"Brain Fog" After COVID-19 Infection: How the Field of Neuropsychology Can Help Clear the Air.

The chapter explores the role of neuropsychology in understanding brain fog as a subjective complaint in the context of COVID-19. It discusses the historical and medical significance of the term "brain fog" and its psychological and neurological aspects. The chapter identifies the cognitive domains commonly affected by brain fog, such as attention, executive function, memory, and language.

Brain Volume Changes after COVID-19 Compared to Healthy Controls by Artificial Intelligence-Based MRI Volumetry.

Cohort studies that quantify volumetric brain data among individuals with different levels of COVID-19 severity are presently limited. It is still uncertain whether there exists a potential correlation between disease severity and the effects of COVID-19 on brain integrity. Our objective was to assess the potential impact of COVID-19 on measured brain volume in patients with asymptomatic/mild and severe disease after recovery from infection, compared with healthy controls, using artificial intelligence (AI)-based MRI volumetry.

Longitudinal Neurocognitive and Pulmonological Profile of Long COVID-19: Protocol for the COVIMMUNE-Clin Study.

Background: There is a dearth of information about "brain fog," characterized by concentration, word-finding, or memory problems, which has been listed in the new World Health Organization provisional classification "U09.9 Post-COVID-19 Condition." Moreover, the extent to which these symptoms may be associated with neurological, pulmonary, or psychiatric difficulties is unclear.

Major Surgery Affects Memory in Individuals with Cerebral Amyloid-β Pathology.

Background: Major surgery has been associated with perioperative neurocognitive disorders (PND), but the contributing factors and long-term prognosis are uncertain. We hypothesize that preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD) might predispose to cognitive deterioration after surgery.

Objective: To analyze the effect of amyloid-β on the cognitive trajectory after orthopedic surgery in a sample of non-demented subjects.

Time course of dementia following sepsis in German health claims data.

Objective: We evaluated the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of sepsis on dementia incidence using German health claims data.

Methods: A total of 161,567 patients (65 years or older) were followed from 2004 to 2015 at quarterly intervals. Time since sepsis was categorized into 0 (the effective quarter of sepsis diagnosis), 1-8, and ≥9 quarters since the latest diagnosis of sepsis, taking into account admission to intensive care unit and controlling for delirium, surgery, age, sex, and comorbidities.

Therapeutic potential of prenylated stilbenoid macasiamenene F through its anti-inflammatory and cytoprotective effects on LPS-challenged monocytes and microglia.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Macaranga Thou. (Euphorbiaceae) is a large genus that comprises over 300 species distributed between Western Africa and the islands of the South Pacific. Plants of this genus have a long-standing history of use in traditional medicine for different purposes, including the treatment of inflammation.

The Entorhinal Cortex Atrophy Score Is Diagnostic and Prognostic in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Background: Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is routinely performed in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), but diagnostic accuracy to detect early cerebral atrophy is limited.

Objective: To validate the visual entorhinal cortex atrophy (ERICA) rating scale regarding diagnosis, biomarker status, neuropsychological profile, and dementia risk in MCI.

Methods: The ERICA score was retrospectively assessed regarding its discrimination of MCI (n = 80) from subjective cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia (n = 60, respectively), its prediction of conversion to dementia (median follow-up 28 months) and amyloid/tau biomarker status, and its association with neuropsychological tests.

Beyond the limits - ECPR in putative fatal circumstances.

The eligibility criteria for applying extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) in patients with cardiac arrest are currently unclear. For those patients with hypothermic cardiac arrest, the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) Guidelines recommend considering ECPR only for patients with potassium <8 mmol/L and a body temperature below 32°C, whereas the American Heart Association Guidelines (AHA) do not express this in a specific manner.We report the case of an urban unwitnessed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patient found with her head immersed in water at a temperature of 23°C.

The ERICA Score: An MR Imaging-based Visual Scoring System for the Assessment of Entorhinal Cortex Atrophy in Alzheimer Disease.

Purpose To establish and evaluate a visual score focused on entorhinal cortex atrophy (ERICA), as the entorhinal cortex is one of the first brain structures affected in Alzheimer disease (AD). Materials and Methods In this retrospective study, ERICA was visually evaluated with magnetic resonance imaging (2009-2016). First, a four-point ERICA score was developed by using data in 48 consecutive subjects (20 patients with AD and 28 control subjects).

