IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute

MR spectroscopy data related to the paper Brain MRS correlates with mitochondrialdysfunction biomarkers in MELAS-associated mtDNA mutations, Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, 2021 May 5. doi: 10.1002/acn3.51329

Input data for the statistical analysis related to the paper Brain functional MRI responses to blue light stimulation in Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy. Biochem Pharmacol. 2021 Feb 26:114488. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2021.114488.

Italy was one of the worst affected European countries during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. More than 50% of Italian cases occurred in the northern region of Lombardy, where the saturation of health services between March and April 2020 forced hospitals to allocate patients according to available resources. Eighteen severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients were admitted to our hospital needing intensive support. Given the disease fatality, we investigated the patients' characteristics to identify mortality predictors. We counted seven deaths from multiple organ failure, two from septic shock, and two from collapsed lungs. The maximum case fatality was observed in patients who contracted SARS-CoV-2 in hospitals. The fatal outcome was associated with the following baseline characteristics: polymorbidity (OR 2.519, p = 0.048), low body mass index (OR 2.288, p = 0.031), low hemoglobin (OR 3.012, p = 0.046), and antithrombin III (OR 1.172, p = 0.048), along with a worsening of PaO2/FiO2 ratio in the first 72 h after admission (OR 1.067, p = 0.031). The occurrence of co-infections during hospitalization was associated with a longer need for intensive care (B = 4.511, p = 0.001). The dataset was used to write the article "Clinical Characteristics of Severe COVID-19 Patients Admitted to an Intensive Care Unit in Lombardy During the Italian Pandemic", which was published by the Journal Frontiers in Medicine in 2021 (DOI:10.3389/fmed.2021.582896).

In this study, we aimed to verify whether the behavioural effects induced by a common prefrontal tDCS montage were dependent on the participants’ arousal levels. Pupillary dynamics were recorded during an auditory oddball task while applying either a sham or real tDCS. The tDCS effects on reaction times and pupil dilation were evaluated as a function of subjective (STAI-Y State scores) and physiological (pre-target pupil size) arousal predictors. We showed that prefrontal tDCS hindered task learning effects on response speed such that performance improvement occurred during sham, but not real stimulation. Moreover, both predictors significantly explained performance during real tDCS, with interaction effects showing performance improvement only with moderate arousal levels; likewise, pupil dilation was affected according to the ongoing levels of arousal. These findings highlight the potential role of arousal in shaping the neuromodulatory outcome, and thus encourage a more careful interpretation of null or negative results.

Embodying an artificial agent through immersive virtual reality (IVR) may lead to feeling vicariously somatosensory stimuli on one’s body which are in fact never delivered. To explore whether vicarious touch in IVR reflects the basic individual and social features of real-life interpersonal interactions we tested heterosexual men/women and gay men/lesbian women reacting subjectively and physiologically to the observation of a gender-matched virtual body being touched on intimate, taboo zones (like genitalia) by male and female avatars. All participants rated as most erogenous caresses on their embodied avatar taboo zones. Crucially, heterosexual men/women and gay men/lesbian women rated as most erogenous taboo touches delivered by their opposite and same gender avatar, respectively. Skin conductance was maximal when taboo touches were delivered by female avatars. Our study shows that IVR may trigger realistic experiences and ultimately allow the direct exploration of sensitive societal and individual issues that can otherwise be explored only through imagination.

Below the abstract of the manuscript in which data were described: "It has clearly been demonstrated that cognitive stimulation, physical exercise, and social engagement help counteract age-related cognitive decline. However, several important issues remain to be addressed. Given the wide differences in cognitive impairment found among individuals of the same age, identifying the subjects who will benefit most from late-life interventions is one such issue. Environmental Enrichment (EE) is a particularly valuable approach to do this. In this study, aged (21-month-old) rats were assigned to a better (BL) or a worse (WL) learner group (training phase) and to a non-impaired (NI) or an impaired (I) group (probe phase) by their performance on the Morris Water Maze, using the test performances of adult (12-month-old) rats as the cut-offs. The aged rats were retested after a 12-week EE or standard housing (SH) protocol. After 12 weeks, the performances of SH rats had deteriorated, whereas all rats benefited from EE, albeit in different ways. In particular, the animals assigned to the BL and the NI groups prior to EE still performed as well as the adult rats (performance preservation) whereas, critically, the animals assigned to the WL and the I groups before EE showed such improved performances that they reached the level of the adult rats (performance improvement), despite having aged further. EE seems to induce the preservation in BLs and the improvement in WLs of spatial search strategies and the preservation in NIs and the increase in Is of a focused and protract research of the escape point. Our findings suggest that late-life EE prevents spatial learning and memory decline in still cognitively preserved animals and stimulates residual functional reserve in already cognitively compromised animals. Future research should focus on individually tailored stimulation protocols to improve their effect and afford a better understanding of the underlying processes." For using data set, please cite: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2020.111225

The present data are collected from 8 Alzheimer's disease patients to prove the feasibility of a tailored network-based transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) targeting approach. Based on resting state functional imaging, the procedure allows to extract individual optimal targets of two networks affected by Alzheimer's disease: the default mode (DMN) and the fronto-parietal network (FPN). The dataset includes: - The raw independent components maps (melodic_IC.nii.gz) in native space extracted from individual rs-fMRI with Melodic independent component analysis (Beckman and Smith 2004) - A table with the demographic and clinical characteristics of the sample (n=8) together with the individual coordinates of the target in native space.

This video supports the two published articles by KP Perrett, et al. Immunogenicity, transplacental transfer of pertussis antibodies and safety following pertussis immunization during pregnancy: Evidence from a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Vaccine. 2020;38(8):2095-2104, and KP Perrett, et al. Impact of tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis immunization during pregnancy on subsequent infant immunization seroresponses: follow-up from a large randomized placebo-controlled trial. Vaccine. 2020;38(8):2105-2114. These articles describe the results of two clinical trials, respectively. First study - a maternal immunization trial which assessed the safety and immunogenicity of a reduced antigen content diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccination during pregnancy, as well as the transfer of maternal pertussis antibodies through the umbilical cord. Second study - an infant follow-up study which assessed the safety and immunogenicity of diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis-hepatitis B-inactivated poliovirus and Haemophilus influenza type B vaccine (DTPa-HBV-IPV/Hib) when administered to healthy infants born to mothers vaccinated in the maternal immunization trial.

The spread of SARS-CoV-2 in northern Italy has been faster than scientific progress in characterizing the COVID-19 and many hospitals have had to manage the symptoms on a daily clinical bases. Our Italian hospital in the region of Lombardy, which has been the epicenter of the Italian pandemic, has admitted sixteen patients with fractured femurs in March and April 2020. The first seven patients were treated with the antithrombotic prophylaxis of a single daily dose of low-molecular-weight heparin, but we observed the highest prevalence of deaths from cardiovascular complications (four deaths). By doubling the daily dose of anticoagulants in the subsequent patients, we observed a reduction in the incidence of death (one death out of nine). Controversies exist about the surgical treatment of fractures in older adults during this pandemic. However, we have observed an increased survival after fall trauma in infected older adults if treated with high doses of anticoagulant. The dataset was used to write the article "From Standard to Escalated Anticoagulant Prophylaxis in Fractured Older Adults With SARS-CoV-2 Undergoing Accelerated Orthopedic Surgery", which was published by the Journal Frontiers in Medicine in 2020.