Background: This study aimed to investigate differences in adolescents’ social relationships with classmates of diverse gender, socioeconomic status, immigrant background, and academic achievement. Methods: A population of 10th-grade students (N = 406,783; males = 50.3%; M_age = 15.57 years, SD_age = 0.75) completed the Classmates Social Isolation Questionnaire (CSIQ), an instrument specifically designed to measure two distinct but correlated types of peer relationships in class: peer acceptance and peer friendship. To obtain reliable comparisons across diverse adolescent characteristics, the measurement invariance of the CSIQ was established by means of CFAs and then latent mean differences tests were performed. Results: Immigrant background, academic achievement, and socioeconomic status all proved to be important factors influencing relationships with classmates, while being a male or a female was less relevant. Being a first-generation immigrant adolescent appears to be the foremost risk factor for being less accepted by classmates, while having a low academic achievement is the greatest hindrance for having friends in the group of classmates, a finding that diverges from previous studies. Conclusions: This population study suggests that adolescent characteristics (especially immigrant background, socioeconomic status, and academic achievement) seem to affect social relationships with classmates.

Motor imagery (MI) describes a dynamic cognitive process where a movement is mentally simulated without taking place and holds potential as a means of stimulating motor learning and regaining motor skills. There is growing evidence that imagined and executed actions have common neural circuitry. Since MI counteracts cognitive and motor decline, a growing interest in MI-based mental exercise for older individuals has emerged. Here we review the last decade’s scientific literature on age-related changes in MI skills. Heterogeneity in the experimental protocols, as well as the use of populations with unrepresentative age, is making it challenging to draw unambiguous conclusions about MI skills preservation. Self-report and behavioural tasks have shown that some MI components are preserved, while others are impaired. Evidence from neuroimaging studies revealed that, during MI tasks, older individuals hyperactivate their sensorimotor and attentional networks. Some studies have argued that this represents a compensatory mechanism, others claim that this is a sign of cognitive decline. However, further studies are needed to establish whether MI could be used as a promotion factor to improve cognitive functioning and well-being in older people.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by motor impairment, affecting quality of life and increasing fall risk, due to ineffective postural control. To this day, the diagnosis remains based on clinical approach. Similarly, motor evaluation is based on heterogeneous, operator-dependent observational criteria. A synthetic, replicable index to quantify motor impairment is still lacking. Hence, we have designed a new measure of postural stability which assesses the trunk displacement in relation to the center of mass, that we named trunk displacement index (TDI). Twenty-three PD patients and twenty-three healthy controls underwent motor examination through a stereophotogrammetric system. A correlation analysis was performed to assess the relationship of TDI with gait parameters and clinical motor scale (UPDRS-III). The TDI sensitivity was estimated, comparing pre- and post- L-DOPA subclinical dose intake. The TDI showed significant correlations with many gait parameters and with the UPDRS-III. Furthermore, the TDI resulted capable in discriminating between off and on state in PD, whereas gait parameters failed two show any difference between those two conditions. Our results suggest that the TDI may be considered a highly sensitive biomechanical index, reflecting the overall motor condition in PD, and provided of clinical relevance due to the correlation with the clinical evaluation.

Recent evidence has shown a relationship between physical exercise (PE) and cognitive functioning. However, it is unknown if unimodal and multimodal modalities of PE affect cognitive abilities in different ways. To fill this gap, we analyzed the effects of unimodal PE (running) and multimodal PE (Tai Chi) on specific cognitive abilities. A sample of 33 participants (mean age = 52.6 ± 7.2) divided into eleven runners, eleven Tai Chi practitioners, and eleven age-matched sedentary individuals were subjected to a neuropsychological tests battery to assess shifting and problem solving abilities (Rule Shift Cards, BADS-RS, and Key Search tasks), verbal fluency (semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tasks), verbal memory (Rey’s 15 words test), visuo-spatial working memory (Corsi test), and global cognitive functioning (clock-drawing test). The results showed significantly higher BADS-RS scores in runners and Tai Chi practitioners in comparison to the sedentary participants, thus evidencing improved shifting abilities for active individuals. Interestingly, post hoc analysis showed significantly higher span scores of Corsi test only in Tai Chi practitioners as compared to sedentary participants, suggesting how multimodal PE facilitates the visuo-spatial working memory processes. Although preliminary, our descriptive study indicates that the type of PE could modulate specific cognitive domains, even if the practice of motor activity favors a global cognitive improvement.

Physical activity is involved in increasing health potential. However, in sports practice a state of well-being may depend on the management of emotions. The purpose of the present study was to analyse the relationship between the type of exercise and alexithymia. Three groups of people were analyzed for the study: triathlon practitioners, people practicing Tai Chi, and sedentary people. All participants were assessed for both physical activity level and alexithymia. The results show that more athletes with alexithymia practice high-intensity exercise. Thus, there seems to be an association between alexithymia and exercise addiction. Through competitive exercise, athletes can overcome difficult challenges by employing cognitive resources on external factors, without focusing attention inward. A question emerges from this study: is alexithymia a determining factor in choosing a specific type of physical activity, or could alexithymia be triggered by overtraining? This aspect could be investigated in future studies, which could further investigate the relationship between the choice orientation of a specific sport and alexithymia. Esercizio fisico e Alessitimia: rischio o beneficio? L’attività fisica è coinvolta nell’aumento del potenziale di salute. Tuttavia, nella pratica sportiva uno stato di benessere può dipendere dalla gestione delle emozioni. Lo scopo del presente studio è stato quello di analizzare la relazione tra il tipo di esercizio fisico e l’alessitimia. Per lo studio sono stati analizzati tre gruppi di persone: praticanti di triathlon, persone che praticano il Tai Chi e persone sedentarie. Tutti i partecipanti sono stati sottoposti a una valutazione sia del livello di attività fisica che dell’alessitimia. I risultati mostrano che un maggior numero di atleti con alessitimia pratica esercizi ad alta intensità. Sembra quindi esistere un’associazione tra alessitimia e dipendenza da esercizio fisico. Attraverso l’esercizio agonistico, gli atleti possono superare sfide difficili impiegando le risorse cognitive su fattori esterni, senza focalizzare l’attenzione verso l’interno. Da questo studio emerge una domanda: l’alessitimia è un fattore determinante nella scelta di uno specifico tipo di attività fisica, oppure l’alessitimia potrebbe essere innescata dal sovrallenamento? Questo aspetto potrebbe essere indagato in studi futuri, che potrebbero approfondire la relazione tra l’orientamento alla scelta di uno sport specifico e l’alessitimia.

Brain connectome fingerprinting is rapidly rising as a novel influential field in brain network analysis. Yet, it is still unclear whether connectivity fingerprints could be effectively used for mapping and predicting disease progression from human brain data. We hypothesize that dysregulation of brain activity in disease would reflect in worse subject identification. Hence, we propose a novel framework, Clinical Connectome Fingerprinting , to detect individual connectome features from clinical populations. We show that “clinical fingerprints” can map individual variations between elderly healthy subjects and patients undergoing cognitive decline in functional connectomes extracted from magnetoencephalography data. We find that identifiability is reduced in patients as compared to controls, and show that these connectivity features are predictive of the individual Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score in patients. We hope that the proposed methodology can help in bridging the gap between connectivity features and biomarkers of brain dysfunction in large-scale brain networks.