NOTCH and Graft-Versus-Host Disease

In allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, which is the major curative therapy for hematological malignancies, T cells play a key role in the development of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). NOTCH pathway is a conserved signal transduction system that regulates T cell development and differentiation. The present review analyses the role of the NOTCH signaling as a new regulator of acute GvHD. NOTCH signaling could also represent a new therapeutic target for GvHD

Regolazione fisiopatologica del cotrasporto K +/Cl-, del cotrasporto Na+/K+/Cl- e del controtrasporto Na+/H+

Dottorato di ricerca in scienze endocrinologiche e metaboliche. 7. ciclo. Coordinatore A. Floridi. Tutore R. VernaConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale - P.za Cavalleggeri, 1, Florence / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Cell therapy: cGMP facilities and manufacturing

Advanced therapies constitute one of the most complex, organizational, and regulatory areas currently approached by clinical researchers in order to explore new therapeutic applications. Basic scientists and clinicians trying to implement cell therapies into clinical practice, may feel overwhelmed by the apparently endless regulatory requirements that apply. However, regulatory agencies have primary responsibility on patient safety and law enforcement are, and should be, their main considerations. Cell- and tissuebased therapies have the potential to treat many conditions, where present conventional treatments are inadequate. The current approach to cell- and tissue-based therapy development requires using good manufacturing production facilities through master and working cell banks. Facilities need to be purpose-designed and accredited by their national medicinal regulatory body and production scientists need to work in close tandem with quality assurances and ethics committees to absolutely ensure the safety of this cellular product

The Effect of Sadness on Visual Artistic Creativity in Non-Artists

The study of the relationships between mood and creativity is long-standing. In this study, the effects of mood states on artistic creativity were investigated in ninety non-artist participants. Mood states were induced by instructing participants to listen to self-selected happy, sad, or neutral music for ten minutes. Then, all participants were asked to make two artistic drawings. To check for mood manipulation, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) was administered before and after listening to the self-selected music. After the mood induction, the negative group reported higher scores than the other two groups in the ‘depression’ subscale and lower scores than the other two groups in the ‘vigour’ subscale of the POMS; the positive mood group showed more vigour than the negative mood group. Yet, three independent judges assigned higher ratings of creativity and emotionality to the drawings produced by participants in the negative mood group than drawings produced by participants in the other two groups. These results confirmed that specific negative mood states (e.g., sadness) positively affect artistic creativity, probably because participants are more likely to engage in mood-repairing. Limitations and future research directions are presented

Divergent thinking in Italian elementary school children: the key role of probabilistic reasoning style

Divergent thinking is widely recognised as an individual creative potential and an essential factor in fostering creativity since the early stages of life. Albeit previous research revealed that creativity could be pursued through controlled mental processes (e.g. reasoning), the debate about the impact of children's reasoning on divergent thinking and, ultimately, creativity is still open. The present study sought to deepen the relationships between probabilistic reasoning and divergent thinking in a sample of 106 Italian children (meanage = 8.64, SDage = 1.34; 58 F). The Beads Task was used to evaluate probabilistic reasoning, whereas the Alternative Uses Task was administered to assess divergent thinking. Results revealed that analytical, slow, and effortful forms of thought underpinned by high probabilistic competencies predict children's divergent production. These findings suggest that a higher score for divergence of thinking depends on a high involvement of reasoning style, which in this study relies on the ability to make probabilistic decisions in ambiguous situations. Future research directions were discussed

How would you describe a familiar route or put in order the landmarks along it? It depends on your cognitive style!

Cognitive style refers to the preference in perceiving, organizing and remembering information. Different cognitive styles have been identified across the years. Amongst others, field-dependence/independence cognitive style is the extent to which the person perceives part of a field as discrete from the surrounding environment as a whole, rather than embedded in the field. Instead, visualizer/verbalizer cognitive style involves the preference in processing visual versus verbal information. Both cognitive styles can influence navigational behaviour. The present study aimed at clarifying the extent to which field dependence/independence and visualizer/verbalizer cognitive styles affect route-based navigational tasks. Therefore, 44 healthy participants from L’Aquila City were assessed for their cognitive styles and were asked to perform two different navigational tasks: reorder paths using a series of photos depicting landmarks from L’Aquila (visually presented task, visual path task—VisPT); orally describe specific paths of L’Aquila (verbally presented task, verbal path task—VerPT). Results showed that the field-independence cognitive style predicted response times of VisPT, whereas the visualizer/verbalizer cognitive style predicted the instructions given when performing the VerPT, namely, the number of metrical distance indicators provided by participants. By investigating two different cognitive styles, the study clarifies that field-dependence/independence and visualizer/verbalizer cognitive styles can play a different role in spatial navigation and suggests that the material by which a navigational task is presented affects its performance

Do Advanced Spatial Strategies Depend on the Number of Flight Hours? The Case of Military Pilots

