1,140 research outputs found
NEUROPSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS OF DEMENTIA AND BIOMARKERS OF NEURODEGENERATION: CSF TAU AND MRI
Background: Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are a distressful condition. We aimed to investigate the BPSD distribution in subjects with cognitive impairment, and the potential correlations between BPSD and neurodegeneration in terms of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tau and brain atrophy. Materials and Methods: One-hundred patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia (Alzheimer’s disease; Dementia with Lewy-body disease, DLB; frontotemporal dementia; vascular dementia) underwent a complete diagnostic workup, including 3T-MRI and/or CT and CSF. Cortical atrophy was assessed i) first with visual rating scales (medial temporal atrophy MTA, posterior atrophy PA and global cortical atrophy-frontal lobe GCA-F scales), ii) secondly with quantitative measures (such as cortical thickness CT and volume V). BPSD were rated using Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), and BPSD clusters were defined according to the European Alzheimer Disease Consortium. Results: Delusions, hallucinations and psychosis cluster were differently distributed among the diagnostic groups (p<0.05, p<0.001, and p<0.05), with DLB patients showing higher scores for hallucinations (vs MCI, p<0.001, and AD, p<0.05) and psychosis cluster (vs MCI, p<0.05). In primary dementias, we found a negative correlation between NPI total score and tau levels (p=0.08), confirmed by beta regression (p<0.01), while a positive non-significant relationship was observed in MCI. Higher GCA-F scores were associated with delusions and apathy (p<0.05, on both hemispheres) and to hallucinations (left: p<0.01, right: p<0.05). GCA-F scores were positively correlated with psychosis cluster (right: p<0.05), and agitation/aggression (left: p<0.05). With regard to the quantitative measures od atrophy, significant correlations were observed for 4 main neuropsychiatric symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, agitation, and apathy. Delusions showed negative correlations with CT and V of frontal areas (dorsolateral and orbital, with a prevalent involvement on the right side) and of areas of the limbic system (anterior and posterior cingulate, isthmus and entorhinal cortex). As well, hallucinations showed an involvement of the frontal lobe (dorsolateral) and the limbic system (anterior and posterior cingulate, isthmus, fusiform gyrus and hippocampus). A decrease in CT and V of the opercular region (insula and temporal pole) and the limbic system (entorhinal, parahippocampal and fusiform cortex and amygdala) was instead correlated with agitation/aggression. Finally, apathy showed a negative correlation with regions of the frontal lobe (dorsolateral, orbital, opercular, precentral and paracentral) insula and the limbic system (anterior cingulate and isthmus). Conclusion: This study provides a real-world overview of the most clinically relevant BPSD occurring in patients attending a memory clinic due to dementing conditions. The gathered evidence suggests that, in a future perspective, CSF biomarkers and visual rating scales for cortical atrophy could be hopefully included in a multidimensional evaluation of demented patients, aimed to predict prognosis and occurrence of BPSD. Moreover, quantitative measures of atrophy suggest that the limbic system cover a paramount role in the their pathophysiology through the dysfunction of the mesolimbic circuitry.Background: Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are a distressful condition. We aimed to investigate the BPSD distribution in subjects with cognitive impairment, and the potential correlations between BPSD and neurodegeneration in terms of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tau and brain atrophy. Materials and Methods: One-hundred patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia (Alzheimer’s disease; Dementia with Lewy-body disease, DLB; frontotemporal dementia; vascular dementia) underwent a complete diagnostic workup, including 3T-MRI and/or CT and CSF. Cortical atrophy was assessed i) first with visual rating scales (medial temporal atrophy MTA, posterior atrophy PA and global cortical atrophy-frontal lobe GCA-F scales), ii) secondly with quantitative measures (such as cortical thickness CT and volume V). BPSD were rated using Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), and BPSD clusters were defined according to the European Alzheimer Disease Consortium. Results: Delusions, hallucinations and psychosis cluster were differently distributed among the diagnostic groups (p<0.05, p<0.001, and p<0.05), with DLB patients