Alianza País entre la izquierda y la realidad análisis de la actividad política del movimiento

A real political organization is supported by three main factors, which wires the ideology, which cares the real exercise of the power in charge at the same time. However, concordance between these three elements could not be total or even exist. Alianza País is a political movement formed after the political turbulence that affected the Ecuadorian system for ten years. This turbulence gave as output the Rafael Correa’s presidential election supported by his promises of total change and revolution. Evidently, the movement maintained the Rafael Correa’s presidential election and his actions in charge. The present study analyses if there is a real alignment between those three elements mentioned before thought the observation of the executive decrees, the ideological manifesto of the movement, and the main principles of the Left in general.Una organización política se sustenta en tres factores principales, la filosofía que respalda su ideología, que a su vez apoya su acción política en el poder. Sin embargo, la concordancia entre estos tres elementos puede no ser total, o siquiera existente. Alianza País es un movimiento político formado a raíz de la turbulencia política que experimentó el Ecuador por diez años, y que terminó con Rafael Correa siendo elegido como Presidente de la República por su fuerte discurso de cambio total y revolución. Evidentemente, el movimiento sustentó la candidatura y a la postre respalda sus acciones en el cargo. El presente trabajo analiza si es que en verdad existe una alineación entre los tres elementos mencionados a través de la revisión de algunas de las acciones más importantes de este gobierno resumidas en decretos ejecutivos, el manifiesto ideológico de Alianza País y los principios básicos de la izquierda en general

Are Guidelines Needed for the Diagnosis and Management of Incipient Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment?

Current research is aiming to push the boundaries of the point at which a diagnosis of Alzheimer Disease (AD) can be made. Clinical syndromes such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and various clinical and biological markers of AD may help to identify people in the early stage of AD, before a full dementia syndrome is present. In the first part of this paper, we discuss whether MCI represents incipient AD, and examine some of the methods currently used in research to identify AD patients in the preclinical phase. In the second part, we discuss whether specific guidelines are needed for the diagnosis and management of MCI and incipient AD, and consider the potential impact of this on clinical practice and public health from the perspective of patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers

Prefrontal control over motor cortex cycles at beta-frequency during movement inhibition

A fully adapted behavior requires maximum efficiency to inhibit processes in the motor domain [ 1 ]. Although a number of cortical and subcortical brain regions have been implicated, converging evidence suggests that activation of right inferior frontal gyrus (r-IFG) and right presupplementary motor area (r-preSMA) is crucial for successful response inhibition [ 2, 3 ]. However, it is still unknown how these prefrontal areas convey the necessary signal to the primary motor cortex (M1), the cortical site where the final motor plan eventually has to be inhibited or executed. On the basis of the widely accepted view that brain oscillations are fundamental for communication between neuronal network elements [ 4–6 ], one would predict that the transmission of these inhibitory signals within the prefrontal-central networks (i.e., r-IFG/M1 and/or r-preSMA/M1) is realized in rapid, periodic bursts coinciding with oscillatory brain activity at a distinct frequency. However, the dynamics of corticocortical effective connectivity has never been directly tested on such timescales. By using double-coil transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) [ 7, 8 ], we assessed instantaneous prefrontal-to-motor cortex connectivity in a Go/NoGo paradigm as a function of delay from (Go/NoGo) cue onset. In NoGo trials only, the effects of a conditioning prefrontal TMS pulse on motor cortex excitability cycled at beta frequency, coinciding with a frontocentral beta signature in EEG. This establishes, for the first time, a tight link between effective cortical connectivity and related cortical oscillatory activity, leading to the conclusion that endogenous (top-down) inhibitory motor signals are transmitted in beta bursts in large-scale cortical networks for inhibitory motor control

Applying clustering based on rules on WHO-DAS II for knowledge discovery on functional disabilities

The senior citizens represent a fast growing proportion of the population in Europe and other developed areas. This increases the proportion of persons with disability and reducing quality of life. The concept of disability itself is not always precise and quantifiable. To improve agreement on the concept of disability, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed a clinical test WHO Disability Assessment Schedule, (WHO-DASII) that is understood to include physical, mental, and social well-being, as a generic measure of functioning. From the medical point of view, the purpose of this work is to extract knowledge on the performance of the test WHO-DASII on the basis of a sample of neurological patients from an Italian hospital. This Knowledge Discovery problem has been faced by using clustering based on rules, a technique stablished on 1994 by Gibert which combines some Inductive Learning (from AI) methods with Statistics to extract knowledge on ill-structured domains (that is complex domains where consensus is not achieved, like is the case). So, in this paper, the results of applying this technique to the WHO-DASII results is presented.Postprint (published version

apolipoproteine e4 allelic variant cognitive decline and psychosis in alzheimer disease a review of the literature and suggestions for upcoming studies

Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) e4 allele represents a well known vascular risk factor for developing Alzheimer disease (AD) and differences in ApoE genotypes may explain a part of the variability in AD phenotypes. In fact, ApoE e4 allele possession seems to be associated with a more precocious age of onset, greater episodic memory impairment, and psychotic symptoms. The first question we discuss regards the role of ApoE e4 on cognitive progression of AD. In fact, while a general agreement exists about the role played by ApoE e4 on the precocious onset of AD, cognitive decline has been differently associated with ApoE e4 allele possession in AD patients in a continuum of faster decline, no effect, and slower decline. An attemptable interpretation is that the biological processes leading to the onset of AD are different from those involved in determining its clinical course. The second question regards the possible relationship between the presence of the degenerative pathological hallmarks of the disease in specific cerebral areas and different cognitive or behavioural symptoms. In fact, there is evidence that degenerative pathology in hippocampal formation and frontal cortex reflects the progression of cognitive deficits in brain aging and AD and that hypometabolism in right frontal lobe and greater frontal neuropsychological deficits occur in AD patients with psychosis in comparison to those without. The third question regards, specifically, the relationship between ApoE e4 variant and behavioural symptoms. In fact, there is evidence supporting the link between being carriers of ApoE e4 allele and severity of delusions, mostly at the early stage of the illness. In an interpretative challenge, we suggest that the link between being carriers of ApoE e4 allele and suffering from delusions in AD may be explained by frontal lobe dysfunctions. Finally, we hypothesize that the most precocious onset of AD illness, described in carriers of ApoE e4 allelic variant, may also be related to the precocious onset of psychotic symptoms, which produces caregiver and patient distress and requires immediate assessment and treatment

Asymmetry of parietal interhemispheric connections in humans

Visuospatial abilities are preferentially mediated by the right hemisphere. Although this asymmetry of function is thought to be due to an unbalanced interaction between cerebral hemispheres, the underlying neurophysiological substrate is still largely unknown. Here, using a method of trifocal transcranial magnetic stimulation, we show that the right, but not left, human posterior parietal cortex exerts a strong inhibitory activity over the contralateral homologous area by a short-latency connection. We also clarify, using diffusion-tensor magnetic resonance imaging, that such an interaction is mediated by direct transcallosal projections located in the posterior corpus callosum. We argue that this anatomo-functional network may represent a possible neurophysiological basis for the ongoing functional asymmetry between parietal cortices, and that its damage could contribute to the clinical manifestations of neglect

Cognitive Function in Multiple Sclerosis: A Subcortical Pattern of Neuropsychological Impairment?

In order to evaluate cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS) neuropsychological tests were administered to 25 patients with clinically definite disease. Four (16%) showed diffuse cognitive impairment, whereas the others, compared with controls showed a specific deficit on tests known to be sensitive to frontal lobe damage. These results are interpreted in the light of current hypotheses relating to subcortical contributions in cognition

Strategic lesions in the anterior thalamic radiation and apathy in early Alzheimer's disease

BACKGROUND Behavioural disorders and psychological symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) are commonly observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and strongly contribute to increasing patients' disability. Using voxel-lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM), we investigated the impact of white matter lesions (WMLs) on the severity of BPSD in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI). METHODS Thirty-one a-MCI patients (with a conversion rate to AD of 32% at 2 year follow-up) and 26 healthy controls underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination at 3T, including T2-weighted and fluid-attenuated-inversion-recovery images, and T1-weighted volumes. In the patient group, BPSD was assessed using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-12. After quantitative definition of WMLs, their distribution was investigated, without an a priori anatomical hypothesis, against patients' behavioural symptoms. Unbiased regional grey matter volumetrics was also used to assess the contribution of grey matter atrophy to BPSD. RESULTS Apathy, irritability, depression/dysphoria, anxiety and agitation were shown to be the most common symptoms in the patient sample. Despite a more widespread anatomical distribution, a-MCI patients did not differ from controls in WML volumes. VLSM revealed a strict association between the presence of lesions in the anterior thalamic radiations (ATRs) and the severity of apathy. Regional grey matter atrophy did not account for any BPSD. CONCLUSIONS This study indicates that damage to the ATRs is strategic for the occurrence of apathy in patients with a-MCI. Disconnection between the prefrontal cortex and the mediodorsal and anterior thalamic nuclei might represent the pathophysiological substrate for apathy, which is one of the most common psychopathological symptoms observed in dementia

Advantages of combining AI and statistic for knowledge discovery on functional disability: multivariate analysis of assessment scales using clustering based on rules

In Europe, and other developed areas, senior citizens are a fast growing part of population. This increases proportion of disabled persons and proportion of persons with reduced quality of life. The concept of disability itself is not always precise and quantifiable. To improve agreement on the concept of disability, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the clinical test WHO Disability Assessment Schedule, (WHO-DASII) that includes physical, mental, and social wellbeing, as a generic measure of functioning. From the medical point of view, the purpose of this work is to extract knowledge about the different kinds of disabilities from the responses to the WHO-DAS II of a sample of patients from an Italian hospital. This Knowledge Discovery problem has been faced by using clustering based on rules, an hybrid AI and Statistics technique introduced by Gibert (1994), which combines some Inductive Learning (from AI) with clustering (from Statistics) to extract knowledge from certain complex domains in form of typical profiles. In this paper, the results of applying this technique to the WHODAS II results is presented together with a comparison of other more classical analysis approaches. Four profiles of increasing degree of disability are identified together with the main characteristics associated to them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft