Inflammation-induced reorientation of reward versus punishment sensitivity is attenuated by minocycline.

Inflammation rapidly reorients motivational state, mood is impaired, pleasurable activities avoided and sensitivity to negative stimuli enhanced. When sustained, this can precipitate major depressive episodes. In humans, this has been linked to opposing actions of inflammation on striatal/insula reward/punishment learning signals while in rodents, motivational impairments can be attenuated with minocycline, implicating a mechanistic role for microglia.

Diffusion-weighted MR spectroscopy (DW-MRS) is sensitive to LPS-induced changes in human glial morphometry: A preliminary study.

Background: Low-dose lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a well-established experimental method for inducing systemic inflammation and shown by microscopy to activate microglia in rodents. Currently, techniques for in-vivo imaging of glia in humans are limited to TSPO (Translocator protein) PET, which is expensive, methodologically challenging, and has poor cellular specificity. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance spectroscopy (DW-MRS) sensitizes MR spectra to diffusion of intracellular metabolites, potentially providing cell-specific information about cellular morphology.

Longterm Safety and Efficacy of Adalimumab and Infliximab for Uveitis Associated with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.

Objective: Anti-TNF-α agents have significantly changed the management of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). We evaluated the safety and efficacy of adalimumab (ADA) and infliximab (IFX) for the treatment of JIA-associated uveitis in patients treated for ≥ 2 years.

Methods: Patients with JIA-associated uveitis treated with IFX and ADA were managed by a standardized protocol and data were entered in the ORCHIDEA registry.

Female sex and oligoarthritis category are not risk factors for uveitis in Italian children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Objective: To investigate the risk factors for chronic anterior uveitis in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).

Methods: The clinical charts of patients followed between January 1987 and December 2011 were reviewed to establish whether they had uveitis. Inclusion criteria were a diagnosis of JIA and a disease category of persistent oligoarthritis, extended oligoarthritis, rheumatoid factor-negative polyarthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or undifferentiated arthritis.

Disruption of autoregulatory feedback by a mutation in a remote, ultraconserved PAX6 enhancer causes aniridia.

The strictly regulated expression of most pleiotropic developmental control genes is critically dependent on the activity of long-range cis-regulatory elements. This was revealed by the identification of individuals with a genetic condition lacking coding-region mutations in the gene commonly associated with the disease but having a variety of nearby chromosomal abnormalities, collectively described as cis-ruption disease cases. The congenital eye malformation aniridia is caused by haploinsufficiency of the developmental regulator PAX6.

Safety and efficacy of infliximab and adalimumab for refractory uveitis in juvenile idiopathic arthritis: 1-year followup data from the Italian Registry.

Objective: To evaluate safety and efficacy of adalimumab (ADA) and infliximab (IFX) for the treatment of juvenile idiopathic arthritis-related anterior uveitis (JIA-AU).

Methods: Starting January 2007, patients with JIA-AU treated with IFX and ADA were managed by a standard protocol and data were entered into the National Italian Registry (NIR). At baseline, all patients were refractory to standard immunosuppressive treatment and/or were corticosteroid-dependent.

Sudden blindness in a child with Crohn's disease.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is often associated with extraintestinal manifestations (EIMs) such as optic neuritis (ON), although this has been described in only a few adult patients so far, all of whom were affected with Crohn's disease (CD). Furthermore, ON and demyelinating diseases have been demonstrated to be more frequent in IBD patients than in control populations. In our current case report, we describe a child with active CD who developed sudden blindness due to bilateral ON that was not related to any known cause, and that promptly responded to a high dose of steroids.

[Usefulness of an audiovisual support to informed consent before percutaneous coronary intervention procedures].

Background: Informed consent must be obtained from all patients undergoing medical procedures, especially when these imply a significant risk of severe adverse events. However, as for interventional cardiology, recall of information has been shown to be poor. In this study we evaluated the usefulness of an audiovisual support, in adjunct to the standard written informative form, in obtaining: (a) effective patient information before invasive coronary procedures, and (b) patient familiarization with the cath lab team, equipment, and the main procedural phases.

Very late nonfatal consequences of fractionated TBI in children undergoing bone marrow transplant.

Purpose: To describe long-term late consequences in children who received total body irradiation (TBI) for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation 10 years earlier.

Methods And Materials: A cohort of 42 children treated with TBI between 1985 and 1993, still alive at least 10 years after fractionated TBI (FTBI), was evaluated. Twenty-five patients received FTBI at 330 cGy/day for 3 days (total dose 990 cGy), whereas 17 children were administered fractions of 200 cGy twice daily for 3 days (total dose 1200 cGy).