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Chronic heart failure and depressive disorders have a high prevalence and incidence in the elderly. Several studies have shown how depression tends to exacerbate coexisting chronic heart failure and its clinical outcomes and vice versa, especially in the elderly. The negative synergism between chronic heart failure and depression in the elderly may be approached only taking into account the multifaceted pathophysiological characteristics underlying both these conditions, such as behavioural factors, neurohormonal activation, inflammatory mediators, hypercoagulability and vascular damage. Nevertheless, the pathophysiological link between these two conditions is not well established yet. Despite the high prevalence of depression in chronic heart failure elderly patients and its negative prognostic value, it is often unrecognized especially because of shared symptoms. So the screening of mood disorders, using reliable questionnaires, is recommended in elderly patients with chronic heart failure, even if cannot substitute a diagnostic interview by mental health professionals. In this setting, treatment of depression requires a multidisciplinary approach including: psychotherapy, antidepressants, exercise training and electroconvulsive therapy. Pharmacological therapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, despite conflicting results, improves quality of life but does not guarantee better outcomes. Exercise training is effective in improving quality of life and prognosis but at the same time cardiac rehabilitation services are vastly underutilized.

Introduction. Gastrointestinal dysfunctions represent one of the most common non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). Several lines of evidence suggest that enteric accumula- tion of α-synuclein (αS) inclusions (a hallmark of PD) and colonic inflammation could contribute to bowel motor dysfunctions since the earliest stages of PD. However, current knowledge does not allow to establish a clear relationship between altered mucosal permeabil- ity, enteric inflammation, bowel dysmotility and PD pathology. This study examined concom- itantly enteric αS accumulation, mucosal permeability, bowel inflammation and in vitro colonic motor activity in a transgenic model of PD, before onset of neurodegeneration in the CNS. Methods. PrP human A53T αS transgenic (Tg) mice, Line G2-3 develop a progres- sive PD-like neurological and motor deficiency after 9 months of age, accompanied by neuronal degeneration and pathological accumulation of aggregated αS in the central nervous system (CNS). Animals were sacrificed at the age of 3, 6 and 9 months, in order to evaluate the presence and timing of enteric αS inclusions, alterations of intestinal mucosal barrier and colonic inflammation since the very early phases of the disease, before the overt develop- ment of CNS dysfunction. Blood samples were collected to evaluate circulating lipopolysac- charide (LPS) levels (an indirect index of intestinal permeability) by ELISA assay; then distal colon was excised and processed for: 1) expression and aggregation of αS (western blot); 2) tissue tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin-1beta (IL-1β) (ELISA). Colonic longitu- dinal and circular muscle preparations were set up in organ baths with Krebs solution, and connected to isometric transducers to record contractions elicited by electrical stimulation (ES, 10 Hz, 0.5 ms, 30 mA). Results: An accumulation of insoluble and aggregated αS was present in the enteric neurons of the distal colon in Tg mice since 3 months of age, as compared with controls. In addition, at 3, 6 and 9 months of age Tg mice displayed a significant elevation of circulating LPS along with increased colonic TNF and IL-1β levels. Electrically evoked contractions in longitudinal and circular muscle preparations were impaired in Tg mice at 3, 6 and 9 months of age, as compared with controls. Conclusion. The present findings suggest that a concomitance of enteric αS accumulation, altered mucosal permeability, bowel inflammation and impaired colonic motor activity represent early events in PD, occurring before the onset of CNS neurodegeneration. These changes could contribute to the pathogenesis of intestinal motor dysfunctions known to be associated with PD in humans.

The main objective of the present study was to assess the biomass dry matter yield (DM), the water use efficiency (WUE), the energy content (EC) and the energy return on investment (EROI) at the farm gate of several perennial grasses grown at the experimental farm of the University of Catania, Italy. Field trials of Arundo donax, Miscanthus x giganteus, Saccharum spontaneum spp. aegyptiacum, Sorghum halepense, Oryzopsis miliacea and Cymbopogon hirthus grown under low-input practices in an autumn and a winter harvesting regime were used. From February 2014 to February 2015 (winter harvest regime), and from October 2014 to October 2015 (autumn harvest regime), the dryness index (P/ET) was computed. Main results suggested that Saccharum was the outstanding species. Across species there was no difference in DM between autumn and winter harvests. On the other hand, WUE was higher in autumn than winter harvest, due to the lower dryness index in the autumn (0.32) than in the winter regime (0.53). The EC, although significantly different, was in the range of 1.0 MJ kg-1 between the most (Miscanthus, 15.9 MJ kg-1) and the least (Oryzopsis, 14.9 MJ kg-1) species. All species can be considered sustainable from the energy point of view as the EROI ranged from 120:1 in Saccharum to 20:1 in Cymbopogon., Proceedings of the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 27-30 May 2019, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 226-230