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Neurodegeneration is a multifactorial process that involves multiple mechanisms. Examples of neurodegenerative diseases are Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt–Jakob’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. These are progressive and irreversible pathologies, characterized by neuron vulnerability, loss of structure or function of neurons, and even neuron demise in the brain, leading to clinical, functional, and cognitive dysfunction and movement disorders. However, iron overload can cause neurodegeneration. Dysregulation of iron metabolism associated with cellular damage and oxidative stress is reported as a common event in several neurodegenerative diseases. Uncontrolled oxidation of membrane fatty acids triggers a programmed cell death involving iron, ROS, and ferroptosis, promoting cell death. In Alzheimer’s disease, the iron content in the brain is significantly increased in vulnerable regions, resulting in a lack of antioxidant defenses and mitochondrial alterations. Iron interacts with glucose metabolism reciprocally. Overall, iron metabolism and accumulation and ferroptosis play a significant role, particularly in the context of diabetes-induced cognitive decline. Iron chelators improve cognitive performance, meaning that brain iron metabolism control reduces neuronal ferroptosis, promising a novel therapeutic approach to cognitive impairment.

La ricerca ha voluto applicare il modello ecologico di Prilleltensky allo studio di una realtà locale. Lo scopo è stato individuare i fattori che caratterizzano la vita della comunità di immigrati dell’agro aversano. La realtà presa in esame è San Marcellino, piccolo paese della periferia Casertana, terra di criminalità, ingiustizia e immigrazione. È in questo territorio che a trovare la propria dimora è la comunità di musulmani maghrebini, che da anni risiede stabilmente in questi luoghi. Lo studio ha considerato molteplici livelli d’analisi, a partire da quello individuale a quello socio-ambientale, rintracciando i fattori promotori di benessere e all’opposto quelli di rischio. A tal fine, abbiamo utilizzato la Grounded Theory grazie alla quale siamo giunti a costruire teorie di riferimento a partire dalle interviste fornite dai partecipanti. Abbiamo poi considerato il ruolo del potere e della politica nell’informare il benessere di questa comunità, rintracciando i fattori che ci permettono di analizzare questioni solitamente non indagate, come ad esempio, l’inaccessibilità alle infrastrutture, una burocrazia rigida, assenza di tutele legislative. A fungere da supporto sociale è la presenza di associazioni di volontariato, e soprattutto, della moschea locale, luogo d’incontro, supporto e condivisione per eccellenza. Ecological model to study an immigrant community in a local situation The following study applied Prilleltensky’s ecological model to the study of a local situation. The aim was to identify the factors that characterize the life of the immigrant community in the countryside around Aversa. The specific area examined is that of San Marcellino, a small village on the outskirts of Caserta, a land dominated by crime, injustice and immigration. For some years now a community of North African Muslims have been permanent residents in this community full of contradictions. The study adopted multiple levels of analysis ranging from that of the individual to the socio-environmental level, identifying the various factors promoting well being as well as the opposite factors of risk. To this end we used Grounded Theory Methodology, which helped us to construct emergent theories based on interviews given by participants. We then considered the role of power structures and politics in the well being of this community, identifying the factors that allow us to analyze issues that are not usually investigated, such as inaccessibility to the infrastructures, rigid bureaucracy and the absence of legislative safeguards. A large number of local voluntary associations take on responsibility for these deficiencies and act as a social support for immigrants. The principal organization among these is the local mosque, which functions as a place for meeting, support and sharing.

Biofuels produced from willow could help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. To maximise yields per hectare light interception and utilisation of the plant canopy need to be optimised. Jennifer Cunniff and Marianna Cerasuolo explain how this target can be reached by integrating morphological field measurements and modelling techniques.

Different functional states determine glioblastoma (GBM) heterogeneity. Brain cancer cells coexist with the glial cells in a functional syncytium based on a continuous metabolic rewiring. However, standard glioma therapies do not account for the effects of the glial cells within the tumor microenvironment. This may be a possible reason for the lack of improvements in patients with high-grade gliomas therapies. Cell metabolism and bioenergetic fitness depend on the availability of nutrients and interactions in the microenvironment. It is strictly related to the cell location in the tumor mass, proximity to blood vessels, biochemical gradients, and tumor evolution, underlying the influence of the context and the timeline in anti-tumor therapeutic approaches. Besides the cancer metabolic strategies, here we review the modifications found in the GBM-associated glia, focusing on morphological, molecular, and metabolic features. We propose to analyze the GBM metabolic rewiring processes from a systems biology perspective. We aim at defining the crosstalk between GBM and the glial cells as modules. The complex networking may be expressed by metabolic modules corresponding to the GBM growth and spreading phases. Variation in the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) rate and regulation appears to be the most important part of the metabolic and functional heterogeneity, correlating with glycolysis and response to hypoxia. Integrated metabolic modules along with molecular and morphological features could allow the identification of key factors for controlling the GBM-stroma metabolism in multi-targeted, time-dependent therapies.

