Mauro Vaccarezza

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• M.D. Ph.D. FHEA
• Senior Lecturer at Curtin University

The present study aims to approximate the face from the alleged skull of Jan Žižka (ca. AD 1360–1424), a military commander and national hero in the Czech Republic. Found in 1910, the skull has only a fraction of its original structure, which required an initial effort to reconstruct the missing regions from data collected in CT scans of living peo...

Augmented reality (AR) has been investigated as an engaging educational tool that motivates undergraduate health science students to learn human anatomy. AR technology is developing rapidly, supporting medical education by presenting models of human anatomy as digital objects overlaid in the real world via mobile or head‐mounted display (HMD). The...

The primary factors that can be modified in one’s lifestyle are the most influential determinants and significant preventable causes of various types of cancer. Exercise has demonstrated numerous advantages in preventing cancer and aiding in its treatment. However, the precise mechanisms behind these effects are still not fully understood. To contr...

The present article reviews the major historical plague epidemics that characterised human history by combining data derived from historical sources and biomedical evidence emerged in recent years thanks to advancements of palaeogenetics and palaeopathology. Notes are offered on the Plague of Athens, the Antonine Plague, the Plague of Cyprian, the...

Study Design The present study is a scoping review of the literature on Pott’s disease in ancient human remains. Objective Comprehending the origin and history of Pott’s disease is relevant to assessing this pathological condition from an evolutionary perspective. Summary of Background Data Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient pulmonary disease that r...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory neurodegenerative disease leading to progressive demyelination and neuronal loss, with extensive neurological symptoms. As one of the most widespread neurodegenerative disorders, with an age onset of about 30 years, it turns out to be a socio-health and economic issue, thus necessitating therapeutic...

Background Circulus arteriosus cerebri (CAC), responsible for supplying blood to the brain, presents anatomical variations that have been associated with both haemorrhagic and ischemic strokes. Therefore, it is crucial to conduct comprehensive investigations and comparisons of the diverse variant components of the CAC, published in various journals...

Migraine is one of the world's most debilitating disorders, and it has recently been shown that changes in the retina can be a potential biomarker for the disease. These changes can be detected by optical coherence tomography (OCT), which measures retinal thickness, and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), which measures vessel density....

Cancer is often wrongly considered to be a modern disease in many popular medical venues. Cancers have been known to humanity since ancient times. In fact, its antiquity can be identified through the application of palaeopathological methodologies. The present perspective demonstrates by means of a historical and palaeopathological analysis how onc...

Cardiovascular CT is being widely used in the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease due to the rapid technological advancements in CT scanning techniques. These advancements include the development of multi-slice CT, from early generation to the latest models, which has the capability of acquiring images with high spatial and temporal resolution. The...

Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient chronic infectious disease that remains a global health concern. In human remains, the most common and characteristic clinical signs are the skeletal modifications involving the spine, such as in Pott’s disease. Diagnosing TB in ancient human remains is challenging. Therefore, in this systematic review, the authors i...

Mummies are the well-preserved remains of humans or animals in which non-bony tissue has been maintained naturally or artificially. Their significance lies in their contribution to paleopathological research, which involves understanding the history and evolution of diseases and providing insights into past populations’ cultural and social practice...

Physical exercise is considered an important physiological intervention able to prevent cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and obesity-related cardiometabolic imbalance. Nevertheless, basic molecular mechanisms that govern the metabolic benefits of physical exercise are poorly understood. Recent data unveil new mechanisms that potentially explain th...

Media information: Press Kit English

We have explored the 19 th-century mystery of the identity of Kaspar Hauser, the so-called Child of Europe, from the perspective of the smallpox vaccination. We have highlighted the improbability that he was secretly inoculated based on the vaccination policies and methodologies applied at the time. This consideration allows for a reflection on the...

We have explored the 19th-century mystery of the identity of Kaspar Hauser, the so-called Child of Europe, from the perspective of the smallpox vaccination. We have highlighted the improbability that he was secretly inoculated based on the vaccination policies and methodologies applied at the time. This consideration allows for a reflection on the...

The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has infected a vast population across the world, causing more than 664 million cases and 6.7 million deaths by January 2023. Vaccination has been effective in reducing the most critical aftermath of this infection, but some issues are still present regarding re-infection prevention, effectiveness against variants, vaccine he...

Despite advancements in the current standard of care, cardiovascular diseases continue to hold the top spot as the leading cause of mortality worldwide. The development of atherosclerosis is the most common culprit behind ailments such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. Consequently, it imposes a significant burden o...

