Ricerc@Sapienza

Objective: To verify whether central fatigue in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with the presence of a more severe selective cognitive impairment. Methods: Twenty-four PD patients without fatigue-PDnF, 11 with fatigue-PDF and 32 healthy volunteers underwent a P300 novelty task that elicits both the P3a and the P3b components. Results: P3b latency was significantly longer in both PDF and PDnF than in controls. P3b amplitudes were comparable between groups.

Purpose: Developing a predictive model of the shrinkage of liver tissues in microwave ablation.

Microwave Thermal Ablation (MTA) is a minimally invasive therapeutic technique aimed at destroying pathologic tissues through a very high temperature increase induced by the absorption of an electromagnetic field at microwave (MW) frequencies. Open problems, which are delaying MTA applications in clinical practice, are mainly linked to the extremely high temperatures, up to 120 °C, reached by the tissue close to the antenna applicator, as well as to the ability of foreseeing and controlling the shape and dimension of the thermally ablated area.

Over the last decade, passive brain-computer interface (BCI) algorithms and biosignal acquisition technologies have experienced a significant growth that has allowed the real-time analysis of biosignals, with the aim to quantify relevant insights, such as mental and emotional states, of the users. Several passive BCI-based applications have been tested in laboratory settings, and just a few of them in real or, at least, simulated but highly realistic settings.

Evolutionary pressure produced 2 master regulators of physiological homeostasis: the nervous system and the immune system. The nervous system evolved to integrate physiological functions and control changes in homeostasis. Neural signals establish reflex responses, perceive disturbances in the environment (internal or external), and elicit activation of the afferent arc (ie, the neural circuit that transfers information from the periphery to the brain).

This editorial refers to ‘Glucose is preferentially utilized for biomass synthesis in pressure-overloaded hearts: evidence from fatty acid-binding protein-4 and -5 knockout mice’ by Y. Umbarawan et al., pp. 1132–1144.