Clinical Presentation, Investigation Findings, and Outcomes of IgG4-Related Pachymeningitis: A Systematic Review.

Importance: Immunoglobulin G4 (IgG4)-related disease is an increasingly recognized fibroinflammatory condition that can involve multiple organs, including the pachymeninges. The understanding of IgG4-related pachymeningitis (IgG4-RP) remains limited because of its rarity and the predominance of knowledge derived from case reports and case series.

Objective: To systematically review and synthesize the clinical presentation, investigation findings, and prognosis of IgG4-RP to better understand its diagnosis and management.

Working with the inner critic in patients with depression using chairwork: a pilot study.

Introduction: Individuals diagnosed with depression frequently experience self-criticism, leading to considerable psychological distress. Despite the availability of cognitive-behavioral treatments, a notable proportion of patients indicate that they solely experience cognitive improvements, without the corresponding emotional changes, following therapy. As a result, their psychological symptoms persist.

Identifying high-risk neurological phenotypes in adult-onset classic monogenic autoinflammatory diseases: when should neurologists consider testing?

Background: Monogenic autoinflammatory disorders result in a diverse range of neurological symptoms in adults, often leading to diagnostic delays. Despite the significance of early detection for effective treatment, the neurological manifestations of these disorders remain inadequately recognized.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review searching Pubmed, Embase and Scopus for case reports and case series related to neurological manifestations in adult-onset monogenic autoinflammatory diseases.

Vitamin D as an add-on treatment for multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a higher risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) and disease progression. However, the efficacy of vitamin D as an adjuvant therapy for MS remains a controversial topic.

Objective: To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials to assess the impact of adjunct high-dose vitamin D on clinical and radiological outcomes.

Evaluating the Feasibility of a Novel Firearm Injury Prevention Program for Pre-adolescent Children Through Health Care and Community-Based Partnerships: The Program Pilot Study.

Background: Firearm violence is an American public health crisis that negatively impacts children and disproportionately affects Black youth. Few firearm injury prevention programs have been described in pre-adolescent children. The Program is a novel collaboration constructed via partnership between the medical school, trauma center, academic surgery department, and local non-profit community organization.

Addressing self-criticism in depression using CBT-based emotion-focused chairwork: study protocol of a randomised controlled trial.

Introduction: Self-criticism is a key feature in people diagnosed with depression, resulting in significant psychological distress. Despite the fact that cognitive-behavioural treatments are readily available, a significant number of patients report experiencing cognitive, but not emotional, change following therapy, resulting in the maintenance of psychological symptoms. Additionally, interventions targeting emotional experiencing, such as chairwork, are generally implemented within large-scale therapeutic treatments.

Identification of brain functional connectivity during acute transcutaneous tibial nerve stimulation: A 3T fMRI study.

Objectives: A feasibility proof-of-concept study was conducted to assess the effects of acute tibial nerve stimulation (TNS) on the central nervous system in healthy volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Materials And Methods: Fourteen healthy volunteers were included in a prospective, single-site study conducted on a clinical 3T MRI scanner. Four scans of functional MRI, each lasting 6 min, were acquired: two resting-state fMRI scans (prior and following the TNS intervention) and in-between two fMRI scans, both consisting of alternating rest periods and noninvasive acute transcutaneous TNS (TTNS).

Supratentorial Lymphocytic Inflammation with Parenchymal Perivascular Enhancement Responsive to Steroids (SLIPPERS)-Does it Really Exist?

Supratentorial Lymphocytic Inflammation with Parenchymal Perivascular Enhancement Responsive to Steroids (SLIPPERS) is a rare variant of the CLIPPERS spectrum with less than ten reports published so far. There is ongoing discussion regarding whether SLIPPERS is a disease entity on its own or just an acronym encompassing many underlying diagnoses, such as sarcoidosis, vasculitis and anti-glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-associated disease. A 40-year-old woman presented with episodes of language and attention impairment.

Satisfaction with Homeopathic Service and Care for Persons with Spinal Cord Injury.

Background: The aim of the study was to investigate the satisfaction of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) with a homeopathic service at an SCI rehabilitation center.

Patients And Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire study was performed at an SCI rehabilitation center in Switzerland. It included patients with chronic SCI who presented themselves to a homeopathic service offered by the hospital in a 12-months period.

Early labour experience questionnaire: Translation and cultural adaptation into German.

Problem: Evidence on early labour care suggests that women's needs are not adequately met.

Background: Women's perceptions of early labour management impact on their overall birth experience. Valid measurement tools are needed for evaluation and improvement of early labour care.

Gait pattern analysis in the home environment as a key factor for the reliable assessment of shunt responsiveness in patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus.

Background: The identification of patients with gait disturbance associated with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is challenging. This is due to the multifactorial causes of gait disturbance in elderly people and the single moment examination of laboratory tests.

Objective: We aimed to assess whether the use of gait sensors in a patient's home environment could help establish a reliable diagnostic tool to identify patients with iNPH by differentiating them from elderly healthy controls (EHC).