Prevention strategies should be constantly improved to manage falls and frailty in the elderly. Therefore, we aimed at creating a screening and predictive protocol as a replicable model in clinical settings. Bioimpedance analysis was conducted on fifty subjects (mean age 76.9 ± 3.69 years) to obtain body composition; then, posture was analysed with...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder pathologically characterized by brain parenchymal abundance of amyloid-beta (Aβ) and the accumulation of lipofuscin material that is rich in neutral lipids. However, the mechanisms for aetiology of AD are presently not established. There is increasing evidence that metabolism of l...

Introduction: Migraine is a common and distressing neurological condition characterised by recurrent throbbing headaches, nausea and heightened sensitivity to light and sound. Accumulating evidence suggests that cerebral arteries dilate during migraine, causing distal microvessels to constrict, which could activate nociceptors and cause onset of he...

In the past few years, a renowned interest in the interplay between the immune system and central nervous systems (CNS) has sparked a wealth of new experimental studies. Two recent publications in Science shed new light on the “resident” immune cell populations in the CNS and their functions in homeostasis and pathological status, with potential im...

A 74-year-old female subject with suboptimal management of episodic tension headache was treated with a daily dose of 1.5 g l-arginine and 1.2 g aged garlic extract (AGE). The aim of the intervention was to promote vasodilation of parenchymal cerebral blood vessels. Within 6 weeks of commencing treatment, her self-reported symptoms improved markedl...

Introduction Preclinical, clinical and epidemiological studies support the hypothesis that aberrant systemic metabolism of amyloid beta (Aβ) in the peripheral circulation is causally related to the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Specifically, recent studies suggest that increased plasma concentrations of lipoprotein-Aβ compromise the brai...

At the end of 2019, the Covid‐19 pandemic spread caused restrictions in business and social spheres. Higher education was also severely affected: universities and medical schools moved online to distance learning and laboratory facilities closed. Questions arise about the long‐term effects of this pandemic on anatomical education. In this systemati...

Epigenetic drift causes modification in gene expression during aging and a myriad of physiological changes that are mostly undesirable, remove youthful phenotype and are related to biological decay and disease onset. The epigenome is considered a stable regulator of genetic expression. Moreover, evidence is now accumulating that commonly available...

This scoping review aims to perform a brief but comprehensive assessment of existing peer‐reviewed literature and determine whether raising nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide can prevent or promote tumorigenesis. The examination of extensive peer‐reviewed data regarding the synthesis of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide has been performed with a foc...

Preclinical, clinical and epidemiological studies support the hypothesis that aberrant systemic metabolism of amyloid-beta (Aβ) in the peripheral circulation is causally related to the development of Alzheimers disease (AD). Specifically, recent studies suggest that increased plasma concentrations of lipoprotein-Aβ compromises the brain microvascul...

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is a coenzyme found in every human cell and regulates a number of systems across multiple cellular compartments and tissue types via an endogenous and exogenous influence. NAD levels are demonstrated to decline with age and therefore measures to counteract the waning of NAD have been devised. A number of NAD...

Background Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by repetitive behaviours, cognitive rigidity/inflexibility, and social-affective impairment. Unfortunately, no gold-standard treatments exist to alleviate the core socio-behavioural impairments of ASD. Meanwhile, the prosocial empathogen/entactogen 3,4- methyle...

Supplementary file to Migraine Review

How medical educators taught anatomy in the past changed throughout the centuries, ranging from dissection to wax modelling. More recently, imaging for teaching purposes has become increasingly crucial to anatomy education. The main focus of this contribution is to present the history of anatomical illustrations from the Middle Ages to our age. Ana...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the greatest disease burdens and takes the lives of many each year. There are many risk factors both modifiable and non-modifiable which contribute to the onset and progression of the disease. Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) in recent years has been found to have a correlation with CVD onset. Those with increase...

Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are molecules naturally produced by cells. If their levels are too high, the cellular antioxidant machinery intervenes to bring back their quantity to physiological conditions. Since aging often induces malfunctioning in this machinery, ROS are considered an effective cause of age-associated diseases. Exercise stimulat...

More than 10.74 million people are currently held in penal institutions worldwide. Moreover, there is also evidence that the percentage of elder and female prisoners has been consistently growing. Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. Exercise training and physical activity help to prevent both primary and secondary card...

There are approximately 1 billion prediabetic people worldwide, and the global cost for diabetes mellitus (DM) is estimated to be $825 billion. In regard to Type 1 DM, transplanting a whole pancreas or its islets has gained the attention of researchers in the last few decades. Recent studies showed that islet transplantation (ILT) containing insuli...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by repetitive behaviours, cognitive rigidity/inflexibility, and social-affective impairment. Unfortunately, few pharmacological treatments exist to alleviate these socio-behavioural impairments. Prenatal administration of valproic acid (VPA) has become an accepted animal...

