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This study investigates the subjective representation of the components of happiness and their attainment in older adults from two countries with different economic well-being and cultural orientations: Italy and Cuba. Two hundred and nine Italians and 186 Cubans completed a questionnaire. Respondents were asked to write down at least five components that made them feel happy. A measure of overall happiness was also obtained by asking the subjects to rate to what extent they had attained each component in their life and calculating their mean. The results showed that there was agreement amongst the participants over their choice of components used to represent happiness; however, there were cross-cultural differences regarding the frequency of citation and importance of these components. The fact of living in Italy or Cuba was not a predictor of overall happiness, despite the difference in national income. This is in line with previous research highlighting how subjective well-being does not depend wholly on economic well-being.

Aim of the study was to investigate the emotional experience in everyday life, considering both the subjective aspect and the physiological components. The subjective experience has been collected by a diary, while the physiological component were measured by a holter. The analysis of the subjective experiences showed that the families of emotion most frequently experienced were: joy, anger, fear and sadness and there was a balance between positive and negative emotions. Furthermore there was a significative relation between specific emotions and specific antecedents, with a prevalence of social antecedent. A multivariate analysis of the subjective and physiological data showed specific patterns for the different emotions and a coherence between subjective response and the physiological component of the sympathetic system.Parole chiave: emotions, everyday life, psychophysiology, heart rateParole chiave: emozioni, vita quotidiana, psicofisiologia, battito cardiaco

In the present study the patterns of interdependency between different brain regions were investigated as volunteers looked at emotional and non-emotional film stimuli. The main goal was to evaluate the emotion-related differences and to check their consistency during the elaboration of the same type of stimuli in repeated presentations. A measure called synchronization index (SI) was used to detect interdependencies in EEG signals. The hypotheses were that emotional-information processing could involve variation in synchronized activity and that two valence-specific emotions - happiness and sadness - differ from each other. The SI obtained was compared among the various experimental conditions and significant changes were found. The results demonstrated an overall increase of SI during emotional stimulation and, in particular, during sadness, which yielded a pattern involving a large exchange of information among frontal channels. On the other hand, happiness was associated with a wider synchronization among frontal and occipital sites, although happiness itself was less synchronized. We conclude that the SI can be successfully applied for studying the dynamic cooperation between cortical areas during emotion responses.

Clinical examination of newborns has been shown to be inadequate for the early detection of developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH). It is debatable whether US examination is a valid alternative.To contribute further knowledge to the natural history of DDH; to examine the distribution of hip morphology as classified by Graf according to sex and risk factors in an unselected Italian population; to propose a temporal pattern of US screening of all newborns to detect DDH.All newborns (n=8,896) sequentially delivered in the Maternal and Child Health Hospital of Milan underwent US examination in the first week of life and, when findings were within normal limits, in the third month of life. Subjects categorised at birth as Graf type 2a with alpha angle between 50 degrees and 52 degrees, underwent a further US examination at the end of the first month of life. Subjects with ambiguous findings at the 3-month examination were re-examined at the end of the fourth month of life. All infants with abnormal hips abandoned the screening process and underwent treatment. RESULTS. Overall, 56 cases of DDH were identified: 34 in the first week of life examination, 10 at 1 month; 10 at 3 months and 2 at 4 months. CONCLUSIONS. A two-step US screening of newborns is recommended: at the end of the first month and within the fourth month of life.

Emotions are complex events recruiting distributed cortical and subcortical cerebral structures, where the functional integration dynamics within the involved neural circuits in relation to the nature of the different emotions are still unknown. Using fMRI, we measured the neural responses elicited by films representing basic emotions (fear, disgust, sadness, happiness). The amygdala and the associative cortex were conjointly activated by all basic emotions. Furthermore, distinct arrays of cortical and subcortical brain regions were additionally activated by each emotion, with the exception of sadness. Such findings informed the definition of three effective connectivity models, testing for the functional integration of visual cortex and amygdala, as regions processing all emotions, with domain-specific regions, namely: i) for fear, the frontoparietal system involved in preparing adaptive motor responses; ii) for disgust, the somatosensory system, reflecting protective responses against contaminating stimuli; iii) for happiness: medial prefrontal and temporoparietal cortices involved in understanding joyful interactions. Consistently with these domain-specific models, the results of the effective connectivity analysis indicate that the amygdala is involved in distinct functional integration effects with cortical networks processing sensorimotor, somatosensory, or cognitive aspects of basic emotions. The resulting effective connectivity networks may serve to regulate motor and cognitive behavior based on the quality of the induced emotional experience.

We examined the Hurst exponent of heart rate time series and its relation with the subjective measures of valence and arousal in two groups of subjects. The electrocardiogram (ECG) and the subjective valence and arousal were measured during the administration of emotional film stimuli (happiness, sadness, anger and fear). The results showed that there is a difference in the Hurst exponent for the happiness and sadness conditions but not between the negative emotion conditions (sadness, anger and fear). This seems to indicate that the Hurst exponent is an indicator of subjective valence.

Subjective and somatic aspects of everyday emotions - Emotional processes are complex events, with a mental component, referring to the qualia of subjective experience, and a somatic component, referring to the level of psychophysiological activation. The research on everyday emotions, that has the relevant advantage to investigate the emotional adaptation process to individual’s environment in an ecological perspective, avoiding the laboratory artefacts, focused exclusively on the subjective aspects, providing a partial view of emotion. The aim of the present study was to explore how basic emotions are experienced in the everyday life, investigating, in an integrated approach, both the subjective and somatic changes that accompany emotion. The subjective components were measured through a diary, while the psychophysiological components were measured through a Holter that continuously monitored the cardiac activity during 24 hours. Then, two indexes were studied: the heart rate and the heart rate variability that provides information on the sympatheticparasympathetic balance. Results showed that the subjective experience of everyday basic emotions significantly differed in their intensity and frequency. From the somatic point of view, some significant differences emerged among basic emotions, suggesting that also in the everyday life and ecological context, specific emotions represent distinct and discrete physiological events. The present study obtained results that encourage advancing in this field of research through a new integrated approach, providing useful indications to face off the methodological caveats.