De novo FUS P525L mutation in Juvenile amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with dysphonia and diplopia.

Juvenile amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (jALS) is characterized by progressive upper and lower motor neuron degeneration leading to facial muscle spasticity, spastic dysarthria, and spastic gait with an early onset (before 25 years old). Unlike adult-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), patients with jALS tend to have slower progression of motor neuron disease and prolonged survival to a normal life expectancy. Mutations in FUS gene have been reported in jALS,(1) including p.

A novel mutation in the CSF1R gene causes a variable leukoencephalopathy with spheroids.

Hereditary diffuse leukoencephalopathy with neuroaxonal spheroids is a neurodegenerative disease associated with mutations in the colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor gene (CSF1R). A 44-year-old woman with a 7-year history of depression presented with neurological signs and a recent cognitive decline. The diagnosis of hereditary diffuse leukoencephalopathy with neuroaxonal spheroids was suspected based on the findings of a predominant frontal leukoencephalopathy and neuroaxonal spheroids on brain biopsy.

Stress differentially regulates the effects of voluntary exercise on cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus of mice.

It has been well-established that cell proliferation and neurogenesis in the adult mouse dentate gyrus (DG) can be regulated by voluntary exercise. Recent evidence has suggested that the effects of voluntary exercise can in turn be influenced by environmental factors that regulate the amount of stress an animal is exposed to. In this study, we use bromodeoxyuridine and proliferating cell nuclear antigen immunohistochemistry to show that voluntary exercise produces a significant increase in cell proliferation in the adult mouse DG in both isolated and socially housed mice.

Hippocampal cell proliferation is reduced following prenatal ethanol exposure but can be rescued with voluntary exercise.

The ingestion of ethanol during pregnancy has a number of deleterious consequences for the unborn offspring, producing structural and functional deficits that affect the brain and many other organs into adulthood. The hippocampus is a brain area that is particularly sensitive to ethanol's adverse effects. In a previous study we showed that voluntary exercise can ameliorate deficits in long-term potentiation and behavior that occur following prenatal ethanol exposure (Eur J Neurosci, 2005, 21, 1719-1726).

Voluntary exercise rescues deficits in spatial memory and long-term potentiation in prenatal ethanol-exposed male rats.

Prenatal ethanol exposure can lead to long-lasting impairments in the ability to process spatial information in rats, as well as produce long-lasting deficits in the ability of animals to exhibit long-term potentiation, a biological model of learning and memory processing. Conversely, we have recently shown that both spatial memory and long-term potentiation can be enhanced in animals that are given access to a running wheel in their home cage. In the present study, Sprague-Dawley rat dams were given one of three diets throughout gestation: (i) a liquid diet containing ethanol (35.