Essential Factors on Effective Response at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic Comment on "Experiences and Implications of the First Wave of the COVID-19 Emergency in Italy: A Social Science Perspective".

The COVID-19 pandemic in Italy is a stark reminder of the necessity of incorporating the social, economic, and political context in planning responses to public health emergencies. During the ongoing global COVID-19 crisis, it is not just crucial but a shared responsibility to supplement epidemiological approaches with insights from the social sciences. This ensures effective and equitable policies, and it is a responsibility that each of us in the field shares.

Systemic cellular migration: The forces driving the directed locomotion movement of cells.

Directional motility is an essential property of cells. Despite its enormous relevance in many fundamental physiological and pathological processes, how cells control their locomotion movements remains an unresolved question. Here, we have addressed the systemic processes driving the directed locomotion of cells.

Open datasets and code for multi-scale relations on structure, function and neuro-genetics in the human brain.

The human brain is an extremely complex network of structural and functional connections that operate at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Investigating the relationship between these multi-scale connections is critical to advancing our comprehension of brain function and disorders. However, accurately predicting structural connectivity from its functional counterpart remains a challenging pursuit.

Cognitive and brain connectivity trajectories in critically ill COVID-19 patients.

Background: Multiple Organ failure (MOF) is one of the main causes of admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of patients infected with COVID-19 and can cause short- and long-term neurological deficits.

Objective: To compare the cognitive functioning and functional brain connectivity at 6-12 months after discharge in two groups of individuals with MOF, one due to COVID-19 and the other due to another cause (MOF-group), with a group of Healthy Controls (HC).

Methods: Thirty-six participants, 12 from each group, underwent a neuropsychological and neuroimaging assessment at both time-points.

Impact of Neurolens Use on the Quality of Life in Individuals With Headaches: A Randomized Double-Masked, Cross-Over Clinical Trial.

Purpose: Vision-related disorders, such as refractive errors and binocular vision issues, can cause headaches. The current study evaluates the impact of Neurolens (NL) on individuals with headaches, assessed using the Headache Impact Test (HIT) questionnaire.

Methods: Subjects (18-60 years) with good stereoacuity and a HIT score of ≥56 points were enrolled.

Induction of Translational Readthrough on Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases Targeted by Premature Termination Codon Mutations in Human Disease.

Nonsense mutations generating premature termination codons (PTCs) in various genes are frequently associated with somatic cancer and hereditary human diseases since PTCs commonly generate truncated proteins with defective or altered function. Induced translational readthrough during protein biosynthesis facilitates the incorporation of an amino acid at the position of a PTC, allowing the synthesis of a complete protein. This may evade the pathological effect of the PTC mutation and provide new therapeutic opportunities.

NeuropsychBrainAge: A biomarker for conversion from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease.

Introduction: BrainAge models based on neuroimaging data have diagnostic classification power but have replicability issues due to site and patient variability. BrainAge models trained on neuropsychological tests could help distinguish stable mild cognitive impairment (sMCI) from progressive MCI (pMCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Methods: A linear regressor BrainAge model was trained on healthy controls using neuropsychological tests and neuroimaging features separately.

COVID-19-related adolescent mortality and morbidity in nineteen European countries.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents in most countries experienced a syndemic of malnutrition, obesity, deprivation, mental health problems, inequalities, and the effects of climate change. Today, other factors have added to this burden during the pandemic, and it is important to have an updated reflection. We aimed to assess the risk and protective factors for COVID-19-related adolescent mortality and morbidity in the European region.

The Neurogenetics of Functional Connectivity Alterations in Autism: Insights From Subtyping in 657 Individuals.

Background: There is little consensus and controversial evidence on anatomical alterations in the brains of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), due in part to the large heterogeneity present in ASD, which in turn is a major drawback for developing therapies. One strategy to characterize this heterogeneity in ASD is to cluster large-scale functional brain connectivity profiles.

Methods: A subtyping approach based on consensus clustering of functional brain connectivity patterns was applied to a population of 657 autistic individuals with quality-assured neuroimaging data.

Melanoma Clinical Decision Support System: An Artificial Intelligence-Based Tool to Diagnose and Predict Disease Outcome in Early-Stage Melanoma Patients.

This study set out to assess the performance of an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm based on clinical data and dermatoscopic imaging for the early diagnosis of melanoma, and its capacity to define the metastatic progression of melanoma through serological and histopathological biomarkers, enabling dermatologists to make more informed decisions about patient management. Integrated analysis of demographic data, images of the skin lesions, and serum and histopathological markers were analyzed in a group of 196 patients with melanoma. The interleukins (ILs) IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-17A as well as IFNγ (interferon), GM-CSF (granulocyte and macrophage colony-stimulating factor), TGFβ (transforming growth factor), and the protein DCD (dermcidin) were quantified in the serum of melanoma patients at the time of diagnosis, and the expression of the RKIP, PIRIN, BCL2, BCL3, MITF, and ANXA5 proteins was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in melanoma biopsies.

Blockage of STAT3 during epileptogenesis prevents GABAergic loss and imprinting of the epileptic state.

