Differential microRNA expression profiles between young and old lung adenocarcinoma patients.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, and approximately 80% of cases are non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Recently, the incidence of NSCLC has been quickly increasing, while the age of patients at diagnosis is decreasing. To date, it is still controversial whether younger patients have better or worse outcomes compared with their older counterparts.

Pre-infestation of Tomato Plants by Aphids Modulates Transmission-Acquisition Relationship among Whiteflies, Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (TYLCV) and Plants.

Herbivory defense systems in plants are largely regulated by jasmonate-(JA) and salicylate-(SA) signaling pathways. Such defense mechanisms may impact insect feeding dynamic, may also affect the transmission-acquisition relationship among virus, plants and vectoring insects. In the context of the tomato - whitefly - Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (TYLCV) biological model, we tested the impact of pre-infesting plants with a non-vector insect (aphid ) on feeding dynamics of a vector insect (whitefly ) as well as virus transmission-acquisition.

Egas Moniz: 90 Years (1927-2017) from Cerebral Angiography.

In June 2017 we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the pioneer discovery of cerebral angiography, the seminal imaging technique used for visualizing cerebral blood vessels and vascular alterations as well as other intracranial disorders. Egas Moniz (1874-1955) was the first to describe the use of this revolutionary technique which, until 1975 (when computed tomography, CT, scan was introduced in the clinical practice), was the sole diagnostic tool to provide an imaging of cerebral vessels and therefore alterations due to intracranial pathology. Moniz introduced in the clinical practice this fundamental and important diagnostic tool.

The Neuroanatomy of the Reticular Nucleus Locus Coeruleus in Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) features the accumulation of β-amyloid and Tau aggregates, which deposit as extracellular plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), respectively. Neuronal Tau aggregates may appear early in life, in the absence of clinical symptoms. This occurs in the brainstem reticular formation and mostly within Locus Coeruleus (LC), which is consistently affected during AD.

The Role of the Autonomic Nervous System in the Pathophysiology of Obesity.

Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions globally and represents a major cause of comorbidities, mostly related to cardiovascular disease. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction has a two-way relationship with obesity. Indeed, alterations of the ANS might be involved in the pathogenesis of obesity, acting on different pathways.

Repeated Mandibular Extension in Rat: A Procedure to Modulate the Cerebral Arteriolar Tone.

Previous data have shown both in the rat and in the human that a single mandibular extension lasting 10 min induces a significant important and prolonged reduction in blood pressure and heart rate, affecting also rat pial microcirculation by the release of endothelial factors. In the present work, we assessed whether repeated mandibular extension could further prolong these effects. We performed two mandibular extensions, the second mandibular extension being applied 10 min after the first one.

Extracellular Vesicles in Brain Tumors and Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) can be classified into apoptotic bodies, microvesicles (MVs), and exosomes, based on their origin or size. Exosomes are the smallest and best characterized vesicles which derived from the endosomal system. These vesicles are released from many different cell types including neuronal cells and their functions in the nervous system are investigated.

Genetically-Driven Enhancement of Dopaminergic Transmission Affects Moral Acceptability in Females but Not in Males: A Pilot Study.

Moral behavior has been a key topic of debate for philosophy and psychology for a long time. In recent years, thanks to the development of novel methodologies in cognitive sciences, the question of how we make moral choices has expanded to the study of neurobiological correlates that subtend the mental processes involved in moral behavior. For instance, brain imaging studies have shown that distinct patterns of brain neural activity, associated with emotional response and cognitive processes, are involved in moral judgment.

Short-Term Effects of Chewing on Task Performance and Task-Induced Mydriasis: Trigeminal Influence on the Arousal Systems.

Trigeminal input to the ascending activating system is important for the maintenance of arousal and may affect the discharge of the noradrenergic neurons of the (LC), whose activity influences both vigilance state and pupil size, inducing mydriasis. For this reason, pupil size evaluation is now considered an indicator of LC activity. Since mastication activates trigeminal afferent neurons, the aims of the present study, conducted on healthy adult participants, were to investigate whether chewing a bolus of different hardness may: (1) differentially affect the performance on a cognitive task (consisting in the retrieval of specific target numbers within numerical matrices) and (2) increase the dilatation of the pupil (mydriasis) induced by a haptic task, suggesting a change in LC activation.

Human Pathophysiological Adaptations to the Space Environment.

Space is an extreme environment for the human body, where during long-term missions microgravity and high radiation levels represent major threats to crew health. Intriguingly, space flight (SF) imposes on the body of highly selected, well-trained, and healthy individuals (astronauts and cosmonauts) pathophysiological adaptive changes akin to an accelerated aging process and to some diseases. Such effects, becoming manifest over a time span of weeks (i.

Multisensory-Based Rehabilitation Approach: Translational Insights from Animal Models to Early Intervention.

Multisensory processes permit combinations of several inputs, coming from different sensory systems, allowing for a coherent representation of biological events and facilitating adaptation to environment. For these reasons, their application in neurological and neuropsychological rehabilitation has been enhanced in the last decades. Recent studies on animals and human models have indicated that, on one hand multisensory integration matures gradually during post-natal life and development is closely linked to environment and experience and, on the other hand, that modality-specific information seems to do not benefit by redundancy across multiple sense modalities and is more readily perceived in unimodal than in multimodal stimulation.

Development of Serotonergic Fibers in the Post-Natal Mouse Brain.

