Abstract, emotional and concrete concepts and the activation of mouth-hand effectors

According to embodied and grounded theories, concepts are grounded in sensorimotor systems. The majority of evidence supporting these views concerns concepts referring to objects or actions, while evidence on abstract concepts is more scarce. Explaining how abstract concepts such as ‘‘freedom’’ are represented would thus be pivotal for grounded theories. According to some recent proposals, abstract concepts are grounded in both sensorimotor and linguistic experience, thus they activate the mouth motor system more than concrete concepts. Two experiments are reported, aimed at verifying whether abstract, concrete and emotional words activate the mouth and the hand effectors. In both experiments participants performed first a lexical decision, then a recognition task. In Experiment 1 participants responded by pressing a button either with the mouth or with the hand, in Experiment 2 responses were given with the foot, while a button held either in the mouth or in the hand was used to respond to catch-trials. Abstract words were slower to process in both tasks (concreteness effect). Across the tasks and experiments, emotional concepts had instead a fluctuating pattern, different from those of both concrete and abstract concepts, suggesting that they cannot be considered as a subset of abstract concepts. The interaction between type of concept (abstract, concrete and emotional) and effector (mouth, hand) was not significant in the lexical decision task, likely because it emerged only with tasks implying a deeper processing level. It reached significance, instead, in the recognition tasks. In both experiments abstract concepts were facilitated in the mouth condition compared to the hand condition, supporting our main prediction. Emotional concepts instead had a more variable pattern. Overall, our findings indicate that various kinds of concepts differently activate the mouth and hand effectors, but they also suggest that concepts activate effectors in a flexible and task-dependent wa

Perceiving object dangerousness: an escape from pain?

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Anti-Insect Properties of Penicillium Secondary Metabolites

: In connection with their widespread occurrence in diverse environments and ecosystems, fungi in the genus Penicillium are commonly found in association with insects. In addition to some cases possibly implying a mutualistic relationship, this symbiotic interaction has mainly been investigated to verify the entomopathogenic potential in light of its possible exploitation in ecofriendly strategies for pest control. This perspective relies on the assumption that entomopathogenicity is often mediated by fungal products and that Penicillium species are renowned producers of bioactive secondary metabolites. Indeed, a remarkable number of new compounds have been identified and characterized from these fungi in past decades, the properties and possible applications of which in insect pest management are reviewed in this paper

Gender is a multifaceted concept: evidence that specific life experiences differentially shape the concept of gender

Gender has been the focus of linguistic and psychological studies, but little is known about its conceptual representation. We investigate whether the conceptual structure of gender—as expressed in participants’ free-listing responses—varies according to gender-related experiences in line with research on conceptual flexibility. Specifically, we tested groups that varied by gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender-normativity. We found that different people stressed distinct aspect of the concept. For example, normative individuals mainly relied on a bigenderist conception (e.g., male/female; man/woman), while non-normative individuals produced more aspects related to social context (e.g., queer, fluidity, construction). At a broader level, our results support the idea that gender is a multifaceted and flexible concept, constituted by social, biological, cultural, and linguistic components. Importantly, the meaning of gender is not exhausted by the classical dichotomy opposing sex, a biological fact, with gender as its cultural counterpart. Instead, both aspects are differentially salient depending on specific life experiences

The Shigella flexneri OmpA amino acid residues 188EVQ190 are essential for the interaction with the virulence factor PhoN2

Shigella flexneri is an intracellular pathogen that deploys an arsenal of virulence factors promoting host cell invasion, intracellular multiplication and intra- and inter-cellular dissemination. We have previously reported that the interaction between apyrase (PhoN2), a periplasmic ATP-diphosphohydrolase, and the C-terminal domain of the outer membrane (OM) protein OmpA is likely required for proper IcsA exposition at the old bacterial pole and thus for full virulence expression of Shigella flexneri (Scribano et al., 2014). OmpA, that is the major OM protein of Gram-negative bacteria, is a multifaceted protein that plays many different roles both in the OM structural integrity and in the virulence of several pathogens. Here, by using yeast two-hybrid technology and by constructing an in silico 3D model of OmpA from S. flexneri 5a strain M90T, we observed that the OmpA residues 188EVQ190 are likely essential for PhoN2-OmpA interaction. The 188EVQ190 amino acids are located within a flexible region of the OmpA protein that could represent a scaffold for protein-protein interaction

The adherent/invasive escherichia coli (AIEC) strain LF82 invades and persists in human prostate cell lineRWPE-1 activating a strong inflammatory response

