Longitudinal Analyses of Blood Transcriptome During Conversion to Psychosis.

The biological processes associated with the onset of schizophrenia remain largely unknown. Current hypotheses favor gene × environment interactions as supported by our recent report about DNA methylation changes during the onset of psychosis. Here, we conducted the first longitudinal transcriptomic analysis of blood samples from 31 at-risk individuals who later converted to psychosis and 63 at-risk individuals who did not.

Ultrabright and Fluorogenic Probes for Multicolor Imaging and Tracking of Lipid Droplets in Cells and Tissues.

Lipid droplets (LDs) are intracellular lipid-rich organelles that regulate the storage of neutral lipids and were recently found to be involved in many physiological processes, metabolic disorders, and diseases including obesity, diabetes, and cancers. Herein we present a family of new fluorogenic merocyanine fluorophores based on an indolenine moiety and a dioxaborine barbiturate derivative. These so-called StatoMerocyanines (SMCy) fluoresce from yellow to the near-infrared (NIR) in oil with an impressive fluorescence enhancement compared to aqueous media.

The Integration of Realistic Episodic Memories Relies on Different Working Memory Processes: Evidence from Virtual Navigation.

Memory is one of the most important cognitive functions in a person's life as it is essential for recalling personal memories and performing many everyday tasks. Although a huge number of studies have been conducted in the field, only a few of them investigated memory in realistic situations, due to methodological issues. The various tools that have been developed using virtual environments (VEs) have gained popularity in cognitive psychology and neuropsychology because they enable to create naturalistic and controlled situations, and are thus particularly adapted to the study of episodic memory (EM), for which an ecological evaluation is of prime importance.

Functional-Based Resection Does Not Worsen Quality of Life in Patients with a Diffuse Low-Grade Glioma Involving Eloquent Brain Regions: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Objective: We assessed the impact of surgery on postoperative cognitive function and ability to work in adult patients with a diffuse low-grade glioma involving eloquent brain regions and having a functional-based maximal surgical resection using intraoperative corticosubcortical mapping under awake conditions.

Methods: We prospectively included 39 consecutive patients with diffuse isocitrate dehydrogenase-mutant low-grade glioma without preoperative and adjuvant oncologic treatment and assessed preoperative (mean, 24.1 ± 21.

Imaging pathological activities of human brain tissue in organotypic culture.

Background: Insights into human brain diseases may emerge from tissue obtained after operations on patients. However techniques requiring transduction of transgenes carried by viral vectors cannot be applied to acute human tissue.

New Method: We show that organotypic culture techniques can be used to maintain tissue from patients with three different neurological syndromes for several weeks in vitro.

Normative data for the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test in the older French-Quebec population.

Objective: The aim of this study was to establish normative data for the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, a test assessing verbal episodic memory, in the older French-Quebec population.

Method: A total of 432 French-speaking participants aged between 55 and 93 years old, from the Province of Quebec (Canada), were included in the study. Using multiple regression analyses, normative data were developed for five variable of interest, namely scores on trial 1, sum of trials 1 to 5, interference list B, immediate recall of list A, and delayed recall of list A.

Relationships Between Lower Olfaction and Brain White Matter Lesions in Elderly Subjects with Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Background: Olfactory impairment is reported in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and is associated with hippocampal atrophy. In elderly people, dementia with AD neuropathology and white matter lesions (WML) is common. In this context, olfactory impairment could also depend on the presence of WML.

Evidence Supporting a Role for Constitutive Ghrelin Receptor Signaling in Fasting-Induced Hyperphagia in Male Mice.

Ghrelin is a potent orexigenic peptide hormone that acts through the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR), a G protein-coupled receptor highly expressed in the hypothalamus. In vitro studies have shown that GHSR displays a high constitutive activity, whose physiological relevance is uncertain. As GHSR gene expression in the hypothalamus is known to increase in fasting conditions, we tested the hypothesis that constitutive GHSR activity at the hypothalamic level drives the fasting-induced hyperphagia.

[Genetic factors in alcohol dependence].

Genetic factors are involved in the predisposition to alcohol dependence with an heritability of about 0.5. Sequencing or analysis of the polymorphisms of genes or the whole human genome allow to identify genetic markers of alcohol dependence.

De novo and secondary anaplastic meningiomas: a study of clinical and histomolecular prognostic factors.

Background: Following recent studies underlining the differences between de novo and secondary anaplastic meningiomas and the prognostic value of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutation, we decided to conduct a multicenter retrospective study to address these questions and determine specific prognostic factors in each of these 2 anaplastic meningioma subgroups.

Methods: Among the 68 meningioma cases initially selected, only 57 were confirmed as anaplastic meningiomas after centralized pathological review. TERT promoter mutation analysis was performed in all cases.

The dynamics of stress: a longitudinal MRI study of rat brain structure and connectome.

Stress is a well-established trigger for a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, as it alters both structure and function of several brain regions and its networks. Herein, we conduct a longitudinal neuroimaging study to assess how a chronic unpredictable stress protocol impacts the structure of the rat brain and its functional connectome in both high and low responders to stress. Our results reveal the changes that stress triggers in the brain, with structural atrophy affecting key regions such as the prelimbic, cingulate, insular and retrosplenial, somatosensory, motor, auditory and perirhinal/entorhinal cortices, the hippocampus, the dorsomedial striatum, nucleus accumbens, the septum, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, the thalamus and several brain stem nuclei.

