La Real Academia Greco-Latina: un discurso griego en defensa de los estudios helénicos

After rewinding the helenic studies situation in the begining of the XIX century in Spain, we comment the origin and evolution of the "Academia Latina Matritense" up to become "Real Academia Greco-latina", its projects and activities, its more remarkable members -specially Saturnino Lozano-, to finish with the edition and the retoric-stilistical study of one of Saturnino Lozano's speech writen in greek defending the helenic language and its study

Using non-invasive brain stimulation to augment motor training-induced plasticity

Therapies for motor recovery after stroke or traumatic brain injury are still not satisfactory. To date the best approach seems to be the intensive physical therapy. However the results are limited and functional gains are often minimal. The goal of motor training is to minimize functional disability and optimize functional motor recovery. This is thought to be achieved by modulation of plastic changes in the brain. Therefore, adjunct interventions that can augment the response of the motor system to the behavioural training might be useful to enhance the therapy-induced recovery in neurological populations. In this context, noninvasive brain stimulation appears to be an interesting option as an add-on intervention to standard physical therapies. Two non-invasive methods of inducing electrical currents into the brain have proved to be promising for inducing long-lasting plastic changes in motor systems: transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). These techniques represent powerful methods for priming cortical excitability for a subsequent motor task, demand, or stimulation. Thus, their mutual use can optimize the plastic changes induced by motor practice, leading to more remarkable and outlasting clinical gains in rehabilitation. In this review we discuss how these techniques can enhance the effects of a behavioural intervention and the clinical evidence to date

Activity of cefiderocol against high-risk clones of multidrug-resistant Enterobacterales, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia

BACKGROUND: Cefiderocol is a novel siderophore cephalosporin, developed for activity against MDR Gram-negative bacilli (MDR-GNB). OBJECTIVES: To assess the in vitro antibacterial activity of cefiderocol against a collection of MDR-GNB clinical isolates from hospitals in southern Spain. METHODS: Two hundred and thirty-one isolates of successful clones were tested: 125 Enterobacterales (121 ESBL- and/or carbapenemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae and 4 carbapenemase-producing Enterobacter cloacae), 80 Acinetobacter baumannii, 6 Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 20 Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Ceftolozane/tazobactam, ceftazidime, ceftazidime/avibactam, cefepime, aztreonam, meropenem, amikacin, ciprofloxacin, colistin and tigecycline were used as comparators against Enterobacterales, P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii. Minocycline, levofloxacin and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole were studied against S. maltophilia instead of aztreonam, ciprofloxacin and cefepime. MICs were determined by broth microdilution according to CLSI guidelines. MIC determination was performed in CAMHB for all antimicrobials except cefiderocol, where iron-depleted CAMHB was used. RESULTS: Cefiderocol showed potent in vitro activity against the isolates analysed. MIC50 and MIC90 values were in the ranges 0.125-8 mg/L and 0.5-8 mg/L, respectively, and 98% of isolates were inhibited at ≤4 mg/L. Only five isolates showed cefiderocol MICs of >4 mg/L: three ST2/OXA-24/40-producing A. baumannii, one ST114/VIM-1-producing E. cloacae and one ST114/VIM-1 + OXA-48-producing E. cloacae. All KPC-3-producing K. pneumoniae were susceptible to cefiderocol, even those resistant to ceftazidime/avibactam. P. aeruginosa isolates showed cefiderocol MICs of <4 mg/L, including those resistant to ceftolozane/tazobactam. S. maltophilia isolates displayed cefiderocol MICs of <4 mg/L, including those resistant to levofloxacin and/or trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. CONCLUSIONS: Cefiderocol showed excellent activity against MDR-GNB, including carbapenem-resistant isolates, and was the most active antimicrobial tested against this collection

Proctalgia en el síndrome de atrapamiento del nervio pudendo

El síndrome de atrapamiento del nervio pudendo (SANP) es una entidad poco conocida e infradiagnosticada en nuestros días. Presenta síntomas que abarcan la esfera urinaria, sexual y proctológica. El tratamiento es complejo y secuencias. Presentamos un trabajo observacional prospectivo de 53 pacientes afectos de proctalgia que cumplen criterios de SANP según Nantes y han sido sometidos a punción hidrodistensión corticoideo-anestésica del tronco y ramas terminales del nervio pudendo comprobando la respuesta a dichas punciones midiendo el nivel de dolor en el momento inmediato tras la punción y a partir de los seis meses según puntuación referida en escala visual analógica del dolor. De dicho estudio hemos concluido que el SANP es una entidad dolorosa e invalidante, de incidencia y prevalencia desconocida, más frecuente en el sexo femenino, sin establecer un rango de edad determinado para su presentación. En nuestra experiencia, el tratamiento con punción-hidrodistensión corticoideo-anestésica logra rescatar/mejorar a un importante porcentaje de pacientes afectos de proctalgia en el contexto de un SANP refractaria al tratamiento analgésico convencional, con buenos resultados a medio plazo (6 meses) aliviando el dolor al 39,62% de los pacientes y de forma estadísticamente significativa con relación al dolor prepunción. La técnica de punción es reproducible, segura, carente de grandes efectos secundarios,Departamento de Anatomía y Radiologí

Processing Nouns and Verbs in the Left Frontal Cortex: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study

