Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteome Changes in Older Non-Cardiac Surgical Patients with Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction.

Background: Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), a syndrome of cognitive deficits occurring 1-12 months after surgery primarily in older patients, is associated with poor postoperative outcomes. POCD is hypothesized to result from neuroinflammation; however, the pathways involved remain unclear. Unbiased proteomic analyses have been used to identify neuroinflammatory pathways in multiple neurologic diseases and syndromes but have not yet been applied to POCD.

APOE4 Copy Number-Dependent Proteomic Changes in the Cerebrospinal Fluid.

Background: APOE4 has been hypothesized to increase Alzheimer's disease risk by increasing neuroinflammation, though the specific neuroinflammatory pathways involved are unclear.

Objective: Characterize cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteomic changes related to APOE4 copy number.

Methods: We analyzed targeted proteomic data from ADNI CSF samples using a linear regression model adjusting for age, sex, and APOE4 copy number, and additional linear models also adjusting for AD clinical status or for CSF Aβ, tau, or p-tau levels.

Teaching during a pandemic: Using high-impact writing assignments to balance rigor, engagement, flexibility, and workload.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new challenges for instructors who seek high-impact educational practices that can be facilitated online without creating excessive burdens with technology, grading, or enforcement of honor codes. These practices must also account for the possibility that some students may need to join courses asynchronously and have limited or unreliable connectivity. Of the American Association of Colleges and University's list of 11 high-impact educational practices, writing-intensive courses may be the easiest for science faculty to adopt during these difficult times.

Prenatal cerebral ischemia triggers dysmaturation of caudate projection neurons.

Objective: Recently, we reported that the neocortex displays impaired growth after transient cerebral hypoxia-ischemia (HI) at preterm gestation that is unrelated to neuronal death but is associated with decreased dendritic arbor complexity of cortical projection neurons. We hypothesized that these morphological changes constituted part of a more widespread neuronal dysmaturation response to HI in the caudate nucleus (CN), which contributes to motor and cognitive disability in preterm survivors.

Methods: Ex vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), immunohistochemistry, and Golgi staining defined CN growth, cell death, proliferation, and dendritic maturation in preterm fetal sheep 4 weeks after HI.

Histopathological correlates of magnetic resonance imaging-defined chronic perinatal white matter injury.

Objective: Although magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the optimal imaging modality to define cerebral white-matter injury (WMI) in preterm survivors, the histopathological features of MRI-defined chronic lesions are poorly defined. We hypothesized that chronic WMI is related to a combination of delayed oligodendrocyte (OL) lineage cell death and arrested maturation of preoligodendrocytes (preOLs). We determined whether ex vivo MRI can distinguish distinct microglial and astroglial responses related to WMI progression and arrested preOL differentiation.