Here we report the results of an experiment aimed to investigate the effects of different hand gestures on emotional and attitudinal reactions of receivers through the measure of physiological indexes (facial muscles activity, heart rate, and eye blinking). A videotape was shown to 50 University students, in which an actress presented a speech with a disagreeable verbal content, namely the proposal of increasing University fees. The verbal message included the presentation of four arguments (two strong and two weak) in support of the proposal. During her speech, the actress manipulated “Gesture Type” in order to achieve five conditions (ideational gestures, discursive gestures, object- and self-adaptors, and no gesture as control). ANOVAs reveal that the different type of gestures differently modulate the negative impact of disagreeable verbal content on receivers in different moments of the speech and interact with strong or weak arguments in determining negative reactions to the disagreeable verbal message. In particular, it seems that discursive (conversational and ideational) gestures are more capable to counteract the negative effect of the arguments. These results give a further contribution to a better understanding of the crucial role of gestures in providing characteristics of speech perception, also in terms of persuasion.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive and degenerative disease producing the most common type of dementia worldwide. The main pathogenetic hypothesis in recent decades has been the well-known amyloidogenic hypothesis based on the involvement of two proteins in AD pathogenesis: amyloid β (Aβ) and tau. Amyloid deposition reported in all AD patients is nowadays considered an independent risk factor for cognitive decline. Vascular damage and blood–brain barrier (BBB) failure in AD is considered a pivotal mechanism for brain injury, with increased deposition of both immunoglobulins and fibrin. Furthermore, BBB dysfunction could be an early sign of cognitive decline and the early stages of clinical AD. Vascular damage generates hypoperfusion and relative hypoxia in areas with high energy demand. Long-term hypoxia and the accumulation within the brain parenchyma of neurotoxic molecules could be seeds of a self-sustaining pathological progression. Cellular dysfunction comprises all the elements of the neurovascular unit (NVU) and neuronal loss, which could be the result of energy failure and mitochondrial impairment. Brain glucose metabolism is compromised, showing a specific region distribution. This energy deficit worsens throughout aging. Mild cognitive impairment has been reported to be associated with a glucose deficit in the entorhinal cortex and in the parietal lobes. The current aim is to understand the complex interactions between amyloid β (Aβ) and tau and elements of the BBB and NVU in the brain. This new approach aimed at the study of metabolic mechanisms and energy insufficiency due to mitochondrial impairment would allow us to define therapies aimed at predicting and slowing down the progression of AD.

Activation of glial cells (reactive gliosis) and the purinergic pathway, together with metalloproteinase (MMP)-induced remodeling of the neural extracellular matrix (nECM), drive maladaptive changes in the spinal cord following peripheral nerve injury (PNI). We evaluated the effects on spinal maladaptive plasticity through administration of oxidized ATP (oxATP), an antagonist of P2X receptors (P2XR), and/or GM6001, an inhibitor of MMPs, in rats following spared nerve injury (SNI) of the sciatic nerve. With morpho-molecular techniques, we demonstrated a reduction in spinal reactive gliosis and changes in the neuro-glial-nECM crosstalk via expression remodeling of P2XR, nerve growth factor (NGF) receptors (TrkA and p75), and histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2) after treatments with oxATP/GM6001. Altogether, our data suggest that MMPs and purinergic inhibition have a modulatory impact on key proteins in the neuro-glial-nECM network, acting at different levels from intracellular signaling to epigenetic modifications.

Studies over the last 40 years have mainly investigated sleep structure changes as a result of wake duration, in the frame of the classical sleep regulation theories. However, wake intervals of the same duration can profoundly differ in their intensity, which actually reflects the degree of cognitive and physical activity. Data on how sleep can be modified by wake intensity changes (initially sparse and of little consistence) have become much more substantial, especially in the frame of the intense research debate on sleep-memory relationships. Our aim is to examine the vast repertoire of sleep modifications that depend on waking cognitive manipulations, highlighting the sleep features that appear most affected. By systematically addressing this issue, we want to set the basis for future research exploring both the specific nature of the mechanisms involved and the applicative psychosocial and clinical fall-outs, in terms of possible behavioural interventions for sleep quality improvement.

Research during the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted its significant impact on dreaming. Here we address changes in dream features both during the first wave, when the Italian government imposed a total lockdown, and the second wave (autumn 2020), when a partial lockdown was effected. In April 2020 (total lockdown), 1,622 participants (Mage=34.1±13.6 years; 1171F) completed an online survey including the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and a set of questions on dream features and their possible changes relative to the month preceding the lockdown (pre-total lockdown). In November 2020 (partial lockdown), 214 participants (Mage=36.78±14.2years; 159F) from the previous sample completed the same survey. Approximately half of the subjects reported increased or decreased dream frequency (30.5% and 21.8%), length (27.1% and 15.8%) and vividness (31.5% and 17.1%) during total lockdown as well as during partial lockdown (frequency: 30.3% and 13.5%; length: 23.3% and 12.6%; vividness: 31.6% and 24.1%). Dream affect became significantly more negative in total lockdown relative to pre-total lockdown and in partial lockdown relative to pre-partial lockdown (both p&nbsp

