Life, complexity, and psychotherapy: A systemic perspective on the elusive construct of extra-therapeutic factors.

Study Aims: Despite being mentioned in well-known models of psychotherapeutic change, the concept of extra-therapeutic factors seems to have left the scene across time, eaten away by the progressive refinement of the construct of common factors. Aim of the present study is to better understanding the historical evolution of the concept of extra-therapeutic factors and its importance for psychotherapy today.

Methods: This is a position paper based on a literature review on extra-therapeutic factors and psychotherapy outcome and process.

Characterisation of functional deficits induced by AAV overexpression of alpha-synuclein in rats.

Background: In the last decades different preclinical animal models of Parkinson's disease (PD) have been generated, aiming to mimic the progressive neuronal loss of midbrain dopaminergic (DA) cells as well as motor and non-motor impairment. Among all the available models, AAV-based models of human alpha-synuclein (h-aSYN) overexpression are promising tools for investigation of disease progression and therapeutic interventions.

Objectives: The goal with this work was to characterise the impairment in motor and non-motor domains following nigrostriatal overexpression of h-aSYN and correlate the behavioural deficits with histological assessment of associated pathology.

Experimental Models of SARS-COV-2 Infection in the Central Nervous System.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has raised serious concerns worldwide due to its great impact on human health and forced scientists racing to find effective therapies to control the infection and a vaccine for the virus. To this end, intense research efforts have focused on understanding the viral biology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), responsible for COVID-19. The ever-expanding list of cases, reporting clinical neurological complications in COVID-19 patients, strongly suggests the possibility of the virus invading the nervous system.

Willingness to Receive COVID-19 Booster Vaccine: Associations between Green-Pass, Social Media Information, Anti-Vax Beliefs, and Emotional Balance.

The aims of the present investigation were (i) to determine psychological relapses of COVID-19 booster vaccine; (ii) to identify the determining factors affecting willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine; and (iii) to study the relationship among emotional characteristics (anxiety, stress, depression, optimism), social media information, and the mandatory political choices (i.e., green-pass) in Croatian people.

The State of The Art on Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors in the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic disabling disease that affects the central nervous system. The main consequences of AD include the decline of cognitive functions and language disorders. One of the causes leading to AD is the decrease of neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) levels in the brain, in part due to a higher activity of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), the enzyme responsible for its degradation.

Treatment of lumbar and intrathoracic meningocele: bioethical implications.

Myelomeningocele is  a  congenital malformation caused by a developmental defect of the spinal cord structures. The exactcause is unknown, but different factors have been involved includingradiation, malnutrition, drugs. Myelomeningocele can develop at any point in the spine, but the lumbosacral region is affected in over 75% of cases.

History of use and abuse of X-ray: the early 20th century Italian pediatrics school.

In our paper we report a brief history of the X-rays discovery and discuss the implications of their use and abuse in the Italian pedriatic schools of the early 20th century. Indeed, history of the X-ray treatment in the Italian Pediatric School has not yet been well studied. Even if the scientific experience of many physicians is well known in literature, a summary was missing.

The Discovery of Insulin: An Important Milestone in the History of Medicine.

The discovery of insulin represents an authentic breakthrough, characterized, at the same time, by contrasts, controversies and disputes among scholars, as well as by great disappointments, failures and hopes. It is the story of famous, almost famous and little known people, of serendipities, discoveries and re-discoveries. The discovery of insulin has been a milestone and has truly revolutionized both the therapy and the prognosis of the diabetes, one of the diseases most studied in the history of medicine, whose first mentions trace back to a collection of ancient Egyptian, Indian and Chinese textbooks.

Human Fasciolosis in Iran: A Meta-analysis Study.

Background: Fasciolosis, an infectious disorder with a serious public health burden, is caused by two liver flukes belonging to the genus Fasciola. Iran is among the endemic areas for this disease. This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of human fasciolosis in Iran.

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy: Neuropsychopathological, Therapeutical and Bioethical Aspects.

The progressive supranuclear palsy is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by Parkinsonism, oculomotor abnormalities, early postural instability and cognitive impairment. Neurodegeneration in PSP is associated with tau protein, but the mechanisms by which tau abnormalities lead to cell dysfunction and death are not well understood. Neuro-behavioural problems related to the fear and loss of autonomy can determinate many bioethical implications.

'Infantile convulsions' in the early nineteenth century. Abnormal brain blood flow and leeches, teething and gums' scarification and food and purgatives: the historical contribution of John Clarke (1760-1815).

In this article, we discuss on the role of the British physician and midwifery practitioner John Clarke (1760-1815) in the characterisation of the various types of seizures and epilepsy and related phenomena ('convulsions') occurring in children. In his unfinished work Commentaries on Some of the Most Important Diseases of Children (1815), Clarke discussed the pathophysiology of convulsions and was the first to describe, 12 years before the French neurologist Louis Francois Bravais (1801-1843) and more than 30 years before the Irish-born physician Robert Bentley Todd (1809-1860), the postictal paresis. He believed that convulsions originated from changes in pressure within the ventricles as a consequence of abnormal blood flow to the cerebral vessels.

Orbital dependent coherence temperature and optical anisotropy of VO quasiparticles.

We report on an orbital and temperature dependent study of the onset of coherent quasiparticles in VO single crystal. By using polarized infrared spectroscopy we demonstrate that the electronic coherence temperature is strongly orbital dependent, being about 400 K for [Formula: see text] orbitals and 500 K for the [Formula: see text]. This suggests that VO low energy electrodynamics can be described in terms of two electron liquids differently renormalized by electronic correlations.

Fermi Surface of Metallic V_{2}O_{3} from Angle-Resolved Photoemission: Mid-level Filling of e_{g}^{π} Bands.

