results, also given the difficulty of applying the fMRI standard approach to tasks usually employed in the cognitive literature. We report an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to investigate the neural foundation of the dual-process theory of thought.

Intuitive thinking predicts false memory formation due to a decrease in inhibitory efficiency.

False memory formation is usually studied using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM), in which individuals incorrectly remember words that were not originally presented. In this paper, we systematically investigated how two modes of thinking (analytical vs. intuitive) can influence the tendency to create false memories.

Effects of Plant-Emitted Monoterpenes on Anxiety Symptoms: A Propensity-Matched Observational Cohort Study.

Immersive experiences in green areas, particularly in forests, have long been known to produce beneficial effects for human health. However, the exact determinants and mechanisms leading to healthy outcomes remain to be elucidated. The purpose of this observational cohort study was to investigate whether inhaling plant-emitted biogenic volatile compounds, namely monoterpenes (MTs), can produce specific effects on anxiety symptoms.

Automatic and controlled attentional orienting toward emotional faces in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative motor disorder that can associate with deficits in cognitive and emotional processing. In particular, PD has been reported to be mainly associated with defects in executive control and orienting attentional systems. The deficit in emotional processing mainly emerged in facial expression recognition.

The quality of parenting in reproductive donation families: A meta-analysis and systematic review.

This review examined whether the absence of a genetic link with one or both parents in families using reproductive donation induced a different quality of parenting from that found in families with spontaneous conception or autologous assisted reproductive technology (AUT-ART), where the genetic mother carries the pregnancy and both parents have a genetic link with their children. MEDLINE, PsycINFO and PubMed were searched for English-language studies published from January 1993 to October 2021. A total of 45 studies were included in the systematic review, and 11 in the meta-analysis.

False memories formation is increased in individuals with insomnia.

Previous studies suggest that sleep can influence false memories formation. Specifically, acute sleep loss has been shown to promote false memories production by impairing memory retrieval at subsequent testing. Surprisingly, the relationship between sleep and false memories has only been investigated in healthy subjects but not in individuals with insomnia, whose sleep is objectively impaired compared to healthy subjects.

Mediterranean diet adherence and dietary calcium intake in a group of pregnant women: Results of an Italian survey.

Pregnancy is a delicate phase in woman's life that could become a risk factor for osteoporosis in pregnant women who do not meet recommended nutrient standards, especially for calcium and vitamin D. Mediterranean diet (MD) has been demonstrated to be beneficial for adequate nutrient intake. This article aims to evaluate the MD adherence and dietary calcium intake in a group of pregnant Italian women and to investigate how these are linked to each other and to fast glycemia at first trimester of pregnancy.

Cognitive style predicts how people explain mental magic tricks.

Magic tricks are deceiving, yet we can readily generate an explanation for a trick that we do not fully understand. In three experiments, we show that the way people explain a mental magic trick depends on their individual cognitive style. Analytical thinkers tend to generate explanations that appeal to rationality, such as using physical props to accomplish an effect.

Mapping the Featural and Holistic Face Processing of Bad and Good Face Recognizers.

Individual abilities in face recognition (good versus bad recognizers) were explored by means of event-related potentials (ERPs). The adaptation response profile of the N170 component to whole faces, eyes and mouths was used in order to highlight the crucial role of individual abilities in identity repetition processes for unfamiliar faces. The main point of this study is to underline the importance of characterizing the performance (bad or good) of the participants and to show that behaviorally selected groups might reveal neural differences.

The Mediterranean Diet in Osteoporosis Prevention: An Insight in a Peri- and Post-Menopausal Population.

Osteoporosis represent a widespread public health problem. The management and prevention of osteoporosis and related low energy fractures start with a correct lifestyle and proper nutrition. Several different nutrients are essential for bone and mineral metabolism, especially calcium.

Chronic hypoparathyroidism and treatment with teriparatide.

Purpose: Chronic hypoparathyroidism is usually treated with calcium and active vitamin D metabolites or analogs, despite the fact that their chronic use can lead to long-term complications. The use of hormone replacement therapy with PTH peptides [teriparatide and rhPTH (1-84)] has therefore been proposed. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of teriparatide dose at 20 µg once or twice daily, in order to maintain normocalcemia reducing standard treatment, in adult patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism not well controlled with conventional treatment.

