Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that causes an impairment in both the upper and lower motor neurons. The recent description of numerous non-motor signs points to an ...involvement of the neocortex networks that is more complex than was previously believed. Paired associative stimulation (PAS), a combination of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and peripheral nerve stimulation, can enhance motor output in the contralateral hand through an NMDA-mediated sensorimotor mechanism.
To describe the effects of PAS on ALS patients before and after Riluzole intake compared with healthy subjects.
PAS was used to detect differences between 24 newly-diagnosed ALS patients and 25 age-matched healthy controls. MEP amplitude from the abductor pollicis brevis was considered before PAS, immediately after (T0) and after 10 (T10), 20 (T20), 30 (T30) and 60 (T60) minutes. Statistical significance was calculated using RM-ANOVA.
In healthy controls, PAS significantly increased MEP amplitude at T10, T20 and T30 (p < 0.05). In ALS patients, a significant increase in MEP amplitude was also observed after 60 min (p < 0.05), thus demonstrating NMDA-mediated enhanced facilitatory plasticity. After two weeks of riluzole intake, no MEP amplitude increase was evident after PAS at any time point. In three monomelic-onset ALS patients, a long lasting sensorimotor facilitation was evident only in the hemisphere corresponding to the affected side and appeared in the opposite hemisphere when the patients manifested contralateral symptoms.
PAS may be considered a useful tool when investigating NMDA-mediated neocortical networks in ALS patients and the modulation of such networks after anti-glutamatergic drug intake.
•Integrative networks in ALS are evaluable by paired associative stimulation (PAS).•The MEP amplitude increase after PAS lasts 1 h in ALS, 30 min in controls.•Riluzole assumption nullifies MEP increase in ALS patients.•Integrative networks are facilitated in ALS patients by glutamatergic mechanisms.
The presence of Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) dysfunction is defined by albumin quotient (QALB) and characterize a group of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients at clinical onset. We evaluated the ...concentration in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 87 cytokines, to better characterize the CSF inflammatory pattern in presence of BBB damage.
In an exploratory cohort, CSF cytokines were evaluated by means of Multiplex technology (Bio-Plex Pro-Human Cytokine, GF and Diabetes 27-Plex Panel, Bio-Plex Pro-Human Chemokines 40-Plex Panel, Bio-Plex Pro-Human Inflammation Assays 37-Plex Panel) in a cohort of Other Not Inflammatory Neurological Disorders (ONIND) and in cohort of patients with MS, stratified according to BBB damage into QALB+ and QALB− MS patients. In the validation cohort, we evaluated the relevant molecules in a cohort of MS patients, stratified again into QALB+ and QALB−, including also Neurofilament Light (NfL) and Chitinase 3-like 1 (CHI3L1) CSF concentration.
While MIP-1α, CXCL-13, and CCL-22 CSF concentrations were higher in both MS groups compared to ONIND, in QALB+ MS CSF concentrations of CXCL-9 (17.85 ± 4.69 pg/mL), CXCL-10 (476.5 ± 324.3 pg/mL), and IL-16 (96.08 ± 86.17 pg/mL) were higher than in QALB− MS (8.98 ± 5368 pg/mL, p < 0.005, 281.0 ± 180.9 pg/mL, p < 0.05, and 47.35 ± 36.87 pg/mL, p < 0.005, respectively) and ONIND (8.98 ± 5368 pg/mlL, p < 0.005, 281.0 ± 180.9 pg/mL, p < 0.005, and 47.35 ± 36.87 pg/mL, p < 0.001, respectively). A strong correlation was observed between CXCL-9 and CXCL-10 in all MS groups (all r>0.75, all p < 0.001). In the validation cohort again CXCL-10 CSF concentration were higher in QALB+ MS than in QALB− MS (94.25 ± 64.75 vs 153.8 ± 99.52, p < 0.05), while no difference was observed in serum. CSF NfL (1642 ± 1963 vs 3231 ± 3492 pg/mL, p < 0.05) and CHI3L1 (183.9 ± 86.62 vs 262 ± 137.5 ng/mL, p < 0.05) were increased in QALB+ MS.
BBB damage in MS is linked to a specific CSF cytokines pattern (CXCL-9, CXCL-10, IL-16), that are also involved in astrocyte-microglia interaction. To what extent their continuous production in the CNS may mark a more severe disease course merits to be investigated.
