The impact of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in patients with cancer: emerging themes.

Purpose Of Review: This review summarizes recent literature falling broadly under the topic of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the oncology setting, highlighting emerging themes and emphasizing novel explorations.

Recent Findings: Meta-analyses continue to confirm safety and efficacy of n-3 PUFA supplementation on reducing inflammation and improving survival in people with cancer. Common themes in recent studies emphasize improving tumor-directed efficacy and reducing toxicities of common cancer therapies.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Previous literature has highlighted that excessive alcohol use (EAU) is directly linked with permanent neurological damage. Studies have also highlighted gradual improvements in heart rate variability (HRV) after cessation of alcohol use. Moreover, chronic alcohol consumption has also been correlated with reduced HRV and an increase in skin conductance (SC) among healthy adults, leading to a combined decline in cognitive performance.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) presents with heterogeneous neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS). These symptoms often begin prior to the onset of FTD, and progress throughout the prodromal stages of FTD. Particularly, familial FTD due to autosomal dominant genetic mutations might display mutation-specific NPS profiles.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) stands as a prominent cognitive impairment screening tool, finding widespread use globally and existing in official versions across 14 languages, including Spanish. Despite this, the challenges emerge due to the extensive variations within the Spanish language, which is not only the fourth most spoken language worldwide but also possesses significant geographic diversity, particularly evident in regions like Peru. Here, the intersection of regional nuances, low educational backgrounds, and culturally distinct tasks complicates the application of a standard MoCA version.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: The Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) is a widely used measurement score to stage dementia severity; it has become one of the most common outcome measurements in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) research. The CDR-SB requires an informant to provide information to stage a patient's dementia severity. The effect of the informant's characteristics including sex and relationship with patients on the CDR-SB is unknown.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Depression affects individuals across various ages but is of significance in the older surgical population due to its adverse impact on cognitive function, surgical recovery, and overall functional disability. This study aimed to determine the overall prevalence and trajectory of depression in older surgical patients preoperatively, and at 30-, 90- and 180-days postoperatively.

Method: This study is a prespecified sub-study and analysis of the Postoperative Functional Disability in Unrecognized Cognitive Impairment Study.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Apathy may appear as a less acute late-life syndrome; however, it is associated with accelerated progression to dementia and contributes to adverse outcomes for patients and caregivers. These findings are not surprising since apathy can cause individuals to forego activities that improve cardiovascular and cognitive health (e.g.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) is a syndrome that leverages neuropsychiatric symptoms that emerge in later-life, and which persist, to identify individuals at high-risk for incident dementia. Attendant with MBI are changes in quality of life (QoL), which can present concurrent with the onset of cognitive decline or even before. Obtaining information from participants and study partners can provide a broader overview of health and QoL.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Recent research has highlighted the importance of sleep on cognitive processes. However, conflicting evidence exists regarding optimal sleep duration and the impact of other co-occurring conditions, such as depression. A diagnosis of depression in mid-life may increase the risk of developing dementia.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Cognitive assessments are essential for the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. However, existing tests are mostly developed in English-speaking cohorts. Hence, their application in multilingual populations will need translation which may affect their test psychometrics.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Automated analysis of natural speech is emerging as a promising digital biomarker of Alzheimer's disease (AD). As speech is a complex process, relying on multiple interacting cognitive functions, fine-grained analysis of speech may have the potential to capture subtle cognitive deficits in the very early stages of AD. Here, we examined the association between amyloid-beta (Aβ) pathology and acoustic speech characteristics in a group of cognitively normal Dutch adults.

Clinical Manifestations.

A critical need exists to find simpler approaches for early detection of Alzheimer disease (AD) and related dementias. These approaches must increase access to preventative interventions and treatments, both pharmacological and non-pharmacological, for people in preclinical and prodromal stages of disease. This need has been amplified by the emergence of disease modifying therapies (DMTs), which require biological confirmation of amyloid-ß positivity.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Verbal fluency (VF) is crucial for language processing and cognitive flexibility, involving selective attention, inhibition, set shifting, response generation, and self-monitoring. VF assessment includes two distinct tasks, i.e.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: The multisite SuperAging Research Initiative (SRI) was established in 2021 to identify resilience and resistance factors promoting cognitive healthspan through a harmonized multidisciplinary protocol with prospective data collection. The designation of SuperAger is reserved for individuals age 80+ with episodic memory performance that is at least average for those 2-3 decades younger. Research studies of this relatively uncommon phenotype allow for investigations of fundamental importance to the neurobiology of brain aging, resilience, resistance, and avoidance of cognitive decline related to "average aging" and more severe impairments associated with Alzheimer's and related dementias (ADRD).

