Introduction Art and Religion have accompanied the history of human kind since primordial times, undergoing changes with evolution, being interconnected or separated in antithesis in some historical ...periods. Nevertheless both are eliciting the idea of “Sublime” affecting in a greater or lesser degree the life of individuals in our society. A curious interconnection with psychosis is seen in two peculiar conditions: Stendhal and Jerusalem syndromes. Objectives Starting from the consideration of Art and Religion in the Idealistic philosophy the relationship between Stendhal and Jerusalem syndromes, which lead to acute transient psychotic episodes in tourists with psychic and somatic symptoms, is examined. Aims This work aims to spread the knowledge about the two syndromes, to highlight analogies between them, and finally to summarize and show a possible connection between the modern findings in neuroaesthetics and Stendhal syndrome. Method The work is of qualitative type and mainly descriptive: all the existing evidence on the topic and with possible connections to it was brought together, summarised, and compared leading to new possible ideas for the future. Results A hypothetical psycho-pathophysiological mechanism is proposed, based on the psychoanalysis, psychology, genetic, and the new findings in neuroaesthetic (especially connected to Stendhal syndrome), but more research is needed. Conclusion The influence of Art and Religion culminating in Stendhal syndrome and Jerusalem syndrome, based on their comparison, could be regarded as “tourist syndromes” or as a “tourist's transient psychotic episode” differentiating the object of psychosis as Art in the first and Religion in the second.
Evidence for a relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome in important areas of community living is robust in serious mental illness research. Dysfunctional attitudes (defeatist ...performance beliefs and asocial beliefs) have been identified as intervening variables in this causal chain. This study seeks to expand upon previous research by longitudinally testing the link between neurocognition and community participation (i.e. time in community-based activity) through dysfunctional attitudes and motivation.
Adult outpatients with serious mental illness (N = 175) participated, completing follow-up assessments approximately 6 months after initial assessment. Path analysis tested relationships between baseline neurocognition, emotion perception, functional skills, dysfunctional attitudes, motivation, and outcome (i.e. community participation) at baseline and follow-up.
Path models demonstrated two pathways to community participation. The first linked neurocognition and community participation through functional skills, defeatist performance beliefs, and motivation. A second pathway linked asocial beliefs and community participation, via a direct path passing through motivation. Model fit was excellent for models predicting overall community participation at baseline and, importantly, at follow-up.
The existence of multiple pathways to community participation in a longitudinal model supports the utility of multi-modal interventions for serious mental illness (i.e. treatment packages that build upon individuals' strengths while addressing the array of obstacles to recovery) that feature dysfunctional attitudes and motivation as treatment targets.
Over the last decades advances in understanding the molecular bases of the close relationship between nutrition, metabolism, and diseases have been impressive. However, there are always novel ...frontiers coming up and epigenetics is one of these. Sirtuins, are pivotal factors in the control of metabolic pathways according to nutrient availability. In the present study we evaluated the effect of nutrient deprivation on expression, DNA methylation and chromatin status of the sirtuin genes.
We performed these studies in mouse hepatoma cells, that were grown in standard medium, or in media containing low glucose concentration, or no glucose, or no amino acids. We applied quantitative real-time PCR to cDNA, methylation-enriched DNA and nuclease-treated DNA in order to evaluate gene expression, DNA methylation, and chromatin condensation, respectively. This study shows that the expression of sirtuin genes varies following nutrient deprivation. Moreover, we observed that changes of DNA methylation and chromatin condensation occur at the transcription start site of sirtuin genes following nutrient deprivation.
Epigenetic mechanisms may have a role in the sirtuin response to nutrient deprivations in cultured hepatoma cells. Replicating these results in vivo to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the epigenetic control of sirtuin expression following nutrient deprivations might open up novel therapeutic possibilities to cure metabolic diseases and promote human health.
•Nutrient deprivation modifies the epigenetic status and the expression of sirtuin genes.•Amino acid or glucose deprivation modifies the methylation status of sirutin TSS.•Amino acid or glucose deprivation modifies the expression of sirutin genes.•Amino acid or glucose deprivation alters the chromatin condensation of sirtuin TSS.
In early 2021 we met with Carol Tyler over Zoom to discuss her comics, her participation in the underground comix community, and her forthcoming work, The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of ...My Grief. Tyler shared her experiences making Fab 4 Mania: A Beatles Obsession and the Concert of a Lifetime as well as Soldier's Heart: The Campaign to Understand My WWII Veteran Father : a Daughter's Memoir while we communed over our love of comics and how the form is able to capture distinct experiences of trauma and grief, while making a good story. In our era filled with grief and loss, comics memoir persists as a medium that depicts such human feelings through image and text, while allowing us to find optimism in the fragile beauty of our world.
The Octopus vulgaris arm is a muscular hydrostat mainly composed of closely packed incompressible muscle tissue and it has virtually unlimited degrees of freedom. The mechanical function of this ...special structure depends on the organization of muscle cells in the various muscle groups, the distribution of muscle and nerve cells along the arm and the connective tissue/muscle relation. Here we characterized the distribution of the muscle and the nerve cells along the arm. To do this, we used histological (Nissl staining and Sirius red connective staining) and immunohistochemical reactions ( alpha Actin, P0 and beta III Tubulin) to identify cell types and estimate the ratio between the volumes occupied by the nervous and the muscle systems along the arm. We thus obtained a comprehensive view on the structural organization of sensory and motor components acting at different levels along an octopus arm. Given the increasing interest to bio-roboticists in highly flexible biological structures this study may provide important insights for the design of abiomimetic arm.
Octopus vulgaris (Cuvier, 1797) is an ideal animal model for studying generation and control of the movements of flexible arms. The octopus can bend its arms in all directions, vary the stiffness of ...its entire arm or part of it, and grasp objects by whole-arm manipulation. Movements and behavior are driven by central and peripheral control stations which are hierarchically organized. Sensory-motor integration appears to play a major role in motor control, both centrally and peripherally. Mechanical and chemical stimuli to the octopus arm may act peripherally, inducing local arm reflexes, or they may act upon the central nervous system which processes them further. Here we investigate sensory pathways in the nervous system of the octopus arm. Sensory information appears to be transmitted via different routes to the peripheral and central stations. This separation may ensure that information from effective stimuli is conserved at the periphery while also travelling to a higher central level for higher order processing. Our findings are relevant to the field of muscular-hydrostat biomechanics as they may aid our understanding of peripheral control paradigms underlying the movement of highly flexible appendages.
In Spring 2020, Vera Camden and Valentino Zullo, American editors of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics sat down with Derf Backderf to discuss his new book, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. ...Highlighting how important this work is as a graphic monument to the 50
th
anniversary of the May 4 shootings, they spoke with Derf about his journalistic training, his development as a cartoonist, and his interest in depicting regional events that sustain global interest. Primarily featuring his new book, the conversation focuses on the power of the comics form to witness historical trauma and unbury victims through the drawn image, including those murdered on the Kent State University campus in 1970.
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