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Introduction Soft robotic wearable devices, referred to as exosuits, can be a valid alternative to rigid exoskeletons when it comes to daily upper limb support. Indeed, their inherent flexibility improves comfort, usability, and portability while not constraining the user’s natural degrees of freedom. This review is meant to guide the reader in understanding the current approaches across all design and production steps that might be exploited when developing an upper limb robotic exosuit. Methods The literature research regarding such devices was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The investigated features are the intended scenario, type of actuation, supported degrees of freedom, low-level control, high-level control with a focus on intention detection, technology readiness level, and type of experiments conducted to evaluate the device. Results A total of 105 articles were collected, describing 69 different devices. Devices were grouped according to their actuation type. More than 80% of devices are meant either for rehabilitation, assistance, or both. The most exploited actuation types are pneumatic (52%) and DC motors with cable transmission (29%). Most devices actuate 1 (56%) or 2 (28%) degrees of freedom, and the most targeted joints are the elbow and the shoulder. Intention detection strategies are implemented in 33% of the suits and include the use of switches and buttons, IMUs, stretch and bending sensors, EMG and EEG measurements. Most devices (75%) score a technology readiness level of 4 or 5. Conclusion Although few devices can be considered ready to reach the market, exosuits show very high potential for the assistance of daily activities. Clinical trials exploiting shared evaluation metrics are needed to assess the effectiveness of upper limb exosuits on target users.

In this study we investigated whether the kind of action (i.e. manipulation vs. function) elicited by a visually presented object is modulated by its location in space, that is, its being within or outside the perceivers‟ reach-ability. Second, we investigated whether reach-ability mainly relies on the actual motor potentialities of individuals rather than their cognitive estimates of motor possibilities. Results showed that the activation of the potential actions to perform with objects is modulated by object accessibility. They also showed that accessibility is exclusively linked to the actual rather than the estimated reaching ability of the perceiver. The framework emerging from our results suggests that our cognitive capabilities are built online, via the current information in an implicit way that emerges in behavior, and are not necessarily reflected in explicit estimates or conscious representations. We believe this has interesting implications for embodied cognition theories, as it helps us to better qualify the notion of objects and of body/embodiment.

Macrophage inflammatory protein-3alpha/CCL20 is a recently identified chemokine that binds to CCR6 and acts as a chemoattractant for memory/differentiated T-cells, B-cells, and immature dendritic cells. We have previously reported that CCL20 and CCR6 mRNAs are expressed in the CNS of SJL mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and that CCL20 is produced by CNS-infiltrating leukocytes at disease onset and, additionally, by intraparenchymal astrocyte-like cells during disease relapses. In this study, we provide further immunohistochemical evidence that astrocytes represent the main CNS source of CCL20 during EAE. Moreover, we show that the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1beta and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, but not interferon-gamma, induce expression of CCL20 mRNA and secretion of CCL20 protein in cultures of mouse brain-derived astrocytes. We also show that supernatants from cytokine-activated astrocytes stimulate the migration of polarized T helper cells and that this effect is partially inhibited by anti-CCL20 antibody. These findings suggest that, through secretion of CCL20, astrocytes could play an important role in orchestrating the recruitment of specific leukocyte subsets to the inflamed CNS and in regulating CNS-targeted immune responses.