Stalking e mass media

Unanimously the international research recognizes the fundamental role of the media in the affirmation of the phenomenon of stalking in the U.S.A., beginning from its same labelling. Star-stalking cases, accomplice the notoriety of the victims, has represented a starting point of the media interest that next has allowed to discover the prevalence of these conducts among the general population. The progressive social visibility of the phenomenon, promoted through the media, has produced the recognition of the stalking as a criminal problem, pushing the common law countries legislators to the creation of specific anti-stalking legislation. The research intends to investigate the role of the Italian media in the process of social and juridical affirmation of stalking, ended with the approval of the DL 23 February 2009 n.11 and the consequent introduction of the article 612-bis c.p. “Atti persecutori”. The relationship between stalking and media in Italy, the relevance and the importance of the progressive change of social visibility, considering the particular way of working of the media, has been investigated through the collection and the analysis of the articles published since 1992 to November 2009 on Corriere della Sera, main national diffusion daily paper, and on Quotidiano.net, that brings the news of different local journalistic headings (Resto del Carlino, La Nazione, Il Giorno). The 506 selected articles, 293 published on Corriere della Sera (57,9%) e 213 on Quotidiano.net (42,1%), have globally been submitted to a first level of analysis based on the context of the article, the typology of content, the ability of recognition and the language used to define the behaviors. The second level of analysis has involved only news articles, studied through valutative analysis grids about victims, stalkers, typology of relationship, star-stalking cases and presence of violent behaviors. The typology of article mostly diffused on newspapers results to be the chronicle, that represents the 84,6% of the total. Popular and/or scientific ones represent the 7,7% of the total as medium value of the period, but their diffusion results constant only starting from 2001. The political news are the 5,7% of the total and they are recognisable starting from 2006. The use of the term stalking appears constantly among the media from 2002 with a progressive increasement in the next years (44% in 2007; 52,1% in 2008; 94% in 2009), representing by now the defining term of the phenomenon. Among 449 victims, found from 1992 to 2009, 372 (82,9%) are women. Among 440 stalker, found from 1992 to 2009, 84,3% are men and only 15,7% women. More than half of the stalkers was an ex-partner of the victim (51,2%). The stalker results to be an acquaintance in 24,3% of the cases and a perfect stranger in 24,5%. On 428 chronicle articles selected since 1992 to 2009, more than the half (51,4%) describes stories of stalking connotated by violent behaviors: physical injuries, assaults (also sexual), tempted and consumed homicides.La ricerca internazionale concordemente riconosce il ruolo determinante dei media nel percorso di affermazione del fenomeno dello stalking in U.S.A., a partire dal suo stesso “etichettamento”. I casi di star-stalking, complice la notorietà delle vittime, hanno rappresentato un iniziale polarizzatore mediatico che ha successivamente permesso la riconoscibilità delle condotte di molestie a danno della popolazione comune. La progressiva visibilità sociale del fenomeno, promossa per via mediale, ha poi determinato il riconoscimento dello stalking quale problematica di rilevanza penale, spingendo il legislatore anglosassone all’emanazione di apposite leggi anti-stalking. Alla luce di queste considerazioni, lo studio qui presentato intende indagare il ruolo dei media italiani nel processo di affermazione sociale e giuridica dello stalking, culminato con l’approvazione del DL 23 febbraio 2009 n.11 e la conseguente introduzione dell’art. 612-bis c.p. “Atti persecutori”. Alla luce di queste considerazioni, lo studio qui presentato intende indagare il ruolo dei media italiani nel processo di affermazione sociale e giuridica dello stalking, culminato con l’approvazione del DL 23 febbraio 2009 n.11 e la conseguente introduzione dell’art. 612-bis c.p. “Atti persecutori”. Il rapporto tra stalking e mass media in Italia, l’entità e l’importanza del progressivo mutamento della sua osservabilità sociale, anche, e soprattutto, alla luce del peculiare funzionamento dei media è stato indagato mediante la raccolta e l’analisi degli articoli pubblicati dal gennaio 1992 all’aprile 2009 sul Corriere della Sera, principale quotidiano a diffusione nazionale, e su Quotidiano.net, che riporta le notizie di diverse testate giornalistiche a diffusione locale (Resto del Carlino, La Nazione, Il Giorno). I 506 articoli selezionati, 293 pubblicati sul Corriere della Sera (pari al 57,9%) e 213 su Quotidiano.net (pari al 42,1%), sono stati globalmente sottoposti a un primo livello di analisi basato sul contesto dell’articolo, ovvero la tipologia di contenuto, la capacità di riconoscimento e il linguaggio utilizzato per la definizione delle condotte. Il secondo livello di analisi ha coinvolto i soli articoli di cronaca, sottoposti a griglie valutative riguardanti le vittime, gli stalker, la tipologia di relazione intercorrente tra gli stessi, i casi di star-stalking e la ricorrenza di condotte violente. La tipologia di articolo maggiormente diffusa sui quotidiani risulta essere la cronaca, che rappresenta l’84,6% del totale.Gli articoli di tipo divulgativo e/o scientifico rappresentano il 7,7% del totale quale media del periodo, ma la loro diffusione sui quotidiani risulta costante solo a partire dal 2001. Le notizie di tipo politico rappresentano il 5,7% del totale e sono rintracciabili solo a partire dal 2006. L’uso del termine stalking da parte dei media risulta costante a partire dal 2002 con un aumento progressivo negli anni successivi (44% nel 2007; 52,1% nel 2008; 94% nel 2009) tanto da rappresentare, ormai, il termine di riferimento del fenomeno. Su 449 vittime individuate dal 1992 al 2009, ben 372 (pari all’82,9%) sono donne. Su 440 stalker individuati tra il 1992 e il 2009 l’84,3% sono uomini e solo il 15,7% donne. Più della metà degli stalker era un ex-partner della vittima (51,2%). Lo stalker risulta essere un conoscente della vittima nel 24,3% dei casi e un perfetto sconosciuto nel 24,5%. Su 428 articoli di cronaca selezionati dal 1992 al 2009, più della metà (51,4%) riportano vicende di stalking marcatamente connotate da condotte violente: percosse, lesioni personali, aggressioni (anche sessuali), omicidi tentati e consumati

