Development and Reliability of a Questionnaire Assessing Stress, Coping, and Empathy (SCOPE) in Occupational Settings: Preliminary Evidence from Veterinarians

Workplaces can be associated with occupational stress, detrimental consequences in terms of loss of health and reduced psychosocial well-being. Importantly, employees may be particularly at risk of poorer well-being during times of adversity at work, when not able to apply adaptive coping strategies and adopt a more empathetic approach. This study aimed to develop a scale to estimate occupational stress both in terms of situational and individual components, by performing item selection, internal reliability assessment, and investigation of the ceiling/floor effect. The target population consisted of veterinarians (n = 116), based on evidence of high risk of occupational stress and related mental distress. Out of twenty initial candidate entries, exploratory factor analysis retained fifteen items consisting of three domains related to occupational stress, copying strategies, and empathy (SCOPE). The SCOPE scale demonstrated good internal consistency as a whole (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.79) and when considering the three subscales (stress, 0.85; coping, 0.77; and empathy, 0.71). On a possible range from 15 (worst adjustment) to 75 (best adjustment), the sample mean performance was 51.68 (SD, 8.50). Preliminary evidence indicated that the SCOPE questionnaire may reveal differential effects of type of work on levels of occupational stress and related coping and empathy skills

An Analysis of Word2Vec for the Italian Language

Word representation is fundamental in NLP tasks, because it is precisely from the coding of semantic closeness between words that it is possible to think of teaching a machine to understand text. Despite the spread of word embedding concepts, still few are the achievements in linguistic contexts other than English. In this work, analysing the semantic capacity of the Word2Vec algorithm, an embedding for the Italian language is produced. Parameter setting such as the number of epochs, the size of the context window and the number of negatively backpropagated samples is explored.Comment: Presented at the 2019 Italian Workshop on Neural Networks (WIRN'19) - June 201

Possible predicative role of electrical risk score on transcatheter aortic valve replacement outcomes in older patients. preliminary data

Background:Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is an effective procedure capable to change the natural history of the degenerative aortic valve stenosis. Despite the TAVR, the patients with advanced valve disease and severe myocardial damage (low flow, gradient and ejection fraction)show high mortality level. Aim of this study was toevaluate the predicative power of a noninvasive and inexpensive test obtained by means of a simple standard 12-leads electrocardiogram,known as the Electrical Risk Score (ERS). Methods: ERS was composed by seven simple ECG markers: heart rate (>75 bpm); QRS duration (>110 ms), left ventricular hypertrophy (Sokolow-Lyon criteria), delayed QRS transition zone (≥ V4), frontal QRS-T angle (>90°), long QTBazett (>450 ms for men and >460 in women) or JTBazett(330 ms for men and > 340 ms for women);long T peak to T end interval (Tp-e)( >89 ms). An ERS ≥ 4was considered high risk for all-cause or cardiovascular mortality.We calculated retrospectively the pre-procedure ERS in 40 TAVR patients after one year of follow-up. Results: In the follow up the all-cause and cardiovascular mortality were respectively 25% and 15%.None of survivors reported ERS ≥ 4,moreover, the ERS was the strongest predictor of all-cause (odd ratio 3.73, 95% CI: 1.44-9.66, p<0.05) or cardiovascular (odd ratio 3.95, 95% CI: 1.09-14.27, p<0.05) mortality.ROC curves showed that ERS had the widest significant sensitivity-specificity area under the curve (auc) predicting all-cause (auc: 0.855, p<0.05) or cardiovascular mortality (auc: 0.908, p<0.05). Conclusions:In this pivotal study, ERS resulted an useful tool to stratify the risk of mortality in one-year follow-up TAVR patients. Obviously, it is necessary to confirm these data in large prospective studies

Confirmation of increased and more severe adolescent mental health-related in-patient admissions in the COVID-19 pandemic aftermath: A 2-year follow-up study

