Rationale and Design of the "DIagnostic and Prognostic Precision Algorithm for behavioral variant Frontotemporal Dementia" (DIPPA-FTD) Study: A Study Aiming to Distinguish Early Stage Sporadic FTD from Late-Onset Primary Psychiatric Disorders.

Background: The behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is very heterogeneous in pathology, genetics, and disease course. Unlike Alzheimer's disease, reliable biomarkers are lacking and sporadic bvFTD is often misdiagnosed as a primary psychiatric disorder (PPD) due to overlapping clinical features. Current efforts to characterize and improve diagnostics are centered on the minority of genetic cases.

Irrelevant Interests? A Qualitative Study Into How German Family Surrogates of Persons Living With Dementia Fulfill Their Legal Role as Advocates of an Advance Directive.

Background And Objectives: German legislation establishes advance directives (ADs) as legally binding instruments that all involved parties need to adhere to. This applies also to family members who have been authorized as official surrogates of the AD's author. As surrogates, they are expected to make sure that the AD is being implemented.

The cost-utility of a return-to-work intervention in comparison to routine care for patients with mental disorders in Germany: Results from the RETURN project.

Background: Only two-thirds of patients admitted to psychiatric wards return to their previous jobs. Return-to-work interventions in Germany are investigated for their effectiveness, but information regarding cost-effectiveness is lacking. This study investigates the cost-utility of a return-to-work intervention for patients with mental disorders compared to treatment as usual (TAU).

Histopathologic abundance of pigmentation correlates with disease-specific survival in malignant melanoma but is not independent of current AJCC pT stage.

The increasing number of melanoma patients makes it necessary to develop best possible strategies for prognosis assessment in order to recommend appropriate therapy and follow-up. The prognostic significance of tumor cell pigmentation has not been fully elucidated. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained sections of 775 melanomas diagnosed between 2012 and 2015 were independently assessed for melanin pigment abundance by two investigators, and the impact on melanoma-specific survival was calculated.

Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: a critical review of the evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes.

In recent years, the scientific community has called for improvements in the credibility, robustness and reproducibility of research, characterized by increased interest and promotion of open and transparent research practices. While progress has been positive, there is a lack of consideration about how this approach can be embedded into undergraduate and postgraduate research training. Specifically, a critical overview of the literature which investigates how integrating open and reproducible science may influence is needed.

[Return-to-Work - The Transition after Psychiatric Inpatient Treatment].

Objectives: Workers on sick-leave due to a mental illness have enormous problems to return to work. The main objective of the present study is to examine, how individuals experience the transition from the mental health system to their workplace.

Methods: A qualitative research design guided by a grounded theory approach was used.

Speech Motor Profiles in Primary Progressive Aphasia.

Purpose: Previous research on motor speech disorders (MSDs) in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) has largely focused on patients with the nonfluent/agrammatic variant of PPA (nfvPPA), with few systematic descriptions of MSDs in variants other than nfvPPA. There has also been an emphasis on studying apraxia of speech, whereas less is known about dysarthria or other forms of MSDs. This study aimed to examine the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of MSDs in a prospective sample of individuals with PPA independent of subtype.

Structural correlates of language processing in primary progressive aphasia.

Understanding the relationships between brain structure and language behaviour in primary progressive aphasia provides crucial information about these diseases' pathomechanisms. However, previous investigations have been limited from providing a statistically reliable view of broad language abilities by sample size, variant focus and task focus. In this study, the authors aimed to determine the relationship between brain structure and language behaviour in primary progressive aphasia, to determine the degree to which task-associated regions were atrophied across disease variants and to determine the degree to which task-related atrophy overlaps across disease variants.

Inappropriate Involvement? Presenting Empirical Insight into the Preparation Phase of Advance Directives of Persons Living with Dementia Under German Legislation.

The scholarly debate on advance directives (ADs) in the context of dementia is mainly built around ethical arguments. Empirical studies that shed light into the realities of ADs of persons living with dementia are few and far between and too little is known about the effect of national AD legislation on such realities. This paper offers insight into the preparation phase of ADs according to German legislation in the context of dementia.

Supporting return to work after psychiatric hospitalization-A cluster randomized study (RETURN-study).

Background: If people with episodic mental-health conditions lose their job due to an episode of their mental illness, they often experience personal negative consequences. Therefore, reintegration after sick leave is critical to avoid unfavorable courses of disease, longer inability to work, long payment of sickness benefits, and unemployment. Existing return-to-work (RTW) programs have mainly focused on "common mental disorders" and often used very elaborate and costly interventions without yielding convincing effects.

How do employees currently admitted to acute psychiatric inpatient units rate their psychosocial working conditions with the COPSOQ (Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire).

Background: In recent years it could be shown that psychosocial working conditions and mental health of employees are closely correlated. One well-established instrument to measure psychosocial stress at work is the COPSOQ (Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, German Standard Version). It is an 84 item self-rating instrument addressing several domains of psychosocial working conditions and is generally used for risk assessments in companies.

