The new covid-19 related psychological distress pandemic

Although a few years have passed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a large body of scientific literature is already present on the impact that the worldwide spread of the virus has had on people's quality of life [...]

Terrorism's Fear. Perceived Personal and National Threats

Una ricerca sugli effetti delle azioni terroristiche dopo l'11 settembre nella percezione della vulnerabilit\ue0 e del rischio. Cambiamenti di comportamento, scelte di vita e di relazioni, alla luce delle paure mediatiche e reali

Environmental Enrichment During Adolescence Mitigates Cognitive Deficits and Alcohol Vulnerability due to Continuous and Intermittent Perinatal Alcohol Exposure in Adult Rats

Perinatal alcohol exposure affects ontogenic neurodevelopment, causing physical and functional long-term abnormalities with limited treatment options. This study investigated long-term consequences of continuous and intermittent maternal alcohol drinking on behavioral readouts of cognitive function and alcohol vulnerability in the offspring. The effects of environmental enrichment (EE) during adolescence were also evaluated. Female rats underwent continuous alcohol drinking (CAD)—or intermittent alcohol drinking paradigm (IAD), along pregestation, gestation, and lactation periods—equivalent to the whole gestational period in humans. Male offspring were reared in standard conditions or EE until adulthood and were then assessed for declarative memory in the novel object recognition test; spatial learning, cognitive flexibility, and reference memory in the Morris water maze (MWM); alcohol consumption and relapse by a two-bottle choice paradigm. Our data show that perinatal CAD decreased locomotor activity, exploratory behavior, and declarative memory with respect to controls, whereas perinatal IAD displayed impaired declarative memory and spatial learning and memory. Moreover, both perinatal alcohol-exposed offspring showed higher vulnerability to alcohol consummatory behavior than controls, albeit perinatal IAD rats showed a greater alcohol consumption and relapse behavior with respect to perinatal-CAD progeny. EE ameliorated declarative memory in perinatal CAD, while it mitigated spatial learning and reference memory impairment in perinatal-IAD progeny. In addition, EE decreased vulnerability to alcohol in both control and perinatal alcohol-exposed rats. Maternal alcohol consumption produces drinking pattern-related long-term consequences on cognition and vulnerability to alcohol in the offspring. However, increased positive environmental stimuli during adolescence may curtail the detrimental effects of developmental alcohol exposure

What Are the Success Factors of Multilingual Families? Relationships Between Linguistic Attitudes and Community Dynamics

The research focuses on the influence of emotional, cognitive, and social climate on the language choices of multilingual families, and the impact they can have on their general well-being, intergenerational relationships, and the community context. The methodological framework of reference is Grounded Theory. Collected data concern language practices, attitudes, emotions, and generational, trigenerational, and social interactive dynamics of multilingual families. The results include key insights into the variables underlying the linguistic attitudes of multicultural families. Two Network Views suggest that linguistic attitudes, such as the conscious management of specific and complex dynamics activated in a multilingual family, can stimulate well-being

Acetaldehyde, motivation and stress: Behavioral evidence of an addictive ménage à trois

Acetaldehyde (ACD) contributes to alcohol’s psychoactive effects through its own rewarding properties. Recent studies shed light on the behavioral correlates of ACD administration and the possible interactions with key neurotransmitters for motivation, reward and stress-related response, such as dopamine and endocannabinoids. This mini review article critically examines ACD psychoactive properties, focusing on behavioral investigations able to unveil ACD motivational effects and their pharmacological modulation in vivo. Similarly to alcohol, rats spontaneously drink ACD, whose presence is detected in the brain following chronic self-administration paradigm. ACD motivational properties are demonstrated by operant paradigms tailored to model several drug-related behaviors, such as induction and maintenance of operant self-administration, extinction, relapse and punishment resistance. ACD-related addictive-like behaviors are sensitive to pharmacological manipulations of dopamine and endocannabinoid signaling. Interestingly, the ACD-dopamine-endocannabinoids relationship also contributes to neuroplastic alterations of the NPYergic system, a stress-related peptide critically involved in alcohol abuse. The understanding of the ménage-a-trois among ACD, reward- and stress-related circuits holds promising potential for the development of novel pharmacological approaches aimed at reducing alcohol abuse

Drinking pattern matters: effects on maternal care and offspring vulnerability to alcohol in rats

Alcohol drinking during pregnancy and post-partum period is a major concern because of the persistent neurobehavioral deficits in the offspring, which include increased vulnerability to substance abuse (1). The intermittent pattern of alcohol consumption induces higher drinking levels and deeper neurobiological changes in addiction-related brain regions, with respect to traditional free-access paradigms in male rats (2, 3). Nevertheless, no studies investigated on the effects of the drinking pattern on female subjects during pregnancy and perinatal time. To this aim, this study explored the consequences of continuous vs. intermittent drinking pattern on maternal behaviour and on offspring vulnerability to alcohol, during adulthood. Dams were given two-bottle choice to water and 20% alcohol with either continuous- or intermittent access (CA vs IA), along a 12-week period. They suspended alcohol drinking during breeding and resumed alcohol self-administration from late gestation throughout lactation, when they were assessed for home-cage undisturbed maternal behaviour. In the adulthood, alcohol-exposed offspring were assessed for alcohol drinking behaviour in a free-choice paradigm and tested for the deprivation effect. Our results show that alcohol consumption and preference significantly decreased in IA group during pregnancy, returning to baseline during lactation. Alcohol drinking was able to disrupt spontaneous maternal behaviour, especially in IA exposed dams. On the other hand, perinatal CA exposure did not increase alcohol-drinking behaviour in the offspring with respect to controls, while rats perinatally exposed to IA displayed a high vulnerability to alcohol, in terms of drinking behaviour and deprivation effect. In conclusion, this study indicates for the first time that the pattern of alcohol consumption can be responsible for different extents of maternal behaviour disruption and detrimental consequences in the offspring. Therefore gender- but also pattern-related differences should be taken into account for contrasting alcohol abuse and dependence, especially during perinatal time.   1. McMurray MS, Williams SK, Jarrett TM, Cox ET, Fay EE, Overstreet DH, Walker CH, Johns JM. Neurotoxicol Teratol. 2008;30(6):475-86. 2. Stuber GD, Hopf FW, Hahn J, Cho SL, Guillory A, Bonci A. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2008 Oct;32(10):1714-20 3. George O, Sanders C, Freiling J, Grigoryan E, Vu S, Allen CD, Crawford E, Mandyam CD, Koob GF. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012;109(44):18156-6

