Neural basis of attachment-caregiving systems interaction. insights from neuroimaging studies

The attachment and the caregiving system are complementary systems which are active simultaneously in infant and mother interactions. This ensures the infant survival and optimal social, emotional, and cognitive development. In this brief review we first define the characteristics of these two behavioral systems and the theory that links them, according to what Bowlby called the "attachment-caregiving social bond" (Bowlby, 1969). We then follow with those neuroimaging studies that have focused on this particular issue, i.e., those which have studied the activation of the careging system in women (using infant stimuli) and have explored how the individual attachment model (through the Adult Attachment Interview) modulates its activity. Studies report altered activation in limbic and prefrontal areas and in basal ganglia and hypothalamus/pituitary regions. These altered activations are thought to be the neural substrate of the attachment-caregiving systems interaction

Optimal route reflection topology design

An Autonomous System (AS) is a group of Internet Protocol-based networks with a single and clearly defined external routing policy, usually under single ownership, trust or administrative control. The AS represents a connected group of one or more blocks of IP addresses, called IP prefixes, that have been assigned to that organization and provides a single routing policy to systems outside the AS. The Internet is composed of the interconnection of several thousands of ASes, which use the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to exchange network prefixes (aggregations of IP addresses) reachability advertisements. BGP advertisements (or updates) are sent over BGP sessions administratively set between pairs of routers. BGP is a path vector routing protocol and is used to span different ASes. A path vector protocol defines a route as a pairing between a destination and the attributes of the path to that destination. Interior Border Gateway Protocol (iBGP) refers to the BGP neighbor relationship within the same AS. When BGP neighbor relationship are formed between two peers belonging to different AS are called Exterior Border Gateway Protocol (eBGP). In the last case, BGP routers are called Autonomous System Border Routers (ASBRs), while those running only iBGP sessions are referred to as Internal Routers (IRs). Traditional iBGP implementations require a full-mesh of sessions among routers of each AS

Dealing with the aftermath of mass disasters. A field study on the application of EMDR integrative group treatment protocol with child survivors of the 2016 Italy earthquakes

This study explored the effects of the EMDR Integrative Group Treatment Protocol (EMDR-IGTP) on child survivors of the earthquakes that struck Umbria, a region of central Italy, on August 24th and on October 26th 2016. Three hundred and thirty-two children from the town of Norcia and nearby severely disrupted villages received 3 cycles of EMDR-IGTP. The Emotion Thermometers (ET-5) and the Children’s Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES-13) were administered before (T0) and about 1 week after the conclusion of the third cycle (T3) of EMDR-IGTP. At T3, older children showed a reduction of distress and anger, whereas younger children reported an increase on these domains; moreover, older children reported a greater reduction of anxiety than younger ones. A greater reduction of distress, anxiety, and need for help was evidenced in females, whereas a greater improvement in depressive symptoms was evidenced in males. The effects of the EMDR-IGTP treatment on post-traumatic symptoms were particularly evident in older children, compared to younger ones, and marginally greater in females than in males; moreover, a greater improvement was found in children who had received a timelier intervention, than in those who received delayed treatment. These results provide further evidence for the utility of EMDR-IGTP in dealing with the extensive need for mental health services in mass disaster contexts. Also, these data highlight the importance of providing EMDR-IGTP in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, to contribute significantly in restoring adaptive psychological functioning in children, especially in older ones

Neural correlates of outcome of the psychotherapy compared to antidepressant therapy in anxiety and depression disorders: a meta-analysis

The most prevalent mental disorders, anxiety and depression, are commonly associated with structural and functional changes in the fronto-limbic brain areas. The clinical trials investigating patients with affective disorders showed different outcome to different treatments such as psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. It is, however, still unexplored how these interventions approach affect the functional brain. This meta-analysis aims to compare the effects of psychotherapy compared to antidepressant therapy on functional brain activity in anxiety and depression disorders. Twenty-one samples with psychotherapy and seventeen samples with antidepressant therapy were included. The main finding showed an inverse effect of the two treatments on the right paracingulate activity. The patients undergoing psychotherapy showed an increase in the right paracingulate activity while pharmacological treatment led to a decrease of activation of this area. This finding seems to support the recent studies that hypothesize how psychotherapy, through the self-knowledge and the meaning processing, involves a top-down emotional regulation

“Bridging the Gap” Everything that Could Have Been Avoided If We Had Applied Gender Medicine, Pharmacogenetics and Personalized Medicine in the Gender-Omics and Sex-Omics Era

Gender medicine is the first step of personalized medicine and patient-centred care, an essential development to achieve the standard goal of a holistic approach to patients and diseases. By addressing the interrelation and integration of biological markers (i.e., sex) with indicators of psychological/cultural behaviour (i.e., gender), gender medicine represents the crucial assumption for achieving the personalized health-care required in the third millennium. However, ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are often misused as synonyms, leading to frequent misunderstandings in those who are not deeply involved in the field. Overall, we have to face the evidence that biological, genetic, epigenetic, psycho-social, cultural, and environmental factors mutually interact in defining sex/gender differences, and at the same time in establishing potential unwanted sex/gender disparities. Prioritizing the role of sex/gender in physiological and pathological processes is crucial in terms of efficient prevention, clinical signs’ identification, prognosis definition, and therapy optimization. In this regard, the omics-approach has become a powerful tool to identify sex/genderspecific disease markers, with potential benefits also in terms of socio-psychological wellbeing for each individual, and cost-effectiveness for National Healthcare systems. “Being a male or being a female” is indeed important from a health point of view and it is no longer possible to avoid “sex and gender lens” when approaching patients. Accordingly, personalized healthcare must be based on evidence from targeted research studies aimed at understanding how sex and gender influence health across the entire life span. The rapid development of genetic tools in the molecular medicine approaches and their impact in healthcare is an example of highly specialized applications that have moved from specialists to primary care providers (e.g., pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic applications in routine medical practice). Gender medicine needs to follow the same path and become an established medical approach. To face the genetic, molecular and pharmacological bases of the existing sex/gender gap by means of omics approaches will pave the way to the discovery and identification of novel drug-targets/therapeutic protocols, personalized laboratory tests and diagnostic procedures (sex/gender-omics). In this scenario, the aim of the present review is not to simply resume the state-of-the-art in the field, rather an opportunity to gain insights into gender medicine, spanning from molecular up to social and psychological stances. The description and critical discussion of some key selected multidisciplinary topics considered as paradigmatic of sex/gender differences and sex/gender inequalities will allow to draft and design strategies useful to fill the existing gap and move forward

