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The sensorimotor cortex is a brain region comprising the primary motor cortex (MI) and the primary somatosensory (SI) cortex. In humans, investigation into these regions suggests that MI and SI are involved in the modulation and control of motor and somatosensory processing, and are somatotopically organized according to a body plan (Penfield & Boldrey, 1937). Additional investigations into somatotopic mapping in relation to the limbs in the peripheral nervous system and SI in central nervous system have further born out the importance of this body-based organization (Wall & Dubner, 1972). Understanding the nature of the sensorimotor cortex‟s structure and function has broad implications not only for human development, but also motor learning (Taubert et al., 2011) and clinical applications in structural plasticity in Parkinson‟s disease (Sehm et al., 2014), among others. The aim of the present thesis is to identify functionally meaningful subregions within the sensorimotor cortex via parcellation analysis. Previously, cerebral subregions were identified in postmortem brains by invasive procedures based on histological features (Brodmann, 1909; Vogt. & Vogt., 1919; Economo, 1926; Sanides, 1970). One widely used atlas is based on Brodmann areas (BA). Brodmann divided human brains into several areas based on the visually inspected cytoarchitecture of the cortex as seen under a microscope (Brodmann, 1909). In this atlas, BA 4, BA 3, BA 1 and BA 2 together constitute the sensorimotor cortex (Vogt. & Vogt., 1919; Geyer et al., 1999; Geyer et al., 2000). However, BAs are incapable of delineating the somatotopic detail reflected in other research (Blankenburg et al., 2003). And, although invasive approaches have proven reliable in the discovery of functional parcellation in the past, such approaches are marked by their irreversibility which, according to ethical standards, makes them unsuitable for scientific inquiry. Therefore, it is necessary to develop non-invasive approaches to parcellate functional brain regions. In the present study, a non-invasive and task-free approach to parcellate the sensorimotor cortex with resting-state fMRI was developed. This approach used functional connectivity patterns of brain areas in order to delineate functional subregions as connectivity-based parcellations (Wig et al., 2014). We selected two adjacent BAs (BA 3 and BA 4) from a standard template to cover the area along the central sulcus (Eickhoff et al., 2005). Then subregions within this area were generated using resting-state fMRI data. These subregions were organized somatotopically from medial-dorsal to ventral-lateral (corresponding roughly to the face, hand and foot regions, respectively) by comparing them with the activity maps obtained by using independent motor tasks. Interestingly, resting-state parcellation map demonstrated higher correspondence to the task-based divisions after individuals had performed motor tasks. We also observed higher functional correlations between the hand area and the foot and tongue area, respectively, than between the foot and tongue regions. The functional relevance of those subregions indicates the feasibility of a wide range of potential applications to brain mapping (Nebel et al., 2014). In sum, the present thesis provides an investigation of functional network, functional structure, and properties of the sensorimotor cortex by state-of-art neuroimaging technology. The methodology and the results of the thesis hope to carry on the future research of the sensorimotor system.

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Introduction: Indirect calorimetry (IC) is a very accurate and non-invasive method which is used in clinical practice to measure the resting metabolic rate. This method is based on the assumption that oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production and nitrogen metabolite waste are in definite relation to energy consumption. Based on the measurement of resting metabolic rate, a nutritional therapist can individually determine daily energy intake of a respective individual, the optimal amount of specific nutrients and thus prevents excessive or inadequate intake of energy and nutrients. Objective: The main aim of this thesis is to compare for group of overweight patients the results of the measurement of the resting metabolic rate (RMR), values of the resting metabolic rate calculated according to the Harris-Benedict (HB) equation and the actual energy intake calculated from the diet report obtained from the patients. In addition, the body composition of the examined group with a focus on the amount of muscle tissue is also marginally evaluated. Methods: The research sample includes in total 50 persons-36 women and 14 men. These persons are patients of the General Faculty Hospital in Prague. The average age is 46 years for women and 51 years for men. The average BMI for women is 38,2 kg/m2 and for men...

Huntington's disease is a dominantly-inherited autosomal neurodegenerative disease manifested by disorders of motility, cognitive function, behaviour, and weight loss, which is conditioned multifactorially. The aim of the study was to determine whether there are eating disorders in Huntington's disease, as well as its etiology and severity. Neurological scaling, anthropometric examinations, evaluation of three-day diet records, measurements with a manual dynamometer, bioimpedance analyses, indirect colorimetry and predictions of energy expenditure were performed on 10 patients. Algorithms were applied for the diagnosis of sarcopenia and malnutrition. Unwanted weight loss was observed in all patients and 4 out of 10 showed malnutrition. No difference was found between the values of measured resting metabolism and calculated according to the predictive equation. However, it has been shown that strict nutritional recommendations based on this data can be misleading for some patients with HN, as real energy consumption can be significantly higher. All our patients had a positive energy balance. A new diagnostic algorithm for the early diagnosis of sarcopenia has proven its worth. Using bioimpedance analysis and examination of the force of the handshake, we identified possible sarcopenia and already-present...

