Automated quantification of neuronal swellings in a preclinical rodent model of Parkinson's disease detects region-specific changes in pathology.

Background: The development of axonal pathology is a key characteristic of many neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. With advanced disease progression, affected axons do display several signs of pathology such as swelling and fragmentation. In the AAV vector-mediated alpha-synuclein overexpression model of Parkinson's disease, large (> 20 µm) pathological swellings are prominent characteristics in cortical and subcortical structures.

Autoantibodies in Pandemrix-induced narcolepsy: Nine candidate autoantigens fail the conformational autoantibody test.

Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is a chronic sleep disorder characterized by loss of hypocretin-producing neurons. Increased NT1 incidence was observed in Sweden following mass-vaccination with Pandemrix. Genetic association to implies an autoimmune origin, but target autoantigen remains unknown.