European Union citizenship: The acquisition of nationality and the ever-expansive reach of the European Court of Justice

European Union citizenship was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. Intended to fall within the exclusive prerogative of the Member States, it soon became clear that the autonomy of Member States to determine matters relating to nationality would be restricted by the ever-expansive reach of the European Court of Justice. As such, the European Court of Justice transformed the law on citizenship in the 2010 case of Rottmann where measures affecting or depriving the rights conferred and protected by the European Union were held to fall within the scope ratione materiae of European Union law. While Rottmann affirmed the law as to the deprivation of European Union citizenship, it left unanswered the question whether the acquisition of nationality also falls within the scope of European Union law. This paper aims to identify and analyse the law arising post-Rottmann to determine whether the acquisition of nationality could fall within the scope of European Union law. It shall then analyse whether fundamental principles of European Union law, namely the principle of proportionality, could be applied in order to regulate the conditions imposed by Member States in relation to the acquisition of nationality

NMDA attenuates the neurovascular response to hypercapnia in the neonatal cerebral cortex

Cortical spreading depolarization (SD) involves activation of NMDA receptors and elicit neurovascular unit dysfunction. NMDA cannot trigger SD in newborns, thus its effect on neurovascular function is not confounded by other aspects of SD. The present study investigated if NMDA affected hypercapnia-induced microvascular and electrophysiological responses in the cerebral cortex of newborn pigs. Anesthetized piglets were fitted with cranial windows over the parietal cortex to study hemodynamic and electrophysiological responses to graded hypercapnia before/after topically applied NMDA assessed with laser-speckle contrast imaging and recording of local field potentials (LFP)/neuronal firing, respectively. NMDA increased cortical blood flow (CoBF), suppressed LFP power in most frequency bands but evoked a 2.5 Hz delta oscillation. The CoBF response to hypercapnia was abolished after NMDA and the hypercapnia-induced biphasic changes in delta and theta LFP power were also altered. MK-801 prevented NMDA-induced increases in CoBF and the attenuation of microvascular reactivity to hypercapnia. The neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) inhibitor (N-(4 S)-4-amino-5-[aminoethyl] aminopentyl-N'-nitroguanidin) also significantly preserved the CoBF response to hypercapnia after NMDA, although it didn't reduce NMDA-induced increases in CoBF. In conclusion, excess activation of NMDA receptors alone can elicit SD-like neurovascular unit dysfunction involving nNOS activity

Brain interstitial pH changes in the subacute phase of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy in newborn pigs

Brain interstitial pH (pHbrain) alterations play an important role in the mechanisms of neuronal injury in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) induced by perinatal asphyxia. The newborn pig is an established large animal model to study HIE, however, only limited information on pHbrain alterations is available in this species and it is restricted to experimental perinatal asphyxia (PA) and the immediate reventilation. Therefore, we sought to determine pHbrain over the first 24h of HIE development in piglets. Anaesthetized, ventilated newborn pigs (n = 16) were instrumented to control major physiological parameters. pHbrain was determined in the parietal cortex using a pH-selective microelectrode. PA was induced by ventilation with a gas mixture containing 6%O2-20%CO2 for 20 min, followed by reventilation with air for 24h, then the brains were processed for histopathology assessment. The core temperature was maintained unchanged during PA (38.4±0.1 vs 38.3±0.1°C, at baseline versus the end of PA, respectively; mean±SEM). In the arterial blood, PA resulted in severe hypoxia (PaO2: 65±4 vs 23±1*mmHg, *pPeer reviewe

A hibrid műtő előnyei idegsebészeti műtétek során : Kezdeti tapasztalatok a Szegedi Idegsebészeti Klinikán [The benefits of a hybrid operation room in neurosurgery : Initial experiences in the Neurosurgery Department, University of Szeged, Hungary]

Bevezetés: A szegedi Idegsebészeti Klinikán 2019 novemberében robotkarral működő angiográfiás készülékkel ellátott hibrid műtő kezdte meg működését. Célkitűzés: Több mint egyéves tevékenységének eredményeiről és tapasztalataink alapján a hibrid műtő idegsebészetben történő alkalmazásának előnyeiről számolunk be. Módszer: 2019. 11. 15. és 2021. 03. 01. között összesen 576 műtétből 332 neurointervenciós és 244 koponya- és gerincműtét történt. A Siemens ARTIS pheno ® készüléket mint angiográfiás készüléket használva történt a műtőben csak katéteres, csak sebészi, de számos esetben kombinált ellátás is. Az ARTIS pheno ® készüléket a sokoldalúságának köszönhetően használtuk mint fejlett képalkotó vizsgálókészüléket is, valamint alkalmaztuk navigációra gerincműtéteknél, intraoperatív és posztoperatív vizsgálatokra. Megbeszélés: Az elmúlt hónapok eredménye alapján beavatkozásainkat három kategóriára osztottuk az adott beavatkozás hibrid műtőben történő elvégzésének szükségessége alapján: (1) kifejezetten javasolt, (2) ajánlott és (3) előnyös. Kifejezetten javasolt, amikor mind a két teamnek (sebészi és intervenciós) együttesen részt kell vennie a műtétben; ajánlott, amikor a két team nem vesz részt ugyan egyszerre a műtétben, de bármikor szükségessé válhat a beavatkozásban éppen részt nem vevő team segítsége; továbbá lehet előnyös, ez a kategória a leggyakrabban a műtéti sebzárás előtti képalkotó vizsgálat elkészítésének lehetőségét jelenti. Következtetés: Eddigi tapasztalataink alapján a hibrid műtő jelentős segítséget nyújt az idegsebészeti ellátásban, számunkra a mindennapi ellátás részévé vált, ez alapján úgy gondoljuk, hogy nélkülözhetetlen egy idegsebészeti centrum munkájában. Orv Hetil. 2023; 164(43): 1701–1711

Implicit anticipation of probabilistic regularities: Larger CNV emerges for unpredictable events

Anticipation of upcoming events plays a crucial role in automatic behaviors. It is, however, still unclear whether the event-related brain potential (ERP) markers of anticipation could track the implicit acquisition of probabilistic regularities that can be considered as building blocks of automatic behaviors. Therefore, in a four-choice reaction time (RT) task performed by young adults (N = 36), the contingent negative variation (CNV) as an ERP marker of anticipation was measured from the onset of a cue stimulus until the presentation of a target stimulus. Due to the probability structure of the task, target stimuli were either predictable or unpredictable, but this was unknown to participants. The cue did not contain predictive information on the upcoming target. Results showed that the CNV amplitude during response preparation was larger before the unpredictable than before the predictable target stimuli. In addition, although RTs increased, the P3 amplitude decreased for the unpredictable as compared with the predictable target stimuli, possibly due to the stronger response preparation that preceded stimulus presentation. These results suggest that enhanced attentional resources are allocated to the implicit anticipation and processing of unpredictable events. This might originate from the formation of internal models on the probabilistic regularities of the stimulus stream, which primarily facilitates the processing of predictable events. Overall, we provide ERP evidence that supports the role of implicit anticipation and predictive processes in the acquisition of probabilistic regularities