Environment and obesity.

The aim of this review was to identify and, particularly, to classify all the numerous environmental factors that play a significant role in the environment-dependent body weight dysregulation. The main environmental obesogenic factors are related to build environment such as city plan, transport and school, inactivity, TV and screen-related immobility, smart-phone, video games; they are followed by agroalimentary factors such as imbalanced ingredients, pollutants, speed eating, portion size, sweet drinks, nibbling and junk foods supported by publicity, sociocultural and ethnic factors beside the global environmental changes and seasonal light/dark photoperiod. Beside the analytical examination of the obesogenic factors it is mentioned the cumulative effect that tends to coexist in the same population and thus magnify their pathogenic consequences.

Neurosurgery of the future: Deep brain stimulations and manipulations.

Important advances are afoot in the field of neurosurgery-particularly in the realms of deep brain stimulation (DBS), deep brain manipulation (DBM), and the newly introduced refinement "closed-loop" deep brain stimulation (CLDBS). Use of closed-loop technology will make both DBS and DBM more precise as procedures and will broaden their indications. CLDBS utilizes as feedback a variety of sources of electrophysiological and neurochemical afferent information about the function of the brain structures to be treated or studied.

Biomarkers of glioblastoma multiforme.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and lethal primary malignancy of the central nervous system. Modern treatments using surgery and/or chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy are improving survival of patients, but prognosis is still very poor, depending inter alia on the patients' individual genomic traits. Most GBMs are primary; however, secondary GBMs have a better prognosis.

Personalized medicine in neurosurgery.

Personalized medicine (PM) in neurosurgery is possible today thanks to newly accessible imaging technologies, and to genomic, proteomic and epigenetic biomarkers capable of providing clinically useful information about individual patients. PM is becoming increasingly indispensable in neurosurgery because this specialty offers a wide range of therapeutic options such as surgery and/or radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. Moreover, the effectiveness of these procedures varies from one patient to another, depending inter alia on the patients' individual genomic traits.

Metabolic and humoral mechanisms of feeding and genesis of the ATP/ADP/AMP concept.

The organization of the regulatory system of feeding and of the parallel metabolic changes is schematized by a cyclical cartoon depicting the 8 phases of regulation. As I proposed in 1974, the cycle starts with the detection by hypothalamic sensors of decrease of the ATP/ADP/AMP turnover that reflects the post-prandial slow decline of general metabolic rate. That detection is translated into a signal of hunger.

Neurosurgical treatments of intractable pain.

Intractable pain may require neurosurgical intervention. This review provides a critical update of neurosurgical techniques available to treat this condition. Neurosurgery can affect pain's pathways from the receptor up to the "centers" of its reception and perception, either by destroying or by stimulating them.

Prenatal imprinting of postnatal specific appetites and feeding behavior.

Epigenetic influences on the fetus's genotype have been shown to occur during intrauterine life. Experimentally imposed extracellular dehydration in pregnant rats (a model for human hyponatremia caused by gravidic vomiting) brings about a dramatic enhancement of salt appetite not only in the dam, but also in offspring when they reach adulthood. This phenomenon has been verified in human newborn infants and adults whose mothers experienced nausea and/or vomiting during pregnancy.

Metabolic mechanism of wakefulness (and hunger) and sleep (and satiety): Role of adenosine triphosphate and hypocretin and other peptides.

The concurrent background level of metabolic activity may control state of vigilance, promoting wakefulness (and hunger) when it is low, or sleep (and satiety) when it is high. In a series of experiments, we have shown that sleep is dependent on feeding, but only because of the metabolic consequences of food ingestion. These consequences are sensed by glioneuronal populations (at least in the rostromedial hypothalamus), which probably respond to channel-bound adenosine triphosphate/diphosphate turnover (ischymetric monitoring) rather than to the binding of such downstream molecules as adenosine and cytochrome c oxidase.

Depression and neurosurgery: past, present, and future.

Neurosurgery has been used to treat depression since 1935, when open surgery was first used to isolate relatively large areas of the limbic system from the rest of the brain. Soon thereafter, more selective leucotomies were performed based on a growing knowledge of the role played by brain limbic circuitry in processing the emotions. Subsequent discovery of the effectiveness in depression of both electroconvulsive therapy and various pharmacotherapies raised serious doubts about "psychosurgical" treatments, but the introduction of stereotactic techniques revived interest in the selective-lesion, neurobiology-based approach.

A hormone-based characterization and taxonomy of stress: possible usefulness in management.

"Stress" is being increasingly implicated in the pathogenesis of a variety of psychological and somatic disturbances. Because responses to stress can vary widely, the absence of a suitable, pathophysiologically based taxonomy of stress responses has hindered physicians in their efforts to devise treatments tailored to deal with specific stress-related problems. It is proposed herein that classical endocrinologic criteria be employed to characterize stress responses in terms of the associated hormonal secretion ratios and their temporal evolution.

Behavioral, plasma, and calorimetric changes related to food texture modification in men.

We hypothesized that food texture modifications might alter anticipatory reflexes, feeding behavior, and the postabsorptive consequences of ingestion. Two sets of complete meals with different textures but the same macronutrient composition were prepared. The first set was either a soup containing chunks of food (mixture) or the same soup blended until smooth (purée).

Body weight, body composition, and energy metabolism in lean and obese Zucker rats fed soybean oil or butter.

Background: Dietary fat composition is thought to affect body weight regulation independent of the amount of fat ingested.

Objective: We analyzed the feeding behavior, body weight gain, body composition, and energy metabolism in lean and obese rats fed a diet in which fat was in the form of either butter or soybean oil.

Design: Ten lean (Fa/?) and 10 obese (fa/fa) adult Zucker rats were divided into 4 groups according to a 2 x 2 experimental design.