The Social Brain and Emotional Contagion: COVID-19 Effects

Background and objectives: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious infectious disease, responsible for a global pandemic that began in January 2020. Human/COVID-19 interactions cause dierent outcomes ranging from minor health consequences to death. Since social interaction is the default mode by which individuals communicate with their surroundings, dierent modes of contagion can play a role in determining the long-term consequences for mental health and emotional well-being. We examined some basic aspects of human social interaction, emphasizing some particular features of the emotional contagion. Moreover, we analyzed the main report that described brain damage related to the COVID-19 infection. Indeed, the goal of this review is to suggest a possible explanation for the relationships among emotionally impaired people, brain damage, and COVID-19 infection. Results: COVID-19 can cause several significant neurological disorders and the pandemic has been linked to a rise in people reporting mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety. Neurocognitive symptoms associated with COVID-19 include delirium, both acute and chronic attention and memory impairment related to hippocampal and cortical damage, as well as learning deficits in both adults and children. Conclusions: Although our knowledge on the biology and long-term clinical outcomes of the COVID-19 infection is largely limited, approaching the pandemic based on lessons learnt from previous outbreaks of infectious diseases and the biology of other coronaviruses will provide a suitable pathway for developing public mental health strategies, which could be positively translated into therapeutic approaches, attempting to improve stress coping responses, thus contributing to alleviate the burden driven by the pandemic

The Orexin-A serum levels are strongly modulated by physical activity intervention in diabetes mellitus patients

The Orexin-A (hypocretin-1) is a neuropeptide secreted by neurons in the lateral hypothalamus. This protein regulates physiological and behavioural processes that have an essential impact on energy balance and metabolic status, physical activity, blood glucose levels, and food intake. Furthermore, that orexin-A regulates insulin sensitivity, energy expenditure and metabolic rate and is involved in immune processes and then regulate inflammatory response, with an anti-inflammatory action. Diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a worldwide health problem associated with obesity and sedentary lifestyle. High glycaemic levels and lipid serum profile, low col-HDL, or hypertension and increased body mass index (BMI) are significantly associated with increased T2DM risk and with increased cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in T2DM patients. For these reasons the aim of this study is to evaluate the biochemical and anthropometric parameters, orexin-A levels by ELISA test and western blotting analysis, and inflammatory cytokines levels such as TNF-a, IL-8 and IL-10 by ELISA test in subjects affected by diabetes mellitus following an accurate physical activity program at baseline, after 3 months and after 6 months. We found that there is a ameliorate of many anthropometric and biochemical parameters; furthermore, there is a statistical increase of orexin-A serum levels already after 3 months compared to baseline in T2DM subjects and also there is a strongly modulation in inflammatory cytokines expression. These found indicates that the physical activity has beneficial effects not only on anthropometric and biochemical parameters but also on orexin-A levels, and then on CNS

The beneficial effects of physical activity and weight loss on human colorectal carcinoma cell lines

Recent studies have demonstrated that obesity is a significant risk factor for the development of several malignancies such as cancer. Colorectal cancer is among the most common cancers worldwide and is strong linked to obesity. A healthy lifestyle, characterized by hypocaloric diet and physical activity, is important to reduce a chronic inflammation, oxidative stress and metabolic disorders typical of obesity (Messina et al, 2018; Messina et al, 2017; Messina et al, 2015). It is well known that the chronic inflammation state and oxidative stress are responsible for the aging and development of many diseases, such as cancer. Dysregulation of cytokine’s secretion probably participates in the establishment of cancer in obese patients. The aim of this study is to analyse the effects of sera from obese patients subjected to a physical activity program before and after weight loss on cell viability, apoptosis and oxidative stress in HCT116 carcinoma cell line treated for 24, 48 and 72 hours through MTT test. We analysed the expression of cytokines in HCT116 cells. We found that sera from obese after physical activity intervention compared to treatment with sera from obese patients before physical activity intervention reduce the survival rate of HCT116 cells through induction of apoptosis and oxidative stress. Finally, we found a reduction of mRNA levels corresponding to the pro-inflammatory IL-6 and IL-8 cytokines together with an increase of the anti-inflammatory IL-10 cytokine. We can conclude that the physical activity has numerous beneficial effects also in colorectal cancer cell, indeed the physical activity and weight loss in obese subjects have an inhibitory and anti-inflammatory effects in a short period on carcinoma cell line

