1,732 research outputs found
Transcranial magnetic stimulation as a new tool to control pain perception.
Treatment for chronic pain is frequently unsuccessful or characterized by side-effects. The high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (HF-rTMS) has been suggested in the management of refractory chronic pain. Various studies have shown that HF-rTMS sessions of long-duration applied at primary motor cortex induce pain relief through mechanisms of plastic changes. Efficacy of rTMS mostly depends on stimulation parameters, but this aspect requires better characterization. A rationale to target other cortical areas exists. Current data are promising, but a careful analysis of stimulation settings and maintenance treatment design are need
Visual representations of time elicit early responses in human temporal cortex
Time perception is inherently part of human life. All human sensory modalities are always involved in the complex task of creating a temporal representation of the external world. However, when representing time, people primarily rely on auditory information. Since the auditory system prevails in many audio-visual temporal tasks, one may expect that the early recruitment of the auditory network is necessary for building a highly resolved and flexible temporal representation in the visual modality. To test this hypothesis, we asked 17 healthy participants to temporally bisect three consecutive flashes while we recorded EEG. We demonstrated that visual stimuli during temporal bisection elicit an early (50–90 ms) response of an extended area of the temporal cortex, likely including auditory cortex too. The same activation did not appear during an easier spatial bisection task. These findings suggest that the brain may use auditory representations to deal with complex temporal representation in the visual system
The Compound Muscle Action Potential as Neurophysiological Marker for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
Objectives: To definite the peripheral nervous involvement in ALS through the repeated use of the compound motor action potential
(CMAP) to test the progression of disease, to determine different change of phrenic CMAP and forced vital capacity (FVC) in spinal
and bulbar onset, and to establish clinical and neurophysiological features of patients with poor prognosis.
Material & Methods: CMAP from phrenic, ulnar, and medial plantar nerves, Medical Research Council (MRC) score, revised ALS
functional rating scale (ALSFRS-R) and FVC were evaluated in 117 ALS patients every three months in one year-period.
Results: Bulbar onset patients had lower FVC but similar amplitude of phrenic CMAP at baseline compared to spinal onset patients.
The patients with poor prognosis had lower phrenic CMAP and FVC at baseline. CMAP values, when compared to the rate found in
the previous visit, reduced significantly in both poor and good prognosis groups during the entire follow-up period, while the FVC
reduced significantly only in the first three months.
Conclusions: CMAP is a reproducible sensitive marker for motor neurons loss and collateral reinnervation in ALS also in a short
period of time. The changes in CMAP, MRC, FVC and ALSFRS-R score resulted correlated, but CMAP is the only parameter with the
advantage to demonstrate objectively the progression of disease in both patients with poor and good prognosis for the entire period
of follow-up. It should be used as clinical outcome of ALS in clinical trials, taking advantage of its objectivity and selectivity for peripheral
nervous system study
Smart cities and sharing economy
The concepts of smart city and sharing economy are at the centre of a number of current debates, which touch upon, among others, issues like the current urbanisation trends, the particular economic situation we are facing in the last years, the spread of connectivity and of new technologies and the innovation process in general. This working paper looks at the different and common characteristics of both smart cities and sharing economy models, in order to explore their interaction and complementary dynamics. This is done by analysing the specific features of the two, as well as at regulatory and competition issues they trigger within our current legal framework. The final aim is to make some policy suggestions to the local governments, which are called to cope with these phenomena, and for which the latter could constitute a great opportunity to enhance the local welfare
Interacting two-mode model for ultracold quantum interferometers
Ultracold gases provide an excellent platform for the realization of quantum interferometers. In the case of implementations based on Bose-Einstein condensates in double well potentials, an effective two-mode model allows to study how the interactions among particles affect the sensitivity of the interferometer. In this work we review the properties of such a model and its application to interferometric protocols, focusing on the achievable sensitivity in the presence of interactions turned on. In particular we study the full interferometric sequence when the initial state is a Twin Fock state, which is perfectly number squeezed. We found that in the presence of interactions and for certain values of the holding time in which a phase difference between the two modes is accumulated, the same sensitivity as in the non interacting case is recovered when using the population imbalance between the two wells as observable. Finally, we characterize the behaviour of the sensitivity by looking at the δ-derivative and the variance of the operator used for the measurement and studying the squeezing parameters
Mitochondrial myopathy in rats fed with a diet containing beta-guanidine propionic acid, an inhibitor of creatine entry in muscle cells.
In rats with phosphoryl-creatine depletion (fed a standard Randoin-Causeret diet
containing 1% beta-guanidine propionic acid) abnormal mitochondria were observed
in slow skeletal muscles, often containing paracrystalline inclusions very like
those induced by ischaemia or mitochondrial poisons and in human mitochondrial
myopathy
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