17 research outputs found
Improving the therapist’s metacognition and capacity to intersubjectively attune with a patient with psychosis through the exploration of the therapist’s developmental history: a case report
Clinical literature emphasizes how symptoms of psychosis can be efficiently targeted by psychological treatments. The most well-known approach to these symptoms is cognitive-behavioral therapy; but in the last few decades also other approaches are enriching the landscape, focusing on the dysfunctions in mentalization or metacognition, a spectrum of mental activities involving thinking about one’s own and others’ mental states. This huge amount of theoretical reflection and empirical research focused on the implementation of treatments does not seem to be associated with an attention to the inner world of the therapist who relates to the patient with psychosis; for example, to the impact of the therapist’s developmental history on the therapeutic relationship. In this paper the authors are inspired by an intersubjective perspective, according to which although the treatment is for the patient’s benefit, both the patient’s and the therapist’s developmental history and psychological organization are equally relevant for understanding the clinical exchange. On this basis, the authors make a “parallel” analysis of the clinical case of a young woman with symptoms of psychosis (i.e., persecutory delusions, auditory verbal hallucinations, social withdrawal) and its supervision process. They show how the therapeutic relationship can be significantly conditioned by the therapist’s developmental history; and how a process of supervision focused on the exploration of the traumatic elements of this history can effectively promote the therapist’s metacognitive capabilities, a functional patient-therapist intersubjective attunement, and a good clinical outcome
IN "POLPO ... SITION" E ALTRI BREVI RACCONTI
Assalito dalla felicità corsi al mare, guardai l’acqua e fui preso da una forza, non mia, non umana che mi trascinò in acqua.
Lì venni rapito da fantastiche sensazioni, l’adrenalina salì a mille, vidi un enorme creatura che suscitò in me delle emozioni mai provate prima, si era avvicinata talmente tanto che stava per toccarmi e, appena lo fece, il mio corpo si illuminò magicamente, le mie mani iniziarono pian piano ad assottigliarsi, il mio petto diventava sempre più piccolo e tondo e da lì a poco, ero
diventato un polpo
Cytoskeleton changes and impaired motility of monocytes at modelled low gravity
Investigations performed in space have shown that gravity
changes affect important cellular mechanisms like proliferation, differentiation,
genetic expression, cytoskeletal architecture, and motility in
lymphocytes, monocytes, and other mammalian cells. In particular, a
dramatic depression of the mitogenic in vitro activation of human peripheral
blood lymphocytes was observed at low gravity. The hypothesis
of the present work is that a reduced interaction between T lymphocytes
and monocytes, essential for the second signalling pathway, might be
one of the reasons for the observed depression of the in vitro activation
of human lymphocytes. Cell motility and with it a continuous rearrangement
of the cytoskeletal network within the cell is essential for cell-tocell
contacts. Whereas nonactivated lymphocytes in suspension are
highly motile at low gravity, no data are available so far on the motility
of adherent monocytes. It thus can be argued that impaired monocyte
locomotion and cytoskeletal changes could be responsible for a reduced
interaction of monocytes with T lymphocytes. In this study, the locomotion
ability of J-111 cells, an adherent monocyte cell line, attached to
colloidal gold particles on coverslips and exposed to modelled low gravity
in the random positioning machine was found to be severely reduced
compared with that of controls and the structures of actin, tubulin, and
vinculin were affected
Channelling of deoxyribose moiety of exogenous DNA into carbohydrate metabolism: role of deoxyriboaldolase
In bacteria, the addition of (deoxy)nucleosides or (deoxy)ribose to the growth medium causes induction of enzymes involved in their catabolism, leading to the utilisation of the pentose moiety as carbon and energy source. In this respect, deoxyriboaldolase appears the key enzyme, allowing the utilisation of deoxyribose 5-P through glycolysis. We observed that not only deoxynucleosides, but also DNA added to the growth medium of Bacillus cereus induced deoxyriboaldolase; furthermore, the switch of the culture from aerobic to anaerobic conditions caused a further increase in enzyme activity, leading to a more efficient channelling of deoxyribose 5-P into glycolysis, probably as a response to the low energy yield of the sugar fermentation. In eukaryotes, the catabolism of (deoxy)nucleosides is well known. However, the research in this field has been mainly devoted to the salvage of the bases formed by the action of nucleoside phosphorylases, whereas the metabolic fate of the sugar moiety has been largely neglected. Our results indicate that the deoxyriboaldolase activity is present in the liver of several vertebrates and in a number of cell lines. We discuss our observations looking at the nucleic acids not only as informational molecules, but also as a not negligible source of readily usable phosphorylated sugar
Apathy and related Executive Syndromes in Dementia associated with Parkinson’s Disease and in Alzheimer’s Disease
Abstract. Apathy is defined as a lack of motivation and has been reported to be common in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and
Parkinson’s disease (PD). To explore the neuropsychological correlates of apathy in patients with PD related dementia (PDD)
and AD and to identify the specific cognitive profile of apathy in the two forms of neurodegenerative disease, 61 non-depressed
patients (29 PDD and 32 AD) were selected. Out of these, 29 patients (47.5%) were detected as apathetic (14 PDD-A+ and
15 AD-A+), and 32 patients as non-apathetic (15 PDD-A- and 17 AD-A-). All patients underwent cognitive tasks tapping
memory, visuospatial and executive functions, behavioral rating scales and Clinical Judgment for Apathy Syndrome (CJ-AS), an
inventory developed to measure severity of apathy.
The four subgroups differed significantly on memory and frontal tasks. The PDD-A+ performed significantly worse than PDD-Aon
frontal tasks. The AD-A+ had poorer performance than AD-A- on frontal tasks. Last, PDD-A+ achieved significantly higher
scores than AD-A+ on memory tasks. The four groups differed significantly on CJ-AS and behavioral rating scales.
The results showed that apathetic patients with both forms of dementia showed a common neuropsychological and behavioral
picture, characterized by defects on frontal tasks, thus strongly supporting the existence of an ‘apathetic syndrome’, characterized
by specific cognitive and psychological symptoms
Creating conditions similar to those that occur during exposure of cells to microgravity induces apoptosis in human lymphocytes by 5-lipoxygenase-mediated mitochondrial uncoupling and cytochrome c release
Creating conditions similar to those that occur during exposure of cells to microgravity induced a sixfold increase of apoptotic bodies and DNA fragments in human lymphocytes, paralleled by an early (within 2 h) fourfold increase in 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) activity and a fivefold decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential and increase in cytochrome c release (within 4 and 8 h, respectively). Similar membrane potential and cytochrome c release were observed in isolated mitochondria treated with physiological amounts of 5-LOX and were enhanced by creating conditions similar to those that occur during exposure of cells to microgravity. 5-LOX inhibitors, 5,8,11,14-eicosatetraynoic acid and caffeic acid, completely prevented apoptosis, whereas the phospholipase A2 inhibitor methyl-arachidonoyl fluorophosphonate and the 5-LOX activating protein inhibitor MK886 reduced it to 65–70%. The intracellular calcium chelator EGTA-acetoxymethylester reduced 5-LOX activity and apoptosis to 30–40% of controls, whereas the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitor SB203580 was ineffective. The caspase-3 and caspase-9 inhibitors Z-Asp(OCH3)-Glu(OCH3)-Val-Asp(OCH3)-fluoromethylketone (FMK) and Z-Leu-Glu(OCH3)-His-Asp(OCH3)-FMK reduced apoptotic bodies to 25–30% of the control cells. Finally, creating conditions similar to those that occur during exposure of cells to microgravity did not induce apoptosis in human lymphoma U937 cells, which did not express an active 5-LOX
Key gravity-sensitive signaling pathways drive T cell activation
Returning astronauts have experienced altered immune function and increased vulnerability to
infection during spaceflights dating back to Apollo and Skylab. Lack of immune response in
microgravity occurs at the cellular level. We analyzed differential gene expression to find
gravity-dependent genes and pathways. We found inhibited induction of 91 genes in the
simulated freefall environment of the random positioning machine. Altered induction of 10 genes
regulated by key signaling pathways was verified using real-time RT-PCR. We discovered that
impaired induction of early genes regulated primarily by transcription factors NF-κB, CREB,
ELK, AP-1, and STAT after crosslinking the T-cell receptor contributes to T-cell dysfunction in
altered gravity environments. We have previously shown that PKA and PKC are key early
regulators in T-cell activation. Since the majority of the genes were regulated by NF-κB, CREB,
and AP-1, we studied the pathways that regulated these transcription factors. We found that the
PKA pathway was down-regulated in vg. In contrast, PI3-K, PKC, and its upstream regulator
pLAT were not significantly down-regulated by vectorless gravity. Since NF-κB, AP-1, and
CREB are all regulated by PKA and are transcription factors predicted by microarray analysis to
be involved in the altered gene expression in vectorless gravity, the data suggest that PKA is a
key player in the loss of T-cell activation in altered gravity