Self-esteem, quality of life, and physical activity in women with diagnosed endometriosis: A pilot study in an italian sample

Purpose. Endometriosis is a painful pathology impairing women's daily life. Several studies have shown that patients report low mental and physical quality of life, but no general evaluation of their self-esteem has been found. Studies concerning physical activity frequency present inconsistent results. Therefore, the current paper aims to compare life quality and selfesteem in women with endometriosis with the Italian normative data of the measures used. Methods. Overall, 36 women with diagnosed endometriosis treated in hospital completed a questionnaire detecting physical activity frequency, self-esteem, quality of life, and socioeconomic information. One sample t-test served to compare the data from this particular group with those of the general Italian population. Results. The participants displayed higher self-esteem (t = 5.65, p < 0.001) and a good quality of life (physical functioning: T = 3.64, p < 0.001), except for fatigue (t = -3.24, p = 0.003; significant difference); they declared feeling more fatigue than the general population. Only 4 women (11%) reported regular physical activity, while 16 were smokers (44.4%, mean: 10.6 cigarettes/day). Conclusions. Women with diagnosed endometriosis presented higher self-esteem and normal quality of life, even though their general health was lower and fatigue was higher than in the general Italian population. However, the sample involved females of low socioeconomic status and low education, characterized by poor communication skills and not open to externalize their feelings. Therefore, they might not have been honest in their answers. This potential bias, together with the small sample size, will be addressed in future research

Physical exercise and prevention of falls. Effects of a Pilates training method compared with a general physical activity program A randomized controlled trial

Introduction: Falls are the leading cause of injury-related mortality and morbidity in the elderly. Physical activity plays a key role in the prevention of falls and stimulates postural control. The aim of this study was to compare a general physical activity program for the elderly with a Pilates program to evaluate the effects on balance and on reducing the risk of falling. Materials and Methods: Forty-six subjects were enrolled in this study, but only 41 were included in the study. The subjects were divided into 2 groups: Pilates group (P-G) and a group following a nonspecific program of physical activity (Pa-G). Each subject underwent the hand grip test, Berg balance scale test, and posturographic analysis. Results: Spearman correlation coefficient showed correlations between the following parameters: BBS versus hand grip test (r = 0.68); BBS versus ellipse surface area (r = -0.75). There were significant differences between groups after the exercise program: both groups showed an improvement in performance but the P-G recorded significantly better results than the Pa-G. Discussion and conclusions: This study confirmed that physical activity improves both balance and strength. However, our data show that Pilates has a greater effect on these physical abilities than a general physical activity program

Time spent on the smartphone does not relate to manual dexterity in young adults

Background: The Grooved Pegboard Test (GPT) is widely adopted to evaluate manual dexterity, it presents normative data but the test is influenced by different factors. The influence of time spent on smartphones has not been considered before, for this reason, the objective of this study was to evaluate if smartphone use influences the time to complete the GPT. A total of 38 (21 women; 17 men) young adults 20.7 (1.5) years participated in the study. The time spent on the smartphones during the last seven days was recorded through the device itself and the GPT performance was measured. A correlation analysis between the time spent on the smartphone and GPT was performed while the t-test was adopted to evaluate gender differences. Results: No statistically significant differences were detected between men and women in the time to complete the GPT (p = 0.20) and in the time spent on the smartphone (p = 0.87). The GPT and the time spent using the smartphone were not correlated (r = 0.044, p = 0.78). Conclusion: The time spent on the smartphone by young adults does not influence the time to complete the GPT, indicating that smartphone use does not influence measures of manual dexterity

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown Measures on Quality of Life among Italian General Population

The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world in the year 2020 has put a strain on our ability to cope with events and revolutionized our daily habits. On 9 March, Italy was forced to lock down to prevent the spread of the infection, with measures including the mandatory closure of schools and nonessential activities, travel restrictions, and the obligation to spend entire weeks in the same physical space. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on quality of life (QoL) in a large Italian sample, in order to investigate possible differences in QoL levels related to both demographic and pandemic-specific variables. A total of 2251 Italian adults (1665 women, mainly young and middle adults) were recruited via a snowball sampling strategy. Participants were requested to answer to an online survey, which included demographic and COVID-related information items, and theWorld Health Organization Quality of Life BREF questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). The results showed statistically significant differences in QoL depending on a number of variables, including sex, area of residence in Italy, and being diagnosed with a medical/psychiatric condition. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess QoL during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, therefore the present findings can offer guidelines regarding which social groups are more vulnerable of a decline in QoL and would benefit of psychological interventions