Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) is a form of neurostimulation in which a constant, low current is delivered directly to the brain area of interest by small electrodes. The overall aim ...of this study was to examine and monitor the modulation of brain activity by electroencephalogram (EEG) in the frequency domain during tDCS in the resting state. To this end, we considered the modulation of spontaneous EEG to be a marker of the perturbation that was induced through the direct current (1.5 mA for 15 min). In all conditions (anodal, cathodal, and sham), an active electrode was placed over the right posterior parietal cortex, and a reference electrode was placed on the ipsilateral deltoid muscle. The EEG was recorded using a 64-channel system. The effect of tDCS was limited to the alpha rhythm, and the anodal stimulation significantly affected the alpha rhythm, whereas the cathodal stimulation did not elicit any modifications. Further, we observed modulation of alpha activity in areas that were stimulated directly through tDCS and in anterior noncontiguous areas. Finally, the anodal effect peaked 7.5 min after stimulation and decreased gradually over time. Our study demonstrates that in the resting brain, monocephalic anodal tDCS over posterior parietal areas alters ongoing brain activity, specifically in the alpha band rhythm. Our data can be used to fine-tune tDCS protocols in neurorehabilitation settings.
Emotional perception has been extensively studied, but only a few studies have investigated the brain activity preceding exposure to emotional stimuli, especially when they are triggered by the ...subject himself. Here, we sought to investigate the emotional expectancy by means of movement related cortical potentials (MRCPs) in a self-paced task, in which the subjects begin the affective experience by pressing a key. In this experiment, participants had to alternatively press two keys to concomitantly display positive, negative, neutral, and scrambled images extracted from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS). Each key press corresponded to a specific emotional category, and the experimenter communicated the coupling before each trial so that the subjects always knew the valence of the forthcoming picture. The main results of the present study included a bilateral positive activity in prefrontal areas during expectancy of more arousing pictures (positive and negative) and an early and sustained positivity over occipital areas, especially during negative expectancy. In addition, we observed more pronounced and anteriorly distributed Late Positive Potential (LPPs) components in the emotional conditions. In conclusion, these results show that emotional expectancy can influence brain activity in both motor preparation and stimulus perception, suggesting enhanced pre-processing in the to-be-stimulated areas. We propose that before a predictable emotional stimulus, both appetitive and defensive motivational systems act to facilitate the forthcoming processing of survival-relevant contents by means of an enhancement of attention toward more arousing pictures.
A realistic body representation needs to be constantly updated. In case of physiological modifications, body representations integrate information coming from different sensory sources, including the ...sense of touch. Previous studies described transient modifications of these representations following illusory distortions. In this single case study, we documented the changes occurred in lower-level, primary somatosensory, and higher-level representations, in a case of upper arms elongation.
We explored effects of arm lengthening on primary tactile perception (sensitivity and acuity), an implicit perceptual measure of body size (tactile distance judgement), body image (Daurat-Hmelijak test), and peri-personal space representation (audio-tactile interaction task).
We show that patient's arm representation was changed after surgery. Specifically, we observed significant changes on tactile distance judgments, body image test and audio-tactile interaction task; also even though no changes were found on primary tactile perception a significant modification emerged in tactile acuity.
These findings are in line with evidence of cortical reorganization after arm elongation. They also support the view that the body representation of achondroplasics are modified after body-size reconstruction, and became similar to that of healthy controls.
The purpose of the MU-RAY project is to develop an innovative approach to the study of volcanoes and their monitoring based on a particle physics approach. The test site is Vesuvio: one of the higher ...risk volcanoes in the world. In this context, muon radiography is an innovative method of enormous impact. This is an imaging technique which relies on the measurement, by means of a cosmic ray telescope, of the absorption in the volcano of muons with near-horizontal trajectories, produced by the interactions of cosmic rays with the atmosphere. Since 2003 this technique has been successfully used on volcanoes in Japan, providing pictures of their vertices with resolutions much better than those obtained with the traditional techniques based on gravimeters. Researchers from Naples and Florence are currently involved in the construction and testing of a prototype telescope based on the use of bars of plastic scintillator with a triangular section whose scintillation light is collected by special fibres (wave length shifters) and transported to SiPM (Silicon photomultipliers). A complete prototype telescope, consisting of three xy scintillation planes and 1m2 active area has been assembled and is now under test.
Purpose
The body mass index (BMI) may be associated with an increased incidence and aggressiveness of urological cancers. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the impact of the BMI on survival in ...patients with T1G3 non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).
Methods
A total of 1155 T1G3 NMIBC patients from 13 academic institutions were retrospectively reviewed and patients administered adjuvant intravesical Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy with maintenance were included. Multivariable Cox regression analysis was performed to identify factors predictive of recurrence and progression.
Results
After re-TURBT, 288 patients (27.53%) showed residual high-grade NMIBC, while 867 (82.89%) were negative. During follow-up, 678 (64.82%) suffered recurrence, and 303 (30%) progression, 150 (14.34%) died of all causes, and 77 (7.36%) died of bladder cancer. At multivariate analysis, tumor size (hazard ratio HR:1.3;
p
= 0.001), and multifocality (HR:1.24;
p
= 0.004) were significantly associated with recurrence (c-index for the model:55.98). Overweight (HR: 4;
p
< 0.001) and obesity (HR:5.33
p
< 0.001) were significantly associated with an increased risk of recurrence. Addition of the BMI to a model that included standard clinicopathological factors increased the C-index by 9.9. For progression, we found that tumor size (HR:1.63;
p
< 0.001), multifocality (HR:1.31;
p
= 0.01) and concomitant CIS (HR: 2.07;
p
< 0.001) were significant prognostic factors at multivariate analysis (C-index 63.8). Overweight (HR: 2.52;
p
< 0.001) and obesity (HR: 2.521
p
< 0.001) were significantly associated with an increased risk of progression. Addition of the BMI to a model that included standard clinicopathological factors increased the C-index by 1.9.
Conclusions
The BMI could have a relevant role in the clinical management of T1G3 NMIBC, if associated with bladder cancer recurrence and progression. In particular, this anthropometric factor should be taken into account at initial diagnosis and in therapeutic strategy decision making.
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