Linguistic prosody and comprehension of idioms and proverbs in subjects of school age

A crucial component of language is represented by the prosodic system because it provides essential elements to speaker about how a sentence should be interpreted or intended (Fodor, 2002). Increasing interest from researchers also relates to the understanding of figurative language (Levorato, & Cacciari, 2002). In the figures of speech that the speaker wants the listener intends something more or different than what is explicitly stated (Glucksberg, 2001).. In particular, prosodic intonation is crucial in the resolution of syntactic ambiguity and structural features that constitute the complex messages, such as idioms and proverbs. A crucial component of language, therefore, is represented by the prosodic system because it provides essential elements to talking about how a sentence should be interpreted or understood . The ability to relate to metalinguistic understanding the cognitive processes that allow you to reflect on language and manipulate its characteristics. These capabilities are essential to recognize and resolve the ambiguities of a complex message, you can control and plan the way we produce and understand language (Levorato, 2007). The study demonstrates that an understanding prosodic correlates with the understanding of idioms and proverbs, which are crucial for the achievement of metalinguistic awareness, are influenced by the level of schooling and socio-cultural

KRAS-regulated glutamine metabolism requires UCP2-mediated aspartate transport to support pancreatic cancer growth

The oncogenic KRAS mutation has a critical role in the initiation of human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) since it rewires glutamine metabolism to increase reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) production, balancing cellular redox homeostasis with macromolecular synthesis1,2. Mitochondrial glutamine-derived aspartate must be transported into the cytosol to generate metabolic precursors for NADPH production2. The mitochondrial transporter responsible for this aspartate efflux has remained elusive. Here, we show that mitochondrial uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) catalyses this transport and promotes tumour growth. UCP2-silenced KRASmut cell lines display decreased glutaminolysis, lower NADPH/NADP+ and glutathione/glutathione disulfide ratios and higher reactive oxygen species levels compared to wild-type counterparts. UCP2 silencing reduces glutaminolysis also in KRASWT PDAC cells but does not affect their redox homeostasis or proliferation rates. In vitro and in vivo, UCP2 silencing strongly suppresses KRASmut PDAC cell growth. Collectively, these results demonstrate that UCP2 plays a vital role in PDAC, since its aspartate transport activity connects the mitochondrial and cytosolic reactions necessary for KRASmut rewired glutamine metabolism2, and thus it should be considered a key metabolic target for the treatment of this refractory tumour

An analysis of a single case of comorbidity between learning disability and borderline intellectual functioning

In this study we explored a case of comorbidity between DSA and Borderline Intellectual Functioning. The girl was fourteen years old, ninth grade of school in Palermo, with significant learning difficulties. Two interviews were conducted , one with parents and one with teachers, to investigate the history of the girl's learning. In the pre-test phase the following cognitive areas were investigated: Q.I. (Level of Intelligence), decoding ability, reading comprehension and writing skills. Motivational-emotional profile was also evaluated: school motivation, self-handicapping strategies, self esteem and school anxiety. To assess these cognitive areas we used: Reading Comprehension Test(Cornoldi & Colpo, 2001), Reading Decoding Test (Cornoldi & Colpo, 2001), Dyslexic and Disorthographic Evaluation Test (Sartori, Job, & Tressoldi, 1995), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Revised (Wechsler, 1974), Self-Esteem Scale by the TMA (Bracken, 1992), School Motivational Profile (Alesi, Pepi & Rappo, 2011), Self-Handicapping Scale for Children (Waschbusch, Craig, Pelham, & King, 2007) and School Anxiety by the Psychiatric scales of Self-administration for children and adolescents (Cianchetti & Fancello, 2001). After this pre-test phase, the girl took part in T.I.R.D. Multimedia Training for the Rehabilitation of Dyslexia (Rappo & Pepi, 2011), aimed at improving decoding abilities. This training has involved the girl for three months. It consisted of specific tasks to rehabilitate both visual and phonological strategies: sound blending, word segmentation, alliteration test and rhyme test, letter recognition, digraph recognition, trigraph recognition and word recognition are samples of visual tasks. The first four are samples of phonological tasks, while the remaining four are samples of visual tasks. At last, in post-test phase, reading and writing ability were revalued. The emotional-motivational profile to monitor trends was also reappraised. Results show significant improvements from pre-test to post-test in cognitive, emotional and motivational areas investigated