Ricerc@Sapienza

Sleep is a naturally occurring physiological state that is required to sustain physical and mental health. Traditionally viewed as strictly regulated by top-down control mechanisms, sleep is now known to also originate locally. Glial cells are emerging as important contributors to the regulation of sleep-wake cycles, locally and among dedicated neural circuits.

Our decisions often depend on multiple sensory experiences separated by time delays. The brain can remember these experiences and, simultaneously, estimate the timing between events. To understand the mechanisms underlying working memory and time encoding, we analyze neural activity recorded during delays in four experiments on nonhuman primates. To disambiguate potential mechanisms, we propose two analyses, namely, decoding the passage of time from neural data and computing the cumulative dimensionality of the neural trajectory over time.

A large body of evidence that has accumulated over the past decade strongly supports the role of inflammation in the pathophysiology of human epilepsy. Specific inflammatory molecules and pathways have been identified that influence various pathologic outcomes in different experimental models of epilepsy. Most importantly, the same inflammatory pathways have also been found in surgically resected brain tissue from patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy. New antiseizure therapies may be derived from these novel potential targets.

This contribution introduces the main themes of the volume Human Nature. Anima, mente e corpo dall’antichità alle neuroscienze, focusing on the history of the concepts of soul, mind and body in philosophy, medicine and psychology, and its relevance for the contemporary research on the bodily roots of experience and cognition.

Nel noto volume L’errore di Cartesio. Emozione, ragione e cervello umano (1994) il neurologo Antonio Damasio sostiene che gli sforzi moderni di analisi della cognizione e delle emozioni in termini neurobiologici sono stati ostacolati dalla persistente influenza del ‘dualismo cartesiano’ in Psicologia. Descartes, tuttavia, non ha mai considerato la sfera cognitiva e quella emotiva come indipendenti dalle funzioni organiche e cerebrali.

Alteration of glycosylation has been observed in several diseases, such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. The study of changes in glycosylation could lead to a better understanding of mechanisms underlying these diseases and to the identification of new biomarkers. In this work the N-linked glycosylation of five target proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and healthy controls have been analyzed for the first time.

Epilepsy is a complex clinical condition characterized by repeated spontaneous seizures. Seizures have been linked to multiple drivers including DNA damage accumulation. Investigation of epilepsy physiopathology in humans imposes ethical and practical limitations, for this reason model systems are mostly preferred. Among animal models, mouse mutants are particularly valuable since they allow conjoint behavioral, organismal, and genetic analyses.

The options available for genetic modification of cells of the central nervous system (CNS) have greatly increased in the last decade. The current panoply of viral and nonviral vectors provides multifunctional platforms to deliver expression cassettes to many structures and nuclei. These cassettes can replace defective genes, modify a given pathway perturbed by diseases, or express proteins that can be selectively activated by drugs or light to extinguish or excite neurons.

The muscarinic receptor response to acetylcholine regulates the hippocampal-related learning, memory, neural plasticity and the production and processing of the pro-nerve growth factor (proNGF) by hippocampal cells. The development and progression of diabetes generate a mild cognitive impairment reducing the functions of the septo-hippocampal cholinergic circuitry, depressing neural plasticity and inducing proNGF accumulation in the brain.

The standard view about science and human freedom claims that science contributes to human autonomy or self-determination through the discovery of natural laws and processes. In other words, by providing knowledge and devices to solve practical problems and stimulate economic growth. A more likely hypothesis is that the invention of the scientific method in modern age has introduced a new way of thinking into human communities. In this way, some new psychological skills have been made available to an increasing number of people.