SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-related neurological complications.

Objective: To describe three cases with neurological symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Methods: A case series followed by a review of the literature, describing hypotheses on how neurological symptoms might develop after vaccination.

Results: The different temporal relationship between the onset or worsening of different neurological symptoms suggests different pathophysiological mechanisms.

Dopamine agonist treatment increases sensitivity to gamble outcomes in the hippocampus in de novo Parkinson's disease.

Background: Parkinson's disease is associated with severe nigro-striatal dopamine depletion, leading to motor dysfunction and altered reward processing. We previously showed that drug-naïve patients with Parkinson's disease had a consistent attenuation of reward signalling in the mesolimbic and mesocortical system. Here, we address the neurobiological effects of dopaminergic therapy on reward sensitivity in the mesolimbic circuitry, and how this may contribute to neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Attenuated neural response to gamble outcomes in drug-naive patients with Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease results from the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, manifesting as a spectrum of motor, cognitive and affective deficits. Parkinson's disease also affects reward processing, but disease-related deficits in reinforcement learning are thought to emerge at a slower pace than motor symptoms as the degeneration progresses from dorsal to ventral striatum. Dysfunctions in reward processing are difficult to study in Parkinson's disease as most patients have been treated with dopaminergic drugs, which sensitize reward responses in the ventral striatum, commonly resulting in impulse control disorders.

Depression and quality of life in monogenic compared to idiopathic, early-onset Parkinson's disease.

Quality of life (QoL) is decreased in PD and is linked with depression and anxiety. However, little is known about QoL in monogenic PD. Subjects with mutations in PD genes were recruited from ongoing family and genetic studies (manifesting carriers, n = 23; nonmanifesting carriers, n = 19).

Recessively inherited parkinsonism: effect of ATP13A2 mutations on the clinical and neuroimaging phenotype.

Objective: To determine clinical features and to identify changes in brain structure and function in compound heterozygous and heterozygous ATP13A2 mutation carriers.

Design: Prospective multimodal clinical and neuroimaging study.

Setting: University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

Impaired sense of smell and color discrimination in monogenic and idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

Olfaction is typically impaired in idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD), but its role is uncertain in monogenic PD. Diminished color discrimination has been suggested as another early sign of dopaminergic dysfunction but not been systematically studied. Furthermore, it is unknown whether both deficits are linked.

Nonmotor symptoms in genetic Parkinson disease.

Objectives: To review current knowledge on nonmotor symptoms (NMS), particularly psychiatric features, in genetic Parkinson disease (PD) and to provide original data for genetic and idiopathic PD.

Data Sources: A MEDLINE search using Parkinson and known PD genes focused on the presence of depression, anxiety, hallucinations, and dementia was performed. Original data from 82 outpatients with idiopathic (n = 55) and genetic (n = 27) PD were obtained.

Mapping preclinical compensation in Parkinson's disease: an imaging genomics approach.

Mutations in the Parkin (PARK2) and PINK1 gene (PARK 6) can cause recessively inherited Parkinson's disease (PD). The presence of a single Parkin or PINK1 mutation is associated with a dopaminergic nigrostriatal dysfunction and conveys an increased risk to develop PD throughout lifetime. Therefore neuroimaging of non-manifesting individuals with a mutant Parkin or PINK1 allele opens up a window for the investigation of preclinical and very early phases of PD in vivo.