Adherent/invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC) strains have recently been receiving increased attention because they are more prevalent and persistent in the intestine of Crohn's disease (CD) patients than in healthy subjects. Since AIEC strains show a high percentage of similarity to extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC), neonatal meningitis-associated E. coli (NMEC), and uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) strains, here we compared AIEC strain LF82 with a UPEC isolate (strain EC73) to assess whether LF82 would be able to infect prostate cells as an extraintestinal target. The virulence phenotypes of both strains were determined by using the RWPE-1 prostate cell line. The results obtained indicated that LF82 and EC73 are able to adhere to, invade, and survive within prostate epithelial cells. Invasion was confirmed by immunofluorescence and electron microscopy. Moreover, cytochalasin D and colchicine strongly inhibited bacterial uptake of both strains, indicating the involvement of actin microfilaments and microtubules in host cell invasion. Moreover, both strains belong to phylogenetic group B2 and are strong biofilm producers. In silico analysis reveals that LF82 shares with UPEC strains several virulence factors: namely, type 1 pili, the group II capsule, the vacuolating autotransporter toxin, four iron uptake systems, and the pathogenic island (PAI). Furthermore, compared to EC73, LF82 induces in RWPE-1 cells a marked increase of phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and of NF-κB already by 5 min postinfection, thus inducing a strong inflammatory response. Our in vitro data support the hypothesis that AIEC strains might play a role in prostatitis, and, by exploiting host-cell signaling pathways controlling the innate immune response, likely facilitate bacterial multiplication and dissemination within the male genitourinary trac

Characterization of the ear canal bacterial flora present in hearing Aids (HA) wearing subjects

The use of hearing aids (HA) is considered a predisposing factor for ear microbial infections. We undertook this study to compare the presence and nature of the microbial flora inhabiting of ears of HA and non-HA (nHA) users. Swab samples of the ears of HA and nHA users were collected from the Institute of Otolaryngology, “Cattolica del Sacro Cuore” University “Agostino Gemelli”, Rome, Italy. Swab samples were taken from the ear canal of 57 HA and 33 nHA users. The components of the microbial flora present on each swab sample were identified and characterized at the level of species. A total of 41 different bacterial species were identified. A statistically significant prevalence of polymicrobial communities was found in ears presenting signs of inflammation (2.5 ± 1.7 vs 2.1 ± 1.3; P = 0.02) and in HA users (2.3 ± 1.2 vs 1.7 ± 1.0; P = 0.002). Few putative pathogens were detected. Candida albicans spp. was not isolated in our study. A small number of swab samples presented no microbial growth. Bacterial species isolated from HA users with and without inflammation were assayed for the ability to form a biofilm. Among gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, S. aureus, CoNS, P. aeruginosa, and K. pneumoniae were found to be strong biofilm producers. S. aureus and P. aeruginosa, isolated only from the ears of HA and nHA users presenting signs of inflammation, were further analyzed for their antibiotic-resistance profile and characterized by the Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) assay. The highest rates of antibacterial resistance were in S. aureus to a penicillin (75.5%) and in P. aeruginosa, to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, cefotaxime, ertapenem, tigecycline and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (100%). Moreover, three S. aureus strains (37.5%) were methicillin-resistant (MRSA). Of the eight S. aureus isolates, we identified six sequence types (ST) indicating that 75% are likely independent clones. For what it concerned P. aeruginosa, six different STs were assigned. Interestingly, two out of the six strains presented newly identified ST values. This study sheds new light on the combined effect of the presence of HA devices and signs of external ear inflammation on the composition of the ear bacterial flora. Our results reinforce the need to practice careful hygiene of HA devices to prevent serious ear canal infections

Case report: A multiple sclerosis patient with imaging features of glymphatic failure benefitted from CSF flow shunting

The derangement of CSF circulation impacts the functions of the glymphatic-lymphatic system (G-Ls), which regulates solute trafficking and immune surveillance in the CNS. The G-Ls failure leads to the dysregulation of clearance of waste molecules in the brain and to an altered CNS immune response. The imaging features of dilated perivascular spaces imply the impairment of the G-Ls. We report on the case of a patient with primary progressive multiple sclerosis and dilatation of perivascular spaces, who transiently improved after CSF shunt diversions. The underlying mechanisms remain to be determined and at this stage, it is not possible to link CSF diversion to an effect on MS pathology. However, this observation provides the rationale to incentivize research in the largely unknown area of CSF dynamic disturbances on G-Ls failure and ultimately in neurodegeneration