Studies suggest that migraine pain has a vascular component. The prevailing dogma is that peripheral vasoconstriction activates baroreceptors in central large arteries. Dilatation of central vessels stimulates nociceptors and induces cortical spreading depression. Studies investigating nitric oxide (NO) donors support the indicated hypothesis that...

Some random mutations can confer a selective advantage to a hematopoietic stem cell. As a result, mutated hematopoietic stem cells can give rise to a significant proportion of mutated clones of blood cells. This event is known as “clonal hematopoiesis.” Clonal hematopoiesis is closely associated with age, and carriers show an increased risk of deve...

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and mitochondria play a pivotal role in regulating platelet functions. Platelet activation determines a drastic change in redox balance and in platelet metabolism. Indeed, several signaling pathways have been demonstrated to induce ROS production by NAPDH oxidase (NOX) and mitochondria, upon platelet activation. Platel...

Natural killer (NK) cells are pivotal effectors of the innate immunity protecting an individual from microbes. They are the first line of defense against invading viruses, given their substantial ability to directly target infected cells without the need for specific antigen presentation. By establishing cellular networks with a variety of cell typ...

In the last two decades, new insights have been gained regarding sex/gender-related differences in cardiovascular disease (CVD). CVD represents the leading cause of death worldwide in both men and women, accounting for at least one-third of all deaths in women and half of deaths in women over 50 years in developing countries. Important sex-related...

Anatomy has historically been a cornerstone in medical education regardless of nation, racial background, or medical school system. By learning gross anatomy, medical students get a first “impression” about the structure of the human body which is the basis for understanding pathologic and clinical problems. Gross anatomy classes are still regarde...

Acute myocardial infarction is primarily due to coronary atherosclerotic plaque rupture and subsequent thrombus formation. Platelets play a key role in the genesis and progression of both atherosclerosis and thrombosis. Since platelets are anuclear cells that inherit their mRNA from megakaryocyte precursors and maintain it unchanged during their li...

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Background: The bench press exercise (BP) is commonly practiced in both recreational and professional training. The weight is lowered from a position where the elbows are at a 90° angle at the start and <90° at the end of eccentric phase, and then returned to the elbows extended position. In order to focus the exercise more on the triceps brachii (...

Journal: Medicina Historica

Atherosclerosis is still a great burden on human health and scientific achievements of the past 30 years have definitively proven the inflammatory causes of the disease (1,2) highlighted by the results of the CANTOS trial (3). Canakinumab inhibition of interleukin-1 (IL1)-beta has been demonstrated to provide protection against cardiovascular (CV)...

Atherosclerosis is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease that can cause coronary artery disease, stroke, peripheral artery disease, depending on which arteries are affected. At the beginning of atherosclerosis plasma lipoproteins accumulate in the sub-endothelial space. In response, monocytes migrate from the circulation through the endothelium...

Convergence is the tendency of independent species to evolve similarly when subjected to the same environmental conditions. The primitive blueprint for the circulatory system emerged around 700–600 Mya and exhibits diverse physiological adaptations across the radiations of vertebrates (Subphylum Vertebrata, Phylum Chordata). It has evolved from the...

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) act as signal molecules in several biological processes whereas excessive, unregulated, ROS production contributes to the development of pathological conditions including endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. The maintenance of a healthy endothelium depends on many factors and on their reciprocal interactions; i...

The vertebrate heart an evolutionary perspective

Purpose Joint mobility is a fundamental part in physical activity program for children, but a scientific characterization of the methods to improve the articular mobility in healthy children is still poor. The aim of this study was to investigate whether joint mobility/muscular elasticity were related to a merely active lifestyle or could be signif...

Purpose Maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) and oxygen consumption at anaerobic threshold (VO2AT) are commonly measured parameters to test elite soccer players; however, studies relating metabolic parameters of professional soccer players with performance and best fitting to the field role are scarce. Our aim was to study the relations of VO2max an...

Transcription factors of the NF-κB family are driven by many inflammatory stimuli and activate expression and production of soluble cytokines, chemokines and inflammatory mediators, and a plethora of important immune response genes.1

Introduction: Satellite cells are muscle resident stem cells and are responsible for muscle regeneration. In this study we investigate the involvement of PKCε during muscle stem cell differentiation in vitro and in vivo. Here, we describe the identification of a previously unrecognized role for the PKCε - HMGA1 signaling axis in myoblast different...

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) are valuable platforms for new therapies based on regenerative medicine. BM-MSCs era is coming of age since the potential of these cells is increasingly demonstrated. In fact, these cells give origin to osteoblasts, chondroblasts, and adipocyte precursors in vitro , and they can also differentiat...

Anatomy has historically been a cornerstone in medical education regardless of nation, racial background, or medical school system. By learning gross anatomy, medical students get a first “impression” about the structure of the human body which is the basis for understanding pathologic and clinical problems. Although the importance of teaching anat...

