A dedicated preventive protocol sustainably avoids spinal cord ischemia after endovascular aortic repair.

Objective: To analyze the incidence of spinal cord ischemia (SCI) after complex endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) after the introduction of a dedicated SCI preventive protocol.

Methods: Retrospective review of all consecutive patients undergoing complex EVAR with branched (BEVAR) and/or fenestrated grafts (FEVAR) during a 6-year period starting January 1st, 2015. The preventive protocol consisted of staging extensive aortic repairs, maintaining a mean arterial pressure (MAP) >80 mm Hg, Hb level >110 g/L, early lower limb reperfusion and neurological control per hour during the post-operative stay in the intensive care unit (36-72 h).

Progranulin mutation causes frontotemporal dementia in the Swedish Karolinska family.

Background: Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by cognitive impairment, language dysfunction, and/or changes in personality. Recently it has been shown that progranulin (GRN) mutations can cause FTD as well as other neurodegenerative phenotypes.

Methods: DNA from 30 family members, of whom seven were diagnosed with FTD, in the Karolinska family was available for GRN sequencing.

APOE-related mortality: effect of dementia, cardiovascular disease and gender.

Allele-frequency comparisons between younger and older populations suggest an effect of apolipoprotein E gene (APOE) on mortality, not consistently confirmed by longitudinal data. Our aim was to assess the effect of APOE on survival taking into account the possible contribution of Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, ischemic heart- and cerebrovascular disease (IHCD). In a community-based longitudinal study, the Kungsholmen Project, 75+ year-old individuals (n=1094) were examined, and followed for 18 years.

Association study of two genetic variants in mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Mitochondrial (mt) dysfunction has been implicated in Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) is needed for mtDNA maintenance, regulating mtDNA copy number and is absolutely required for transcriptional initiation at mtDNA promoters. Two genetic variants in TFAM have been reported to be associated with AD in a Caucasian case-control material collected from Germany, Switzerland and Italy.

Gene expression changes in brains of mice exposed to a maternal virus infection.

In this study, we tested the hypothesis that exposure to a maternal infection during fetal life can lead to the appearance of alterations in the brain later in life. C57BL/6 mice were infected intranasally with influenza A/WSN/33 virus on day 14 of gestation. The levels of transcripts encoding neuroleukin and fibroblast growth factor 5 were significantly elevated in the brains of the virus-exposed offspring at 90 and 280 days of age, but not at earlier time-points.