Il significato politico del mos maiorum in Cicerone

The author proves that the mos maiorum has a political value and highlights the evolution and crisis of this concept during the late Roman Republic. The mos maiorum is the ruling class’s foundation of power. The dominant political faction invokes the mos maiorum in order to legitimize its political authority. This faction is originally comprised of the patricii, who are later replaced by the patrician-plebeian nobilitas, in the half of the 4th century B. C. Finally, the power of an elite category of citizens, known as optimates, evoke the mos maiorum in order to legitimize their political power. The optimates embody the values of the ancestors. In the Late Roman Republic the mos maiorum is in great crisis. The moral degeneration linked to the crisis of the mos maiorum causes the political downfall of the res publica. The ruling class is principally responsible for the crisis of res publica; its absence of political unity is the essential reason for the downfall of the res publica. The evocation of the mos maiorum made by Cicero fails, because the res publica is not that of the time of the maiores, but it’s only a dim of the Rome of the ancestors

Dualidad discursiva en el cuento "La casa dividida" del escritor sudafricano Alan Paton

El presente trabajo constituye un primer acercamiento al estudio de los cuentos comprendidos en Debbie, vete a casa del escritor sudafricano Alan Paton (1903 - 1988). A modo de introducción, haremos una breve reseña biográfica del escritor (Martínez Lirola, 2008). Esta información resultará, a nuestro entender, relevante al momento de hacer una primera lectura del cuento "La casa dividida". Asimismo, nos proponemos examinar las relaciones de poder que se gestan en el interior del cuento a partir de un estudio discursivo de los parlamentos de los dos personajes principales: por un lado, un joven delincuente reincidente y, por el otro, el narrador en calidad de director del reformatorio en el que cumple su condena. Para el análisis de la configuración del discurso y de las relaciones de poder que se dan cita dentro del texto, adoptamos la perspectiva teórico-metodológica que ofrece Michel Foucault (2008 (1969)). Según nuestra hipótesis, la oposición entre el deseo y la realidad estructura el (doble) discurso de ambos personajes pero lleva a la construcción de dos sujetos bien diferentes, los cuales, sin embargo, y en virtud del contexto social en el que están insertos, son producto de las mismas relaciones de poderFil: Iacoboni, Gabriela N.. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina

Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses.

Decades of behavioral science research have documented functional shifts in attitudes and ideological adherence in response to various challenges, but little work to date has illuminated the neural mechanisms underlying these dynamics. This paper describes how continuous theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation may be employed to experimentally assess the causal contribution of cortical regions to threat-related ideological shifts. In the example protocol provided here, participants are exposed to a threat prime-an explicit reminder of their own inevitable death and bodily decomposition-following a downregulation of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) or a sham stimulation. Next, disguised within a series of distracter tasks, participants' relative degree of ideological adherence is assessed-in the present example, with regard to coalitional prejudice and religious belief. Participants for whom the pMFC has been downregulated exhibit less coalitionally biased responses to an immigrant critical of the participants' national in-group, and less conviction in positive afterlife beliefs (i.e., God, angels, and heaven), despite having recently been reminded of death. These results complement prior findings that continuous theta burst stimulation of the pMFC influences social conformity and sharing and illustrate the feasibility of investigating the neural basis of high-level social cognitive shifts using transcranial magnetic stimulation

Neural correlates of the processing of co-speech gestures

In communicative situations, speech is often accompanied by gestures. For example, speakers tend to illustrate certain contents of speech by means of iconic gestures which are hand movements that bear a formal relationship to the contents of speech. The meaning of an iconic gesture is determined both by its form as well as the speech context in which it is performed. Thus, gesture and speech interact in comprehension. Using fMRI, the present study investigated what brain areas are involved in this interaction process. Participants watched videos in which sentences containing an ambiguous word (e.g. She touched the mouse) were accompanied by either a meaningless grooming movement, a gesture supporting the more frequent dominant meaning (e.g. animal) or a gesture supporting the less frequent subordinate meaning (e.g. computer device). We hypothesized that brain areas involved in the interaction of gesture and speech would show greater activation to gesture-supported sentences as compared to sentences accompanied by a meaningless grooming movement. The main results are that when contrasted with grooming, both types of gestures (dominant and subordinate) activated an array of brain regions consisting of the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS), the inferior parietal lobule bilaterally and the ventral precentral sulcus bilaterally. Given the crucial role of the STS in audiovisual integration processes, this activation might reflect the interaction between the meaning of gesture and the ambiguous sentence. The activations in inferior frontal and inferior parietal regions may reflect a mechanism of determining the goal of co-speech hand movements through an observation-execution matching process

Predicting Empathy From Resting State Brain Connectivity: A Multivariate Approach.

Recent task fMRI studies suggest that individual differences in trait empathy and empathic concern are mediated by patterns of connectivity between self-other resonance and top-down control networks that are stable across task demands. An untested implication of this hypothesis is that these stable patterns of connectivity should be visible even in the absence of empathy tasks. Using machine learning, we demonstrate that patterns of resting state fMRI connectivity (i.e. the degree of synchronous BOLD activity across multiple cortical areas in the absence of explicit task demands) of resonance and control networks predict trait empathic concern (n = 58). Empathic concern was also predicted by connectivity patterns within the somatomotor network. These findings further support the role of resonance-control network interactions and of somatomotor function in our vicariously driven concern for others. Furthermore, a practical implication of these results is that it is possible to assess empathic predispositions in individuals without needing to perform conventional empathy assessments

Impact of heart rate on myocardial salvage in timely reperfused patients with STSegment elevation myocardial infarction. new insights from cardiovascular magnetic resonance

BACKGROUND: Previous studies evaluating the progression of the necrotic wave in relation to heart rate were carried out only in animal models of ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI). Aim of the study was to investigate changes of myocardial salvage in relation to different heart rates at hospital admission in timely reperfused patients with STEMI by using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR). METHODS: One hundred-eighty-seven patients with STEMI successfully and timely treated with primary coronary angioplasty underwent CMR five days after hospital admission. According to the heart rate at presentation, patients were subcategorized into 5 quintiles: <55 bpm (group I, n = 44), 55-64 bpm (group II, n = 35), 65-74 bpm (group III, n = 35), 75-84 bpm (group IV, n = 37), ≥85 bpm (group V, n = 36). Area at risk, infarct size, microvascular obstruction (MVO) and myocardium salvaged index (MSI) were assessed by CMR using standard sequences. RESULTS: Lower heart rates at presentation were associated with a bigger amount of myocardial salvage after reperfusion. MSI progressively decreased as the heart rates increased (0.54 group I, 0.46 group II, 0.38 group III, 0.34 group IV, 0.32 group V, p<0.001). Stepwise multivariable analysis showed heart rate, peak troponin and the presence of MVO were independent predictor of myocardial salvage. No changes related to heart rate were observed in relation to area at risk and infarct size. CONCLUSIONS: High heart rates registered before performing coronary angioplasty in timely reperfused patients with STEMI are associated with a reduction in salvaged myocardium. In particular, salvaged myocardium significantly reduced when heart rate at presentation is ≥85 bpm