Search

The placebo effect is a widespread phenomenon in medicine and its neurobiological mechanisms are understood only partially. Insights on the brain mechanisms underlying the placebo effect come mostly from studies on pain conditions, including headache. In summary, placebo analgesia represents a situation where the administration of a substance known to be non-analgesic produces an analgesic response every time the subject is told that it is a painkiller. On the other hand, the nocebo effect is the phenomenon whereby a patient who believes that a treatment will cause harm actually experiences adverse effects. The discovery that placebo analgesia is mediated by the release of endogenous opioids - and nocebo hyperalgesia by the release of the neuropeptide colecystokinin - opened new avenues to our understanding of the neurobiology of brain-body interactions. Finally, placebo-induced expectations have proved able to trigger different neural pathways affecting not only perception, but also movement and mood, as shown by recent neuroimaging studies on patients affected by Parkinson disease and major depression.

Aims: Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, originally described by Georges Gilles de la Tourette in 1885, is a developmental neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by multiple motor and vocal tics, usually presenting with a waxing and waning course over time. Complex tic-related symptoms, such as forced touching, self-injurious behaviours, echolalia/echopraxia, palilalia/palipraxia, and coprophenomena, have been included in the classical clinical picture. Moreover, associated psychopathology is quite common, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and mood disorders. Converging evidence from epidemiological, phenomenological, neuroanatomical and genetic studies suggests that certain psychopathological features are not integral to the syndrome, whereas others seem to be genetically linked. However, controversy has traditionally characterised our understanding of the links between the behavioural problems and Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. The present report provides an up-to-date review of the psychopathological profile of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, with a special emphasis on treatment implications. Methods: The authors analysed the evidence from the literature (sources: PubMed, PsycInfo) regarding Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, focusing on its clinical phenomenology and the following psychiatric comorbidities: obsessive-compulsive disorder/behaviours, attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder, depression, and personality disorders. Results: Current evidence suggests that the psychopathological spectrum of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome may be described as follows: specific obsessive-compulsive symptoms are an integral part of the syndrome, as they are genetically related to simple and complex tics; attentional problems and hyperactivity, albeit common, seem to be genetically linked only in some cases; depression is common as well, yet multifactorial in aetiology; personality disorders have been poorly investigated, and may be related to co-morbidity issues rather than to Gilles de la Tourette syndrome per se. Finally, the possibility of a more severe psychopathological profile resulting from referral bias should always be taken in due account (Tables II, III). Conclusions: Further studies are needed to identify more precisely the phenotype not only of Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome, but also of the associated psychopathological disorders. It has increasingly been acknowledged that environmental factors, such as perinatal difficulties and streptococcal infections, can be invoked as putative patho-aetiological mechanisms for a subgroup of cases of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. In this respect, future research examining the psychopathologies with more structured and rigorous methods, linking them to genetic, neuroimaging, neuroimmunological, and neuropsychological studies, will be fruitful in clarifying whether or not the "genetic Gilles de la Tourette syndrome" shares the same phenotype with the "environmentally driven Gilles de la Tourette syndrome".

The last decade saw a renaissance of studies on consciousness, witnessed by the growing number of scientific publications on this topic. Our understanding of the nature and neurobiological bases of consciousness - otherwise stated «soul» - is still at the very beginning, partly because of its intrinsic elusiveness. The concept of consciousness is central in epileptology, despite the methodological difficulties concerning its application to the multifaceted phenomenology of seizures. The authors propose a simple bidimensional model for the description of seizure-induced alterations of the states of consciousness, which entails a quantitative and a qualitative feature, namely the level and the contents of consciousness. The neurophysiological correlates of ictal loss and impairment of consciousness are reviewed. Special attention is paid to the subjective experiential states or emotional «qualia» associated with temporal lobe epilepsy. This strategy provides useful insights in ictal phenomenology as perceived from the first-person perspective of the patient experiencing peculiarly altered states of consciousness. Epilepsy is confirmed to represent a privileged window over basic neurobiological mechanisms of consciousness.

This paper presents the application of semi-active control for power harvesting using an electromechanical energy harvester. Two semi-active control strategies are proposed in the form of a time-periodic damper and a nonlinear cubic damper. For the periodic time-varying damper the average harvested power and the throw are obtained based on the Fourier series. The semi-active periodic time-varying damper is optimised to maximise the harvested power. The performance of the optimum semi-active periodic damper is compared with the optimum passive and semi-active on-off model at a particular frequency. It is demonstrated that the periodic time-varying damper can significantly increase the harvested power at all frequencies of interest. For the nonlinear damper, the harvested power and the throw are derived using the concept of the describing function. The results are compared with the linear damper. It is demonstrated that the nonlinear damper can significantly increase the absorbed power despite having much lower displacement compared to the linear damper. This makes the semi-active nonlinear damper very attractive for mechanical energy harvesters.

High-power resonant diplexers for millimetre waves have various promising applications in ECRH systems. The round-trip resonator length of a diplexer needs to be accurately tuned to match its prescribed functionality. For this purpose one of the mirrors in the FADIS MkIIa diplexer has been mounted on a motion system, in order to control the mirror to its desired location despite the presence of substantial disturbances. The mechanical properties and control strategy for the mirror motion system have been designed such as to meet the overall system requirements. The performance of the motion system has been experimentally validated in various high power mm-wave tests. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2012.

A CW capable inline electron cyclotron emission (ECE) separation system for feedback control, featuring oversized corrugated waveguides, is commissioned on ASDEX upgrade (AUG). The system is based on a combination of a polarization independent, non-resonant, Mach-Zehnder diplexer equipped with dielectric plate beam splitters [2, 3] employed as corrugated oversized waveguide filter, and a resonant Fast Directional Switch, FADIS [4, 5, 6, 7] as ECE/ECCD separation system. This paper presents an overview of the system, the low power characterisation tests and first high power commissioning on AUG.

A CW capable inline electron cyclotron emission (ECE) separation system for feedback control, featuring oversized corrugated waveguides, is commissioned on ASDEX upgrade (AUG). The system is based on a combination of a polarization independent, non-resonant, Mach-Zehnder diplexer equipped with dielectric plate beam splitters [2, 3] employed as corrugated oversized waveguide filter, and a resonant Fast Directional Switch, FADIS [4, 5, 6, 7] as ECE/ECCD separation system. This paper presents an overview of the system, the low power characterisation tests and first high power commissioning on AUG. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2012.

Characteristics of ring resonator diplexers for high-power ECRH are briefly reviewed. Commissioning experiments performed on ASDEX Upgrade with the diplexer Mk IIa are presented, which demonstrate slow and fast switching of the power between two launchers, and thus the capability for efficient suppression of neoclassical tearing modes and simultaneous central heating of the plasma. The development of the compact diplexer Mk IIIb is discussed, and test results are presented. Finally, an evacuated design for 170 GHz is shown. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2012.

Oral cavity infection by protozoarian agents may lead to pathologies such as stomatitis and gengivitis. An higher incidence has been reported in immunocompromised patients and in patients with dental disorders. Entoameba gingivalis localizes into oral cavity and in particular into interstitial and interdental spaces. Infection propagation to bronchial or lung parenchyma represents a complication. In this report the Authors, starting from a recently treated case, discuss on the incidence, complications and surgical management of lung infection by Entoameba gingivalis.