"Mind the thumb": Judging hand laterality is anchored on the thumb position.

People can decide whether the image of a hand represents a left or a right one. The laterality judgment mainly implies mentally imaging own hand movement (motor simulation) if the stimulus represents a palm, or analysing visual cues, as hand asymmetry, if the stimulus reproduces a dorsum. Here, by capitalizing on evidence underscoring the key role of thumb-palm complex in motor dexterity of human hand, we hypothesise that activation of motor or visual processes when judging hand laterality is due to the different relevance of palm-thumb and dorsum-thumb combinations to hand action. To test this thumb-anchored strategy, in a laterality judgment experiment, we concurrently manipulated the thumb position (flexed or extended) with respect to palm and dorsum, and the human likeness of the hand shape (influencing the salience of the thumb with respect to the hand shape). The main results demonstrated that viewing the flexed thumb from palm or dorsum elicited motor simulation, while viewing the extended thumb activated motor simulation when combined with palm but not dorsum. The present data highlight the pivotal role of the thumb in hand laterality judgments, consistent with its key role in human in-hand manipulation.

Influenza vaccination and healthcare workers: barriers and predisposing factors.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK: Influenza is a disease that affects a large part of the world's population annually, with major health, social and economic impacts. Active immunisation practices have always been recommended to counter influenza, especially for people at risk. The recommendations of major health agencies strongly advise influenza vaccination for all healthcare workers, mostly for those in contact with at-risk or immunocompromised individuals. Yet, the influenza vaccination coverage among healthcare workers remains rather low worldwide. This review explore barriers and the facilitators of health care professional toward influenza's vaccination. METHODS: Narrative review  consulting the databases: PubMed, CINAHL by combining keywords health care worker, flu, influenza, vaccination, barrier, resistence, hesitangy, between November 2019 and February 2020 Results. From the 1031 records initially, twenty-two primary studies were included in this narrative review. Our results show that the identified facilitators are: desire for self-protection, protection for loved ones and community. Instead, the barriers to vaccination identified are: fear of contracting influenza from the vaccination itself; not considering themselves at risk; to believing believe that their immune system is capable of managing a trivial disease; disease considered trivial, laziness; false beliefs. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Adherence rate on influenza vaccination among health professionals is quite low. The interventions that make it "complex and traceable" flu vaccination refusal increase adherence to this type of vaccination. The results show that current vaccination campaigns do not increase the rate of adherence by healthcare workers. Identifying the predisposing factors and barriers to such vaccination can help to create, develop and test targeted educational programmes.

The Impact of Urinary Incontinence on Quality of Life: A Cross-Sectional Study in the Metropolitan City of Naples.

Urinary incontinence is a hygienic and psychosocial problem that often brings people to restrict their social life and to experience depression. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of urinary incontinence on quality of life among residents of the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy, using a newly designed multidimensional questionnaire. The secondary objective was to find which variables affect the quality of life and symptom severity in these patients. To do so, a sample composed of twenty-eight patients was recruited in a multicentre cross-sectional study. Most of the participants had a mild impairment (60%) concerning social life and self-perception, especially those whose education was above the primary level (p = 0.036) and those who followed a pelvic floor rehabilitation program (p = 0.002). Overflow urinary incontinence was associated with a greater deterioration in the aspirational and occupational domain (p = 0.044). Symptom severity was worse in those who had comorbidities (p = 0.038), who had a high body mass index (p = 0.008) or who used diuretics (p = 0.007). In conclusion, our results suggest that there is a significant impairment of quality of life in patients who have only primary education and who follow a pelvic floor rehabilitation program.

'Not only faces': specialized visual representation of human hands revealed by adaptation.

Classical neurophysiological studies demonstrated that the monkey brain is equipped with neurons selectively representing the visual shape of the primate hand. Neuroimaging in humans provided data suggesting that a similar representation can be found in humans. Here, we investigated the selectivity of hand representation in humans by means of the visual adaptation technique. Results showed that participants' judgement of human-likeness of a visual probe representing a human hand was specifically reduced by a visual adaptation procedure when using a human hand adaptor but not when using an anthropoid robotic hand or a non-primate animal paw adaptor. Instead, human-likeness of the anthropoid robotic hand was affected by both human and robotic adaptors. No effect was found when using a non-primate animal paw as adaptor or probe. These results support the existence of specific neural mechanisms encoding human hand in the human's visual system.