Tau oligomers impair memory and synaptic plasticity through the cellular prion protein.

Deposition of abnormally phosphorylated tau aggregates is a central event leading to neuronal dysfunction and death in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other tauopathies. Among tau aggregates, oligomers (TauOs) are considered the most toxic. AD brains show significant increase in TauOs compared to healthy controls, their concentration correlating with the severity of cognitive deficits and disease progression.

Characteristics of TSPO expression in marmoset EAE.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) and is a leading non-traumatic cause of disability in young adults. The 18 kDa Translocator Protein (TSPO) is a mitochondrial protein and positron emission tomography (PET)-imaging target that is highly expressed in MS brain lesions. It is used as an inflammatory biomarker and has been proposed as a therapeutic target.

Studying Alzheimer's disease through an integrative serum metabolomic and lipoproteomic approach.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent neurodegenerative disorder worldwide. The great variability in disease evolution and the incomplete understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying AD make it difficult to predict when a patient will convert from prodromal stage to dementia. We hypothesize that metabolic alterations present at the level of the brain could be reflected at a systemic level in blood serum of patients, and that these alterations could be used as prognostic biomarkers.

ROS-regulated SUR1-TRPM4 drives persistent activation of NLRP3 inflammasome in microglia after whole-brain radiation.

Delayed radiation-induced brain injury (RIBI) characterized by progressive cognitive decline significantly impacts patient outcomes after radiotherapy. The activation of NLRP3 inflammasome within microglia after brain radiation is involved in the progression of RIBI by mediating inflammatory responses. We have previously shown that sulfonylurea receptor 1-transient receptor potential M4 (SUR1-TRPM4) mediates microglial NLRP3-related inflammation following global brain ischemia.

hUC-MSCs Prevent Acute High-Altitude Injury through Apoe/Pdgf-b/p-Erk1/2 Axis in Mice.

Background: The hypobaric hypoxic atmosphere can cause adverse reactions or sickness. The purpose of this study was to explore the preventive effect and mechanism of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) on acute pathological injury in mice exposed to high-altitude.

Methods: We pretreated C57BL/6 mice with hUC-MSCs via the tail vein injection, and then the mice were subjected to hypobaric hypoxic conditions for five days.

Preserved brain youthfulness: longitudinal evidence of slower brain aging in superagers.

Background: Superagers, older adults with exceptional cognitive abilities, show preserved brain structure compared to typical older adults. We investigated whether superagers have biologically younger brains based on their structural integrity.

Methods: A cohort of 153 older adults (aged 61-93) was recruited, with 63 classified as superagers based on superior episodic memory and 90 as typical older adults, of whom 64 were followed up after two years.

Correlations between postmortem quantitative MRI parameters and demyelination, axonal loss and gliosis in multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is frequently used to monitor disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS). This study aims to systematically evaluate the correlation between MRI measures and histopathological changes, including demyelination, axonal loss, and gliosis, in the central nervous system of MS patients. We systematically reviewed post-mortem histological studies evaluating myelin density, axonal loss, and gliosis using quantitative imaging in MS.

Brain Midline Approximation to Improve Symmetry Analysis of Brain CT Scans.

Analysis of the symmetry of the brain hemispheres at the level of individual structures and dominant tissue features has been the subject of research for many years in the context of improving the effectiveness of imaging methods for the diagnosis of brain tumor, stroke, and Alzheimer's disease, among others. One useful approach is to reliably determine the midline of the brain, which allows comparative analysis of the hemispheres and uncovers information on symmetry/asymmetry in the relevant planes of, for example, CT scans. Therefore, an effective method that is robust to various geometric deformations, artifacts, varying noise characteristics, and natural anatomical variability is sought.

Rethinking the residual approach: leveraging statistical learning to operationalize cognitive resilience in Alzheimer's disease.

Cognitive resilience (CR) describes the phenomenon of individuals evading cognitive decline despite prominent Alzheimer's disease neuropathology. Operationalization and measurement of this latent construct is non-trivial as it cannot be directly observed. The residual approach has been widely applied to estimate CR, where the degree of resilience is estimated through a linear model's residuals.

State-dependent neurovascular modulation induced by transcranial ultrasound stimulation.

Previous studies reported baseline state-dependent effects on neural and hemodynamic responses to transcranial ultrasound stimulation. However, due to neurovascular coupling, neither neural nor hemodynamic baseline alone can fully explain the ultrasound-induced responses. In this study, using a general linear model, we aimed to investigate the roles of both neural and hemodynamic baseline status as well as their interactions in ultrasound-induced responses.

Rome Foundation Working Team Report on overlap in disorders of gut-brain interaction.

In patients with disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBI), overlapping non-gastrointestinal conditions such as fibromyalgia, headaches, gynaecological and urological conditions, sleep disturbances and fatigue are common, as is overlap among DGBI in different regions of the gastrointestinal tract. These overlaps strongly influence patient management and outcome. Shared pathophysiology could explain this scenario, but details are not fully understood.

Machine learning meta-analysis identifies individual characteristics moderating cognitive intervention efficacy for anxiety and depression symptoms.

Cognitive training is a promising intervention for psychological distress; however, its effectiveness has yielded inconsistent outcomes across studies. This research is a pre-registered individual-level meta-analysis to identify factors contributing to cognitive training efficacy for anxiety and depression symptoms. Machine learning methods, alongside traditional statistical approaches, were employed to analyze 22 datasets with 1544 participants who underwent working memory training, attention bias modification, interpretation bias modification, or inhibitory control training.

Social epidemiology of early adolescent nutrition.