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: When assessed in the Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI) framework, late-life onset psychotic like symptoms (MBI-psychosis) are associated with incident cognitive decline and dementia. One approach to examining the genetic basis of this association, is to use Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS) to determine whether genetic propensity for late-life onset psychosis is shared with other traits. We aimed to elucidate the shared genetic liability between Educational Attainment, Intelligence, Reasoning, Memory, Neuroticism, Alzheimer's Disease, Major Depression, Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder and Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI)-Psychosis in later life.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Sensory loss in hearing, vision, and olfaction are highly prevalent in older adults and are each associated with a higher risk of developing dementia. This study sought to identify the extent to which these sensory factors are associated with alterations in brain function and structure older adults with or at risk for dementia. We examined groups who range from relatively low risk (those with normal cognition and no cognitive complaints (NC)), to those with higher risk, namely individuals with subjective reports of cognitive decline (SCD) but normal cognition and those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Sporadic bvFTD is often misdiagnosed as a primary psychiatric disorder (PPD) due to overlapping clinical features and lack of reliable biomarkers. The multi-centre study DIPPA-FTD aims to develop diagnostic- and prognostic-algorithms that can distinguish sporadic bvFTD from late-onset PPD. The aim of the retrospective DIPPA-FTD study was to identify the strongest clinical discriminators.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI) is a condition characterized by neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in older adults without dementia, serving as a precursor to various forms of dementia. This study explores the association between NPS and functional connectivity (FC) within the default mode network (DMN), executive control network (ECN), and salience network (SN) across three high-risk cohorts: mild cognitive impairment (due to Alzheimer's) (MCI, n = 79), cerebrovascular disease (CVD, n = 144), and Parkinson's disease (PD, n = 132).

Method: A total of 367 participants were recruited from the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI).

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Classical literature has pointed at lateralization of the relationship between memory scores and cerebral hemisphere injury. Epilepsy studies have suggested an association between left hippocampal damage and verbal memory deficits, and between right hippocampal damage and visual memory deficits. We aimed to explore this concept in the context of tauopathy due to Alzheimer's disease.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Recent studies showed that neuroinflammation plays a key role in triggering specific neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS), such as irritability and agitation, in individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD). While prior studies showed an association between tau pathology and all NPS domains, the extent to which tau influences each specific NPS domain remains unclear. Here, we aim to investigate the association of tau and NPS domains in the AD continuum.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Clinically meaningful cognitive impairment has typically been defined as a single impaired test score, but this approach is prone to false-positive errors. Examining two test scores at a lower threshold (i.e.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and older age are well-known risk factors for dementia. Indeed, there is evidence that older adults not diagnosed, but at-risk for T2D can show early signs of cognitive decline, further exacerbated by excessive body weight or high blood glucose levels. Such a finding would have implications for early treatment strategies; however, the evidence is still sparse.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: The utility of neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) for early detection of AD and/or other neuropathologies is not fully understood, with concerns regarding specificity. Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) is a syndrome identifying persons at risk for incident cognitive decline and dementia by leveraging risk associated with later-life emergent and persistent NPS. Here, in dementia-free individuals at baseline, we examined whether AD, Lewy body (LB), and/or transactive response DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) pathology at autopsy were associated with the presence of MBI five years before death.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Apathy and mood symptoms are increasingly recognised as clinical important aspects of prodromal dementia; both are associated with increased risk of dementia even in cognitively normal people. The clinical overlap between apathy and low mood poses a challenge in distinguishing between the two conditions. It is crucial to differentiate between depression and apathy, along with any underlying syndromes, to facilitate the development of targeted treatments.

Clinical Manifestations.

Background: Menopause has been associated with greater dementia risk. We investigated the relationship between the presence of specific symptoms experienced during menopause (i.e.