USEFULNESS OF AN AD HOC QUESTIONNAIRE (ACRO-CQ) FOR THE SYSTEMATIC ASSESSMENT OF ACROMEGALY COMORBIDITIES AT DIAGNOSIS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT AT FOLLOW-UP

Purpose: To determine the validity of a self-administered questionnaire (Acro-CQ) developed to systematically assess the presence, type and time of onset of acromegaly comorbidities. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study; 105 acromegaly patients and 147 controls with other types of pituitary adenoma, referred to a specialized Italian Center, autonomously compiled Acro-CQ in an outpatient clinical setting. To test its reliability in a different setting, Acro-CQ was administered via mail to 78 patients with acromegaly and 100 with other pituitary adenomas, referred to a specialized US Center. Data obtained from questionnaires in both settings were compared with medical records (gold standard). Results: Demographics of patients and controls from both countries were similar. In both settings, >95 % of the questionnaires were completely filled; only one item was missed in the others. Concordance with medical record was excellent (k > 0.85) for most of the items, independently from the way of administration, patient age, gender and nationality, pituitary adenoma type and disease activity. Conclusions: Acro-CQ is an inexpensive, highly accepted from patients and reliable tool recommended to expedite systematic collection of relevant clinical data in acromegaly at diagnosis, to be replicated at follow-ups. This tool may guide a targeted, cost-effective management of complications. Moreover, it could be applied to retrieve data for survey studies in both acromegaly and other pituitary adenomas, as information is easily and rapidly accessible for statistical analysis

The Golden Beauty: Brain Response to Classical and Renaissance Sculptures

Is there an objective, biological basis for the experience of beauty in art? Or is aesthetic experience entirely subjective? Using fMRI technique, we addressed this question by presenting viewers, naïve to art criticism, with images of masterpieces of Classical and Renaissance sculpture. Employing proportion as the independent variable, we produced two sets of stimuli: one composed of images of original sculptures; the other of a modified version of the same images. The stimuli were presented in three conditions: observation, aesthetic judgment, and proportion judgment. In the observation condition, the viewers were required to observe the images with the same mind-set as if they were in a museum. In the other two conditions they were required to give an aesthetic or proportion judgment on the same images. Two types of analyses were carried out: one which contrasted brain response to the canonical and the modified sculptures, and one which contrasted beautiful vs. ugly sculptures as judged by each volunteer. The most striking result was that the observation of original sculptures, relative to the modified ones, produced activation of the right insula as well as of some lateral and medial cortical areas (lateral occipital gyrus, precuneus and prefrontal areas). The activation of the insula was particularly strong during the observation condition. Most interestingly, when volunteers were required to give an overt aesthetic judgment, the images judged as beautiful selectively activated the right amygdala, relative to those judged as ugly. We conclude that, in observers naïve to art criticism, the sense of beauty is mediated by two non-mutually exclusive processes: one based on a joint activation of sets of cortical neurons, triggered by parameters intrinsic to the stimuli, and the insula (objective beauty); the other based on the activation of the amygdala, driven by one's own emotional experiences (subjective beauty)

Observation of B-s(0) -> chi(c1)phi decay and study of B-0 -> chi K-c1,K-2*(0) decays

The first observation of the decay B-s(0) -> chi(c1)phi and a study of B-0 -> chi K-c1,K-2*(0) decays are presented. The analysis is performed using a dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb(-1), collected by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The following ratios of branching fractions are measured: B(B-s(0) -> chi(c1)phi)/B(B-s(0) -> J/psi phi) = (18.9 +/- 1.8 (stat) +/- 1.3 (syst) +/- 0.8(B)) x 10(-2), B(B-0 -> chi K-c1*(0))//B(B-0 -> J/psi K*(0)) = (19.8 +/- 1.1 (stat) +/- 1.2 (syst) +/- 0.9(B)) x 10(-2), B(B-0 -> chi K-c2*(0))//B(B-0 -> chi K-c1*(0)) = (17.1 +/- 5.0 (stat) +/- 1.7 (syst) +/- 1.1(B)) x 10(-2), where the third uncertainty is due to the limited knowledge of the branching fractions of chi(c) -> J/psi gamma modes