Background: Military pilots show advanced visuospatial skills. Previous studies demonstrate that they are better at mentally rotating a target, taking different perspectives, estimating distances and planning travel and have a topographic memory. Here, we compared navigational cognitive styles between military pilots and people without flight experience. Pilots were expected to be more survey-style users than nonpilots, showing more advanced navigational strategies. Method: A total of 106 military jet pilots from the Italian Air Force and 92 nonpilots from the general population matched for education with the pilots were enrolled to investigate group differences in navigational styles. The participants were asked to perform a reduced version of the Spatial Cognitive Style Test (SCST), consisting of six tasks that allow us to distinguish individuals in terms of landmark (people orient themselves by using a figurative memory for environmental objects), route (people use an egocentric representation of the space) and survey (people have a map-like representation of the space) user styles. Results: In line with our hypothesis, military pilots mainly adopt the survey style, whereas nonpilots mainly adopt the route style. In addition, pilots outperformed nonpilots in both the 3D Rotation Task and Map Description Task. Conclusions: Military flight expertise influences some aspects of spatial ability, leading to enhanced human navigation. However, it must be considered that they are a population whose navigational skills were already high at the time of selection at the academy before formal training began

GPS Digital Nudge to Limit Road Crashes in Non-Expert Drivers

Many automotive industries are developing technologies to assist human drivers in suggesting wiser choices to improve drivers’ behaviour. The technology that makes use of this modality is defined as a “digital nudge”. An example of a digital nudge is the GPS that is installed on smartphones. Some studies have demonstrated that the use of GPS negatively affects environmental learning because of the transformation of some spatial skills. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the use of the GPS nudge and its relationship with spatial ability, together with its function in supporting the driving behaviour of non-expert drivers, in order to reduce the number of road crashes. A total of 88 non-expert drivers (M age = 21 years) filled in questionnaires and carried out tasks to measure spatial abilities, sense of direction, driver behaviour, and six different real-life driving scenarios. The results reveal that the higher the spatial skills are, the greater the GPS use is, and that drivers who use GPS improve their sense of direction. Moreover, people with high visuospatial abilities use GPS more extensively. Finally, young drivers do not consider the GPS aid to be useful when they have no time pressure. The results are discussed by taking into account the familiarity-and-spatial-ability model

CD200 as a Potential New Player in Inflammation during Rotator Cuff Tendon Injury/Repair: An In Vitro Model

Rotator cuff tendon (RCT) disease results from multifactorial mechanisms, in which inflammation plays a key role. Pro-inflammatory cytokines and tendon stem cell/progenitor cells (TSPCs) have been shown to participate in the inflammatory response. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is still not clear. In this study, flow cytometry analyses of different subpopulations of RCT-derived TSPCs demonstrate that after three days of administration, TNFα alone or in combination with IFNγ significantly decreases the percentage of CD146+CD49d+ and CD146+CD49f+ but not CD146+CD109+ TSPCs populations. In parallel, the same pro-inflammatory cytokines upregulate the expression of CD200 in the CD146+ TSPCs population. Additionally, the TNFα/IFNγ combination modulates the protein expression of STAT1, STAT3, and MMP9, but not fibromodulin. At the gene level, IRF1, CAAT (CAAT/EBPbeta), and DOK2 but not NF-κb, TGRF2 (TGFBR2), and RAS-GAP are modulated. In conclusion, although our study has several important limitations, the results highlight a new potential role of CD200 in regulating inflammation during tendon injuries. In addition, the genes analyzed here might be new potential players in the inflammatory response of TSPCs

Proteome of human stem cells from periodontal ligament and dental pulp.

BACKGROUND: Many adult tissues contain a population of stem cells with the ability to regenerate structures similar to the microenvironments from which they are derived in vivo and represent a promising therapy for the regeneration of complex tissues in the clinical disorder. Human adult stem cells (SCs) including bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs), dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) and periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs) have been characterized for their high proliferative potential, expression of characteristic SC-associated markers and for the plasticity to differentiate in different lineage in vitro. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The aim of this study is to define the molecular features of stem cells from oral tissue by comparing the proteomic profiles obtained with 2-DE followed by MALDI-TOF/TOF of ex-vivo cultured human PDLSCs, DPSCs and BMSCs. Our results showed qualitative similarities in the proteome profiles among the SCs examined including some significant quantitative differences. To enrich the knowledge of oral SCs proteome we performed an analysis in narrow range pH 4-7 and 6-9, and we found that DPSCs vs PDLSCs express differentially regulated proteins that are potentially related to growth, regulation and genesis of neuronal cells, suggesting that SCs derived from oral tissue source populations may possess the potential ability of neuronal differentiation which is very consistent with their neural crest origin. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: This study identifies some differentially expressed proteins by using comparative analysis between DPSCs and PDLSCs and BMSCs and suggests that stem cells from oral tissue could have a different cell lineage potency compared to BMSCs