William Morris and the uses of nostalgia: Memory in the early and late poetry

The stylized medievalism of William Morris's The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems (1858)—often expressed in cryptically condensed and iterative ballad stanzas—appears to reflect asocial and escapist nostalgia. Memory, however, is politicized in the Chants for Socialists that Morris wrote during the 1880s and early 1890s. These poems' conventional and repetitive forms underscore the communal nature of identity, and their commemoration of the dead awakens activist fervor. Yet readings of two representative poems reveal vital continuities between Morris's early and late poetry; after all, the Chants are also at times nostalgic in their admiration of pre-capitalist communities and their urge to cultivate imaginative solidarity with past eras. And paradoxically, in The Defence of Guenevere, self-justifying poetic beauty that uses retrospection to resist the demands of an industrializing society can itself lay claim to political utility

Dissecting the molecular determinants of GABAA receptors current rundown, a hallmark of refractory human epilepsy

GABAA receptors-(Rs) are fundamental for the maintenance of an efficient inhibitory function in the central nervous system (CNS). Their dysfunction is associated with a wide range of CNS disorders, many of which characterized by seizures and epilepsy. Recently, an increased use-dependent desensitization due to a repetitive GABA stimulation (GABAA current rundown) of GABAARs has been associated with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Here, we aimed to investigate the molecular determinants of GABAA current rundown with two different heterologous expression systems (Xenopus oocytes and human embryonic kidney cells; HEK) which allowed us to manipulate receptor stoichiometry and to study the GABAA current rundown on different GABAAR configurations. To this purpose, we performed electrophysiology experiments using two-electrode voltage clamp in oocytes and confirming part of our results in HEK. We found that different degrees of GABAA current rundown can be associated with the expression of different GABAAR beta-subunits reaching the maximum current decrease when functional alpha1beta2 receptors are expressed. Furthermore, the blockade of phosphatases can prevent the current rundown observed in alpha1beta2 GABAARs. Since GABAAR represents one important therapeutic target in the treatment of human epilepsy, our results could open new perspectives on the therapeutic management of drug-resistant patients showing a GABAergic impairment

GABA(A) receptor function is enhanced by Interleukin-10 in human epileptogenic gangliogliomas and its effect is counteracted by Interleukin-1 beta

Gangliogliomas (GGs) are low-grade brain tumours that cause intractable focal epilepsy in children and adults. In GG, as in epileptogenic focal malformations (i.e., tuberous sclerosis complex, TSC), there is evidence of sustained neuroinflammation with involvement of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1β. On the other hand, anti-inflammatory mediators are less studied but bear relevance for understanding seizure mechanisms. Therefore, we investigated the effect of the key anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 on GABAergic neurotransmission in GG. We assessed the IL-10 dependent signaling by transcriptomic analysis, immunohistochemistry and performed voltage-clamp recordings on Xenopus oocytes microtransplanted with cell membranes from brain specimens, to overcome the limited availability of acute GG slices. We report that IL-10-related mRNAs were up-regulated in GG and slightly in TSC. Moreover, we found IL-10 receptors are expressed by neurons and astroglia. Furthermore, GABA currents were potentiated significantly by IL-10 in GG. This effect was time and dose-dependent and inhibited by blockade of IL-10 signaling. Notably, in the same tissue, IL-1β reduced GABA current amplitude and prevented the IL-10 effect. These results suggest that in epileptogenic tissue, pro-inflammatory mechanisms of hyperexcitability prevail over key anti-inflammatory pathways enhancing GABAergic inhibition. Hence, boosting the effects of specific anti-inflammatory molecules could resolve inflammation and reduce intractable seizures

Grandmothers in the archive: Three digital collections of women's writing

The Orlando Project: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present, which includes searchable entries on over a thousand writers from the medieval era to the present day; A Celebration of Women Writers, which provides full texts by female authors across many time periods, along with relevant links; and Women Writers Online, which features transcriptions of texts published between 1526 and 1850.2 1 ask not only what opportunities for research these archives create, but also how such opportunities may shape feminist thought and work by bringing broad and complex female literary communities to light, helping scholars balance formal and historical methodologies, and providing a new perspective on the gendering of genre. Because books and courses focused solely on female authors are the exception rather than the rule, the same names and titles often crop up time and again in print resources that are dedicated to the work of women. [...]they may want to decide whether their main purpose is to write women into mainstream literary history - by including more male authors alongside female ones, for example - or to propose a separate canon