פרסומים

The primary objective of this review article is to summarize how the neuroscience of brain plasticity, exploiting new findings in fundamental, integrative and cognitive neuroscience, is changing the therapeutic landscape for professional communities addressing brain-based disorders and disease. After considering the neurological bases of training driven neuroplasticity, we shall describe how this neuroscience-guided perspective distinguishes this new approach from (a) the more-behavioral, traditional clinical strategies of professional therapy practitioners, and (b) an even more widely applied pharmaceutical treatment model for neurological and psychiatric treatment domains. With that background, we shall argue that neuroplasticity-based treatments will be an important part of future best-treatment practices in neurological and psychiatric medicine.

This work analyses the prominent characteristics of extreme storms and flash-flood regimes in two main areas of the Mediterranean region: the North-Western (comprising Spain, France and Italy) and South-Eastern region (Israel). The two areas are chosen to represent the two end members of variation in flash-flood regimes in the Mediterranean basin. Data from 99 events collected in the two areas (69 from the North-Western region and 30 from the South-Eastern region), for which occurrence date, catchment area and flood peak are available, were used to provide a detailed description the flash-flood seasonality patterns, the synoptic and mesoscale atmospheric controls, and flood envelope relationship. Results show that the flood envelope curve for the South-Eastern region exhibits a more pronounced decreasing with catchment size with respect to the curve of the North-Western region. The differences between the two relationships reflect variations in the fractional storm coverage of the basin and hydrological characteristics between the two regions. Seasonality analysis shows that the events in the North-Western region tend to occur between August and November, whereas those in the South-Eastern area tend to occur in the period between October and May, reflecting the relevant patterns in the synoptic conditions controlling the generation of intense precipitation events.

For many viruses, the packaging of a single-stranded RNA (ss-RNA) genome is spontaneous, driven by capsid protein-capsid protein (CP) and CP-RNA interactions. Furthermore, for some multipartite ss-RNA viruses, copackaging of two or more RNA molecules is a common strategy. Here we focus on RNA copackaging in vitro by using cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) CP and an RNA molecule that is short (500 nucleotides (nts)) compared to the lengths (approximate to 3000 nts) packaged in wild-type virions. We show that the degree of cooperativity of virus assembly depends not only on the relative strength of the CP-CP and CP-RNA interactions but also on the RNA being short: a 500-nt RNA molecule cannot form a capsid by itself, so its packaging requires the aggregation of multiple CP-RNA complexes. By using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), we show that at neutral pH and sufficiently low concentrations RNA and CP form complexes that are smaller than the wild-type capsid and that four 500-nt RNAs are packaged into virus-like particles (VLPs) only upon lowering the pH. Further, a variety of bulk-solution techniques confirm that fully ordered VLPs are formed only upon acidification. On the basis of these results, we argue that the observed high degree of cooperativity involves equilibrium between multiple CP/RNA complexes.