Headache is one of the most common neurological symptom reported in childhood and adolescence, leading to high levels of school absences and being associated with several comorbid conditions, particularly in neurological, psychiatric and cardiovascular systems. Neurological and psychiatric disorders, that are associated with migraine, are mainly depression, anxiety disorders, epilepsy and sleep disorders, ADHD and Tourette syndrome. It also has been shown an association with atopic disease and cardiovascular disease, especially ischemic stroke and patent foramen ovale (PFO).

Converging evidence supports a role of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) in barrel cortex development. Systemic administration of 5-HT-depleting drugs reduces cross-sectional whisker barrel areas in the somatosensory cortex (SSC) of neonatal rats. Here we assess the relative impact on barrel pattern formation of (i) 5-HT depletion and (ii) decreased brain growth, which is often associated with pharmacological 5-HT depletion, by comparing the effects of 5-HT-depleting drugs with those of reduced protein intake. Left hemisphere 5-HT levels in the SSC and right hemisphere whisker barrel areas were assessed at postnatal day 6 (P6) in the same animal following injection of p-chloroamphetamine (PCA) or p-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA) at P0. Both drugs significantly reduced cortical 5-HT content and mean barrel areas at P6, but also body and brain growth. Differences in brain weight accounted for 84.4% of the variance in barrel size, with negligible contributions by cortical 5-HT content. PCPA-treated animals sacrificed at P14 yielded similar trends, albeit less pronounced. Finally, reduced protein intake resulted in lower body weight and cortical 5-HT levels at P6, but yielded no change in brain weight or mean barrel area. Barrel formation therefore appears markedly less sensitive to 5-HT depletion per se than to drug-induced growth impairment.

Background Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is usually conceptualized in terms of an affective (i.e., judgements of biological emotional reactions and experiences) and a cognitive component (i.e., judgements of life satisfaction in relation to a psychological self-imposed ideal). Recently, researchers have suggested that judgements of harmony in life can replace or at least complement the cognitive component of SWB. Here, however, we go beyond that suggestion and propose that harmony in life should be seen as SWB’s social component since it is the sense of balance between the individual and the world around her—a process that comprises acceptance, adaptation, and balance. By adding judgements of one’s social interactions (i.e., harmony in life) to judgments of one’s life satisfaction (psycho) and judgements of one’s emotional reactions (bio), we propose a tentatively biopsychosocial model of SWB. As a first step, we used different factorial models in order to determine if both a general factor and specific sub-factors contribute to the biopsychosocial model of SWB. Method A total of 527 participants responded to the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; 20 items), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; five items), and the Harmony in life Scale (HILS; five items). We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to validate the biopsychosocial model of subjective well-being and a general factor (SWBS). Results The 20 PANAS items reflected a mixture of general latent structure saturation and specific latent structure saturation, but contributed to their respective specific latent factor (PA: 48%; NA: 49%) more than to the general latent SWBS factor (positive affect: 25%; negative affect: 32%). The five SWLS items contributed to a larger degree to the general SWBS factor (72%) than to life satisfaction itself (22%), while the five HILS items contributed to even a larger degree to the general SWBS factor (98%) than to harmony in life (0%). The bifactor model was the best model compared with all other models we tested (χ2 = 1,660.78, df = 375, p < 0.001); Satorra Bentler χ2 = 1,265.80, df = 375, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.92; Tucker–Lewis Index = 0.91; RMSEA = 0.067. This model of a general SWBS factor explained about 64% of the total variance in the model, while specific SWBS components together explained 15% of the total variance. Conclusion Our study suggests SWB as a general factor in a multidimensional biopsychosocial model. Indeed, as much as 64% of the variance of SWB was explained by this general factor. The SWB components, however, contributed to a different degree to each corresponding factor in the model. For instance, while the affective and cognitive components seem to be their own constructs and also part of the general SWB factor, the social component tested here contributed 0% to its own variance but 98% to the general factor.

Background and purpose Although migraine is the second most disabling condition worldwide, there is poor awareness of it. The objective was to assess the awareness of migraine and previous diagnostic and therapeutic consultations and treatments in a large international population of migraineurs. Methods This was a multicentre study conducted in 12 headache centres in seven countries. Each centre recruited up to 100 patients referred for a first visit and diagnosed with migraine. Subjects were given a structured clinical questionnaire‐based interview about the perceptions of the type of headache they suffered from, its cause, previous diagnoses, investigations and treatments. Results In all, 1161 patients completed the study. Twenty‐eight per cent of participants were aware that they suffered from migraine. Sixty‐four per cent called their migraine ‘headache'; less commonly they used terms such as ‘cervical pain' (4%), tension headache (3%) and sinusitis (1%). Eight per cent of general practitioners and 35% of specialists (of whom 51% were neurologists and/or headache specialists) consulted for migraine formulated the correct diagnosis. Before participating in the study, 50% of patients had undergone X‐ray, computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging of the cervical spine and 76% underwent brain and/or cervical spine imaging for migraine. Twenty‐eight per cent of patients had received symptomatic migraine‐specific medications and 29% at least one migraine preventive medication. Conclusions Although migraine is a very common disease, poor awareness of it amongst patients and physicians is still an issue in several countries. This highlights the importance of the promotion of migraine awareness to reduce its burden and limit direct and indirect costs and the risk of exposure to useless investigations.

Although tissue and cell manipulation nowadays is a common task in biomedical analysis, there are still many different ways to accomplish it, most of which are still not sufficiently general, inexpensive, accurate, efficient or effective. Several problems arise both for in vivo or in vitro analysis, such as the maximum overall size of the device and the gripper jaws (like in minimally-invasive open biopsy) or very limited manipulating capability, degrees of freedom or dexterity (like in tissues or cell-handling operations). This paper presents a new approach to tissue and cell manipulation, which employs a conceptually new conjugate surfaces flexure hinge (CSFH) silicon MEMS-based technology micro-gripper that solves most of the above-mentioned problems. The article describes all of the phases of the development, including topology conception, structural design, simulation, construction, actuation testing and in vitro observation. The latter phase deals with the assessment of the function capability, which consists of taking a series of in vitro images by optical microscopy. They offer a direct morphological comparison between the gripper and a variety of tissues.