Some aspects of endometrial cancer (EC) preoperative work-up are still controversial, and debatable are the roles played by lymphadenectomy and radical surgery. Proper preoperative EC staging can ...help design a tailored surgical treatment, and this study aims to propose a new algorithm able to predict extrauterine disease diffusion. 293 EC patients were consecutively enrolled, and age, BMI, children's number, menopausal status, contraception, hormone replacement therapy, hypertension, histological grading, clinical stage, and serum HE4 and CA125 values were preoperatively evaluated. In order to identify before surgery the most important variables able to classify EC patients based on FIGO stage, we adopted a new statistical approach consisting of two-steps: 1) Random Forest with its relative variable importance; 2) a novel algorithm able to select the most representative Regression Tree (RERT) from an ensemble method. RERT, built on the above mentioned variables, provided a sensitivity, specificity, NPV and PPV of 90%, 76%, 94% and 65% respectively, in predicting FIGO stage > I. Notably, RERT outperformed the prediction ability of HE4, CA125, Logistic Regression and single cross-validated Regression Tree. Such algorithm has great potential, since it better identifies the true early-stage patients, thus providing concrete support in the decisional process about therapeutic options to be performed.
In a 1988 case the US Supreme Court stunned the bankruptcy law community when it refused to rule on the continued vitality of the new value exception in the Bankruptcy Code of 1978. Despite the ...court's insistence that its decision was not to be viewed as commenting on the new value exception's survival, many courts have treated the decision as an occasion to re-examine the current state of the new value exception. However, these courts have failed until recently to follow the Supreme Court's rules of statutory construction - that silence in the legislative history will not be presumed to change pre-code practices absent a clear and unambiguous indication in the code to the contrary. Accordingly, these courts have produced a divergence of opinions, with some courts holding that the new value exception survives and others concluding that the exception has been eliminated by the codification of the absolute priority rule.
A
bstract
When a (super) conformal field theory is placed on a non-trivial manifold, the (super) conformal symmetry is broken. However, it is still possible to derive broken Ward identities for these ...broken symmetries, which provide additional constraints on the theory. We derive and apply the broken Ward identities associated with the (super) conformal group on the thermal manifold
M
β
=
S
β
1
×
ℝ
d
−
1
and
M
=
T
2
×
ℝ
d
−
2
. The novel constraints not only systematically reproduce known results, including an implicit formulation of the generalized Cardy formula, but also elegantly relate the thermal energy spectrum with the conformal spectrum.
Multicriticality in Yang-Lee edge singularity Lencsés, Máté; Miscioscia, Alessio; Mussardo, Giuseppe ...
The journal of high energy physics,
02/2023, Letnik:
2023, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A
bstract
In this paper we study the non-unitary deformations of the two-dimensional Tricritical Ising Model obtained by coupling its two spin ℤ
2
odd operators to imaginary magnetic fields. Varying ...the strengths of these imaginary magnetic fields and adjusting correspondingly the coupling constants of the two spin ℤ
2
even fields, we establish the presence of two universality classes of infrared fixed points on the critical surface. The first class corresponds to the familiar Yang-Lee edge singularity, while the second class to its tricritical version. We argue that these two universality classes are controlled by the conformal non-unitary minimal models
M
(2
,
5) and
M
(2
,
7) respectively, which is supported by considerations based on
PT
symmetry and the corresponding extension of Zamolodchikov’s
c
-theorem, and also verified numerically using the truncated conformal space approach. Our results are in agreement with a previous numerical study of the lattice version of the Tricritical Ising Model
1
. We also conjecture the classes of universality corresponding to higher non-unitary multicritical points obtained by perturbing the conformal unitary models with imaginary coupling magnetic fields.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has forced parents and children to adopt significant changes in their daily routine, which has been a big challenge for families, with important implications ...for family stress. In this study, we aimed to analyze the potential risk and protective factors for parents' and children's well-being during a potentially traumatic event such as the COVID-19 quarantine. Specifically, we investigated parents' and children's well-being, parental stress, and children's resilience. The study involved 463 Italian parents of children aged 5-17. All participants completed an online survey consisting of the Psychological General Well Being Index (PGWB) to assess parental well-being, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to measure children's well-being, the Parent Stress Scale (PSS) to investigate parental stress, and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-R) to measure children's resilience. The results show that confinement measures and changes in daily routine negatively affect parents' psychological dimensions, thus exposing children to a significant risk for their well-being. Our results also detect some risk factors for psychological maladjustments, such as parental stress, lower levels of resilience in children, changes in working conditions, and parental psychological, physical, or genetic problems. In this study, we attempted to identify the personal and contextual variables involved in the psychological adjustment to the COVID-19 quarantine to identify families at risk for maladjustment and pave the way for ad hoc intervention programs intended to support them. Our data show promising results for the early detection of the determinants of families' psychological health. It is important to focus attention on the needs of families and children-including their mental health-to mitigate the health and economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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