Significance of neurodegeneration and neuroplasticity serum biomarkers in Parkinson's disease patients treated with subthalamic stimulation.

The ability of serum biomarkers to predict the prognosis and response to deep-brain stimulation (DBS) therapy in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients is promising. Here, we showed that NfL differed between healthy individuals and PD patients and that changes in NfL, GFAP, and BDNF occurred only transiently after DBS surgery. Therefore, subthalamic stimulation does not promote neurodegeneration, and these biomarkers do not serve as clinical improvement endpoints in PD DBS patients.

Neuroimaging and serum biomarkers of neurodegeneration and neuroplasticity in Parkinson's disease patients treated by intermittent theta-burst stimulation over the bilateral primary motor area: a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, crossover trial study.

Background And Objectives: Intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) is a patterned form of excitatory transcranial magnetic stimulation that has yielded encouraging results as an adjunctive therapeutic option to alleviate the emergence of clinical deficits in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Although it has been demonstrated that iTBS influences dopamine-dependent corticostriatal plasticity, little research has examined the neurobiological mechanisms underlying iTBS-induced clinical enhancement. Here, our primary goal is to verify whether iTBS bilaterally delivered over the primary motor cortex (M1) is effective as an add-on treatment at reducing scores for both motor functional impairment and nonmotor symptoms in PD.

Subthalamic Beta Activity in Parkinson's Disease May Be Linked to Dorsal Striatum Gray Matter Volume and Prefrontal Cortical Thickness: A Pilot Study.

Background: Excessive oscillations at beta frequencies (13-35 Hz) in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) represent a pathophysiological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD), which correlates well with parkinsonian symptoms and is reduced in response to standard disease treatments. However, the association of disease-specific regional gray matter (GM) atrophy or cortical thickness (CT) with the presence of STN beta oscillatory activity has been poorly investigated but is of relevance given the potential of these variables for extracting information about PD pathophysiology. This exploratory study investigated the involvement of regional GM volume and CT in the basal ganglia-cortical network and its potential association with the presence of STN beta oscillatory activity in PD.

Cell surface expression of GRP78 and CXCR4 is associated with childhood high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia at diagnostics.

Acute lymphocytic leukemia is the most common type of cancer in pediatric individuals. Glucose regulated protein (GRP78) is an endoplasmic reticulum chaperone that facilitates the folding and assembly of proteins and regulates the unfolded protein response pathway. GRP78 has a role in survival of cancer and metastasis and cell-surface associated GRP78 (sGRP78) is expressed on cancer cells but not in normal cells.