1,721,343 research outputs found
Assessing Repair in Multiple Sclerosis: Outcomes for Phase II Clinical Trials
No full textMultiple Sclerosis (MS) pathology is complex and includes inflammatory processes, neurodegeneration, and demyelination. While multiple drugs have been developed to tackle MS-related inflammation, to date there is scant evidence regarding which therapeutic approach, if any, could be used to reverse demyelination, foster tissue repair, and thus positively impact on chronic disability. Here, we reviewed the current structural and functional markers (magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, optical coherence tomography, and visual evoked potentials) which could be used in phase II clinical trials of new compounds aimed to foster tissue repair in MS. Magnetic transfer ratio recovery in newly formed lesions currently represents the most widely used biomarker of tissue repair in MS, even if other markers, such as optical coherence tomography and positron emission tomography hold great promise to complement magnetic transfer ratio in tissue repair clinical trials. Future studies are needed to better characterize the different possible biomarkers to study tissue repair in MS, especially regarding their pathological specificity, sensitivity to change, and their relationship with disease activity
Age-related decline in mentalizing skills across adult life span
No full textIn the literature, there are few and conflicting reports regarding age-related changes in adult mentalizing abilities: whereas Happe et al. (1998, Developmental Psychology, 34, 358-362) showed better performances of elderly compared with young subjects in an advanced theory of mind (ToM) task, Mayor et al. (2002, British Journal of Psychology, 93, 465-485) and Sullivan and Ruffmann (2004, British Journal of Psychology, 95(Pt 1), 1-18) found an age-related decline. Former studies addressing the issue compared young to elderly subjects and did not investigate earlier changes in middle-aged adults. To shed light on changes in ToM skills along adulthood, the authors used the revised version of the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test" (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 241-251) to compare four groups of people of different ages covering the whole span of adult life. The authors found aged-related decline in ToM skills as early as the fifth decade of life. Awareness of the age-related changes in adult mentalizing is important to differentiate normal aging effects from ToM impairments due to neuropsychiatric diseases
Is There a Role of Vitamin D in Alzheimer's disease?
No full textAlzheimer's disease (AD) represents the most prevalent type of neurodegenerative dementia and the sixth leading cause of death worldwide. The so-called "non-calcemic actions" of vitamin D have been increasingly described, and its insufficiency has already been linked to the onset and progression of the main neurological diseases, including AD. Immune-mediated Aβ plaque's phagocytosis and clearance, immune response, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial function are all influenced by vitamin D, and these functions are considered relevant in AD pathogenesis. However, it has been shown that the genomic vitamin D signaling pathway is already impaired in the AD brain, making things more complicated. In this paper, we aim to summarise the role of vitamin D in AD and review the results of the supplementation trials in AD patients
Insights into the role of cerebrospinal fluid cytokines in Alzheimer's disease: A commentary on recent findings
Full text link: We read the study by Bruno et al. (2025), which highlights the interplay between neuroinflammation and cortical activity in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Their findings on IL-4, IL-7, IL-8, and IL-12 levels and their association with EEG alterations complement our recent research on IL-6, GDF-15, and neuronal damage. We discuss the implications of IL-8 in blood-brain barrier permeability and neurodegeneration, the role of APOE4 in epilepsy-related phenotypes, and the need for better patient stratification. Future studies should explore these inflammatory pathways to clarify the relationship between neurodegeneration and interictal epileptiform discharges in AD
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex modulates fatigue after penetrating traumatic brain injury
No full textSerum neurofilament light chain rate of change in Alzheimer's disease: potentials applications and notes of caution
No full textImpact of Dielectric Changes of Forest Volumes on L-Band SAR Reflectivity Profiles
Full text linkSynthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Tomography (TomoSAR) allows reconstructing a vertical profile of the power backscattered by natural volumes by combining more than two SAR images acquired with slightly different incidence angles. Being an electromagnetic quantity, the profile depends on the radar frequency, polarization, and acquisition geometry, but also on the 3-D distribution of the backscattering elements and their dielectric properties. The characterization of each one of these factors is crucial to enable the extraction of physical 3-D structure attributes from TomoSAR profiles.
The objective of this work is to investigate how L-band TomoSAR reflectivity profiles of forest volumes are affected by seasonal and weather-induced changes of their dielectric properties. Radiometric (e.g. ground and volume powers) and geometric (e.g. center of mass of the volume-only profiles and phase centers of the volume scattering layers) parameters have been estimated under different conditions and compared. Then, TomoSAR data sets affected by dielectric non-stationarities (i.e. changing conditions) have been considered in order to assess the invariance of each radiometric and geometric parameter. This analysis has been carried out by processing four L-band airborne TomoSAR data sets acquired before and after a rainfall, and in spring and autumn over the Traunstein forest (South of Germany)
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