: COVID-19 pandemic may have affected youth's mental wellbeing. Youth admissions for mental health emergencies over the 2-year period following the COVID-19 outbreak (March 2020-February 2022) were compared to those occurring in the same period of 2018-2020, with reference to individual and clinical data. The study identified 30 admissions in the pre-pandemic period and 65 (+116.7%) in the post-pandemic period, with the latter being younger, less likely to have a personal psychiatric history, and more likely to receive psychopharmacological treatment. A higher likelihood of earlier, ex novo psychiatric manifestations, requiring medication to reach clinical stability, in the post-COVID era, is suggested

Comparative analysis of HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 post-translational modifications of Tax proteins in relation to their intracellular localization and activation of gene expression

Poster presentatio

Therapeutic Effect of Palmitoylethanolamide in Cognitive Decline: A Systematic Review and Preliminary Meta-Analysis of Preclinical and Clinical Evidence

Cognitive decline is believed to be associated with neurodegenerative processes involving excitotoxicity, oxidative damage, inflammation, and microvascular and blood-brain barrier dysfunction. Interestingly, research evidence suggests upregulated synthesis of lipid signaling molecules as an endogenous attempt to contrast such neurodegeneration-related pathophysiological mechanisms, restore homeostatic balance, and prevent further damage. Among these naturally occurring molecules, palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) has been independently associated with neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties, raising interest into the possibility that its supplementation might represent a novel therapeutic approach in supporting the body-own regulation of many pathophysiological processes potentially contributing to neurocognitive disorders. Here, we systematically reviewed all human and animal studies examining PEA and its biobehavioral correlates in neurocognitive disorders, finding 33 eligible outputs. Studies conducted in animal models of neurodegeneration indicate that PEA improves neurobehavioral functions, including memory and learning, by reducing oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory and astrocyte marker expression as well as rebalancing glutamatergic transmission. PEA was found to promote neurogenesis, especially in the hippocampus, neuronal viability and survival, and microtubule-associated protein 2 and brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression, while inhibiting mast cell infiltration/degranulation and astrocyte activation. It also demonstrated to mitigate β-amyloid-induced astrogliosis, by modulating lipid peroxidation, protein nytrosylation, inducible nitric oxide synthase induction, reactive oxygen species production, caspase3 activation, amyloidogenesis, and tau protein hyperphosphorylation. Such eects were related to PEA ability to indirectly activate cannabinoid receptors and modulate proliferator-activated receptor-α (PPAR-α) activity. Importantly, preclinical evidence suggests that PEA may act as a disease-modifying-drug in the early stage of a neurocognitive disorder, while its protective effect in the frank disorder may be less relevant. Limited human research suggests that PEA supplementation reduces fatigue and cognitive impairment, the latter being also meta-analytically confirmed in 3 eligible studies. PEA improved global executive function, working memory, language deficits, daily living activities, possibly by modulating cortical oscillatory activity and GABAergic transmission. There is currently no established cure for neurocognitive disorders but only treatments to temporarily reduce symptom severity. In the search for compounds able to protect against the pathophysiological mechanisms leading to neurocognitive disorders, PEA may represent a valid therapeutic option to prevent neurodegeneration and support endogenous repair processes against disease progression

Investigating gait, movement, and coordination in children with neurodevelopmental disorders: is there a role for motor abnormalities in atypical neurodevelopment?

Motor abnormalities have been suggested to play a role in most neuropsychiatric disorders, as a potential generic neurodevelopmental vulnerability. However, they still represent a neglected area, with a paucity of empirical studies, especially in pediatric populations. This case-control study aimed to comprehensively assess motor functioning in children with atypical neurodevelopment and investigate whether any socio-demographic or clinical characteristics would concur with motor difficulties to distinguish children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) from healthy controls. Socio-demographic (age and gender) and clinical (intelligence quotient, gait, movement, and coordination) data were collected on 114 children aged 5-15 (83 with NDD, 31 healthy controls). Male children were at significantly higher risk for NDD (OR: 13.023, p &lt; 0.001). Furthermore, there was a statistically significant interaction between the total intelligence quotient and overall coordination such that increasing levels of total intelligence quotient appeared to protect against the likelihood of being diagnosed with an NDD, but only in the context of a preserved coordination (OR: 0.964, p = 0.038). Collectively, results may have important public health implications, as they point towards the development of new approaches to establish an early prognosis in neurodevelopment, including assessing motor difficulties and mitigating their impact on children's quality of life