Characterization and clinical use of inflammatory cerebrospinal fluid protein markers in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Neuroinflammation has gained increasing attention as a potential contributing factor in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. A clinical cerebrospinal fluid biomarker capable of monitoring this process during the course of the disease has yet to emerge, chiefly owing to contradictory research findings. In this study, we sought to clarify the utility of inflammatory biomarkers in diagnostic procedures of AD in three steps: (1) to screen for proteins that are robustly detectable in cerebrospinal fluid; (2) based on this analysis, to explore any associations between the analytically robust markers and salient pathological features of AD; and (3) to determine the discriminative power of these markers in the clinical diagnosis of AD.

MLC901 Favors Angiogenesis and Associated Recovery after Ischemic Stroke in Mice.

Background: There is increasing evidence that angiogenesis, through new blood vessel formation, results in improved collateral circulation and may impact the long-term recovery of patients. In this study, we first investigated the preventive action of a 5-week pretreatment of MLC901, an herbal extract preparation derived from Chinese medicine, against the deleterious effects of ischemic stroke and its effects on angiogenesis in a model of focal ischemia in mice.

Methods: The stroke model was induced by 60 min of middle cerebral artery occlusion followed by reperfusion.

Long-term cerebral consequences of sepsis.

Sepsis is a potentially fatal whole-body inflammatory state caused by severe infection, in which a maladaptive, system-wide inflammatory response follows initial attempts to eliminate pathogens, leading to a dangerous and often fatal increase in the permeability of the blood-brain barrier. These changes in the blood-brain barrier might lead to a major symptom of sepsis, sepsis-associated encephalopathy, which manifests as confusion with a rapid decline in cognitive functions, especially memory, or coma. Once presumed to be entirely reversible, research suggests that sepsis-associated encephalopathy could lead to permanent neurocognitive dysfunction and functional impairments, even after the patient has recovered.

Mapacalcine protects mouse neurons against hypoxia by blocking cell calcium overload.

Stroke is one of a major cause of death and adult disability. Despite intense researches, treatment for stroke remains reduced to fibrinolysis, a technique useful for less than 10% of patients. Finding molecules able to treat or at least to decrease the deleterious consequences of stroke is an urgent need.

Clinical symptoms and risk factors in cerebral microangiopathy patients.

Objective: Although the clinical manifestation and risk factors of cerebral microangiopathy (CM) remain unclear, the number of diagnoses is increasing. Hence, patterns of association among lesion topography and severity, clinical symptoms and demographic and disease risk factors were investigated retrospectively in a cohort of CM patients.

Methods: Patients treated at the Department of Neurology, University of Bonn for CM (n = 223; 98m, 125f; aged 77.

Persistent cognitive impairment, hippocampal atrophy and EEG changes in sepsis survivors.

Objectives: The objective of this preliminary study was to explore long-term changes in neurobehavioral parameters, brain morphology and electroencephalography of sepsis patients who received intensive care compared to non-septic intensive care unit (ICU) patients.

Methods: Two-centre follow-up study 6-24 months after discharge from hospital using published norms and existing databases of healthy controls for comparison. Patients included 25 septic and 19 non-septic ICU survivors who were recruited from two ICUs of a university and community hospital.

Spadin, a sortilin-derived peptide, targeting rodent TREK-1 channels: a new concept in the antidepressant drug design.

Current antidepressant treatments are inadequate for many individuals, and when they are effective, they require several weeks of administration before a therapeutic effect can be observed. Improving the treatment of depression is challenging. Recently, the two-pore domain potassium channel TREK-1 has been identified as a new target in depression, and its antagonists might become effective antidepressants.

Everyday memory deficits in very mild Alzheimer's disease.

Memory complaints of patients sometimes are not verified via standard cognitive testing. Acquisition of information in everyday life requires memorization in complex three-dimensional environments. The authors mimicked this with a photorealistic virtual environment (VE).

A potent protective role of lysophospholipids against global cerebral ischemia and glutamate excitotoxicity in neuronal cultures.

Lysophospholipids (LPLs) are important intermediates in the synthesis and degradation of membrane phospholipids. Here we show that certain LPLs, particularly lysophosphatidylcholine and lysophosphatidylinositol, prevent neuronal death both in an in vivo model of transient global ischemia and in an in vitro model of excitotoxicity using primary cultures of cerebellar granule cells exposed to high extracellular concentrations of glutamate (20-40 micromol/L). The intravenous injection of lysophosphatidylcholine or lysophosphatidylinositol at a concentration of 200 nmol/kg induced a survival of CA1 pyramidal neurons as high as approximately 95%, even when the treatment was started 30 minutes after 15-minute global ischemia.