showing higher scores for hallucinations (vs MCI, p<0.001, and AD, p<0.05) and psychosis cluster (vs MCI, p<0.05). In primary dementias, we found a negative correlation between NPI total score and tau levels (p=0.08), confirmed by beta regression (p<0.01), while a positive non-significant relationship was observed in MCI. Higher GCA-F scores were associated with delusions and apathy (p<0.05, on both hemispheres) and to hallucinations (left: p<0.01, right: p<0.05). GCA-F scores were positively correlated with psychosis cluster (right: p<0.05), and agitation/aggression (left: p<0.05). With regard to the quantitative measures od atrophy, significant correlations were observed for 4 main neuropsychiatric symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, agitation, and apathy. Delusions showed negative correlations with CT and V of frontal areas (dorsolateral and orbital, with a prevalent involvement on the right side) and of areas of the limbic system (anterior and posterior cingulate, isthmus and entorhinal cortex). As well, hallucinations showed an involvement of the frontal lobe (dorsolateral) and the limbic system (anterior and posterior cingulate, isthmus, fusiform gyrus and hippocampus). A decrease in CT and V of the opercular region (insula and temporal pole) and the limbic system (entorhinal, parahippocampal and fusiform cortex and amygdala) was instead correlated with agitation/aggression. Finally, apathy showed a negative correlation with regions of the frontal lobe (dorsolateral, orbital, opercular, precentral and paracentral) insula and the limbic system (anterior cingulate and isthmus). Conclusion: This study provides a real-world overview of the most clinically relevant BPSD occurring in patients attending a memory clinic due to dementing conditions. The gathered evidence suggests that, in a future perspective, CSF biomarkers and visual rating scales for cortical atrophy could be hopefully included in a multidimensional evaluation of demented patients, aimed to predict prognosis and occurrence of BPSD. Moreover, quantitative measures of atrophy suggest that the limbic system cover a paramount role in the their pathophysiology through the dysfunction of the mesolimbic circuitry
Low-energy effective theory for a Randall-Sundrum scenario with a moving bulk brane
We derive the low-energy effective theory of gravity for a generalized
Randall-Sundrum scenario, allowing for a third self-gravitating brane to live
in the 5D bulk spacetime. At zero order the 5D spacetime is composed of two
slices of anti-de Sitter spacetime, each with a different curvature scale, and
the 5D Weyl tensor vanishes. Two boundary branes are at the fixed points of the
orbifold whereas the third brane is free to move in the bulk. At first order,
the third brane breaks the otherwise continuous evolution of the projection of
the Weyl tensor normal to the branes. We derive a junction condition for the
projected Weyl tensor across the bulk brane, and combining this constraint with
the junction condition for the extrinsic curvature tensor, allows us to derive
the first-order field equations on the middle brane. The effective theory is a
generalized Brans-Dicke theory with two scalar fields. This is conformally
equivalent to Einstein gravity and two scalar fields, minimally coupled to the
geometry, but nonminimally coupled to matter on the three branes.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, typos correcte
Three-dimensional BF Theories and the Alexander-Conway Invariant of Knots
We study 3-dimensional BF theories and define observables related to knots
and links. The quantum expectation values of these observables give the
coefficients of the Alexander-Conway polynomial.Comment: 32 pages (figures available upon request); LaTe
Loop and Path Spaces and Four-Dimensional BF Theories: Connections, Holonomies and Observables
We study the differential geometry of principal G-bundles whose base space is
the space of free paths (loops) on a manifold M. In particular we consider
connections defined in terms of pairs (A,B), where A is a connection for a
fixed principal bundle P(M,G) and B is a 2-form on M. The relevant curvatures,
parallel transports and holonomies are computed and their expressions in local
coordinates are exhibited. When the 2-form B is given by the curvature of A,
then the so-called non-abelian Stokes formula follows.
For a generic 2-form B, we distinguish the cases when the parallel transport
depends on the whole path of paths and when it depends only on the spanned
surface. In particular we discuss generalizations of the non-abelian Stokes
formula. We study also the invariance properties of the (trace of the) holonomy
under suitable transformation groups acting on the pairs (A,B).