The effect of interactions between genetics and cannabis use on neurocognition. A review.

Background: Cannabis is one of the most widely-used drugs in industrialized countries. It is now well established that cannabis use impacts neurocognition. In the intoxication period time episodic memory, working memory and attention are impacted and impulsivity is increased.

Mycolactone displays anti-inflammatory effects on the nervous system.

Background: Mycolactone is a macrolide produced by the skin pathogen Mycobacterium ulcerans, with cytotoxic, analgesic and immunomodulatory properties. The latter were recently shown to result from mycolactone blocking the Sec61-dependent production of pro-inflammatory mediators by immune cells. Here we investigated whether mycolactone similarly affects the inflammatory responses of the nervous cell subsets involved in pain perception, transmission and maintenance.

Carmustine wafer implantation for high-grade gliomas: Evidence-based safety efficacy and practical recommendations from the Neuro-oncology Club of the French Society of Neurosurgery.

There is a growing body of evidence that carmustine wafer implantation during surgery is an effective therapeutic adjunct to the standard combined radio-chemotherapy regimen using temozolomide in newly diagnosed and recurrent high-grade glioma patient management with a statistically significant survival benefit demonstrated across several randomized clinical trials, as well as prospective and retrospective studies (grade A recommendation). Compelling clinical data also support the safety of carmustine wafer implantation (grade A recommendation) in these patients and suggest that observed adverse events can be avoided in experienced neurosurgeon hands. Furthermore, carmustine wafer implantation does not seem to impact negatively on the quality of life and the completion of adjuvant oncological treatments (grade C recommendation).

Pramipexole and Electroconvulsive Therapy in Treatment-Resistant Depression.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common disease. Despite appropriate antidepressant treatment, approximately one third of patients do not achieve adequate response. In these patients, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a possible option.

βAPP Processing Drives Gradual Tau Pathology in an Age-Dependent Amyloid Rat Model of Alzheimer's Disease.

The treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains challenging and requires a better in depth understanding of AD progression. Particularly, the link between amyloid protein precursor (APP) processing and Tau pathology development remains poorly understood. Growing evidences suggest that APP processing and amyloid-β (Aβ) release are upstream of Tau pathology but the lack of animal models mimicking the slow progression of human AD raised questions around this mechanism.

Disruption of Conscious Access in Schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a severe and complex psychiatric disorder resulting in delusions, hallucinations, and cognitive impairments. Across a variety of paradigms, an elevated threshold for conscious perception has been repeatedly observed in persons with schizophrenia. Remarkably, even subtle measures of subliminal processing appear to be preserved.

History of psychosurgery at Sainte-Anne Hospital, Paris, France, through translational interactions between psychiatrists and neurosurgeons.

Sainte-Anne Hospital is the largest psychiatric hospital in Paris. Its long and fascinating history began in the 18th century. In 1952, it was at Sainte-Anne Hospital that Jean Delay and Pierre Deniker used the first neuroleptic, chlorpromazine, to cure psychiatric patients, putting an end to the expansion of psychosurgery.

Neuroplasticity and the brain connectome: what can Jean Talairach's reflections bring to modern psychosurgery?

Contrary to common psychosurgical practice in the 1950s, Dr. Jean Talairach had the intuition, based on clinical experience, that the brain connectome and neuroplasticity had a role to play in psychosurgery. Due to the remarkable progress of pharmacology at that time and to the technical limits of neurosurgery, these concepts were not put into practice.

Could an endoneurial endothelial crosstalk between Wnt/β-catenin and Sonic Hedgehog pathways underlie the early disruption of the infra-orbital blood-nerve barrier following chronic constriction injury?

Background: Blood–nerve barrier disruption is pivotal in the development of neuroinflammation, peripheral sensitization, and neuropathic pain after peripheral nerve injury. Activation of toll-like receptor 4 and inactivation of Sonic Hedgehog signaling pathways within the endoneurial endothelial cells are key events, resulting in the infiltration of harmful molecules and immunocytes within the nerve parenchyma. However, we showed in a previous study that preemptive inactivation of toll-like receptor 4 signaling or sustained activation of Sonic Hedgehog signaling did not prevent the local alterations observed following peripheral nerve injury, suggesting the implication of another signaling pathway.

Neuroimaging evidence of brain abnormalities in mastocytosis.

Mastocytosis is a rare disease in which chronic symptoms are related to mast cell accumulation and activation. Patients can display depression-anxiety-like symptoms and cognitive impairment. The pathophysiology of these symptoms may be associated with tissular mast cell infiltration, mast cell mediator release or both.

Oculomotricity and Neurological Soft Signs: Can we refine the endophenotype? A study in subjects belonging to the spectrum of schizophrenia.

Alterations in eye tracking and motor impairments as well as Neurological Soft Signs (NSS) are frequently reported in patients with schizophrenia as well as in their relatives, and are proposed as endophenotype of the disease. This study investigated smooth pursuit eye movement and fixation task with distractors with a gap condition, two markers of inhibitory control mechanism, in 49 patients with schizophrenia, 24 ultra-high risk subjects, 41 full biological clinical siblings of patients and 48 controls. NSS were assessed as a marker of abnormal neurodevelopment.