Relationship Between CNS Infections, Stroke, and Neurological Complications: A Case Series.

Central nervous system infections and complications such as meningitis and stroke in immunocompromised patients can be caused by a wide spectrum of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, parasites, or fungi. This case series first presents a case of a 24-year-old Latino male patient with HIV, cytomegalovirus (CMV) encephalitis, a positive CSF for antigen, and a stroke, who presented to the primary care office with a headache and double vision. With his symptoms now occurring for more than two months without improvement, the patient was sent to the ED for a repeat MRI, where an enlargement of his ventricles compatible with hydrocephalus was observed.

Likelihood Ratios: An Important Concept for Palliative Physicians to Understand.

Palliative care has several tools and questionnaires which are commonly used for patient-related outcomes and prognosis. As an example, the Surprise Question (I would or would not be surprised that this person would have died in a year) has been used as a screen for palliative care referral but also used as a prognostic tool. Diagnostic tests, prognostic tools, and tools for gauging outcomes have certain sensitivity and specificity in predicting a diagnosis or outcome.

Prelimbic prefrontal cortical encoding of reward predictive cues.

Animals appoint incentive value and learn to approach otherwise behaviorally inert stimuli if these stimuli come to predict the delivery of reward. Interestingly, this adaptive Pavlovian learning process has been implicated in behavioral control disorders, such as drug addiction. One brain region implicated in directing conditioned approach behavior is the prelimbic region of the prefrontal cortex.

Chronic Stress Prevents Cortico-Accumbens Cue Encoding and Alters Conditioned Approach.

Chronic stress impairs the function of multiple brain regions and causes severe hedonic and motivational deficits. One brain region known to be susceptible to these effects is the PFC. Neurons in this region, specifically neuronal projections from the prelimbic region (PL) to the nucleus accumbens core (NAcC), have a significant role in promoting motivated approach.