177,031 research outputs found
Gramsci in Francia e la Francia di Gramsci
No full textThis is the abstract of a review in Italian by Camilla Sclocco of the two collectively-authored books Gramsci in Francia, edited by R. Descendre, F. Giasi and G. Vacca with the assistance of A. Crézégut, as part of the Gramsci nel mondo series, Bologna, il Mulino, 2020; and La France d’Antonio Gramsci, edited by R. Descendre e J-C. Zancarini and published by Ens Éditions, Lyon, 2021.This is the abstract of a review in Italian by Camilla Sclocco of the two collectively-authored books Gramsci in Francia, edited by R. Descendre, F. Giasi and G. Vacca with the assistance of A. Crézégut, as part of the Gramsci nel mondo series, Bologna, il Mulino, 2020; and La France d’Antonio Gramsci, edited by R. Descendre e J-C. Zancarini and published by Ens Éditions, Lyon, 2021
Gramsci’s France and Gramsci in France
No full textThis is the abstract of the English translation of a review in French by Camilla Sclocco of the two collectively-authored books Gramsci in Francia, edited by R. Descendre, F. Giasi and G. Vacca, with the assistance of A. Crézégut, as part of the Gramsci nel mondo series, Bologna, il Mulino, 2020; and La France d’Antonio Gramsci, edited by R. Descendre e J-C. Zancarini for Ens Éditions, Lyon, 2021.This is the abstract of the English translation of a review in French by Camilla Sclocco of the two collectively-authored books Gramsci in Francia, edited by R. Descendre, F. Giasi and G. Vacca, with the assistance of A. Crézégut, as part of the Gramsci nel mondo series, Bologna, il Mulino, 2020; and La France d’Antonio Gramsci, edited by R. Descendre e J-C. Zancarini for Ens Éditions, Lyon, 2021
Effects of Respiratory-Gated Auricular Vagal Nerve Stimulation (RAVANS) on Nonlinear Heartbeat Dynamics of Hypertensive Patients
No full textThe association between hypertension and cardiac autonomic dysfunction is well recognized and has been proved to be involved in the progression of coronary heart disease and heart failure, suggesting this physiological marker as a potential therapeutic target. In this study, we investigate the effects of a novel, respiratory-gated, auricular vagal afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS) technique on heartbeat dynamics of hypertensive patients. Twelve hypertensive subjects underwent two experimental sessions on non-consecutive days. In each session subjects performed an initial paced breathing (PB) task without intervention, and a second PB task with either RAVANS or sham stimulation. Electrocardiogram and respiration signals were collected and point process nonlinear analysis of heartbeat dynamics was performed to obtain instantaneous time-domain (μ_RR,〖 σ〗_RR), spectral (LF, HF, LF/HF) and bispectral (LL, LH, and HH) features. We found that exhalatory-gated RAVANS resulted in a significant increase in μ_RR, HF and HH compared with PB alone and sham, revealing modulatory effects of this technique on complex dynamics associated with parasympathetic activity. We conclude that exhalatory-gated RAVANS could be a promising intervention for the treatment of cardiac autonomic dysfunction in hypertensive subject
The central autonomic network at rest: Uncovering functional MRI correlates of time-varying autonomic outflow.
No full textPeripheral measures of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity at rest have been extensively employed as putative biomarkers of autonomic cardiac control. However, a comprehensive characterization of the brain-based central autonomic network (CAN) sustaining cardiovascular oscillations at rest is missing, limiting the interpretability of these ANS measures as biomarkers of cardiac control. We evaluated combined cardiac and fMRI data from 34 healthy subjects from the Human Connectome Project to detect brain areas functionally linked to cardiovagal modulation at rest. Specifically, we combined voxel-wise fMRI analysis with instantaneous heartbeat and spectral estimates obtained from inhomogeneous linear point-process models. We found exclusively negative associations between cardiac parasympathetic activity at rest and a widespread network including bilateral anterior insulae, right dorsal middle and left posterior insula, right parietal operculum, bilateral medial dorsal and ventrolateral posterior thalamic nuclei, anterior and posterior mid-cingulate cortex, medial frontal gyrus/pre-supplementary motor area. Conversely, we found only positive associations between instantaneous heart rate and brain activity in areas including frontopolar cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, anterior, middle and posterior cingulate cortices, superior frontal gyrus, and precuneus. Taken together, our data suggests a much wider involvement of diverse brain areas in the CAN at rest than previously thought, which could reflect a differential (both spatially and directionally) CAN activation according to the underlying task. Our insight into CAN activity at rest also allows the investigation of its impairment in clinical populations in which task-based fMRI is difficult to obtain (e.g., comatose patients or infants)
Effects of Respiratory-Gated Auricular Vagal Afferent Nerve Stimulation (RAVANS) in Hypertensive Patients during the Handgrip experiment
No full textSeveral studies have proposed transcutaneous stimulation of the auricular branch of the vagus nerve (ABVN) as a non-invasive alternative to vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). In this study we present preliminary results of the effect of respiratory-gated, auricular vagal afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS) associated with a Handgrip (HG) experiment. Twelve hypertensive subjects underwent three experimental sessions on non-consecutive days. In each session subjects performed HG before and after receiving one of three types of RAVANS stimulation in a counterbalanced order: low-intensity, medium-intensity or sham stimulation. Electrocardiogram recordings were collected and analyzed by point process linear analysis of heartbeat dynamics, and instantaneous time- and frequency-domain features of heart rate variability were estimated. Results provide a preliminary characterization of HG elicited autonomic responses before and after different RAVANS stimulation intensities
Acute Effects of Respiratory-Gated Auricular Vagal Afferent Nerve Stimulation (RAVANS) in the Modulation of Blood Pressure in Hypertensive Patients