Serotonin (5-HT)-synthetizing neurons, which are confined in the nuclei of the rhombencephalon, provide a pervasive innervation of the central nervous system (CNS) and are involved in the modulation of a plethora of functions in both developing and adult brain. Classical studies have described the post-natal development of serotonergic axons as a linear process of terminal field innervation. However, technical limitations have hampered a fine morphological characterization.

Bilateral Patterns of Repetitive Movements in 6- to 12-Month-Old Infants with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Some patterns of repetitive movements and their frequency have been proved to distinguish infants with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) from infants with Typical Development (TD) and Developmental Delay (DD) from 12 months of life on. The purpose of this study is to investigate if a specific repertoire of repetitive movements is present earlier in life, and if their higher rate and duration could differentiate infants with ASD from infants with DD and TD aged between 6 and 12 months. We conducted a retrospective analysis of video-clips taken from home videos to compare the frequency and the duration of Repetitive Movement Episodes (RMEs) in a sample of 30 children equally distributed among the three groups.

The Combination of Rituximab and Bendamustine as First-Line Treatment Is Highly Effective in the Eradicating Minimal Residual Disease in Follicular Lymphoma: An Italian Retrospective Study.

R-Bendamustine is an effective treatment for follicular lymphoma (FL). Previous large trials demonstrated the prognostic role of the molecular minimal residual disease (MRD) during the most frequently adopted chemotherapeutic regimens, but there are not yet conclusive data about the effect of combination of rituximab (R) and bendamustine in terms of MRD clearance. Thus, the aim of this retrospective study was to assess if and in what extent the combination of rituximab and bendamustine would exert a significant reduction of the molecular disease in 48 previously untreated FL patients.

Focal Stroke in the Developing Rat Motor Cortex Induces Age- and Experience-Dependent Maladaptive Plasticity of Corticospinal System.

Motor system development is characterized by an activity-dependent competition between ipsilateral and contralateral corticospinal tracts (CST). Clinical evidence suggests that age is crucial for developmental stroke outcome, with early lesions inducing a "maladaptive" strengthening of ipsilateral projections from the healthy hemisphere and worse motor impairment. Here, we investigated in developing rats the relation between lesion timing, motor outcome and CST remodeling pattern.

Loud Noise Exposure Produces DNA, Neurotransmitter and Morphological Damage within Specific Brain Areas.

Exposure to loud noise is a major environmental threat to public health. Loud noise exposure, apart from affecting the inner ear, is deleterious for cardiovascular, endocrine and nervous systems and it is associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. In this study we investigated DNA, neurotransmitters and immune-histochemical alterations induced by exposure to loud noise in three major brain areas (cerebellum, hippocampus, striatum) of Wistar rats.

Losing the Warning Signal: Drought Compromises the Cross-Talk of Signaling Molecules in Exposed to Ozone.

Understanding the interactions between drought and acute ozone (O) stress in terms of signaling molecules and cell death would improve the predictions of plant responses to climate change. The aim was to investigate whether drought stress influences the responses of plants to acute episodes of O exposure. In this study, the behavior of 84 Mediterranean evergreen plants was evaluated in terms of cross-talk responses among signaling molecules.

Recruitment and Patch Establishment by Seed in the Seagrass : Importance and Conservation Implications.

Seagrasses are declining globally, and deeper understanding is needed on the recruitment potential and distribution of new populations for many threatened species to support conservation planning in the face of climate change. Recruitment of , a threatened seagrass endemic to the Mediterranean, has long been considered rare due to infrequent flowering, but mounting evidence demonstrates that the species is responding to a changing climate through greater reproductive effort. Due to the fragmentary information on recruit occurrence and distribution, little is known about reproductive success in the species and its contribution to persistence.

Response to Interleukin-1 Inhibitors in 140 Italian Patients with Adult-Onset Still's Disease: A Multicentre Retrospective Observational Study.

Interleukin (IL)-1 plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Adult onset Still's disease (AOSD). To evaluate the efficacy and safety of anakinra (ANA) and canakinumab (CAN) in a large group of AOSD patients. Data on clinical, serological features, and concomitant treatments were retrospectively collected at baseline and after 3, 6, and 12 months from AOSD patients (Yamaguchi criteria) referred by 18 Italian centers.

Pancreatic Beta Cell Identity in Humans and the Role of Type 2 Diabetes.

Pancreatic beta cells uniquely synthetize, store, and release insulin. Specific molecular, functional as well as ultrastructural traits characterize their insulin secretion properties and survival phentoype. In this review we focus on human islet/beta cells, and describe the changes that occur in type 2 diabetes and could play roles in the disease as well as represent possible targets for therapeutical interventions.

Starvation Promotes Autophagy-Associated Maturation of the Ovary in the Giant Freshwater Prawn, .

Limitation of food availability (starvation) is known to influence the reproductive ability of animals. Autophagy is a lysosomal driven degradation process that protects the cell under metabolic stress conditions, such as during nutrient shortage. Whether, and how starvation-induced autophagy impacts on the maturation and function of reproductive organs in animals are still open questions.

Deletion Extents Are Not the Cause of Clinical Variability in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: Does the Interaction between DGCR8 and miRNA-CNVs Play a Major Role?

In humans, the most common genomic disorder is the hemizygous deletion of the chromosome 22q11.2 region, that results in the "22q11.2 deletion syndrome" (22q11.