Omicidio e lesioni personali da incidenti della strada in stato di ebbrezza e di alterazione psico-fisica. Criticit\ue0 e problematiche. Considerazioni medico-legali

Road traffic crashes are a main cause of physical harm and mortality. That means a heavy burden in terms of short, medium and long-term disability and public costs for society. Among the most relevant cases of severe accidents is driving under the influence of alcohol and psychoactive drugs. That\u2019s the reason of the international strong effort to combating the phenomenon. In Italy the draft law concerning the criminal offence of vehicular homicide and road traffic personal injuries is currently being discussed. Previously the law n. 120/2010 has already changed the regulation in matter of drink-driving and driving under the influence of controlled substances with stiffer penalties for transgressors and (at least some) guidance as to assess the infringement. The draft law suggests that clinical and toxicological evidences of actual driving impairment has to be proved to reach significance in court, nevertheless no standard and effective procedure has being established for detection, at least for what concerns controlled substances. The purpose of this article is to put in evidence, in accordance with a medico-legal perspective, some of the issues that emerge from this complex matter (i.e. the need of a list of the impairing substance under detection, of well-defined legal cut-off values, of a better definition of the problems following the therapeutic use of drugs of abuse and other concerns), issues, those, that are now more troubling whereas the introduction of new crimes and punishments is becoming more concrete

Cell sensitivity, non-linearity and inverse effects

It has been claimed that the homeopathic principle of 'similarity' (or 'similia') and the use of individualized remedies in extremely low doses conflicts with scientific laws, but this opinion can be disputed on the basis of recent scientific advances. Several mechanisms to explain the responsiveness of cells to ultra-low doses and the similarity as inversion of drug effects, have again been suggested in the framework of hormesis and modern paradoxical pharmacology. Low doses or high dilutions of a drug interact only with the enhanced sensitivities of regulatory systems, functioning as minute harmful stimuli to trigger specific compensatory healing reactions. Here we review hypotheses about homeopathic drug action at cellular and molecular levels, and present a new conceptual model of the principle of similarity based on allosteric drug action. While many common drugs act through orthostatic chemical interactions aimed at blocking undesired activities of enzymes or receptors, allosteric interactions are associated with dynamic conformational changes and functional transitions in target proteins, which enhance or inhibit specific cellular actions in normal or disease states. The concept of allostery and the way it controls physiological activities can be broadened to include diluted/dynamized compounds, and may constitute a working hypothesis for the study of molecular mechanisms underlying the inversion of drug effects

A Rare Case of Hodgkin Lymphoma of the Maxillary Sinus.

Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is an uncommon B-cell malignant disease. It usually presents with mediastinal and/or laterocervical lymph node localization, while primary extranodal HL is a rare entity giving rise to diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. It rarely presents as just extranodal localization, so its presence within the maxillary sinus without any lymphadenopathy is exceptional. Given the rarity of this localization, there is no standard treatment for maxillary sinus HL. We present a case of a patient with extranodal HL of the right maxillary sinus treated with primary surgery followed by adjuvant sequential chemoradiation therapy

L\u2019introduzione della legge 41/2016 in tema di omicidio e di lesioni personali stradali: aspetti medico-legali e analisi della giurisprudenza

The law n. 41/2016 has recently introduced, into the Italian penal code, articles n. 589-bis and 590-bis that concern vehicular homicide and road traffic personal injuries. Although this leads to a tightening of the penalties, today a lot of criticities still remains; in particular, the assessment of the psychophysical condition of the driver and relative applying procedures. These problematic issues have already been highlighted under a medico-legal perspective and today emerge also from an acquittal or conviction sentences that, arising fro

Effects of Gelsemium sempervirens L. on pathway-focused gene expression profiling in neuronal cells

Gelsemium sempervirens L. is a traditional medicinal plant mainly distributed in the southeastern of the United States, employed in phytotheraphy and homeopathy as nervous system relaxant to treat various types of anxiety, pain, headache and other ailments. Although animal models showed its effectiveness, the mechanisms by which it might operate on the nervous system are largely unknown. This study investigated for the \ufb01rst time by a real-time PCR technique (RT-PCR Array) the gene expression of a panel of human neurotransmitter receptors and regulators, involved in neuronal excitatory signaling, on a neurocyte cell line. Materials and methods: Human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells were exposed for 24 h to Gelsemium sempervirens at 2c and 9c dilutions (i.e. 2 and 9-fold centesimal dilutions from mother tincture) and the gene expression pro\ufb01le compared to that of cells treated with control vehicle solutions. Results: Exposure to the Gelsemium sempervirens 2c dilution, containing a nanomolar concentration of active principle gelsemine, induced a down-regulation of most genes of this array. In particular, the treated cells showed a statistically signi\ufb01cant decrease of the prokineticin receptor 2, whose ligand is a neuropeptide involved in nociception, anxiety and depression-like behavior. Conclusions: Overall, the results indicate a negative modulation trend in neuronal excitatory signaling, which can suggest new working hypotheses on the anxiolytic and analgesic action of this plant

CRP1 Protein: (dis)similarities between Arabidopsis thaliana and Zea mays

Biogenesis of chloroplasts in higher plants is initiated from proplastids, and involves a series of processes by which a plastid able to perform photosynthesis, to synthesize amino acids, lipids, and phytohormones is formed. All plastid protein complexes are composed of subunits encoded by the nucleus and chloroplast genomes, which require a coordinated gene expression to produce the correct concentrations of organellar proteins and to maintain organelle function. To achieve this, hundreds of nucleus-encoded factors are imported into the chloroplast to control plastid gene expression. Among these factors, members of the Pentatricopeptide Repeat (PPR) containing protein family have emerged as key regulators of the organellar post–transcriptional processing. PPR proteins represent a large family in plants, and the extent to which PPR functions are conserved between dicots and monocots deserves evaluation, in light of differences in photosynthetic metabolism (C3 vs. C4) and localization of chloroplast biogenesis (mesophyll vs. bundle sheath cells). In this work we investigated the role played in the process of chloroplast biogenesis by At5g42310, a member of the Arabidopsis PPR family which we here refer to as AtCRP1 (Chloroplast RNA Processing 1), providing a comparison with the orthologous ZmCRP1 protein from Zea mays. Loss-of-function atcrp1 mutants are characterized by yellow-albinotic cotyledons and leaves owing to defects in the accumulation of subunits of the thylakoid protein complexes. As in the case of ZmCRP1, AtCRP1 associates with the 5′ UTRs of both psaC and, albeit very weakly, petA transcripts, indicating that the role of CRP1 as regulator of chloroplast protein synthesis has been conserved between maize and Arabidopsis. AtCRP1 also interacts with the petB-petD intergenic region and is required for the generation of petB and petD monocistronic RNAs. A similar role has been also attributed to ZmCRP1, although the direct interaction of ZmCRP1 with the petB-petD intergenic region has never been reported, which could indicate that AtCRP1 and ZmCRP1 differ, in part, in their plastid RNA targets.Peer Reviewe

Increased serum lipase with associated normoamylasemia in cancer patients

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