Thirty years of translational research in Mobility Medicine: Collection of abstracts of the 2020 Padua Muscle Days

More than half a century of skeletal muscle research is continuing at Padua University (Italy) under the auspices of the Interdepartmental Research Centre of Myology (CIR-Myo), the European Journal of Translational Myology (EJTM) and recently also with the support of the A&CM-C Foundation for Translational Myology, Padova, Italy. The Volume 30(1), 2020 of the EJTM opens with the collection of abstracts for the conference "2020 Padua Muscle Days: Mobility Medicine 30 years of Translational Research". This is an international conference that will be held between March 18-21, 2020 in Euganei Hills and Padova in Italy. The abstracts are excellent examples of translational research and of the multidimensional approaches that are needed to classify and manage (in both the acute and chronic phases) diseases of Mobility that span from neurologic, metabolic and traumatic syndromes to the biological process of aging. One of the typical aim of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation is indeed to reduce pain and increase mobility enough to enable impaired persons to walk freely, garden, and drive again. The excellent contents of this Collection of Abstracts reflect the high scientific caliber of researchers and clinicians who are eager to present their results at the PaduaMuscleDays. A series of EJTM Communications will also add to this preliminary evidence.

Functional Outcome of Adulthood Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy for Spastic Diplegia

Objective The medical evidence supporting the efficacy of selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) on children with spastic diplegia is strong. However, the outcome of SDR on adults with spastic diplegia remains undetermined. The aim is to study the effectiveness and morbidities of SDR performed on adults for the treatment of spastic diplegia.  Methods Patients who received SDR in adulthood for the treatment of spastic diplegia were surveyed. The survey questionnaire addressed the living situation, education level, employment, health outcomes, postoperative changes of symptoms, changes in ambulatory function, adverse effects of SDR and orthopedic surgery after SDR.  Results The study included 64 adults, who received SDR for spastic diplegia. The age at the time of surgery was between 18 and 50 years. The age at the time of the survey was between 20 and 52 years. The follow-up period ranged from one to 28 years. The study participants reported post-SDR improvements of the quality of walking in 91%, standing in 81%, sitting in 57%, balance while walking 75%, ability to exercise in 88%, endurance in 77%, and recreational sports in 43%. Muscle and joint pain present before surgery improved in 64% after surgery. Concerning the level of ambulatory function, all patients who walked independently in all environments maintained the same level of ambulatory function. Eighteen percent of the patients who walked independently in some environments improved to the independent walking in all environments. All patients who walked with an assistive device before SDR maintained the assistive walking after SDR. Concerning adverse effects of SDR, 50% (32 of 64 patients) developed numbness in the various parts of the legs. Two patients reported a complete loss of sensation in parts of the legs, and one patient reported numbness and constant pain in the bilateral lower extremities. Ten patients (16%) reported recurrent spasticity after SDR, and three patients (5%) reported ankle clonus, which is an objective sign of spasticity. Tendon lengthening surgery after SDR was needed in 27% and hip and knee surgery in 2% and 6%, respectively.  Conclusions The great majority of our 64 patients, who received adulthood SDR for spastic diplegia, improved the quality of ambulation and abated signs of early aging. Numbness and diminished sensation in the lower extremity was the most common adverse effect of the adulthood SDR.

The influence of early aging on eye movements during motor simulation

Movement based interventions such as imagery and action observation are used increasingly to support physical rehabilitation of adults during early aging. The efficacy of these more covert approaches is based on an intuitively appealing assumption that movement execution, imagery and observation share neural substrate; alteration of one influences directly the function of the other two. Using eye movement metrics this paper reports findings that question the congruency of the three conditions. The data reveal that simulating movement through imagery and action observation may offer older adults movement practice conditions that are not constrained by the age-related decline observed in physical conditions. In addition, the findings provide support for action observation as a more effective technique for movement reproduction in comparison to imagery. This concern for imagery was also seen in the less congruent temporal relationship in movement time between imagery and movement execution suggesting imagery inaccuracy in early aging.

Social class differences in physical functions in middle-aged men and women

OBJECTIVE

The objective of the present study is to analyze gender differences and social class gradients in physical functions; and to study whether the social class gradients in physical functions in midlife differed between men and women.

METHOD

This study used traditionally used physical performance tests and we added several tests of vigorous physical functioning (trunk muscle strength and power and sagittal flexibility). We measured reaction time, one-legged balance, sagittal flexibility, jump height, chair rise ability, trunk muscle- and handgrip strength in 5,412 participants aged 50 to 60 years (68.5% men).

RESULTS

We found gender differences and social class gradients for all physical performance tests. We did not find an interaction between social class and gender, indicating that the social gradient in physical functions did not differ between men and women.

DISCUSSION

Including measures of vigorous physical functioning may add to the existing knowledge on development of functional limitation and poorer functional health later in life.

[Morphofunctional characteristics of erythrocytes as target cells in the processes of early aging]

The article describes the morphofunctional characteristics of erythrocytes in clinical models of early aging (essential hypertension, coronary heart disease and diabetes mellitus) by the original clinical and cytomorphological material. It is shown that in the processes of aging and early aging following effects take places: the changing of the shape and size of cells, cell-cell interactions are broken, changing the elasticity of the cell membrane is changing too and cellular destruction is promoted.

Functional degradation of the primary visual cortex during early senescence in rhesus monkeys

Visual function in humans degrades during the early stage of senescence beginning from middle 50s to 60s. To identify its underlying neural mechanisms, we investigated the aging effects on the primary visual cortex (V1) cells in early senescent (ES) monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Under anesthesia, receptive field properties of V1 cells were examined by extracellular single-unit recordings in the young adult (YA; 5-6 years old), ES (19-24 years old), and late senescent (LS; 28-32 years old) monkeys. We found clear indications of functional degradation in early senescence, including impaired stimulus selectivities, increased level of spontaneous activity and declined signal-to-noise ratio, and dynamic range of V1 cell responses. Importantly, the functional degradation in early senescence exhibited unique features that were different from the results for the LS animals, such as remarkable individual variability in orientation selectivity and unchanged peak response elicited by visual stimulation. Our results demonstrate that the function of V1 degrades during the early stage of aging in nonhuman primate, suggesting potential neural correlates for functional deficits observed in early senescence in human subjects. Moreover, these results provide new insight into the dynamics of the aging-related functional deterioration, revealing a more complex and heterogeneous picture of this process.