Epilepsy, characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures resulting from a wide variety of causes, is one of the world's most prominent neurological disabilities. Seizures, which are an expression of neuronal network dysfunction, occur in a positive feedback loop of concomitant factors, including neuro-inflammatory responses, where seizures generate more seizures. Among other pathways involved in inflammatory responses, the JAK/STAT signalling pathway has been proposed to participate in epilepsy.

One-year prediction of cognitive decline following cognitive-stimulation from real-world data.

Clinical evidence based on real-world data (RWD) is accumulating exponentially providing larger sample sizes available, which demand novel methods to deal with the enhanced heterogeneity of the data. Here, we used RWD to assess the prediction of cognitive decline in a large heterogeneous sample of participants being enrolled with cognitive stimulation, a phenomenon that is of great interest to clinicians but that is riddled with difficulties and limitations. More precisely, from a multitude of neuropsychological Training Materials (TMs), we asked whether was possible to accurately predict an individual's cognitive decline one year after being tested.

Multimodal and multidomain lesion network mapping enhances prediction of sensorimotor behavior in stroke patients.

Beyond the characteristics of a brain lesion, such as its etiology, size or location, lesion network mapping (LNM) has shown that similar symptoms after a lesion reflects similar dis-connectivity patterns, thereby linking symptoms to brain networks. Here, we extend LNM by using a multimodal strategy, combining functional and structural networks from 1000 healthy participants in the Human Connectome Project. We apply multimodal LNM to a cohort of 54 stroke patients with the aim of predicting sensorimotor behavior, as assessed through a combination of motor and sensory tests.

Brain Mapping of Behavioral Domains Using Multi-Scale Networks and Canonical Correlation Analysis.

Simultaneous mapping of multiple behavioral domains into brain networks remains a major challenge. Here, we shed some light on this problem by employing a combination of machine learning, structural and functional brain networks at different spatial resolutions (also known as scales), together with performance scores across multiple neurobehavioral domains, including sensation, motor skills, and cognition. Provided by the Human Connectome Project, we make use of three cohorts: 640 participants for model training, 160 subjects for validation, and 200 subjects for model performance testing thus enhancing prediction generalization.

Heart-brain synchronization breakdown in Parkinson's disease.

Heart rate variability (HRV) abnormalities are potential early biomarkers in Parkinson's disease (PD) but their relationship with central autonomic network (CAN) activity is not fully understood. We analyzed the synchronization between HRV and brain activity in 31 PD patients and 21 age-matched healthy controls using blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals from resting-state functional brain MRI and HRV metrics from finger plethysmography recorded for 7.40 min.

White matter integrity changes and neurocognitive functioning in adult-late onset DM1: a follow-up DTI study.

Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1) is a multisystemic disease that affects gray and white matter (WM) tissues. WM changes in DM1 include increased hyperintensities and altered tract integrity distributed in a widespread manner. However, the precise temporal and spatial progression of the changes are yet undetermined.

Visual dysfunction is associated with cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.

Introduction: Visual dysfunction and cognitive impairment are common in Parkinson's disease (PD) but the precise contribution of lower-level visual impairment to visual-input based cognitive performance has not been extensively characterized in PD.

Methods: We included 49 PD patients and 22 healthy controls (HC). Lower-level visual function tests [high and low contrast visual acuity (HCVA and LCVA) and contrast sensitivity (CS)] and a neuropsychological battery (involving visual cognition) were performed.

Microglia enable mature perineuronal nets disassembly upon anesthetic ketamine exposure or 60-Hz light entrainment in the healthy brain.

Perineuronal nets (PNNs), components of the extracellular matrix, preferentially coat parvalbumin-positive interneurons and constrain critical-period plasticity in the adult cerebral cortex. Current strategies to remove PNN are long-lasting, invasive, and trigger neuropsychiatric symptoms. Here, we apply repeated anesthetic ketamine as a method with minimal behavioral effect.

Transcriptional signatures of synaptic vesicle genes define myotonic dystrophy type I neurodegeneration.

Aim: To delineate the neurogenetic profiles of brain degeneration patterns in myotonic dystrophy type I (DM1).

Methods: In two cohorts of DM1 patients, brain maps of volume loss (VL) and neuropsychological deficits (NDs) were intersected to large-scale transcriptome maps provided by the Allen Human Brain Atlas (AHBA). For validation, neuropathological and RNA analyses were performed in a small series of DM1 brain samples.

Individual-based morphological brain network organization and its association with autistic symptoms in young children with autism spectrum disorder.

Individual-based morphological brain networks built from T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reflect synchronous maturation intensities between anatomical regions at the individual level. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a socio-cognitive and neurodevelopmental disorder with high neuroanatomical heterogeneity, but the specific patterns of morphological networks in ASD remain largely unexplored at the individual level. In this study, individual-based morphological networks were constructed by using high-resolution structural MRI data from 40 young children with ASD (age range: 2-8 years) and 38 age-, gender-, and handedness-matched typically developing children (TDC).

High-Order Interdependencies in the Aging Brain.

Brain interdependencies can be studied from either a structural/anatomical perspective ("structural connectivity") or by considering statistical interdependencies ("functional connectivity" [FC]). Interestingly, while structural connectivity is by definition pairwise (white-matter fibers project from one region to another), FC is not. However, most FC analyses only focus on pairwise statistics and they neglect higher order interactions.