Neuropsychological and neurophysiological studies suggest that the production of verbs in speech depends on cortical regions in the left frontal lobe. However, the precise topography of these regions, and their functional roles in verb production, remains matters of debate. In an earlier study with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), we showed that stimulation to the left anterior midfrontal gyrus disrupted verb production, but not noun production, in a task that required subjects to perform simple morphological alternations. This result raises a number of questions: for example, is the effect of stimulation focal and specific to that brain region? Is the behavioral effect limited to rule-based, regular transformations, or can it be generalized over the grammatical category? In the present study, we used rTMS to suppress the excitability of distinct parts of the left prefrontal cortex to assess their role in producing regular and irregular verbs compared to nouns. We compared rTMS to sham stimulation and to stimulation of homologous areas in the right hemisphere. Response latencies increased for verbs, but were unaffected for nouns, following stimulation to the left anterior midfrontal gyrus. No significant interference specific for verbs resulted after stimulation to two other areas in the left frontal lobe, the posterior midfrontal gyrus and Broca's area. These results therefore reinforce the idea that the left anterior midfrontal cortex is critical for processing verbs. Moreover, none of the regions stimulated was preferentially engaged in the production of regular or irregular inflection, raising questions about the role of the frontal lobes in processing inflectional morphology.Psycholog

Do vegetation patch spatial patterns disrupt the spatial organization of plant species?

Thelong-range spatial autocorrelationwasevaluated based on the dispersal abilities of the species.Among the 106 species evaluated, 39%of thewoody species, 17% of the forbs, and 12% of the grasses exhibited disrupted long-range spatial autocorrelation where patches were small. The species that are more vulnerable to the effects of fragmentation tended to be those that have restricted dispersal, such as those that have short-range ispersal (atelechoric), e.g., Phlomis purpurea, Cistus albidus, Teucrium pseudochamaepytis, Brachypodium retusum, and the ballistic species, Genista spartioides. Helianthemumalmeriense is another vulnerable species that has actively restricted dispersal (antitelechory), which is common in arid regions. Wind dispersers such as Launaea lanifera were less vulnerable to the effects of fragmentation. Long-distance dispersers whose persistence depends on facilitative interactions with other individuals, e.g., allogamous species such as Thymus hyemalis, Ballota hirsuta, and Anthyllis cytisoides, exhibit disrupted long-range spatial autocorrelation when patch size is reduce

3D segmentations of neuronal nuclei from confocal microscope image stacks

In this paper, we present an algorithm to create 3D segmentations of neuronal cells from stacks of previously segmented 2D images. The idea behind this proposal is to provide a general method to reconstruct 3D structures from 2D stacks, regardless of how these 2D stacks have been obtained. The algorithm not only reuses the information obtained in the 2D segmentation, but also attempts to correct some typical mistakes made by the 2D segmentation algorithms (for example, under segmentation of tightly-coupled clusters of cells). We have tested our algorithm in a real scenario?the segmentation of the neuronal nuclei in different layers of the rat cerebral cortex. Several representative images from different layers of the cerebral cortex have been considered and several 2D segmentation algorithms have been compared. Furthermore, the algorithm has also been compared with the traditional 3D Watershed algorithm and the results obtained here show better performance in terms of correctly identified neuronal nuclei

Materialities, Space, Mind: Archaeology of Visual Cognition

A perceptual study of different styles of prehistoric Galician ceramics (from 6000 to 2000 BP) conducted by eye-tracking, underpins the material engagement of mind by showing that the visual world fosters the entanglement between doing, seeing, and designing through history. This text examines how materializations of human practices relate to cognition and to socio-cultural contexts. By combining evidence on the relationship between material culture and perceptual reactions, our text aims to understand the entanglement between the mind, objects and the world. We apply measurable and numeric techniques, providing an archaeometric approach to cognitive topics by combining neurosciences with interpretive and reflective research. This research provides new insights into the material culture, contributes to the understanding of the relationship between mind and the material world, and accounts for the transitive engagement between the way of thinking, seeing and making things. Thus, the text contributes to an understanding of the material forces driving perception and thought

Assessing the performance of a handheld laser scanning system for individual tree mapping—A mixed forests showcase in Spain

Producción CientíficaThe use of mobile laser scanning to survey forest ecosystems is a promising, scalable technology to describe the 3D structure of forests at a high resolution. We use a structurally complex, mixed-species Mediterranean forest to test the performance of a mobile Handheld Laser Scanning (HLS) system to estimate tree attributes within a forest patch in central Spain. We describe the different stages of the HLS approach: field position, ground data collection, scanning path design, point cloud processing, alignment between detected trees and measured reference trees, and finally, the assessment of main tree structural attributes diameter at breast height (DBH) and tree height considering species and tree size as control factors. We surveyed 418 reference trees to account for omission and commission error rates over a 1 ha plot divided into 16 sections and scanned using two different scanning paths. The HLS-based approach reached a high of 88 and 92% tree detection rate for the best combination of scanning path and point cloud processing modes for the HLS system. The root mean squared errors for DBH estimates varied between species: errors for Pinus pinaster were below 2 cm for Scan 02. Quercus pyrenaica, and Alnus glutinosa showed higher error rates. We observed good agreement between ALS and HLS estimates for tree height, highlighting differences to field measurements. Despite the complexity of the mixed forest area surveyed, our results show that HLS is highly efficient at detecting tree locations, estimating DBH, and supporting tree height measurements as confirmed with airborne laser data used for validation. This study is one of the first HLS-based studies conducted in the Mediterranean mixed forest region, where variability in tree allometries and spacing and the presence of natural regeneration pose challenges for the HLS approach. HLS is a feasible, time-efficient, scalable technology for tree mapping in mixed forests with potential to support forest monitoring programmes such as national forest inventories lacking three-dimensional, remote sensing data to support field measurements.European Union’s Horizon 2020 and Innovation Program Marie Skłodowska-Curie - (Grant 956355)Junta de Castilla y León y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) - (projects “CLU‑2019‑01 and CL‑EI‑2021‑05—iuFOR Institute Unit of Excellence”)Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), project Interreg COMFOR‑SUDOE - (grant SOE4/P1/E1012