The Structure of the Emotional Processing Scale (EPS-25): An Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling Analysis Using Medical and Community Samples

The Emotional Processing Scale (EPS) assesses emotional processing in terms of suppression, signs of unprocessed emotion, controllability of emotions, avoidance of emotional triggers, and impoverished emotional experience. Previous confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) yielded insufficient fit and questioned the EPS factors' discriminant validity. The present study aimed to test unidimensional, five-factor, and bifactor models using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and CFA. We administered the scale to 350 Italian participants in good health and 346 gastrointestinal patients referred for endoscopy because of mild-to-severe gastrointestinal symptoms. ESEM models outperformed corresponding CFA models. The bifactor ESEM model was a good fit in single group analyses and achieved metric and scalar invariance in multigroup analyses. The inspection of latent mean differences revealed a consistent trend for patients to avoid emotional triggers and have less general emotional processing difficulties. The study clarified the EPS factor structure and supported its use to assess the emotional processing of medical patients and community participants

Therapist reactions to patient personality: A pilot study of clinicians’ emotional and neural responses using three clinical vignettes from "In Treatment" series

Introduction: Therapists’ responses to patients play a crucial role in psychotherapy and are considered a key component of the patient–clinician relationship, which promotes successful treatment outcomes. To date, no empirical research has ever investigated therapist response patterns to patients with different personality disorders from a neuroscience perspective. Methods: In the present study, psychodynamic therapists (N = 14) were asked to complete a battery of instruments (including the Therapist Response Questionnaire) after watching three videos showing clinical interactions between a therapist and three patients with narcissistic, histrionic/borderline, and depressive personality disorders, respectively. Subsequently, participants’ high-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) was recorded as they passively viewed pictures of the patients’ faces, which were selected from the still images of the previously shown videos. Supervised machine learning (ML) was used to evaluate whether: (1) therapists’ responses predicted which patient they observed during the EEG task and whether specific clinician reactions were involved in distinguishing between patients with different personality disorders (using pairwise comparisons); and (2) therapists’ event-related potentials (ERPs) predicted which patient they observed during the laboratory experiment and whether distinct ERP components allowed this forecast. Results: The results indicated that therapists showed distinct patterns of criticized/devalued and sexualized reactions to visual depictions of patients with different personality disorders, at statistically systematic and clinically meaningful levels. Moreover, therapists’ late positive potentials (LPPs) in the hippocampus were able to determine which patient they observed during the EEG task, with high accuracy. Discussion: These results, albeit preliminary, shed light on the role played by therapists’ memory processes in psychotherapy. Clinical and neuroscience implications of the empirical investigation of therapist responses are discussed

A Calcium- and GTP-Dependent Transglutaminase in Leishmania infantum

While human and animal leishmaniasis affect several millions of people worldwide, L. infantum is the species responsible for visceral leishmaniasis in Europe, Middle East, and America. Antileishmanial drugs present issues associated with drug toxicity and increasing parasite resistance. Therefore, the study of this parasite with a focus on new potential drug targets is extremely useful. Accordingly, we purified and characterized a transglutaminase (TGase) from L. infantum promastigotes. While Tgases are known to be involved in cell death and autophagy, it appears that these functions are very important for parasites' virulence. For the first time, we showed a Ca2+- and GTP-dependent TGase in Leishmania corresponding to a 54 kDa protein, which was purified by two chromatographic steps: DEAE-Sepharose and Heparin-Sepharose. Using polyclonal antibodies against a 50-amino-acid conserved region of the catalytic core of human TGase 2, we revealed two other bands of 66 and 75 kDa. The 54 kDa band appears to be different from the previously reported TGase, which was shown to be Ca2+- independent. Future research should address the identification of the purified enzyme sequence and, subsequently, its cloning to more comprehensively investigate its pathophysiological function and possible differences from mammal enzymes

Seleção de ovinos geneticamente resistentes ao scrapie

A susceptibilidade dos ovinos ao scrapie está relacionada a polimorfismos do gene da proteína priônica celular (PRNP). Polimorfismos nos códons 136 (alanina, A/ valina, V), 154 (arginina, R/ histidina, H) e 171 (glutamina, Q/ arginina, R/ histidina, H) são os principais determinantes de susceptibilidade/resistência ao scrapie clássico. Eles são combinados em 4 principais variantes do alelo ancestral ARQ: VRQ, AHQ, ARH e ARR. Programas de melhoramento genético na União Europeia e Estados Unidos têm utilizado como estratégia selecionar o alelo resistente ARR, diminuindo a frequência do alelo susceptível VRQ em populações de ovinos. No Brasil, há poucos dados de genotipagem do gene PRNP e, até o momento, nenhum tipo de controle baseado em cruzamentos direcionados foi implementado. Esta revisão focará aspectos importantes como epidemiologia e resistência genética, como ferramenta de programas de controle de scrapie