A New Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT) to Assess the Quality of Life at Work in the Italian Academic Context

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The tool is grounded in the job demands-resources model and its psychometric properties were assessed in three studies comprising a wide sample of lecturers, researchers, and professors: a pilot study (N = 120), a calibration study (N = 1084), and a validation study (N = 1481). Reliability and content, construct, and nomological validity were supported, as well as measurement invariance across work role (researchers, associate professors, and full professors) and gender. Evidence from the present study shows that the AQ@workT represents a useful and reliable tool to assist university management to enhance quality of life, to manage work-related stress, and to mitigate the potential for harm to academics, particularly during a pandemic. Future studies, such as longitudinal tests of the AQ@workT, should test predictive validity among the variables in the tool

Implication of sestrin3 in epilepsy and its comorbidities

Epilepsy is a serious neurological disorder affecting about 1% of the population worldwide. Epilepsy may arise as a result of acquired brain injury, or as a consequence of genetic predisposition. To date, genome-wide association studies and exome sequencing approaches have provided limited insights into the mechanisms of acquired brain injury. We have previously reported a pro-epileptic gene network, which is conserved across species, encoding inflammatory processes and positively regulated by sestrin3 (SESN3). In this study, we investigated the phenotype of SESN3 knock-out rats in terms of susceptibility to seizures and observed a significant delay in status epilepticus onset in SESN3 knock-out compared to control rats. This finding confirms previous in vitro and in vivo evidence indicating that SESN3 may favour occurrence and/or severity of seizures. We also analysed the phenotype of SESN3 knock-out rats for common comorbidities of epilepsy, i.e., anxiety, depression and cognitive impairment. SESN3 knock-out rats proved less anxious compared to control rats in a selection of behavioural tests. Taken together, the present results suggest that SESN3 may regulate mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of epilepsy and its comorbidities

Job crafting and well-being at work: an exploratory analysis during health emergency period

INTRODUCTION: During the health emergency in 2020, in order not to interrupt production processes and at the same time to protect the health of citizens and workers, alternative working methods were adopted different from the traditional ones, to which workers were directed without any previous notice or specific training. AIMS: The purpose of the research is to explore the relationships between meaning of work, job crafting and emotional exhaustion during the first month of lockdown in the Italian territory. The study therefore aims to identify possible strengthening factors related to working well-being. METHODS: The different constructs were detected through an online questionnaire from 11 March to 2 April 2020, involving 405 subjects. After verifying the reliability of the constructs, a mediation model was performed using nonparametric structural equations (PLS-SEM). RESULTS: Model's constructs show adequate reliabilities. The study highlights the total mediation of job crafting in the relationship between the meaning of work and emotional exhaustion. In particular, the regression relationship between meaning of work and emotional exhaustion is equal to c'=-0.04, p=0.480. On the contrary, the relationship between the meaning of work and job crafting is a=0.44 (p<0.001), and the one between job crafting and emotional exhaustion is b=-0.14, p=0.014. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that job crafting can be considered a factor able to buffer workers' emotional exhaustion and can guide new lines of intervention, in particular in relation to post-emergency reactivation

Antipsychotic drugs counteract autophagy and mitophagy in multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative disease characterized by myelin damage followed by axonal and ultimately neuronal loss. The etiology and physiopathology of MS are still elusive, and no fully effective therapy is yet available. We investigated the role in MS of autophagy (physiologically, a controlled intracellular pathway regulating the degradation of cellular components) and of mitophagy (a specific form of autophagy that removes dysfunctional mitochondria). We found that the levels of autophagy and mitophagy markers are significantly increased in the biofluids of MS patients during the active phase of the disease, indicating activation of these processes. In keeping with this idea, in vitro and in vivo MS models (induced by proinflammatory cytokines, lysolecithin, and cuprizone) are associated with strongly impaired mitochondrial activity, inducing a lactic acid metabolism and prompting an increase in the autophagic flux and in mitophagy. Multiple structurally and mechanistically unrelated inhibitors of autophagy improved myelin production and normalized axonal myelination, and two such inhibitors, the widely used antipsychotic drugs haloperidol and clozapine, also significantly improved cuprizone-induced motor impairment. These data suggest that autophagy has a causal role in MS; its inhibition strongly attenuates behavioral signs in an experimental model of the disease. Therefore, haloperidol and clozapine may represent additional therapeutic tools against MS

A New Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT) to Assess the Quality of Life at Work in the Italian Academic Context

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The tool is grounded in the job demands-resources model and its psychometric properties were assessed in three studies comprising a wide sample of lecturers, researchers, and professors: a pilot study (N = 120), a calibration study (N = 1084), and a validation study (N = 1481). Reliability and content, construct, and nomological validity were supported, as well as measurement invariance across work role (researchers, associate professors, and full professors) and gender. Evidence from the present study shows that the AQ@workT represents a useful and reliable tool to assist university management to enhance quality of life, to manage work-related stress, and to mitigate the potential for harm to academics, particularly during a pandemic. Future studies, such as longitudinal tests of the AQ@workT, should test predictive validity among the variables in the tool