Background: This study aimed to investigate associations between sociodemographic factors and dietary intake among a diverse population of early adolescents ages 10-13 years in the United States.

Methods: We examined data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study in Year 2 (2018-2020, ages 10-13 years, N = 10,280). Multivariable linear regression models were conducted to estimate the adjusted associations between sociodemographic factors (age, sex, race and ethnicity, household income, parental education) and dietary intake of various food groups, measured by the Block Kids Food Screener.

Relationship between functional structures and horizontal connections in macaque inferior temporal cortex.

Horizontal connections in anterior inferior temporal cortex (ITC) are thought to play an important role in object recognition by integrating information across spatially separated functional columns, but their functional organization remains unclear. Using a combination of optical imaging, electrophysiological recording, and anatomical tracing, we investigated the relationship between stimulus-response maps and patterns of horizontal axon terminals in the macaque ITC. In contrast to the "like-to-like" connectivity observed in the early visual cortex, we found that horizontal axons in ITC do not preferentially connect sites with similar object selectivity.

Epigenetic modulation of social cognition: exploring the impact of methylation in brain-derived neurotrophic factor and oxytocin receptor genes across sex.

Social cognition, which ranges from recognizing social cues to intricate inferential reasoning, is influenced by environmental factors and epigenetic mechanisms. Notably, methylation variations in stress-related genes like brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) are linked to distinct social cognitive functions and exhibit sex-specific differences. This study investigates how these methylation differences affect social cognition across sexes, focusing on both perceptual and inferential cognitive levels.

NIRS-BIDS: Brain Imaging Data Structure Extended to Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an increasingly popular neuroimaging technique that measures cortical hemodynamic activity in a non-invasive and portable fashion. Although the fNIRS community has been successful in disseminating open-source processing tools and a standard file format (SNIRF), reproducible research and sharing of fNIRS data amongst researchers has been hindered by a lack of standards and clarity over how study data should be organized and stored. This problem is not new in neuroimaging, and it became evident years ago with the proliferation of publicly available neuroimaging datasets.

Patients with neurological or psychiatric complications of COVID-19 have worse long-term functional outcomes: COVID-CNS-A multicentre case-control study.

It is established that patients hospitalised with COVID-19 often have ongoing morbidity affecting activity of daily living (ADL), employment, and mental health. However, little is known about the relative outcomes in patients with COVID-19 neurological or psychiatric complications. We conducted a UK multicentre case-control study of patients hospitalised with COVID-19 (controls) and those who developed COVID-19 associated acute neurological or psychiatric complications (cases).

The transcriptional response of cortical neurons to concussion reveals divergent fates after injury.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a risk factor for neurodegeneration, however little is known about how this kind of injury alters neuron subtypes. In this study, we follow neuronal populations over time after a single mild TBI (mTBI) to assess long ranging consequences of injury at the level of single, transcriptionally defined neuronal classes. We find that the stress-responsive Activating Transcription Factor 3 (ATF3) defines a population of cortical neurons after mTBI.

Stromal architecture and fibroblast subpopulations with opposing effects on outcomes in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Dissecting the spatial heterogeneity of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) is vital for understanding tumor biology and therapeutic design. By combining pathological image analysis with spatial proteomics, we revealed two stromal archetypes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with different biological functions and extracellular matrix compositions. Using paired single-cell RNA and epigenomic sequencing with Stereo-seq, we revealed two fibroblast subsets CAF-FAP and CAF-C7, whose spatial enrichment strongly correlated with the two stromal archetypes and opposing patient prognosis.

Genetic coupling of enhancer activity and connectivity in gene expression control.

Gene enhancers often form long-range contacts with promoters, but it remains unclear if the activity of enhancers and their chromosomal contacts are mediated by the same DNA sequences and recruited factors. Here, we study the effects of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) on enhancer activity and promoter contacts in primary monocytes isolated from 34 male individuals. Using eQTL-Capture Hi-C and a Bayesian approach considering both intra- and inter-individual variation, we initially detect 19 eQTLs associated with enhancer-eGene promoter contacts, most of which also associate with enhancer accessibility and activity.

Splicing accuracy varies across human introns, tissues, age and disease.

Alternative splicing impacts most multi-exonic human genes. Inaccuracies during this process may have an important role in ageing and disease. Here, we investigate splicing accuracy using RNA-sequencing data from >14k control samples and 40 human body sites, focusing on split reads partially mapping to known transcripts in annotation.

Brain state-dependent neocortico-hippocampal network dynamics are modulated by postnatal stimuli.

Neurons in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus discharge synchronously in brain state-dependent manner to transfer information. Published studies have highlighted the temporal coordination of neuronal activities between the hippocampus and a neocortical area, however, how the spatial extent of neocortical activity relates to hippocampal activity remains partially unknown. We imaged mesoscopic neocortical activity while recording hippocampal local field potentials in anesthetized and unanesthetized GCaMP-expressing transgenic mice.

Characterizing olfactory brain responses in young infants.

Odor perception plays a critical role in early human development, but the underlying neural mechanisms are not fully understood. To investigate these, we presented appetitive and aversive odors to infants of both sexes at one month of age while recording functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and nasal airflow data. Infants slept during odor presentation to allow MRI scanning.

Addressing residual and recurrent aneurysms post-Woven EndoBridge device embolization: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Early literature on the Woven EndoBridge (WEB) device reported 80-90% adequate aneurysm occlusion but low complete occlusion (40-55%). It is uncertain whether residual or recurrent aneurysms require re-treatment to prevent future rupture.

Objective: To systematically review the literature to meta-analyze occlusion and complication rates after re-treatment of these aneurysms.