Tolosa-Hunt syndrome: a review of diagnostic criteria based on a case series.

Purpose: Tolosa-Hunt syndrome (THS) is a rare cause of painful ophtalmoplegia with different clinical manifestations. It is described as a unilateral periorbital headache with concomitant dysfunction of at least one out of the IIIrd, IVth and VIth cranial nerves due to the granulomatous inflammation of periorbital structures, but no underlying cause has been established.

Case Description: We present six patients referred to the Neurology Department due to a unilateral headache with ipsilateral paresis of at least one cranial nerve responsible for eye movements.

The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis as a Key to Neuropsychiatric Disorders: A Mini Review.

The central nervous system (CNS) is closely related to the gastrointestinal tract, mainly through regulating its function and homeostasis. Simultaneously, the gut flora affects the CNS and plays an essential role in the pathogenesis of neurologic and neuropsychological disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or autism spectrum disorder. The population of gut microorganisms contains more than one billion bacteria.

[Phylogeographic approach in the interpretation of mitochondrial DNA sequencing results in forensics].

In recent years, forensic mitochondrial DNA analysis has been undertaken from an evolutionary perspective. In particular, the phylogeographic approach based on a phylogenetic analysis of the spatial distribution of mitochondrial haplotypes and haplogroups appears to be a useful tool in the interpretation of identification cases. In this study, the phylogeographic approach has been employed in the analysis of three difficult forensic cases, where single nucleotide, homoplasmic differences were found between the reference and evidentiary haplotypes.

[Correlations between haplogroup membership and Y-STR haplotype as a potential measure of quality control in forensic examinations].

A correlation between particular Y-STR alleles from the so-called "minimal haplotype" and haplogroup membership of the Y chromosome was tested. We collected 146 Y chromosomes from haplogroups R1*, R1a1* and 1* and estimated the frequency of Y-STR alleles in each haplogroup. We then used different algorithms to assign a haplogroup to a haplotype, and tested their accuracy.

Optimization of the Y831C mutation detection in human DNA polymerase gamma by allelic discrimination assay.

Many well-defined mutations in the gene for the catalytic subunit of polymerase gamma (POLG1) have been found to be associated with disease, whereas the status of several mutations remains unresolved due to the conflicting reports on their frequencies in populations of healthy individuals. Here, we have developed a highly sensitive, real-time allelic discrimination assay enabling detection of the Y831C mutation in the POLG1 gene. The Y831C mutation is present in the Polish population at a frequency of 2.