Using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we report the first band dispersions and distinct features of the bulk Fermi surface (FS) in the paramagnetic metallic phase of the prototypical metal-insulator transition material V_{2}O_{3}. Along the c axis we observe both an electron pocket and a triangular holelike FS topology, showing that both V 3d a_{1g} and e_{g}^{π} states contribute to the FS. These results challenge the existing correlation-enhanced crystal field splitting theoretical explanation for the transition mechanism and pave the way for the solution of this mystery.

Topologically protected Dirac plasmons and their evolution across the quantum phase transition in a (Bi(1-x)In(x))2Se3 topological insulator.

A 3D Topological Insulator (TI) is an intrinsically stratified electronic material characterized by an insulating bulk and Dirac free electrons at the interface with vacuum or another dielectric. In this paper, we investigate, through terahertz (THz) spectroscopy, the plasmon excitation of Dirac electrons on thin films of (Bi1-xInx)2Se3 TI patterned in the form of a micro-ribbon array, across a Quantum Phase Transition (QPT) from the topological to a trivial insulating phase. The latter is achieved by In doping onto the Bi-site and is characterized by massive electrons at the surface.

Infrared evidence of a Slater metal-insulator transition in NaOsO₃.

The magnetically driven metal-insulator transition (MIT) was predicted by Slater in the fifties. Here a long-range antiferromagnetic (AF) order can open up a gap at the Brillouin electronic band boundary regardless of the Coulomb repulsion magnitude. However, while many low-dimensional organic conductors display evidence for an AF driven MIT, in three-dimensional (3D) systems the Slater MIT still remains elusive.

Tetralogy of Fallot variant with pulmonary atresia (pseudotruncus arteriosus) in a case of maternal PKU syndrome.

The authors report on a child with a rare variant of the Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia also known as Pseudotruncus arteriosus, who was born by a mother affected by classic phenylketonuria (PKU), diet free of phenylalanine until the age of seven years. According to the authors, this is the first example of such rare variant in an offspring of maternal PKU syndrome.

Bilateral congenital absence of internal carotid arteries in a woman with dementia. A case report.

Dysgenesis of THE internal carotid artery is considered a rare condition, present in about 0.01% of subjects. This anomaly is generally asymptomatic and often represents an incidental finding in radiological examinations of the head performed for other reasons.

Incidence and causes of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia in a center of Catania.

Aim And Scope: We conducted this study to estimate the incidence of hyperbilirubinemia in a small neonatal care unit in Catania, Italy, and to determine the underlying causes, which would be of value in identifying and implementing strategies to prevent morbidity from this condition.

Background: Management of hyperbilirubinemia remains a challenge for neonatal medicine because of the risk for serious neurological complications related to the toxicity of bilirubin.

Methods: From January 2006 to January 2007, we screened 525 newborns born at the Neonatal Care Unit of Valsalva Hospital in Catania, Italy.

Branched chain amino acids supplemented with L-acetylcarnitine versus BCAA treatment in hepatic coma: a randomized and controlled double blind study.

Objective: Our earlier study has demonstrated that the administration of L-acetylcarnitine (LAC) improves neurological symptoms and serum parameters in hepatic coma. The aim of this work has been to evaluate the efficacy of the LAC and branched chain amino acids (BCAA) versus BCAA, administered in intravenous infusion, in patients with cirrhotic hepatic coma.

Methods: Forty-eight highly selected patients were enrolled in the study and, after randomization, received blindly LAC+BCAA (n=24) versus BCAA (n=24).

Functional mapping of the promoter region of the GNB2L1 human gene coding for RACK1 scaffold protein.

RACK1 (Receptor for Activated C Kinase 1) is a scaffold protein for different kinases and membrane receptors. Previously, we characterized an age-dependent decline of RACK1 protein expression which could be counteracted with DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) [Corsini, E., et al.

Cognition enhancers between treating and doping the mind.

Memory, attention and creativity represent three different cognitive domains, which are interconnected and contribute the "mental performance" of an individual. Modern neuroscience has investigated some of the neuronal circuits and of the neurotransmitters and molecular events underlying the above-mentioned cognitive functions. Within this renewed reference context, some of the properties of the components of the remedies to increase mental performance have been studied and validated in experimental models and, to date, these substances are named "smart drugs", "memory enhancing drugs" or "nootropic drugs" (from the Greek root noos for mind and tropein for toward).

Development of the first Gateway firefly luciferase vector and use of reverse transcriptase in FLOE (Fluorescently Labeled Oligonucleotide Extension) reactions.

To study promoters we usually use primer extension to map the transcription start site and a panel of PCR generated deletion mutants. This strategy is complex and time-consuming. Therefore, we decided to improve it by using Gateway and FLOE (Fluorescently Labeled Oligonucleotide Extension).

Molecular modelling and enzymatic studies of acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase recognition with paraquat and related compounds.

The potent herbicide paraquat and three other analogues MPP+, MPDP+ and MPTP have a known toxicological profile linked to the ability to damage dopaminergic neurons. Other biological effects were recently addressed to this class of compounds, including the ability to interact with enzymatic targets involved in the Central Nervous System, such as the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and the butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE). A combined molecular modelling and enzymatic study focusing onto their interaction against the AChE and BuChE is reported.

The prion-like protein Doppel (Dpl) interacts with the human receptor for activated C-kinase 1 (RACK1) protein.

Background: Doppel (Dpl) is a homologue of the prion protein (PrPC). In contrast to PrP(C), Dpl is dispensable for prion disease, but appears to have an essential function in male spermatogenesis. Recently, Dpl has been found to be aberrantly expressed in astrocytic and leukaemic tumor specimens, showing a peculiar cytosolic cellular localization.