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as a Tool to Investigate Motor Cortex Excitability in Sport

Transcranial magnetic stimulation, since its introduction in 1985, has brought important innovations to the study of cortical excitability as it is a non-invasive method and, therefore, can be used both in healthy and sick subjects. Since the introduction of this cortical stimulation technique, it has been possible to deepen the neurophysiological aspects of motor activation and control. In this narrative review, we want to provide a brief overview regarding TMS as a tool to investigate changes in cortex excitability in athletes and highlight how this tool can be used to investigate the acute and chronic responses of the motor cortex in sport science. The parameters that could be used for the evaluation of cortical excitability and the relative relationship with motor coordination and muscle fatigue, will be also analyzed. Repetitive physical training is generally considered as a principal strategy for acquiring a motor skill, and this process can elicit cortical motor representational changes referred to as use-dependent plasticity. In training settings, physical practice combined with the observation of target movements can enhance cortical excitability and facilitate the process of learning. The data to date suggest that TMS is a valid technique to investigate the changes in motor cortex excitability in trained and untrained subjects. Recently, interest in the possible ergogenic effect of non-invasive brain stimulation in sport is growing and therefore in the future it could be useful to conduct new experiments to evaluate the impact on learning and motor performance of these techniques

Executive Functions in Overweight and Obese Treatment-Seeking Patients: Cross-Sectional Data and Longitudinal Perspectives

Background: Recent evidence suggests that a higher body weight may be linked to cognitive impairment in different domains involving executive/frontal functioning. However, challenging results are also available. Accordingly, our study was designed to verify whether (i) poor executive functions are related to a higher body weight and (ii) executive functioning could contribute to weight loss in treatment-seeking overweight and obese patients. Methods: We examined general executive functioning, inhibitory control, verbal fluency, and psychomotor speed in a sample including 104 overweight and obese patients. Forty-eight normal-weight subjects participated in the study as controls. Results: Univariate Analysis of Variance showed that obese patients obtained lower scores than overweight and normal-weight subjects in all executive measures, except for errors in the Stroop test. However, when sociodemographic variables entered the model as covariates, no between-group difference was detected. Furthermore, an adjusted multiple linear regression model highlighted no relationship between weight loss and executive scores at baseline. Conclusions: Our results provide further evidence for the lack of association between obesity and the executive domains investigated. Conflicting findings from previous literature may likely be due to the unchecked confounding effects exerted by sociodemographic variables and inclusion/exclusion criteria

Determinants and evolution of metabolic interactions in synthetic microbial communities

Conversely to laboratory conditions, microorganisms often share space and resources with other organisms in their natural environments. This can result in the emergence of a plethora of interactions of different natures and diverse outcomes on fitness. Obligate mutualistic exchanges of metabolites represent a subset of these possible interactions. These lead to a strong entanglement between partners, resulting in the inevitable coexistence of the two trading organisms. The relevance of these interactions is exemplified by the fact that these trades might have played a crucial role in the early step of the evolution of eukaryotic cells. Nonetheless, a complete understanding of the evolutionary dynamics leading two originally autonomous organisms to become interdependent remains mostly elusive. Furthermore, since communities relying on metabolic mutualism face several challenges, including metabolite dispersal and the potential exploitation of the shared building blocks by non-cooperators, a deep investigation of the strategies adopted by these organisms to cope with such detrimental factors is required to have a complete overview of these systems and their evolution. In this work, we aimed to address these questions by engineering a mutualistic bipartite system obtained via the co-culture of E. coli and S. cerevisiae auxotrophic strains, which thus relies on a bidirectional and obligate cross-feeding of metabolites. We further proceed with iterative growth-dilution cycles resulting in a dramatic improvement in growth for one of the tested communities. Such improvement could be recapitulated to a good extent by the presence of four highly frequent mutations. Notably, these mutations seem to provide an advantage exclusively under cross-feeding, thus suggesting the existence of a different pool of beneficial mutations which emerge in the presence of partner interactions. Interestingly, some of these mutations caused a reduction in the ammonium assimilation ability by the yeast partner, potentially resulting in a higher degree of dependency on the bacterium. Even though additional experiments are required, if confirmed, this would prove that partners connected by obligate metabolic dependencies can increase their entanglement. Using another cross-feeding pair, we were able to investigate the role of aggregation, motility, and chemotaxis on obligate mutualistic communities grown under turbulence. Through competition experiments, we were able to demonstrate that cell-cell adhesion, and the ensuing aggregation, provide a fitness advantage to the bacterial partner. This advantage is further increased by the joint effect of motility. On the contrary, under our conditions, chemotaxis does not play a role. By introducing an engineer cheater strain, we were also able to prove the role of both aggregation and motility also as protective factors against a cheater by reducing its invasion success and thus delaying community collapse