The Potential Role of the Early Maladaptive Schema in Behavioral Addictions Among Late Adolescents and Young Adults

Background: Behavioral addiction (BA) is a recent concept in psychiatry. Few studies have investigated the relationship between BA and early maladaptive schemas (EMSs). EMS is the core of Schema Therapy (ST). According to the ST model, psychiatric disorders result from the development of EMSs in response to unmet emotional needs in childhood. Bach et al. (2018) grouped the 18 EMSs into four domains: (1) disconnection and rejection; (2) impaired autonomy and performance; (3) excessive responsibility and standards; and (4) impaired limits. This study aims to assess the possible association of the most frequent BAs with EMSs in a large group of late adolescents and young adults and to evaluate their self-perceived quality of life (QoL). Methods: A battery of psychological tests assessing food addiction (FA), gambling disorder (GD), internet addiction (IA), and QoL was administered to 1,075 late adolescents and young adults (N = 637; 59.3% women). A forward-stepwise logistic regression model was run to identify which variables were associated with BAs. Results: Food addiction was more frequent among women and GD among men, while IA was equally distributed. Regarding the EMSs, participants with FA or IA showed significantly higher scores on all four-schema domains, whereas those with GD exhibited higher scores on impaired autonomy and performance and impaired limits. Besides, average scores of all domains increased with the association of two or more comorbid BAs. Self-perceived QoL was lower for participants with FA and IA, but not for those with GD; the presence of comorbid BAs was associated with lower Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores. Finally, specific EMS domains and demographic variables were associated with each BA. Conclusion: Late adolescents and young adults with FA or IA have a lower perception of their mental and physical health. The most striking result is that FA appears to be associated with the disconnection and rejection schema domain, IA with all the schema domains (except for impaired autonomy and performance), and GD with impaired autonomy and performance schema domain. In conclusion, our findings suggest that EMS should be systematically assessed during psychotherapy of patients with BAs