Spatially Filtered Emotional Faces Dominate during Binocular Rivalry.

The present investigation explores the role of bottom-up and top-down factors in the recognition of emotional facial expressions during binocular rivalry. We manipulated spatial frequencies (SF) and emotive features and asked subjects to indicate whether the emotional or the neutral expression was dominant during binocular rivalry. Controlling the bottom-up saliency with a computational model, physically comparable happy and fearful faces were presented dichoptically with neutral faces.

Prevalence and Determinants of Bad Sleep Perception among Italian Children and Adolescents.

Although sleep problems at young ages are well investigated, the prevalence of bad sleepers and the determinants of sleep quality perception remain unexplored in these populations. For this purpose, we addressed these issues in a sample of children ( = 307), preadolescents ( = 717), and adolescents ( = 406) who completed the School Sleep Habits Survey, addressing sleep quality perception, sleep habits, sleep features, daytime behavior and sleep disturbances, circadian preference, and dreaming. The sample was split in "good sleepers" and "bad sleepers", based on the answer to the question item assessing overall subjective sleep quality.

Comparative Study of the Restorative Effects of Forest and Urban Videos during COVID-19 Lockdown: Intrinsic and Benchmark Values.

The prolonged lockdown imposed to contain the COrona VIrus Disease 19 COVID-19 pandemic prevented many people from direct contact with nature and greenspaces, raising alarms for a possible worsening of mental health. This study investigated the effectiveness of a simple and affordable remedy for improving psychological well-being, based on audio-visual stimuli brought by a short computer video showing forest environments, with an urban video as a control. Randomly selected participants were assigned the forest or urban video, to look at and listen to early in the morning, and questionnaires to fill out.

In Vitro Control of Genes Critical for Parathyroid Embryogenesis by Extracellular Calcium.

Background: The expression of the parathyroid transcription factors, encoded by the genes , , and , persists after parathyroid morphogenesis. This suggests a role of these genes in the regulatory program that governs parathyroid function in the adult. Indeed, these 3 genes form a transcriptional cascade able to activate gene expression.

Characterization of a novel CDC73 gene mutation in a hyperparathyrodism-jaw tumor patient affected by parathyroid carcinoma in the absence of somatic loss of heterozygosity.

Hyperparathyrodism-jaw tumor (HPT-JT) syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder. Loss of function of the cell division cycle protein 73 homolog (CDC73) gene is responsible for the syndrome. This gene encodes an ubiquitously expressed 531 amino acid protein, parafibromin, that acts as a tumor suppressor.

Calcium Intake in Bone Health: A Focus on Calcium-Rich Mineral Waters.

Calcium is an essential element that plays numerous biological functions in the human body, of which one of the most important is skeleton mineralization. Bone is a mineralized connective tissue in which calcium represents the major component, conferring bone strength and structure. Proper dietary calcium intake is important for bone development and metabolism, and its requirement can vary throughout life.

Prevalence of Chronic Hypoparathyroidism in a Mediterranean Region as Estimated by the Analysis of Anonymous Healthcare Database.

Epidemiological data on prevalence and incidence of chronic hypoparathyroidism are still scarce. This study aimed to establish prevalence of chronic hypoparathyroidism and incidence of surgical hypoparathyroidism using the analysis of electronic anonymous public health care database. Data referred to a 5-year period (2009-2013, Region of Tuscany, Italy, as a sample representative of the whole Mediterranean/European population, estimated mean population: 3,750,000 inhabitants) were retrieved by the analysis of pharmaceutical distribution dataset, containing data related to drugs reimbursed by public health system, hospital discharge and procedures codes, and ICD9 exemption codes for chronic diseases.

The use of cholecalciferol in patients with hip fracture.

Introduction: Major osteoporotic fractures are steadily increasing due to population aging. Programs of secondary prevention against refracture are essential to decrease morbidity and mortality and the cost for individuals and the society. Vitamin D supplementation and optimization of calcium intake are of a pivotal importance to start specific osteoporosis treatment and for its safety and efficacy.