Cost, efficacy, and safety comparison between early intensive and escalating strategies for multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: The optimal treatment strategy of multiple sclerosis (MS) is a matter of debate. The classical approach is the escalating (ESC) strategy, which consists of starting with low- to moderate-efficacy disease-modifying drugs (DMDs) and upscale to high-efficacy DMDs when noting some evidence of active disease. Another approach, the early intensive (EIT) strategy, is starting with high-efficiency DMDs as first-line therapy.

Diagnostic tools for neurosyphilis: a systematic review.

Purpose: Increasing incidences of syphilis highlight the preoccupation with the occurrence of neurosyphilis. This study aimed to understand the current diagnostic tools and their performance to detect neurosyphilis, including new technologies and the variety of existing methods.

Methods: We searched databases to select articles that reported neurosyphilis diagnostic methods and assessed their accuracy, presenting sensitivity and specificity values.

Therapeutic induction of tolerogenic dendritic cells via aryl hydrocarbon receptor signaling.

Dendritic cells (DCs) are potent antigen-presenting cells (APCs), which sample the exogenous and endogenous cues to control adaptive immunity, balancing effector and regulatory components of the immune response. Multiple subsets of DCs, such as plasmacytoid and conventional DCs, have been defined based on specific phenotypic markers, functions and regulatory transcriptional programs. Tolerogenic DCs (tolDCs) have been functionally defined based on their ability to expand the regulatory T-cell compartment and suppress immune responses.

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor and the gut-brain axis.

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor initially identified as the receptor for dioxin. Almost half a century after its discovery, AHR is now recognized as a receptor for multiple physiological ligands, with important roles in health and disease. In this review, we discuss the role of AHR in the gut-brain axis and its potential value as a therapeutic target for immune-mediated diseases.

Prominent microglial inclusions in transgenic mouse models of α-synucleinopathy that are distinct from neuronal lesions.

Alpha-synucleinopathies are a group of progressive neurodegenerative disorders, characterized by intracellular deposits of aggregated α-synuclein (αS). The clinical heterogeneity of these diseases is thought to be attributed to conformers (or strains) of αS but the contribution of inclusions in various cell types is unclear. The aim of the present work was to study αS conformers among different transgenic (TG) mouse models of α-synucleinopathies.

Learning ambidextrous robot grasping policies.

Universal picking (UP), or reliable robot grasping of a diverse range of novel objects from heaps, is a grand challenge for e-commerce order fulfillment, manufacturing, inspection, and home service robots. Optimizing the rate, reliability, and range of UP is difficult due to inherent uncertainty in sensing, control, and contact physics. This paper explores "ambidextrous" robot grasping, where two or more heterogeneous grippers are used.

Adaptation of the Scrambled-Sentences Task to Assess "Shattered Assumptions:" Construction of the Test and Investigation of Neural Substrates in an fMRI Study.

Background: Increasing recognition is being given to the importance of cognitions observed in posttraumatic conditions. These cognitions may reflect the activation of negative schemas. The aim of this work was to evaluate the feasibility of the scrambled-sentences task (SST) to assess individual differences in attributions commonly observed after traumas.

Amyloid polymorphisms constitute distinct clouds of conformational variants in different etiological subtypes of Alzheimer's disease.

The molecular architecture of amyloids formed in vivo can be interrogated using luminescent conjugated oligothiophenes (LCOs), a unique class of amyloid dyes. When bound to amyloid, LCOs yield fluorescence emission spectra that reflect the 3D structure of the protein aggregates. Given that synthetic amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) has been shown to adopt distinct structural conformations with different biological activities, we asked whether Aβ can assume structurally and functionally distinct conformations within the brain.

Aβ seeding potency peaks in the early stages of cerebral β-amyloidosis.

Little is known about the extent to which pathogenic factors drive the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) at different stages of the long preclinical and clinical phases. Given that the aggregation of the β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) is an important factor in AD pathogenesis, we asked whether Aβ seeds from brain extracts of mice at different stages of amyloid deposition differ in their biological activity. Specifically, we assessed the effect of age on Aβ seeding activity in two mouse models of cerebral Aβ amyloidosis (APPPS1 and APP23) with different ages of onset and rates of progression of Aβ deposition.

Mapping synaptic glutamate transporter dysfunction in vivo to regions surrounding Aβ plaques by iGluSnFR two-photon imaging.

Amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD), are surrounded by regions of neuronal and glial hyperactivity. We use in vivo two-photon and wide-field imaging of the glutamate sensor iGluSnFR to determine whether pathological changes in glutamate dynamics in the immediate vicinity of Aβ deposits in APPPS1 transgenic mice could alter neuronal activity in this microenvironment. In regions close to Aβ plaques chronic states of high spontaneous glutamate fluctuations are observed and the timing of glutamate responses evoked by sensory stimulation exhibit slower decay rates in two cortical brain areas.