Responses of peripheral blood mononucleated cells from non-celiac gluten sensitive patients to various cereal sources

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is still an undefined syndrome whose triggering mechanisms remain unsettled. This study aimed to clarify how cultured peripheral blood mononucleated cells (PBMC) obtained from NCGS patients responded to contact with wheat proteins. Results demonstrated that wheat protein induced an overactivation of the proinflammatory chemokine CXCL10 in PBMC from NCGS patients, and that the overactivation level depends on the cereal source from which proteins are obtained. CXCL10 is able to decrease the transepithelial resistance of monolayers of normal colonocytes (NCM 460) by diminishing the mRNA expression of cadherin-1 (CDH1) and tight junction protein 2 (TJP2), two primary components of the tight junction strands. Thus, CXCL10 overactivation is one of the mechanisms triggered by wheat proteins in PBMC obtained from NCGS patients. This mechanism is activated to a greater extent by proteins from modern with respect to those extracted from ancient wheat genotypes

Familial Risk and a Genome-Wide Supported DRD2 Variant for Schizophrenia Predict Lateral Prefrontal-Amygdala Effective Connectivity During Emotion Processing

The brain functional mechanisms translating genetic risk into emotional symptoms in schizophrenia (SCZ) may include abnormal functional integration between areas key for emotion processing, such as the amygdala and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). Indeed, investigation of these mechanisms is also complicated by emotion processing comprising different subcomponents and by disease-associated state variables. Here, our aim was to investigate the relationship between risk for SCZ and effective connectivity between the amygdala and the LPFC during different subcomponents of emotion processing. Thus, we first characterized with dynamic causal modeling (DCM) physiological patterns of LPFC amygdala effective connectivity in healthy controls (HC) during implicit and explicit emotion processing. Then, we compared DCM patterns in a subsample of HC, in patients with SCZ and in healthy siblings of patients (SIB), matched for demographics. Finally, we investigated in HC association of LPFC amygdala effective connectivity with a genome-wide supported variant increasing genetic risk for SCZ and possibly relevant to emotion processing (DRD2 rs2514218). In HC, we found that a "bottom-up" amygdala-to-LPFC pattern during implicit processing and a "top-down" LPFC-to-amygdala pattern during explicit processing were the most likely directional models of effective connectivity. Differently, implicit emotion processing in SIB, SCZ, and HC homozygous for the SCZ risk rs2514218 C allele was associated with decreased probability for the "bottom-up" as well as with increased probability for the "top-down" model. These findings suggest that task-specific anomaly in the directional flow of information or disconnection between the amygdala and the LPFC is a good candidate endophenotype of SCZ.Peer reviewe

Variation in dopamine D2 and serotonin 5-HT2A receptor genes is associated with working memory processing and response to treatment with antipsychotics

Dopamine D2 and serotonin 5-HT2A receptors contribute to modulate prefrontal cortical physiology and response to treatment with antipsychotics in schizophrenia. Similarly, functional variation in the genes encoding these receptors is also associated with these phenotypes. In particular, the DRD2 rs1076560 T allele predicts a lower ratio of expression of D2 short/long isoforms, suboptimal working memory processing, and better response to antipsychotic treatment compared with the G allele. Furthermore, the HTR2A T allele is associated with lower 5-HT2A expression, impaired working memory processing, and poorer response to antipsychotics compared with the C allele. Here, we investigated in healthy subjects whether these functional polymorphisms have a combined effect on prefrontal cortical physiology and related cognitive behavior linked to schizophrenia as well as on response to treatment with secondgeneration antipsychotics in patients with schizophrenia. In a total sample of 620 healthy subjects, we found that subjects with the rs1076560 T and rs6314 T alleles have greater fMRI prefrontal activity during working memory. Similar results were obtained within the attentional domain. Also, the concomitant presence of the rs1076560 T/rs6314 T alleles also predicted lower behavioral accuracy during working memory. Moreover, we found that rs1076560 T carrier/rs6314 CC individuals had better responses to antipsychotic treatment in two independent samples of patients with schizophrenia (n¼63 and n¼54, respectively), consistent with the previously reported separate effects of these genotypes. These results indicate that DRD2 and HTR2A genetic variants together modulate physiological prefrontal efficiency during working memory and also modulate the response to antipsychotics. Therefore, these results suggest that further exploration is needed to better understand the clinical consequences of these genotype–phenotype relationships

