110 research outputs found
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 < 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
Metabolic risk factor profile associated with use of second generation antipsychotics: a cross-sectional study in a community mental health centre
open9noBACKGROUND: Second generation antipsychotics (SGA) have demonstrated several advantages over first generation antipsychotics (FGA) in terms of positive, negative, cognitive, and affective symptoms and a lower propensity for extrapyramidal side effects. Despite these undeniable advantages, SGA have been associated with causing and exacerbating metabolic disorders, such as obesity, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. This cross sectional study aimed to evaluate the metabolic risk factor profile associated with use of SGAs in comparison with non -treated control patients. METHODS: The study was carried out at a Community Mental Health Centre (CMHC) in Bologna. The study subjects were outpatients with serious mental disorders treated with SGA (clozapine, olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine). A sample of adult men and women suffering from idiopathic hyperhydrosis, without psychiatric history or antipsychotic treatment, were randomly selected from outpatients of the Department of Neurology in Bologna as a reference group. We investigated differences among the treatment and reference groups for glycaemia, cholesterolaemia and triglyceridaemia levels. RESULTS: The study sample was composed of 76 patients, 38 males and 38 females. The reference group was composed of 36 subjects, 19 females and 17 males. All patients treated with SGAs had higher mean glycaemia and triglyceridaemia and a significantly higher risk of receiving a diagnosis of hyperglycaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia than the reference group. We did not find any differences in mean glycaemia or mean triglyceridaemia levels among treatment groups. Patients with clozapine had a significantly higher mean BMI value and rate of obesity than patients treated with other SGAs. CONCLUSION: The rate of obesity and metabolic disorders observed in this study were higher than the prevalence in the control group and similar to that previously reported in psychiatric samples; these findings imply per se that more attention should be paid to the metabolic condition of psychiatric patients. In line with the International Consensus Conferences we recommend that monitoring of weight, fasting plasma glucose, cholesterol and triglyceride levels be obtained in routine clinical practice with all antipsychoticsopenTarricone I.; Casoria M.; Ferrari Gozzi B.; Grieco D.; Menchetti M.; Serretti A.; Ujkaj M.; Pastorelli F.; Berardi D.Tarricone I.; Casoria M.; Ferrari Gozzi B.; Grieco D.; Menchetti M.; Serretti A.; Ujkaj M.; Pastorelli F.; Berardi D
Semi-automated registration-based anatomical labelling, voxel based morphometry and cortical thickness mapping of the mouse brain
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Effects of a prevention program on multiple health-compromising behaviours in adolescence: A cluster randomized controlled trial.
We aimed to assess the effectiveness of 'Paesaggi di Prevenzione', a school-based prevention program delivered by trained teachers and designed to tackle smoking, alcohol misuse, dietary risks, and physical inactivity in adolescence. We evaluated the program between 2010 and 2013 with a two-arm, parallel-group, multicentre cluster randomized controlled trial in which schools were the units of randomization. We collected data on health-compromising behaviours using self-reported measurements of behaviour frequency administered before and after program implementation. We used multivariable mixed-effects logistic regression models to estimate program effects on health-compromising behaviours. The analysis sample included 3410 middle school students and 1651 high school students. Among middle school students, mean age at baseline was 12 years (standard deviation [SD] 0.5 years), 51% were boys, and 41% had high socioeconomic status [SES] (defined as having at least one parent/guardian with university level education). In high school students, mean age at baseline was 14 years (SD 0.7 years), 56% were boys, and 31% had high SES. The program did not have effects on smoking, alcohol misuse, and physical activity. The program had iatrogenic effects in regard to some eating behaviours, resulting in (i) lower odds of fruit consumption among middle-school students (odds ratio [OR] 0.82; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.68-0.99) and (ii) lower odds of having breakfast every day in high-school students at the post-intervention measurement (OR 0.76; 95%CI 0.58-0.99) but not at one-year follow-up (OR 0.94; 95%CI 0.69-1.28). Due to the possibility of unintended effects, we advise against disseminating 'Paesaggi di Prevenzione' in its present form. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN00953701
Deletion of autism risk gene Shank3 disrupts prefrontal connectivity
Mutations in the synaptic scaffolding protein Shank3 are a major cause of autism, and are associated with prominent intellectual and language deficits. However, the neural mechanisms whereby SHANK3 deficiency affects higher order socio-communicative functions remain unclear. Using high-resolution functional and structural MRI in adult male mice, here we show that loss of Shank3 (Shank3B-/-) results in disrupted local and long-range prefrontal and fronto-striatal functional connectivity. We document that prefrontal hypo-connectivity is associated with reduced short-range cortical projections density, and reduced gray matter volume. Finally, we show that prefrontal disconnectivity is predictive of social communication deficits, as assessed with ultrasound vocalization recordings. Collectively, our results reveal a critical role of SHANK3 in the development of prefrontal anatomy and function, and suggest that SHANK3 deficiency may predispose to intellectual disability and socio-communicative impairments via dysregulation of higher-order cortical connectivity
Hamiltonian dynamics and geometry of phase transitions in classical XY models
The Hamiltonian dynamics associated to classical, planar, Heisenberg XY
models is investigated for two- and three-dimensional lattices. Besides the
conventional signatures of phase transitions, here obtained through time
averages of thermodynamical observables in place of ensemble averages,
qualitatively new information is derived from the temperature dependence of
Lyapunov exponents. A Riemannian geometrization of newtonian dynamics suggests
to consider other observables of geometric meaning tightly related with the
largest Lyapunov exponent. The numerical computation of these observables -
unusual in the study of phase transitions - sheds a new light on the
microscopic dynamical counterpart of thermodynamics also pointing to the
existence of some major change in the geometry of the mechanical manifolds at
the thermodynamical transition. Through the microcanonical definition of the
entropy, a relationship between thermodynamics and the extrinsic geometry of
the constant energy surfaces of phase space can be naturally
established. In this framework, an approximate formula is worked out,
determining a highly non-trivial relationship between temperature and topology
of the . Whence it can be understood that the appearance of a phase
transition must be tightly related to a suitable major topology change of the
. This contributes to the understanding of the origin of phase
transitions in the microcanonical ensemble.Comment: in press on Physical Review E, 43 pages, LaTeX (uses revtex), 22
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The Same Microbiota and a Potentially Discriminant Metabolome in the Saliva of Omnivore, Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarian and Vegan Individuals
The Same Microbiota and a Potentially Discriminant Metabolome in the Saliva of Omnivore, Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarian and Vegan Individuals
Riemannian theory of Hamiltonian chaos and Lyapunov exponents
This paper deals with the problem of analytically computing the largest
Lyapunov exponent for many degrees of freedom Hamiltonian systems. This aim is
succesfully reached within a theoretical framework that makes use of a
geometrization of newtonian dynamics in the language of Riemannian geometry. A
new point of view about the origin of chaos in these systems is obtained
independently of homoclinic intersections. Chaos is here related to curvature
fluctuations of the manifolds whose geodesics are natural motions and is
described by means of Jacobi equation for geodesic spread. Under general
conditions ane effective stability equation is derived; an analytic formula for
the growth-rate of its solutions is worked out and applied to the
Fermi-Pasta-Ulam beta model and to a chain of coupled rotators. An excellent
agreement is found the theoretical prediction and the values of the Lyapunov
exponent obtained by numerical simulations for both models.Comment: RevTex, 40 pages, 8 PostScript figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
E (scheduled for November 1996
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