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The paper considers the thinking expressed in literature on the subject of money management in households and offers a synthesis of research studies carried out in the last few years on samples of women in Southern Italy, an area which has received little attention in the scanty Italian literature on the question. The reflections arising from this comparative work are used to look beyond the couple, in an attempt to assess the suitability of the models proposed for a study of the handling of family finances in cases where the family profile differs from the standard model and where there are more than one or two wage-earners in the household. Attention focuses in particular on families made up to several nuclei which, although they are not a particularly widespread family type in the Italian context, are however frequent in numerous poor Southern Italian households, as confirmed by previous research into the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iron overload may lead to neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and alterations of iron-related genes might be involved in the pathogenesis of this disease. The gene of haemochromatosis ( HFE) encodes the HFE protein which interacts with the transferrin receptor (TFR), lowering its affinity for iron-bound transferrin (TF). We examined four known polymorphisms, C282Y and H63D in the HFE gene, G258S in the TF gene and S82G in the TFR gene, in 181 sporadic PD patients and 180 controls from Southern Italy to investigate their possible role in susceptibility to PD. No significant differences were found in genotype and allele frequencies between PD and controls for all the polymorphisms studied, suggesting that these variants do not contribute significantly to the risk of PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Primary familial brain calcification (PFBC) is a rare neurodegenerative disease characterized by bilateral calcifications mostly located in the basal ganglia and in the thalami, cerebellum and subcortical white matter. Clinical manifestations of this disease include a large spectrum of movement disorders and neuropsychiatric disturbances. PFBC is genetically heterogeneous and typically transmitted in an autosomal dominant fashion. Three causative genes have been reported: SLC20A2 , PDGFRB and PDGFB . Objective We screened three PFBC Italian families for mutations in the SLC20A2 , PDGFRB and PDGFB genes. Methods Phenotypic data were obtained by neurologic examination, CT scan and magnetic resonance imaging. Mutation screening of SLC20A2 , PDGFRB and PDGFB was performed by sequencing. Results We identified a new heterozygous deletion c.21_21delG (p.L7Ffs*10) in SLC20A2 gene in one of these families. No mutations were detected in the other two families. Conclusions Our data confirm that mutations in SLC20A2 are a major cause of familial idiopathic basal ganglia calcification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Mutations in the PINK1 gene represent the second most frequent cause of early-onset Parkinson’s disease (EOPD). One or two mutated alleles were also reported in some sporadic or familial patients suffering from late-onset Parkinson’s disease (LOPD). We aimed at assessing the frequency of mutations in this gene in our population. We performed a sequence analysis of PINK1 in 115 patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) from southern Italy, including 93 sporadic cases with EOPD, 9 familial cases with EOPD, and 13 familial cases with LOPD. Three known homozygous mutations (Q456X, W437X, Q126P), corresponding to a 2.6% of all cases, were found. In particular, one mutation was detected among the sporadic cases (1.0%), one mutation among the familial early-onset patients (11.1%) and one mutation among the familial late-onset patients (7.7%). In addition, we found two heterozygous mutations (E476K, R207Q) among the sporadic patients. Only one mutation (R207Q) had not been previously described. Our results assess the role played by PINK1 in EOPD in southern Italy and illustrate the existence of mutations in this gene also in the late-onset form of the disease. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]