Behavioral scientists and psychologists use the term “metacognition” to describe our ability to access, report and regulate our own mental states: “thinking about thinking”, “knowing about knowing” “being aware about being aware”, are all higher-order cognitive skills that fit this category. Specifically, metacognition enables the brain to compute a degree of confidence when we perceive events from the external world, such as a sound, light, or touch. The accuracy of confidence estimates is crucial in daily life, for instance when hearing a baby crying, or smelling a gas leak. Confidence estimates also need to combine input from multiple senses simultaneously, for instance when buying a violin based on how it sounds, feels, and looks. From a neuroscience point of view, the way metacognition operates in different senses, and for combination of senses is still a mystery: Does metacognition use the same rules for visual, auditory, or tactile stimuli, or does it use different components of each of sensory domains? The first of these two ideas – i.e. the “common rules” – is known as “supramodality” and it has proven controversial among neuroscientists.

 Jordi Surrallés

A new syndrome caused by biallelic mutations - those produced in both gene copies inherited from the mother and father - in the FANCM gene predisposes the body to the appearance of tumours and causes rejection to chemotherapy treatments. Contrary to what scientists believed, the gene does not cause Fanconi anaemia. Researchers recommend modifying the clinical monitoring of patients with these mutations. A research led by Jordi Surrallés, professor of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, director of the Genetics Unit at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and lead researcher at the Centre for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), has identified a new genetic syndrome caused by mutations in both copies of the FANCM gene, also known as biallelic mutations. The results, published in Genetics in Medicine, the official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics and part of the Nature group, suggest that these mutations predispose the body to early formations of tumours and chemotherapy toxicity.

Palazzo in Via Ticino Oggi 

Nuovo Progetto 

Si tratta di un “fiore” specie ‘palazzina’, tipo balconatissima, colore bianca candida e rossa che si posizionerà al posto di un edificio esistente dei primi del novecento, ex educandato per studentesse gestito da suore Ancelle del Divino Cuore, che sarà demolito.

Il progetto della nuova palazzine è dell’arch. Alessandro Ridolfi attuale presidente dell’Ordine degli architetti e paesaggisti di Roma e provincia . I cittadini del II Municipio dopo aver scoperto cosa accadeva dietro il tendone bianco che invade anche una parte di via Ticino, sono rimasti basiti, increduli e molto preoccupati di ciò che sta per accadere ma anche del futuro del proprio territorio. Ma come, Roma non è la citta che ha il più avanzato P.R.G. (piano regolatore generale) del mondo avendo riconosciuto un valore storico non solo alla città entro le Mura Aureliane ma anche a tutti quegli edifici e tessuti che per qualità e storia vanno tutelati?

Roma non è la citta in cui non si muove foglia che sovrintendenza non voglia? Allora ci chiediamo: come è stato possibile che tutti gli enti preposti al controllo dell’edificazione abbiano consentito ad una operazione immobiliare del genere?  Tutto ciò per realizzare 7 appartamenti lussuosi, 15 posti auto e 7 cantine.

Il quartiere Coppedè non è solo Piazza Mincio, ma anche il tessuto edilizio che si dipana lungo le strade al suo intorno con edifici dei primi del novecento.  Non siamo integralisti, non siamo contro una sana politica di rigenerazione urbana, ma siamo contro questo tipo di intervento privo di cultura dei luoghi e di sensibilità paesaggistica, anche la città ha i suoi paesaggi da difendere.  Speriamo che qualcuno intervenga e si possa fare qualcosa.

Dr. Nikolay Ninov, group leader at the DFG research center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD), Cluster of Excellence at the TU Dresden, and Paul Langerhans Institute Dresden (PLID), and his group developed a system called “Beta-bow”, which allows the history of β-cells to be traced by genetic bar-coding and multicolor imaging. The results of this study are now published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Tracing the history of individual cells in the developing organism can reveal functional differences among seemingly uniform cells. This knowledge is important for defining the characteristics of highly regenerative cells in order to target them for cellular therapies, as well as to prevent the formation of unfit cells, which compromise the overall health of the organism. The study introduced here presents a new method for tracing the history of β-cells, which perform the essential function of secreting insulin in response to glucose. The authors traced β-cells with regards to their proliferation, function and time of differentiation in the zebrafish. The study shows that β-cells with different developmental histories co-exist together, which leads to the formation of dynamic sub-populations that differ in their potential for undergoing proliferation and performing functional tasks. The study also reveals the onset of β-cell function in zebrafish, which opens new avenues to investigate how β-cells acquire a functional state using this powerful genetic model.

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) have increased brain levels of a marker of microglial activation, a sign of inflammation, according to a new study in Biological Psychiatry by researchers at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. In the study, Dr. Peter Talbot and colleagues found that the increase in the inflammatory marker was present specifically in patients with MDD who were experiencing suicidal thoughts, pinning the role of inflammation to suicidality rather than a diagnosis of MDD itself. "Our findings are the first results in living depressed patients to suggest that this microglial activation is most prominent in those with suicidal thinking," said Dr. Talbot. Previous studies suggesting this link have relied on brain tissue collected from patients after death. "This paper is an important addition to the view that inflammation is a feature of the neurobiology of a subgroup of depressed patients, in this case the group with suicidal ideation," said Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "This observation is particularly important in light of recent evidence supporting a personalized medicine approach to depression, i.e.., that anti-inflammatory drugs may have antidepressant effects that are limited to patients with demonstrable inflammation."

Name one civilization located in the Americas that pre-dates the arrival of Europeans. You probably replied with the Aztecs, the Inca or perhaps the Maya. A new paper, published in De Gruyter’s open access journal Open Archeology, by Michael E. Smith of Arizona State University shows how this view of American civilizations is narrow. It is entitled “The Teotihuacan Anomaly: The Historical Trajectory of Urban Design in Ancient Central Mexico”. Smith, using a map produced by the Teotihuacan mapping project, conducted a comparative analysis of the city with earlier and later Mesoamerican urban centers and has proved, for the first time, the uniqueness of the city. The paper outlines how the urban design of the city of Teotihuacan differed from past and subsequent cities, only to be rediscovered and partially modelled on many centuries later by the Aztecs.

Researchers at the University of Bristol have been taking a close-up look at the biting mouthparts of the African tsetse fly as part of ongoing work on the animal diseases it carries. Using the new high-powered scanning electron microscope in the University’s Life Sciences Building, researchers from the Trypanosome Research Group were able to see the rows of sharp teeth and rasps that the fly uses to chew through the skin when it bites. The teeth tear the delicate blood capillaries in the skin, so the fly can suck up the blood. To stop the blood clotting, the fly squirts saliva containing anti-coagulant into the wound through a narrow tube inside the proboscis. To their surprise, the researchers found that the tip of this tube is decorated with intricate finger-like structures with suckers. Professor Wendy Gibson from the School of Biological Sciences, led the research which has been published this week in the journal Parasites & Vectors. She said “This was an unexpected finding – the textbooks just show a plain pointed end to the saliva tube.