Factors determining the shape of the human rib cage are not completely understood. We aimed to quantify the contribution of anthropometric and COPD-related changes to rib cage variability in adult cigarette smokers. Rib cage diameters and areas (calculated from the inner surface of the rib cage) in 816 smokers with or without COPD, were evaluated a...

Instructions: users can change values in the green column (above) and obtain a prediction of the rib cage measurements in the three blue columns (below); the other file sheets (i.e. areas, diameters and other measurements have not to be removed because they include corresponding prediction equations derived from the multivariate analysis). (XLS)

Mean Differences, P-Values, Standard Deviations and Associated Limits of Agreement (LOA) for the rib cage diameters and areas. (DOCX)

An intense program of physical activity, typical of elite athletes, results in a series of modifications of the posture that in a short period of time can have a negative impact on both their health and performance. These negative effects can be prevented and corrected by an integrated approach that encompasses anthropometry and posture evaluation....

The positive effects of spa therapy on ear, nose, and throat pathology are known but robust literature in this field, is still lacking. The aim of this study was to assess through a retrospective analysis, the effects on otitis media with effusion of Politzer endotympanic inhalation of sulphurous waters in children aged 5-9 years. A cohort of 95 pa...

En la actualidad Italia fomenta la investigacion cientifica relevante del termalismo moderno en significativa colaboracion con las Autoridades sanitarias. En una disciplina basada en la evidencia como la balneologia, podemos controlar los efectos de los principios activos contenidos en un tipo particular de agua y, al mismo tiempo, fomentar un plan...

Protein kinase Cepsilon (PKCε) exerts a well-known cardio-protective activity in ischemia-reperfusion injury and plays a pivotal role in stem cell proliferation and differentiation. Although many studies have been performed on physiological and morphological effects of PKCε mis-expression in cardiomyocytes, molecular information on the role of PKCε...

The City Council of Parma and allied partners launched a programme based on professionally guided physical exercise and nutritional education in all primary schools of the metropolitan area, with a total of 7,000 children involved, ranging from 6 to 10 years of age. One scientific end-point of the programme was the definition of the parameter(s) mo...

PKC isoenzymes play central roles in various cellular signalling pathways, participating in a variety of protein phosphorylation cascades that regulate/modulate cellular structure and gene expression. It has been firmly established that several isoforms of PKC have a role in the regulation of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis inducing ligand...

Sulfur is able to penetrate the skin, and a sulfur-rich balneotherapy has been suggested to be effective in the treatment of psoriasis. Psoriasis is now considered a genetically programmed, immune-mediated, inflammatory disease, in which intralesional T lymphocytes trigger keratinocytes to proliferate and perpetuate the disease process. Interleukin...

The serine/threonine protein kinase C (PKC) family was first identified as intracellular receptor(s) for the tumor promoting agents phorbol esters. Thirty years after the discovery of PKC, the role of specific PKC isoforms has been described in relationship with an altered pattern of expression in different types of cancer and a good number of smal...

Recent mechanistic evidence demonstrates that spa-based therapy (or, as we propose, crenotherapy from the Greek word kapparhoepsilonnueta, spring fountain) is indeed based on solid scientific data. This mini-review highlights the latest insights into the mechanisms of crenotherapy derived from in vitro experiments, studies on animal models, and car...

Although several studies have shown that the serum levels of osteoprotegerin (OPG) are significantly elevated in patients affected with atherosclerotic lesions in coronary and peripheral arteries, the cellular source and the role of OPG in the physiopathology of atherosclerosis are not completely defined. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the pote...

Although several studies have shown that the serum levels of osteoprotegerin (OPG) are significantly elevated in patients affected with atherosclerotic lesions in coronary and peripheral arteries, the cellular source and the role of OPG in the physiopathology of atherosclerosis are not completely defined. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the pote...

Awarding the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for the discovery of HIV-1, the causative agent of AIDS ([1][1]), is timely given the harm that the virus continues to inflict on the people of the world. While these awardees fully deserve the award

We have compared the cytotoxic/cytostatic responses of the SKW6.4 lymphoblastoid B-cells to the alkylating agent chlorambucil, the purine analog fludarabine, the non-genotoxic activator of the p53 pathway, Nutlin-3, used alone or in association with the death-inducing ligand recombinant TRAIL. Exposure to chlorambucil, fludarabine, and Nutlin-3 ind...

The serine/threonine protein kinase C (PKC) family, the main target of tumor-promoting phorbol esters, is functionally associated to cell cycle regulation, cell survival, malignant transformation, and tumor angiogenesis. Although PKC isozymes represent an attractive target for novel anticancer therapies, our knowledge of PKC in tumorigenesis is sti...