Ricerc@Sapienza

Objectives: In the present study, confluent canals in the mandibular first molar's mesial root were investigated in an Italian population by means of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Materials and Methods: A total of 200 molars, selected from the CBCT examinations of 130 patients who required this type of X-ray study as part of their dental treatment, were examined.

Objectives: Exact symmetry and perfect balance between opposite jaw halves, as well as between antagonistic teeth, is not frequently observed in natural masticatory systems. Research results show that asymmetry in our body, skull, and jaws is often related to genetic, epigenetic, environmental and individual ontogenetic factors.

Monkey neurophysiology and human neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that passive viewing of optic flow stimuli activates a cortical network of temporal, parietal, insular, and cingulate visual motion regions. Here, we tested whether the human visual motion areas involved in processing optic flow signals simulating self-motion are also activated by active lower limb movements, and hence are likely involved in guiding human locomotion. To this aim, we used a combined approach of task-evoked activity and resting-state functional connectivity by fMRI.

Anatomical and functional findings in primates suggest the existence of a dedicated parieto-medial temporal pathway for spatial navigation, consisting of both direct and indirect projections from the caudal inferior parietal lobe (cIPL) to the hippocampus and the parahippocampal cortex, with indirect projections relaying through the posterior cingulate and retrosplenial cortex. This neural network is largely unexplored in humans. This study aimed at testing the existence of a parieto-medial temporal pathway for spatial navigation in humans.

Graph theory analysis on resting state electroencephalographic rhythms disclosed topological properties of cerebral network. In Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, this approach showed mixed results. Granger causality matrices were used as input to the graph theory allowing to estimate the strength and the direction of information transfer between electrode pairs.

Catecholamine nuclei within the brainstem reticular formation (RF) play a pivotal role in a variety of brain functions. However, a systematic characterization of these nuclei in the very same experimental conditions is missing so far. Tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immune-positive cells of the brainstem correspond to dopamine (DA)-, norepinephrine (NE)-, and epinephrine (E)-containing cells. Here, we report a systematic count of TH-positive neurons in the RF of the mouse brainstem by using stereological morphometry.

Resting-state connectivity has been widely studied in the healthy and pathological brain. Less well-characterized are the brain networks altered during pharmacological interventions and their possible interaction with vigilance. In the hopes of finding new biomarkers which can be used to identify cortical activity and cognitive processes linked to the effects of drugs to treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, the analysis of networks altered by medication would be particularly interesting.

The assertion that humans differ from animals in their use of lan- guage has been the subject of much discussion as scientists have investi- gated language use by non-human species. This paper considers Claude Perrault’s views on animal language and cognition. One of the leader members of the Early Parisian Académie Royale des Sciences, where comparative anatomy emerged in the late seventeenth century, Claude Perrault rejects both the Cartesian hypothesis of beasts as mere automa- ta and of Pineal Gland as siège de l’âme within the human brain.

Viene descritta la storia di Antonio Maria Valsalva ed i suoi contributi che rappresentano la base della medicina moderna.