In this way we are able to define observables for both topological and
non-topological quantum field theories of the BF type. In the non topological
case, the surface terms may be relevant for the understanding of the
quark-confinement problem. In the topological case the (perturbative)
four-dimensional quantum BF-theory is expected to yield invariants of imbedded
(or immersed) surfaces in a 4-manifold M.Comment: TeX, 39 page
Loop observables for BF theories in any dimension and the cohomology of knots
A generalization of Wilson loop observables for BF theories in any dimension
is introduced in the Batalin-Vilkovisky framework. The expectation values of
these observables are cohomology classes of the space of imbeddings of a
circle. One of the resulting theories discussed in the paper has only trivalent
interactions and, irrespective of the actual dimension, looks like a
3-dimensional Chern-Simons theory.Comment: 13 page
Algebraic structures on graph cohomology
We define algebraic structures on graph cohomology and prove that they
correspond to algebraic structures on the cohomology of the spaces of
imbeddings of S^1 or R into R^n. As a corollary, we deduce the existence of an
infinite number of nontrivial cohomology classes in Imb(S^1,R^n) when n is even
and greater than 3. Finally, we give a new interpretation of the anomaly term
for the Vassiliev invariants in R^3.Comment: Typos corrected, exposition improved. 14 pages, 2 figures. To appear
in J. Knot Theory Ramification
Il Seicento russo: rassegna critica degli studi e prospettive di ricerca
The Russian 17th Century: State of the Art and Research Perspectives.
A remarkable increase in XVII century Russian studies has characterized the past decade. Thanks to the fall of ideological pressure, most interesting critical literature has been produced in the fields of history, history of culture and poetry. Moreover, these years have seen the publication of several, relevant literary texts, which had been only manuscript until the recent past. If, from a historical point of view, a new approach has emerged to the interpretation of historical events and characters, from a literary point of view there has a been a discovery of the Russian Baroque, a literary style which has its own peculiar features, and is sometimes very different from the European Baroque. Hopefully, all this should favour the study of XVII century literature as a literary system and not just as .literaturnye pamjatniki
Yeats’s Autobiographies and the Making of the Self
Both in his prose and poetry William Butler Yeats showed a life- long interest in the shaping of the self, achieved through a careful rearrangement of experience. Autobiographies is a collection of texts written at different times intentionally arranged by the author not according to the order of composition but to the chronological growth of the subject, from early childhood to the Nobel prize award. Until the period when autobiography started to be recognized as a specific genre with its own rules, this work was resorted to as a support for the study of the author’s production or as a key to discovering his life, disregarding the fact that autobiographical writing is not the narration of a life, but rather a narrative of the self as seen from the present moment of writing. Yeats’s Autobiographies is the narrative of how he struggled to shape his own personal identity as well as the identity of the nation. Life stories flourished in the Revival and post-Revival periods in Ireland, thus testifying to a widely shared belief in the correspondence of individual and national destiny. Along with collective drives, personal reasons also compelled him to look back and write his own autobiography. The author managed to provide a text in which everything, from syntactic to linguistic choices, from his treatment of time and places to his presentation of friends and rivals, combines to give a composite portrait of himself from early expectations to final achievement
Yeats’s Autobiographies and the Making of the Self
Both in his prose and poetry William Butler Yeats showed a life- long interest in the shaping of the self, achieved through a careful rearrangement of experience. Autobiographies is a collection of texts written at different times intentionally arranged by the author not according to the order of composition but to the chronological growth of the subject, from early childhood to the Nobel prize award. Until the period when autobiography started to be recognized as a specific genre with its own rules, this work was resorted to as a support for the study of the author’s production or as a key to discovering his life, disregarding the fact that autobiographical writing is not the narration of a life, but rather a narrative of the self as seen from the present moment of writing. Yeats’s Autobiographies is the narrative of how he struggled to shape his own personal identity as well as the identity of the nation. Life stories flourished in the Revival and post-Revival periods in Ireland, thus testifying to a widely shared belief in the correspondence of individual and national destiny. Along with collective drives, personal reasons also compelled him to look back and write his own autobiography. The author managed to provide a text in which everything, from syntactic to linguistic choices, from his treatment of time and places to his presentation of friends and rivals, combines to give a composite portrait of himself from early expectations to final achievement
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