Exploring Links Between Psychosis and Frontotemporal Dementia Using Multimodal Machine Learning: Dementia Praecox Revisited.

Importance: The behavioral and cognitive symptoms of severe psychotic disorders overlap with those seen in dementia. However, shared brain alterations remain disputed, and their relevance for patients in at-risk disease stages has not been explored so far.

Objective: To use machine learning to compare the expression of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) patterns of behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), Alzheimer disease (AD), and schizophrenia; estimate predictability in patients with bvFTD and schizophrenia based on sociodemographic, clinical, and biological data; and examine prognostic value, genetic underpinnings, and progression in patients with clinical high-risk (CHR) states for psychosis or recent-onset depression (ROD).

[Deprescribing of antipsychotic drugs for dementia : Recommendations for action on dose reduction and discontinuation attempts].

Background: Guidelines for the treatment of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) recommend that if antipsychotics are necessary, these should be used only for a limited time and with the lowest possible dose.

Objective: In order to raise awareness of the risks of antipsychotic treatment in patients with dementia and the resulting need for time-limited and as low-dose antipsychotic treatment as possible, recommendations for deprescribing of antipsychotics in people with dementia have been developed.

Material And Methods: The recommendations were developed in a multistage process: 1.

Multimodal speech-gesture training in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder: Effects on quality of life and neural processing.

Dysfunctional social communication is one of the most stable characteristics in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) that severely affects quality of life. Interpreting abstract speech and integrating nonverbal information is particularly affected. Considering the difficulty to treat communication dysfunctions with usual intervention, we investigated the possibility to apply a multimodal speech-gesture (MSG) training.

Return-to-work interventions for persons/employees with mental illnesses.

Purpose Of Review: Mental illnesses are among the most common diseases worldwide. Cases of inability to work caused by mental illness are frequent and the related economic burden is immense. A successful reintegration into their work environment of those patients who were on sick leave due to a mental illness is an important prognostic factor for the further course of the disease and helps reducing financial consequences.

A bitter pill to swallow - Polypharmacy and psychotropic treatment in people with advanced dementia.

Background: Polypharmacy is common in people with dementia. The use of psychotropic drugs (PDs) and other, potentially inappropriate medications is high. The aims of this cross-sectional study were 1) to investigate the use of drugs in people with advanced dementia (PWAD), living at home or in long term care (LTC); 2) to focus on PD use; and 3) to identify determinants of PD use.

Loss of TREM2 rescues hyperactivation of microglia, but not lysosomal deficits and neurotoxicity in models of progranulin deficiency.

Haploinsufficiency of the progranulin (PGRN)-encoding gene (GRN) causes frontotemporal lobar degeneration (GRN-FTLD) and results in microglial hyperactivation, TREM2 activation, lysosomal dysfunction, and TDP-43 deposition. To understand the contribution of microglial hyperactivation to pathology, we used genetic and pharmacological approaches to suppress TREM2-dependent transition of microglia from a homeostatic to a disease-associated state. Trem2 deficiency in Grn KO mice reduced microglia hyperactivation.

Utility of the Repeat and Point Test for Subtyping Patients With Primary Progressive Aphasia.

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) may present with three distinct clinical sybtypes: semantic variant PPA (svPPA), nonfluent/agrammatic variant PPA (nfvPPA), and logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA).

Objective: The aim was to examine the utility of the German version of the Repeat and Point (R&P) Test for subtyping patients with PPA.

Method: During the R&P Test, the examiner reads out aloud a noun and the participants are asked to repeat the word and subsequently point to the corresponding picture.

[Development of a Return-to-work Intervention for Psychiatric Inpatients].

Objective: Patients with mental illnesses often face difficulties when returning to workplace after an episode of inpatient treatment. Available resources intended to support the return-to-work process are often not used. It was the aim of the present study to develop an intervention that facilitates the implementation of patient support at the interface of in- and outpatient care.

Differences in Sex Distribution Between Genetic and Sporadic Frontotemporal Dementia.

Background: Reported sex distributions differ between frontotemporal dementia (FTD) cohorts. Possible explanations are the evolving clinical criteria of FTD and its subtypes and the discovery of FTD causal genetic mutations that has resulted in varying demographics.

Objective: Our aim was to determine the sex distribution of sporadic and genetic FTD cases and its subtypes in an international cohort.

Neural Basis of Speech-Gesture Mismatch Detection in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.

Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) exhibit an aberrant perception and comprehension of abstract speech-gesture combinations associated with dysfunctional activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Recently, a significant deficit of speech-gesture mismatch detection was identified in SSD, but the underlying neural mechanisms have not yet been examined. A novel mismatch-detection fMRI paradigm was implemented manipulating speech-gesture abstractness (abstract/concrete) and relatedness (related/unrelated).

Brainhack: Developing a culture of open, inclusive, community-driven neuroscience.

Brainhack is an innovative meeting format that promotes scientific collaboration and education in an open, inclusive environment. This NeuroView describes the myriad benefits for participants and the research community and how Brainhacks complement conventional formats to augment scientific progress.