Genetically Determined Measures of Striatal D2 Signaling Predict Prefrontal Activity during Working Memory Performance

Background: Variation of the gene coding for D2 receptors (DRD2) has been associated with risk for schizophrenia and with working memory deficits. A functional intronic SNP (rs1076560) predicts relative expression of the two D2 receptors isoforms, D2S (mainly pre-synaptic) and D2L (mainly post-synaptic). However, the effect of functional genetic variation of DRD2 on striatal dopamine D2 signaling and on its correlation with prefrontal activity during working memory in humans is not known. Methods: Thirty-seven healthy subjects were genotyped for rs1076560 (G>T) and underwent SPECT with [123I]IBZM (which binds primarily to post-synaptic D2 receptors) and with [123I]FP-CIT (which binds to pre-synaptic dopamine transporters, whose activity and density is also regulated by pre-synaptic D2 receptors), as well as BOLD fMRI during N-Back working memory. Results: Subjects carrying the T allele (previously associated with reduced D2S expression) had striatal reductions of [ 123I]IBZM and of [123I]FP-CIT binding. DRD2 genotype also differentially predicted the correlation between striatal dopamine D2 signaling (as identified with factor analysis of the two radiotracers) and activity of the prefrontal cortex during working memory as measured with BOLD fMRI, which was positive in GG subjects and negative in GT. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that this functional SNP within DRD2 predicts striatal binding of the two radiotracers to dopamine transporters and D2 receptors as well as the correlation between striatal D2 signaling with prefrontal cortex activity during performance of a working memory task. These data are consistent with the possibility that the balance of excitatory/inhibitory modulation of striatal neurons may also affect striatal outputs in relationship with prefrontal activity during working memory performance within the cortico-striatal-thalamic- cortical pathwa

Assessment of diagnostic criteria for multifocal motor neuropathy in patients included in the Italian database

Background and purposeThis study aimed to assess the diagnostic criteria, ancillary investigations and treatment response using real-life data in multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN) patients.MethodsClinical and laboratory data were collected from 110 patients enrolled in the Italian MMN database through a structured questionnaire. Twenty-six patients were excluded due to the unavailability of nerve conduction studies or the presence of clinical signs and symptoms and electrodiagnostic abnormalities inconsistent with the MMN diagnosis. Analyses were conducted on 73 patients with a confirmed MMN diagnosis and 11 patients who did not meet the diagnostic criteria.ResultsThe European Federation of Neurological Societies/Peripheral Nerve Society (EFNS/PNS) diagnostic criteria were variably applied. AUTHOR:When applying the American Association of Electrodiagnostic Medicine criteria, an additional 17% of patients fulfilled the criteria for probable/definite diagnosis whilst a further 9.5% missed the diagnosis. In 17% of the patients only compound muscle action potential amplitude, but not area, was measured and subsequently recorded in the database by the treating physician. Additional investigations, including anti-GM1 immunoglobulin M antibodies, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, nerve ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging, supported the diagnosis in 46%-83% of the patients. Anti-GM1 immunoglobulin M antibodies and nerve ultrasound demonstrated the highest sensitivity. Additional tests were frequently performed outside the EFNS/PNS guideline recommendations.ConclusionsThis study provides insights into the real-world diagnostic and management strategies for MMN, highlighting the challenges in applying diagnostic criteria