Recent studies show that sleep facilitates the learning of complex cognitive skills. Here, we assess the effect of sleep on performance in an ecological, multi-componential task, which requires subjects to trace on a screen as many words as possible with 16 letters, some of which (“bonuses”) multiply the value of letters or words containing them. In a within-subjects design, 23 healthy adults underwent training and retest, with a retention period (approximately 8hr) spent awake (WK, with training in the morning and retest in the afternoon) or asleep (SL, with training in the evening and retest in the morning). The main performance measure (GLOB) results from the total value of the letters used, the number of words, their length and the strategic use of bonus letters. An additional measure (WORDS, i.e., the proportion of words correctly detected over all detectable words) was also used, mainly reflecting procedural rather than strategic skills. In WK, although GLOB increased at retest, a significant improvement emerged only for WORDS, whereas in SL only GLOB was enhanced. In WK, the GLOB improvement appears to depend on the increase in the number of words detected (GLOB and WORDS improvement measures were positively associated), whereas in SL this association was not observed, indicating a shift to more complex but more rewarding strategies. Our data contribute to the understanding of everyday life learning processes by suggesting that sleep benefits memories of future relevance and promotes preferential consolidation of strategic skills when this is useful to achieve one's goal.

The relationship between objective and subjective sleep quality is still debated. Here, we investigate differences in objective sleep parameters in habitual subjective good sleepers and bad sleepers with the aim of evaluating sleep continuity, stability and organization as possible determinants of subjective sleep quality. In total, 38 subjects (good sleepers, N = 18; bad sleepers, N = 20) underwent two nights of sleep recording. Traditional sleep parameters displayed no between-groups differences. Conversely, bad sleepers showed lower sleep continuity (awakenings frequency), stability (e.g. arousals and state transitions frequency) and organization (e.g. number of sleep cycles and time spent in cycles). Our findings point to the involvement of these measures in determining habitual sleep quality perception and suggest the possibility to include them in standard sleep assessments.

Botanical epidemic models are very important tools to study invasion, persistence and control of diseases. It is well known that limitations arise from considering constant infection rates. We replace this hypothesis in the framework of delay differential equations by proposing a delayed epidemic model for plant--pathogen interactions with host demography. Sufficient conditions for the global stability of the pathogen-free equilibrium and the permanence of the system are among the results obtained through qualitative analysis. We also show that the delay can cause stability switches of the coexistence equilibrium. In the undelayed case, we prove that the onset of oscillations may occur through Hopf bifurcation.

Benché, come sosteneva Max Weber, le opere scientifiche siano destinate inesorabilmente ad invecchiare, la Storia dei Romani di G. De Sanctis mantiene ancora oggi un’importanza che va al di là del suo indubbio valore storico, storiografico e dossografico. La concezione desanctisiana della historia, che, più che magistra vitae, è invece a sua volta ammaestrata dalla vita, ha infatti dei risvolti importanti nella sue opere. L’analogia storica come metodo ermeneutico, a cui Luciano Canfora ha dedicato un magistrale volume, fu infatti utilizzata costantemente da De Sanctis. Gli accostamenti analogici, espliciti ed impliciti, ad eventi moderni e contemporanei, come quelli tra Cartagine e l’Impero britannico, tra Risorgimento e Sicelioti, tra Prima guerra mondiale e guerre puniche, così come l’uso della storia controfattuale permettono infatti, all’antichista moderno, di trarre dall’opera di De Sanctis fondamentali lezioni metodogiche. Although - as Max Weber argued - scientific works are inevitably bound to get old, Storia dei Romani by G. De Sanctis still has an importance that goes beyond its undoubted historical, historiographic , doxographic value. De Sanctis’ conception of historia - which, rather than being magistra vitae, is instead “taught by life” - has important implications in his works. Historical analogy as a hermeneutic method - to which Luciano Canfora has devoted a masterful volume - was consistently used by De Sanctis. The explicit or implicit analogies with either modern or contemporary events - such as those between Carthage and the British Empire, or between the Risorgimento and Siceliots, or even between World War I and Punic Wars - as well as the use of counterfactual history, allow modern classical scholars to draw fundamental methodological lessons from De Sanctis’ work.

Il contributo, basato sulla pubblicazione di materiale inedito, custodito presso la Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, fa luce sulla situazione degli studi classici in Italia negli anni della svolta unitaria, quando, "fatta l'Italia", bisognò creare un sistema unitario di istruzione, scolastica e universitaria, superando le resistenze locali e le forme di arretratezza diffuse ne paese.

Girolamo Vitelli commemorò il suo concittadino Giuseppe Maria Galanti in occasione del centenario della sua morte, evidenziando le sue doti di onestà intellettuale e civile