•We provide the first quantitative assessment of neurocognitive theories of obesity.•These results were obtained with quantitative meta-analyses of fMRI studies.•Overall, we provide support for an ...incentive sensitization theory of obesity.•Obese individuals have greater activation of reward regions for visual food cues.•The brain of obese individuals is more sensitive to hunger and less to satiety.
The dysregulation of food intake in chronic obesity has been explained by different theories. To assess their explanatory power, we meta-analyzed 22 brain-activation imaging studies. We found that obese individuals exhibit hyper-responsivity of the brain regions involved in taste and reward for food-related stimuli. Consistent with a Reward Surfeit Hypothesis, obese individuals exhibit a ventral striatum hyper-responsivity in response to pure tastes, particularly when fasting. Furthermore, we found that obese subjects display more frequent ventral striatal activation for visual food cues when satiated: this continued processing within the reward system, together with the aforementioned evidence, is compatible with the Incentive Sensitization Theory. On the other hand, we did not find univocal evidence in favor of a Reward Deficit Hypothesis nor for a systematic deficit of inhibitory cognitive control. We conclude that the available brain activation data on the dysregulated food intake and food-related behavior in chronic obesity can be best framed within an Incentive Sensitization Theory. Implications of these findings for a brain-based therapy of obesity are briefly discussed.
To give a historical perspective of Antonio Scarpa's contributions to otology, specifically the discovery of the inner ear organs as the foundation for the experimental work that followed.
Scarpa's ...original descriptions of the human inner ear were translated from the Latin text, and his illustrations were analyzed and compared with current knowledge.
Antonio Scarpa's anatomic and clinical studies place him among the great scientists of the eighteenth century. His discoveries about the inner ear established the limit of what could be learned without advanced histologic techniques and provided the foundation for the work that eventually led to the modern understanding of ear physiology.
The tumor interstitial fluid (TIF) is a fluid phase present in the extracellular space of all tumors whose importance in oncology is seldom recognized. In order to stimulate other researchers to give ...it the due importance, a review of the available data (including our own) is provided. An hypothesis is presented for the genesis, fate and role of the TIF in the processes of invasion, growth and metastatization. Open questions regarding the TIF's role in tumor response to therapy are raised.
We have considered a 1 year first-aid survey and focused a 6 checked mesentery vascular traumatic tearing cases. We have valued some hypotheses on pathogenic mechanism assumptions about these ...vascular injuries in abdomen trauma. Among these, we have focused our attention on the relationship between visceral stretching from alimentary bolus and abdominal vascular trauma. During diagnosis, we valued the importance of abdominal sounding, of echotomography and Computerized Tomography; the first one seems to be remarkable for reliability and quickness of accomplishment. In one case we have performed laparoscopic diagnostic-therapeutic approach. We suggested some standards for surgery choice related to injury amount. Monitoring is particularly important for those patients it can performed by invasive or image means seen that the unacknowledged endo-abdominal injury increases mortality by about 5-65%.