No full textIn this study, we evaluate the acute effects of a novel, non-invasive, respiratory-gated auricular vagal afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS) technique on arterial blood pressure levels in hypertensive patients. We consider data from 18 hypertensive subjects (53.6±6.3 years, 9 males) during three stimulation sessions where they received either sham, low-intensity, or medium-intensity stimulation in randomized order. Blood pressure was continuously collected during 15-minute baseline, stimulation, and recovery windows. Our statistical analysis shows that the percent decrease of median systolic blood pressure from baseline was significantly higher during RAVANS (medium-intensity) when compared to sham. Furthermore, a two-way ANOVA reveals a significant interaction between Intervention and Phase for changes in median systolic blood pressure. Post hoc testing reveals that this effect was driven by the Recovery Phase following RAVANS where median Systolic blood pressure significantly decreased in the last 5 minutes compared to sham. Our results indicate that exhalatory-gated RAVANS has acute modulatory effects on systolic blood pressure levels of hypertensive patients. Further longitudinal studies will be required to evaluate the therapeutic potential of the RAVANS electroceutical device
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Optimization of respiratory-gated auricular vagus afferent nerve stimulation for the modulation of blood pressure in hypertension
No full textBackground: The objective of this pilot study was to identify frequency-dependent effects of respiratory-gated auricular vagus afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS) on the regulation of blood pressure and heart rate variability in hypertensive subjects and examine potential differential effects by sex/gender or race. Methods: Twenty hypertensive subjects (54.55 ± 6.23 years of age; 12 females and 8 males) were included in a within-person experimental design and underwent five stimulation sessions where they received RAVANS at different frequencies (i.e., 2 Hz, 10 Hz, 25 Hz, 100 Hz, or sham stimulation) in a randomized order. EKG and continuous blood pressure signals were collected during a 10-min baseline, 30-min stimulation, and 10-min post-stimulation periods. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) adjusted for baseline measures were used to evaluate frequency-dependent effects of RAVANS on heart rate, high frequency power, and blood pressure measures, including analyses stratified by sex and race. Results: Administration of RAVANS at 100 Hz had significant overall effects on the reduction of heart rate (β = −2.03, p = 0.002). It was also associated with a significant reduction of diastolic (β = −1.90, p = 0.01) and mean arterial blood pressure (β = −2.23, p = 0.002) in Black hypertensive participants and heart rate in female subjects (β = −2.83, p = 0.01) during the post-stimulation period when compared to sham. Conclusion: Respiratory-gated auricular vagus afferent nerve stimulation exhibits frequency-dependent rapid effects on the modulation of heart rate and blood pressure in hypertensive patients that may further differ by race and sex. Our findings highlight the need for the development of optimized stimulation protocols that achieve the greatest effects on the modulation of physiological and clinical outcomes in this population
Dose-Optimization of Respiratory-Gated Auricular Vagal Afferent Nerve Stimulation (RAVANS) for Blood Pressure Modulation in Hypertensive Patients
No full textThe objective of this study was to determine the optimal frequency of respiratory-gated auricular vagal afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS) for the modulation of blood pressure in hypertensive patients.Twelve hypertensive subjects (52.5±6.0 years, 8 females) underwent five randomized stimulation sessions, during which they received exhalatory-gated stimulation at frequencies of 2, 10, 25, and 100 Hz or sham stimulation. A continuous blood pressure signal was collected during a 30-minute stimulation period and a 10-minute recovery period using a Finometer device (Finapress Medical System, the Netherlands). LabChart (ADInstruments, Colorado Springs, CO, USA) was used to process and compute blood pressure responses.A significantly greater reduction of systolic blood pressure values during stimulation was observed in the 100 Hz session compared to sham (p=0.02). In addition, significant reductions in diastolic blood pressure (p=0.04) and mean arterial pressure (p=0.04) values were observed during RAVANS stimulation compared to baseline during the 100 Hz session. Evaluation of other stimulation frequencies did not reveal significant results.RAVANS exhibits a frequency-dependent effect on the modulation of arterial blood pressure levels of hypertensive subjects
Modulatory Effects of Respiratory-Gated Auricular Vagal Nerve Stimulation on Cardiovagal Activity in Hypertension
No full textThe objective of this study was to determine potential effects of Respiratory-gated Auricular Vagal Afferent Nerve Stimulation (RAVANS) on cardiac autonomic activity in hypertensive patients.20 hypertensive subjects (57.3±6.2 years; 11 females, 9 males) were randomized to receive either active RAVANS at 25 Hz or sham stimulation for 5 consecutive days and were assessed 5 and 10 days later. Continuous electrocardiogram, pulse rate, and blood pressure signals were collected during 10-minute baseline, 30-minute stimulation, and 10-minute recovery periods for each session. LabChart was used to acquire and process heart rate variability and blood pressure indices. Percent changes of mean values during the recovery period were calculated comparing the final stimulation session and follow-up sessions to the first stimulation session. General linear models were applied to assess the effects of RAVANS on the variables evaluated, considering baseline values and sex as covariates in the models.We found that RAVANS increased high frequency (HF-HRV) power during recovery of the final stimulation session and both follow-up sessions in comparison to sham. RAVANS also lowered heart rate and increased average RR and root mean square of successive RR interval differences (RMSSD) during recovery on the final day of stimulation. No significant effects on blood pressure values were observed during these periods.These results suggest that RAVANS effectively stimulates cardiovagal activity in hypertension, with effects lasting up to 10 days. Future research incorporating larger sample sizes is needed to replicate the effects of RAVANS.Clinical Relevance - This research has implications for potential therapeutic effects of respiratory-gated tVNS on cardiovagal modulation in hypertensive patients
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