IKKepsilon involvement in Tax-mediated activation of INF pathway

HTLV-1 Tax de-regulates several cellular signaling pathways leading to cell transformation by altering gene expression, intracellular protein distribution and cell proliferation. Tax-1 induces persistent activation of several transcriptional factors and signal transduction pathways, including NF-\u3baB and CREB/ATF. It is known that Tax-1 constitutively activates TAK1 (transforming growth factor-\u3b2-activated kinase 1) and modifies the interferon (INF) regulatory signals by controlling the expression of INF transcription factors 3 (INF3) and INF4. We have recently reported that HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 Tax proteins interact with TAK1-binding protein 2 (TAB2) of the NF-\u3baB pathway and that both Tax proteins transactivate NF-\u3baB promoters [1]. TAB2 functions as an adaptor protein to recruit TAK1 to TRAF2 (TNF-\u3b1 receptor-associated factor) in TNF-\u3b1 signaling pathways. In the present study we have investigated Tax-1 and Tax-2 role in modifying INF and NF-\u3baB activation through the recruitment of IKKepsilon, an I\u3baB kinase homologue involved in NF-\u3baB and INF3 signaling pathways. By co-immunoprecipitation experiments, we have found that both IKKepsilon and Tax-1, but not Tax-2, are present in protein complexes in transfected cells. IKKepsilon and Tax-1 or Tax-2 role in the activation of INF responsive elements or NF-\u3baB containing promoters have been analyzed after transfecting the protein genes in 293T cells and measuring the effect by luciferase assay. Co-expression of Tax-1 and IKKepsilon resulted in an increased IRF activation mediated by IKKepsilon. Interaction of IKKepsilon with Tax-1 and Tax-2 and their possible effects in the de-regulation of the IRF3 pathways will be discussed

Effectiveness of equine-assisted activities and therapies for improving adaptive behavior and motor function in autism spectrum disorder

Equine-assisted activities and therapies (EAAT) have been suggested to improve adaptive behavior, and possibly motor function, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study investigated the effects of EAAT on adaptive behavior and motor function in 15 children with ASD (13 males) aged 7-15 years as well as the impact of EAAT on the magnitude of stress in the parent-child system and the evolution in the child interaction with both the trained therapist and the therapeutic animal through the 20 weekly sessions of EAAT. EAAT were associated with greater adaptive behavior and coordination (all p 64 0.01) as well as a progressive improvement in the child's abilities to respond to the increasing complexity of such form of positive behavioral support (all p &lt; 0.001). However, EAAT did not prove to be effective in reducing parental distress. Collectively, preliminary evidence presented here may have important public health implications and gives reason to hope that EAAT could possibly be an effective option in ASD, warranting further investigation of its potential benefits in clinical trials among larger samples

Postural control in childhood: investigating the neurodevelopmental gradient hypothesis

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) have been suggested to lie on a gradient continuum, all resulting from common brain disturbances, but with different degrees of impairment severity. This case-control study aimed to assess postural stability against such hypothesis in 104 children/adolescents aged 5-17, of whom 81 had NDDs and 23 were healthy controls. Compared to healthy controls, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) resulted in the most severely impaired neurodevelopmental condition, followed by Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Tourette Syndrome (TS). In particular, while ASD children/adolescents performed worse than healthy controls in a number of sensory conditions across all parameters, ADHD children/adolescents performed worse than healthy controls only in the sway area for the most complex sensory conditions, when their vision and somatosensory functions were both compromised, and performance in Tourette Syndrome (TS) was roughly indistinguishable from that of healthy controls. Finally, differences were also observed between clinical groups, with ASD children/adolescents, and to a much lesser extent ADHD children/adolescents, performing worse than TS children/adolescents, especially when sensory systems were not operationally accurate. Evidence from this study indicates that poor postural control may be a useful biomarker for risk assessment during neurodevelopment, in line with predictions from the gradient hypothesis