Vincenzo De Cicco

TL;DR: The trigeminal, visceral and vestibular control of ARAS/LC activity may explain why these input signals affect sensorimotor and cognitive functions which are not directly related to their specific informational content and are effective in relieving the symptoms of some brain pathologies, thus prompting peripheral activation of these input systems as a complementary approach for the treatment of cognitive impairments and neurodegenerative disorders.

TL;DR: The present study indicates that the implant-prosthesis therapy, which reduces the unbalance of trigeminal proprioceptive afferents and the asymmetry in pupil’s size, may improve arousal, boosting performance in a complex sensorimotor task.

TL;DR: Investigation of whether chewing a bolus of different hardness may affect the performance on a cognitive task and increase the dilatation of the pupil induced by a haptic task suggested a change in LC activation suggests trigeminal signals enhanced by chewing may boost the cognitive performance by increasing LC activity.

TL;DR: fMRI changes in the blood oxygenation level dependent BOLD signal induced at brain level by a finger to thumb motor task in a population of subjects characterized by an asymmetric activation of jaw muscles during clenching suggest that, during malocclusion, the movement occurs with an increased visual imagery activity, and requires a stronger attentive effort.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors found that the effects of malocclusion on performance seem mediated by the Locus Coeruleus (LC), which could also contribute to the chronic trophic dysfunction induced by loss of trigeminal input.