Multimodal MRI study on the relation between WM integrity and connected GM atrophy and its effect on disability in early multiple sclerosis.

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is characterized by pathology in white matter (WM) and atrophy of grey matter (GM), but it remains unclear how these processes are related, or how they influence clinical progression.

Objective: To study the spatial and temporal relationship between GM atrophy and damage in connected WM in relapsing-remitting (RR) MS in relation to clinical progression.

Methods: Healthy control (HC) and early RRMS subjects visited our center twice with a 1-year interval for MRI and clinical examinations, including the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC) scores.

A conserved pressure-driven mechanism for regulating cytosolic osmolarity.

Controlling intracellular osmolarity is essential to all cellular life. Cells that live in hypo-osmotic environments, such as freshwater, must constantly battle water influx to avoid swelling until they burst. Many eukaryotic cells use contractile vacuoles to collect excess water from the cytosol and pump it out of the cell.

A conserved pressure-driven mechanism for regulating cytosolic osmolarity.

Controlling intracellular osmolarity is essential to all cellular life. Cells that live in hypo-osmotic environments like freshwater must constantly battle water influx to avoid swelling until they burst. Many eukaryotic cells use contractile vacuoles to collect excess water from the cytosol and pump it out of the cell.

Upper cervical cord atrophy is independent of cervical cord lesion volume in early multiple sclerosis: A two-year longitudinal study.

Background: Upper cervical cord atrophy and lesions have been shown to be associated with disease and disability progression already in early relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). However, their longitudinal relationship remains unclear.

Objective: To investigate the cross-sectional and longitudinal relation between focal T2 cervical cord lesion volume (CCLV) and regional and global mean upper cervical cord area (UCCA), and their relations with disability.

Relationship Between White Matter Lesions and Gray Matter Atrophy in Multiple Sclerosis: A Systematic Review.

Background And Objectives: There is currently no consensus about the extent of gray matter (GM) atrophy that can be attributed to secondary changes after white matter (WM) lesions or the temporal and spatial relationships between the 2 phenomena. Elucidating this interplay will broaden the understanding of the combined inflammatory and neurodegenerative pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis (MS), and separating atrophic changes due to primary and secondary neurodegenerative mechanisms will then be pivotal to properly evaluate treatment effects, especially if these treatments target the different processes individually. To untangle these complex pathologic mechanisms, this systematic review provides an essential first step: an objective and comprehensive overview of the existing in vivo knowledge of the relationship between brain WM lesions and GM atrophy in patients diagnosed with MS.

Damage in the Thalamocortical Tracts is Associated With Subsequent Thalamus Atrophy in Early Multiple Sclerosis.

In early multiple sclerosis (MS), thalamus atrophy and decreased integrity of the thalamocortical white matter (WM) tracts have been observed. To investigate the temporal association between thalamus volume and WM damage in the thalamocortical tract in subjects with early MS. At two time points, 72 subjects with early MS underwent T1, FLAIR and diffusion tensor imaging.

Comparing lesion segmentation methods in multiple sclerosis: Input from one manually delineated subject is sufficient for accurate lesion segmentation.

Purpose: Accurate lesion segmentation is important for measurements of lesion load and atrophy in subjects with multiple sclerosis (MS). International MS lesion challenges show a preference of convolutional neural networks (CNN) strategies, such as nicMSlesions. However, since the software is trained on fairly homogenous training data, we aimed to test the performance of nicMSlesions in an independent dataset with manual and other automatic lesion segmentations to determine whether this method is suitable for larger, multi-center studies.

Validation of mean upper cervical cord area (MUCCA) measurement techniques in multiple sclerosis (MS): High reproducibility and robustness to lesions, but large software and scanner effects.

Introduction: Atrophy of the spinal cord is known to occur in multiple sclerosis (MS). The mean upper cervical cord area (MUCCA) can be used to measure this atrophy. Currently, several (semi-)automated methods for MUCCA measurement exist, but validation in clinical magnetic resonance (MR) images is lacking.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders in later life: prevalence and distribution of age at onset and sex in a dutch catchment area.

Objectives: The prevalence of schizophrenia in later life is affected by both outflow of early onset patients, due to recovery and excess mortality, and inflow of patients with a later age at onset, making it likely that characteristics of older patients differ markedly from younger patients. We assessed the prevalence of schizophrenia and spectrum disorders and their distribution according to age at onset and sex in an elderly population.

Design: Case register study.

[Residual neuropsychological, structural and functional brain abnormalities after long-term cannabis use].

Background: An important question that arises in policy discussions concerning the use of cannabis is whether the possible harmful effects of cannabis are reversible.

Aim: To review studies on residual neuropsychological, structural and functional brain abnormalities that may have resulted from the long-term use of cannabis.

Method: When we searched Medline (January 1966 - December 2003) and EMBASE (January 1988 - December 2003) using the key words 'cannabis', 'marijuana', 'neuropsychological test', 'cognition', 'CT-scan', 'MRI', 'PET', 'SPECT' and 'brain', we found 29 studies in our area of interest.

Outcome and predictors of failure of highly active antiretroviral therapy: one-year follow-up of a cohort of human immunodeficiency virus type 1-infected persons.

The outcome and predictors of virologic treatment failure of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) were determined for 271 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected protease inhibitor-naive persons. During a follow-up of 48 weeks after the initiation of HAART, 6.3% of patients experienced at least one new AIDS-defining event, and 3.