Smartphones, the Epidemic of the 21st Century: A Possible Source of Addictions and Neuropsychiatric Consequences.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Phonoholism is the excessive and harmful use of a smartphone. We are now observing this phenomenon among adults more often. Using a smartphone for several hours may lead to somatic and psychological symptoms, such as headaches and depression. The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of phonoholism and to assess the association between smartphone overuse and neuropsychiatric disorders. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 368 people (70.1% were woman), aged between 19 and 82 years (average age 26.1), took part in an anonymous questionnaire consisting of the following elements: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Mobile Phone Problem Use Scale (MPPUS-9), and original questions regarding headaches and sleep quality, along with a subjective assessment of the use of smartphones and an objective evaluation based on data from the applications "Stay Free" and "Screen Time". RESULTS: A total of 61 respondents (16.6%) obtained a score on the MPPUS-9 scale, which revealed their problematic use of mobile devices. Patients with phonoholism had significantly more headaches (85% vs. 58.7%, p = 0.027). Subjects with phonoholism had significantly shorter mean sleep duration (7.14 h vs. 7.42 h, p = 0.0475) and were less likely to feel sleepy during the day (43.33% vs. 59.73%, p = 0.0271). The group with phonoholism had significantly higher scores on the HADS-A anxiety scale (8.29 vs. 10.9, p = 0.015), but a statistical significance was not confirmed for depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The excessive use of the telephone negatively affects both somatic and mental health and can pose a significant clinical problem.

Verbena officinalis Verbenaceae (Lamiales): a new plant model system for phyllotaxis research.

Phyllotactic diversity and developmental transitions between phyllotactic patterns are not fully understood. The plants studied so far, such as Magnolia, Torreya or Abies, are not suitable for experimental work, and the most popular model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, does not show sufficient phyllotactic variability. It has been found that in common verbena (Verbena officinalis L.), a perennial, cosmopolitan plant, phyllotaxis differs not only between growth phases in primary transitions but also along the indeterminate inflorescence axis in a series of multiple secondary transitions. The latter are no longer associated with the change in lateral organ identity, and the sequence of phyllotactic patterns is puzzling from a theoretical point of view. Data from the experiments in silico, confronted with empirical observations, suggest that secondary transitions might be triggered by the cumulative effect of fluctuations in the continuously decreasing bract primordia size. The most important finding is that the changes in the primary vascular system, associated with phyllotactic transitions, precede those taking place at the apical meristem. This raises the question of the role of the vascular system in determining primordia initiation sites, and possibly challenges the autonomy of the apex. The results of this study highlight the complex relationships between various systems that have to coordinate their growth and differentiation in the developing plant shoot. Common verbena emerges from this research as a plant that may become a new model suitable for further studies on the causes of phyllotactic transitions.