Search

Driving is a common activity with a significant impact on the quality of life since enables independence and fosters social activities. Nevertheless, driving is a rather complex task that requires different skills, such as physical abilities, proper judgement, risks perception / evaluation. Both these physical and cognitive abilities can be impaired after Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and can additionally be affected by the individual emotional state and disease progression. Driving simulators can be a good solution to assess and train driving skills of people with MS, but there are currently few studies focused on MS and driving ability. Moreover, they mostly aim at understanding driving performance impairments, mostly during monotonous highway drives. Here, we describe the framework of a new personalized driving simulator ADRIS 2.0, and the results of a first test on a group of unimpaired young adults and of a pilot test with three MS and sex and age-matched control subjects. Subjects trained with ADRIS 2.0 for a session of 30 minutes, driving through scenarios with different levels of difficulties. The system resulted easy to use and able to provide a realistic driving experience for all three groups of subjects. It also provided quantitative metrics that described MS drivers slower and prone to commit more infractions and collisions than control subjects. Thus, the developed simulator resulted well tolerated by all users, capable of detecting differences between control and MS subjects and its potential could be further exploited into the design of a personalized training of MS people.

Vol. 3, n. 1, 2021 Special Issue: Mannese, E., Presentazione, P. 1 ; Violante, L., La politica come pedagogia, P. 3 ; Buttafuoco, P., Ancora un bicchiere di cicuta, P. 9 ; Caligiuri, M., Per una pedagogia della nazione. Politica ed educazione in Italia nel XXI secolo, P. 14 ; Carboni, C., Il knowledge gap e come contrastarlo , P. 28 ; Ceruti, M. - Bellusci, F., Governare ed educare al tempo della complessit��, P. 37 ; Colosimo, M.L., L���improvviso fiume del vivere, P. 43 ; Dipasquale, G., Edipo, il potente impaurito. Una ipotesi di messinscena, P. 46 ; Elia, G., L���educazione alla politica come esercizio di cittadinanza e fiducia nel futuro, P. 61 ; Ferrari, F., Paideia e Polis nella Repubblica di Platone, P. 69 ; Impagliazzo, M., Le scuole della pace: un modello di educazione alla democrazia e alla pace, P. 83 ; Leganza, G., Leonardo Sciascia e Leonardo Sinisgalli, P. 91 ; Lombardi, M.G., Pedagogia e Politica tra neoliberalismo e responsabilit�� educative, P. 99 ; Ricci, S., L���educazione alla democrazia e l���esercizio del soft power, P. 103 ; Salmeri, S., Pensare criticamente e educare alla democrazia, P. 111 ; Sirignano, F.M., La crisi delle democrazie europee e l���esigenza di una pedagogia politica, P. 122 ; Interviste di Emiliana Mannese a Marco Damilano, Maria Grazia Riva, Massimiliano Fiorucci, Vincenzo Loia, P. 134 ; Balzano, V., Democrazia, educazione e dignit��: la centralit�� della persona nel rinnovato rapporto tra pedagogia e politica, P. 152 ; Cagol, M., Per una pedagogia etica e politica della complessit��, P. 163 ; Castaldi, M.C., Libert��, cura e generativit��: le parole comuni della relazione pedagogia-politica, P. 171 ; Della Piana, B., Costruire Spazi di Apprendimento Inclusivi per Pensare Collettivamente: Lo sviluppo di Risorse Umane Culturalmente Intelligenti, P. 181 ; Donato, D. - Garc��a de Fez, S., La escuela del siglo XXI: una oportunidad para cogenerar la educaci��n como bien com��n, P. 192 ; Giordano, M., Ripensare il rapporto dialettico tra Pedagogia e Politica al tempo della complessit��, P. 202 ; Rubin, A., Pedagogia e politica: prospettive di ricerca, P. 211.

Obesity is characterized by a disruption in energy balance regulation that results in an excess accumulation of body fat. Its increasing prevalence poses a major public health concern because it is a risk factor for a host of additional chronic conditions, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Obesity is increasingly recognized as a growing cause of cancer risk. In particular excessive adipose expansion during obesity causes adipose dysfunction and inflammation that can regulate tumor growth. In obesity, dysregulated systemic metabolism and inflammation induce hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, and enhance sex hormone production with increased secretion of proinflammatory adipokine that impact breast cancer development and progression. This review describes how adipose inflammation that characterizes obesity is responsible of microenvironment to promote cancer, and discuss how steroid hormones, that are essential for the maintenance of the normal development, growth and differentiation of the cells, influence the induction and progression of breast cancer. J. Cell. Physiol. 232: 69–77, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Prep1 is a transcription factor belonging to the TALE proteins, which plays an important role in the embryonic development of the hindbrain. However, as reported on web-based atlas, morphological data revealed that Prep1 expression is kept also in adult mouse brain and, in particular, within the olfactory bulb (OB), even though its function is still unknown. In order to investigate the role of Prep1 in olfactory nuclei I used a prep1 hypomorphic mouse (prep1i/+), which express about 55-57% of protein. Brain morphological analysis revealed that prep1i/+ mice feature a significant reduction of OB area, a reduced number of periglomerular interneurons and an increased number of mitral cells within the main olfactory bulb, compared to WT mice. prep1i/+ mice OB cytochrome C oxidase staining showed also a reduced neuronal metabolism within the glomerular layer. Consistently, olfactory perception test highlighted that hypomorphic mice display a low ability to distinguish odor scents, accompanied to a significant locomotor hypoactivity. Molecular analysis, indeed, revealed that prep1i/+ mouse olfactory nuclei express reduced levels of TrkB, the downstream receptor of BDNF, the main neurotrophic factor involved in olfactory plasticity and functions. In parallel, also a decreased activation of molecular mediators involved in TrkB-mediated neurotrophic signalling (Akt, ERK) was observed. Congruously, mouse neuronal cells (N2A) overexpressing Prep1 showed increased cell growth, viability and metabolism, with high levels of TrkB expression and Akt/ERK phosphorylation, compared to control cells. Thus, our data suggest that Prep1 deficiency alters olfactory system morpho-functional integrity by affecting TrkB expression and signalling pathway, giving a rationale to further investigate Prep1 as potential marker in olfactory dysfunctions associated to impaired responsiveness to BDNF signalling.