Photorespiration in the chemoautotroph Ralstonia eutropha

The facultative chemolithoautotrophic gram negative bacteria Ralstonia eutropha is able to fix CO2 using the highly energy-demanding Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. RuBisCO is the main enzyme involved in CO2 fixation. Despite RuBisCO’s affinity to CO2, its promiscuous activity with oxygen results in the formation of 2-phosphoglycolate. This side activity of RuBisCO generally reduces maximum autotrophic growth yields by approximately 25%. Processes required to metabolize 2-phosphoglycolate further are refer to as photorespiratory pathways. The aims of this work are (i) to determine the native photorespiratory pathways in R. eutropha, and (ii) removal of wasteful photorespiration pathways to create a platform strain for testing synthetic, potentially more efficient pathways for photorespiration. It was possible to determine that the glycerate pathway seems to be the main route for photorespiration, while some other routes may play an additional role, including a decarboxylative pathway via malate synthase. The latter route has not been observed before to play a role in photorespiration. Interestingly, pathways involved in photorespiration do not play equally important roles for growth on glycolate as sole carbon source. Therefore, additional analysis are required in order to better identify all the pathways involved in this process and try to determine the relative fluxes of each route

Sintering behaviour and mechanical properties of Al2O3 platelet-reinforced glass matrix composites obtained by means of powder technology

A cold-pressing and pressure-less viscous flow sintering treatment for the manufacturing of dense alumina platelet reinforced glass matrix composites was investigated. The sintering behaviour of mixtures of powdered borosilicate glass cullet, coming from the pharmaceutical industry, and Al2O3 platelets was studied respecting the retardation in sintering caused by the introduction in glass of rigid, non sintering, inclusions. Despite the relatively low Al2O3 platelet addition significant increases in bending strength, microhardness and, above all, fracture toughness were achieved, due to the homogeneity of mechanical dispersion of platelets and the development of residual stresses, caused by the thermo-elastic mismatch between the constituent phases. A crack deflection toughening mechanism, due to the specific reinforcement, was found to be effective

Fast sinter-crystallization of waste glasses

Two glasses, belonging to the CaO–Al2O3–SiO2 system and corresponding to the melting of mixtures of industrial wastes (recycled glasses, mining residues, ashes, asbestos containing cements, etc.), have been successfully converted into dense glass ceramics by sintering with concurrent crystallisation. The usage of fine glass powders (<37 micron) allowed very short sintering treatments, due to the enhanced nucleating activity of glass surfaces. In particular, dense glass ceramics could be produced by direct insertion of pressed glass powders in the furnace at the sintering temperature, followed by rapid cooling at room temperature after a 30 min holding time. The proposed approach evidences the feasibility of sintered glass ceramics by the fast and economic processes employed for traditional ceramics, with the advantage of superior mechanical properties (bending strength exceeding 100 MPa, Vickers’ microhardness exceeding 6 GPa). Like in traditional ceramics, clay and water could be used for the shaping of pressed tiles, thus posing the conditions for massive industrial production