Background: In the present study, we aimed to better investigate attention system profile of Parkinson's disease-Mild Cognitive Impairment patients and to determine if specific attentional deficits are associated with 123I-FP-CIT SPECT.Methods: A total of 44 de novo drug-naïve PD patients [ with normal cognition and 17 with MCI ], 23 MCI patients and 23 individuals with subjective cognitive impairment were recruited at the Clinical Neurology Unit of Santa Chiara hospital. They were assessed by a wide neuropsychological battery, including Visual Search (...) Test measuring selective attention. Performances among groups were compared by non-parametric tests. Further, Spearman's rank correlations were performed to explore the association between neuropsychological variables and 123I-FP-CIT SPECT data in PD subgroup.Results: PD-MCI patients performed worse on VST than patients with PD-NC, patients with MCI and individuals with SCI. The performance of PD-MCI patients on VST significantly correlated with caudate nucleus 123I-FP-CIT SPECT uptake, whereas a negative correlation between such test and 123I-FP-CIT SPECT uptake in the left putamen was found in PD-NC patients.Conclusions: We suggest that selective attention deficit might be a trigger of cognitive decay in de novo PD-MCI patients. The VST should be routinely used to detect attentional deficits in hospital clinical practice, in the light of its closely association with dopamine depletion of basal ganglia in mildly impaired PD patients. (shrink)

The article focuses on Deleuze's analysis of the institution, which the French philosopher carries out starting from a close confrontation with that modern anti-contractualism of which David Hume is a very significant exponent. On this basis, using also the analytical of power outlined by Elias Canetti, Deleuze attempts to provide a less obvious image of the institution. In fact, he proposes it as an indication of a need for distance, however elastic, temporary, revocable, that is, connected to those that turn (...) out to be the transformations, the metamorphoses, of the social. (shrink)

This contribution aims at highlighting some fundamental motifs of that particular philosophical anthropology which can be found in the works of G. Anders, who sets at the center of the analysis, with strong clarity, the figure of man as human being, who comes into the world as “incomplete” and “undetermined”: according to Anders this concretizes itself through the criticalconfrontation with the philosophical anthropology which becomes philosophy of the tekhne in A. Gehlen and with the Kafkian representation of an existenceradically incomplete.

Focusing on the figure of cyborg, being an important concentration of fantasy and reality, could represent a good starting point when trying to think more deeply on the relationship between man and machine, which is an essential theme of the 20th century philosophy. The article suggest how cartographies of the overall reality of contemporary subjectivities can be developed and how the latest can hope with the transformation of their modalities based upon the introduction of the machine within 'living bodies'.

The article moves from the idea of monster as a “cultural predicate” referable to a wide linguistic and symbolic repertoire proper to the overall human history. In this perspective, particular attention is paid to the variegated viewpoints on monstrosity that, from the initial teratology of “natural” sign, develops into a teratology of a specifically “social” character. Hence the indication that, from a material standpoint, shows how the transformations of feeling, thinking, and acting related to nowadays work activities, make it possible (...) to associate certain characteristics of monstrosity – clearly not conceivable only in negative terms – to new productive subjects and cooperating singularities. (shrink)

The development of information and communication technologies delineates, especially in its reticulate articulation, an environment in which artistic experimentation, with its modalities of representation, is able to express itself in a particularly remarkable manner. This environment, moreover, seems to promote creativity and the affirmation of the cognitive capacities in general. To better understand such potentialities, however, it is opportune to consider also those positions (such as Paul Virilio’s) that are hyper-critical of the advent of the “electric environment” and its “artistic” (...) articulations. (shrink)

The concept of practice would recover the concept of the system of action, if it were not for the existence of systems of action without practice. It remains that a practice is a system of action. As a consequence, supposing the reciprocality of the terms system and theory and a close inspection of the terms in the propositions, there is a semantic equivalence between "theoretical practice" and "Practical system of action". In both cases, the contradiction between the pairs of concepts (...) are resolved dialectically. Thanks to the dialectics, they are melted into one unit of meaning - a synthesis of opposing tensions. Hence, the proposal for a dialectics of global practice, at the same time abstract and historic. Detotalized or along the border of this dialectics, the action without practice as exemplified in the drama may be highlighted. Dramatic is precisely an action which is not practical. The time and the place of the practice are the history and the world of man; the time and the place of drama are the cultural fiction and the symbolic substance. As the mimesis of practice, the drama reproduces not the features of the model but its production and thus it becomes a model of the model. Mimesis is not copying; it is an autonomous form of efficiency, paradoxically without practice, but of course "specular".O conceito de prática recobriria o de sistema de ação, não fosse a existência de sistemas de ação sem prática. Resta que uma prática é um sistema de ação. Como conseqüência, suposta a reciprocação de sistema com teoria e uma atenta inspeção nos termos da proposição, há equivalência semântica entre "prática teórica " e "sistema de ação prático". Num e noutro caso, a contradição interna aos pares de conceitos se resolve dialeticamente. Graças à dialética, são fundidos numa unidade de sentido, síntese de tensões opostas. Daí a proposta de uma dialética da prática global, conjuntamente abstrata e histórica. Destotalizada ou à margem dessa dialética, pode ser destacada a ação sem prática, exemplificada no drama. Dramática é precisamente uma ação que não é prática. O tempo e o lugar da prática são a história e o mundo do homem; o tempo e o lugar do drama são a ficção cultural e a substância simbólica. Mimese da prática, o drama, reproduz, não os traços do modelo, mas a sua produção, tornando-se por sua vez modelo do modelo. Mimese não é cópia, é forma autônoma de eficiência, paradoxalmente sem prática mas especular. (shrink)