Aims: The aim of this work was to determine whether a increased resting energy expenditure contributes to the nutritional risk for patients with pancreatic cancer. What the variability of resting energy expenditure is and whether it predicts weight loss. Another aim was to verify that lower protein-energy intake also has an impact on weight loss. Methods: Data for the diploma thesis were obtained from the project "Pancreatic Cancer: Metabolic Derangements Associated With Insulin Resistance", which takes place at the Department of Clinical Physiology of Metabolism at 2nd Department of internal medicine in the University Hospital Královské Vinohrady. The project includes 40 - 50 patients with pancreatic tumor resection per year. Data were collected from the beginning of December 2019 until the end of April 2020. The project is funded by the grant AZV NV19-01-00101. 10 consecutive patients (4 women and 6 men) with pancreatic cancer who had a complete dataset for analysis were selected for the research set for the diploma thesis. The patients underwent anthropometric examination, blood tests were taken, and indirect calorimetry was performed. Results: The first part of the research was focused on anthropometric parameters, parameters of nutritional status and the presence of cancer cachexia. The second...

La situation des individus situés en dehors du travail interroge sur la perception qu’a le droit des inactifs et sur les protections conférées à ces derniers, notamment la protection de leur dignité sociale. La notion de paresse, qui pourrait être définie comme la propension à ne rien faire, est absente des dictionnaires juridiques et revêt un sens péjoratif dans les rares textes qui en font usage. L’étude se propose de dessiner les contours de ce que pourrait être un droit à la paresse, et plus spécifiquement un droit collectif à la paresse, en étudiant dans l’ordre juridique français à l’aune de l’activité de travail et du droit de la protection sociale, la façon dont les comportements paresseux sont perçus par le droit et s’il est des situations empreintes d’oisiveté qui permettent de conférer à la paresse une forme de licéité. La recherche s’est intéressée à la fonction et la valeur sociale du travail, pour mieux déconstruire les rapports de dépendance à l’activité de travail qui s’établissent au préjudice du développement du temps de vie personnelle des travailleurs. / The situation of individuals outside work questions the perception of the law of the inactive and the protections afforded to them, including the protection of their social dignity. The notion of laziness, which could be defined as the propensity to do nothing, is absent from legal dictionaries and has a pejorative meaning in the few texts that make use of it. The study proposes to draw the outline of what could be a right to laziness, and more specifically a collective right to laziness, by studying in the French legal order in the yard of the work activity and the social welfare law, the manner in which lazy behavior is perceived by law, and the idleness of situations that make laziness a form of lawfulness. Research has focused on the function and social value of work, in order to better deconstruct the relationships of dependence on the work activity that are established to the detriment of the development of the personal life time of workers.

The distribution of organisms across the globe forms non-random patterns that are based on their selection for certain environmental features. Habitat selection is the study of how organisms choose where they live. It is a fundamental behavior shaping several ecological and evolutionary processes. The hierarchical nature of the environment makes it imperative to consider multiple scales in habitat selection studies. Even though there is extensive coverage of scaling in habitat selection literature, most published papers only consider one scale. To our knowledge, habitat selection studies of the Antillean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus) have never included more than one spatial scale. Hence, we modeled Antillean manatee habitat selection in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, in Mexico, at two spatial scales: study area and 1 km buffer. We used GPS coordinates of opportunistic encounters (n = 102) recorded since 2009. We randomly generated 500 pseudo-absences per presence point for both scales, and extracted the environmental conditions from each point: seagrass abundance (leaf area index or LAI), water depth, and shortest distance to land, closest river and closest resting hole. We fitted a binomial regression of the probability of presence as a function of the environmental parameters using a Bayesian approach. Our results show that the probability of manatee presence increases in proximity to resting holes for both scales and increases with land proximity at the large-scale. Overall, we showed that proximity to resting holes is the most important feature of habitat selection for Antillean manatees in Sian Ka'an, followed by proximity to land. This study demonstrates the importance of multi-scale designs in habitat selection and highlights the need for more studies looking at the use and ecological implications of manatee resting holes.

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The clown loach Chromobotia macracanthus, is a well known species in ornamental fish circuits although the knowledge about it in its wild environment today is limited. The outtake of 50 million juveniles every year may drive the population into a collapse and it might be necessary to breed clown loaches in captivity to lower the pressure in wild stocks. This has not yet been accomplished without hormone treatment. The aim of the present study is to find out if it is possible for C. macracanthus to prepare for spawning in captivity without the use of hormones. The study was set up according to documentation about the wild conditions simulating the migration prior to spawning from greater rivers and swamps to smaller streams upriver. Although the experiment did not result in spawning it is believed that egg production took place according to criteria for identifying sexually mature fish ready to spawn. If so it would have resulted in the fish retaining or reabsorbing the eggs since they were not laid. A surprising result which tells us it would not be unusual with egg production in C. macracanthus in aquariums around the world.