Background:
Faster acting antidepressants and biomarkers that predict treatment response are needed to facilitate the development of more effective treatments for patients with major depressive ...disorders. Here, we evaluate implicitly and explicitly processed emotional faces using neuroimaging to identify potential biomarkers of treatment response to the antimuscarinic, scopolamine.
Methods:
Healthy participants (n=15) and unmedicated-depressed major depressive disorder patients (n=16) participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover infusion study using scopolamine (4 μg/kg). Before and following scopolamine, blood oxygen-level dependent signal was measured using functional MRI during a selective attention task. Two stimuli comprised of superimposed pictures of faces and houses were presented. Participants attended to one stimulus component and performed a matching task. Face emotion was modulated (happy/sad) creating implicit (attend-houses) and explicit (attend-faces) emotion processing conditions. The pretreatment difference in blood oxygen-level dependent response to happy and sad faces under implicit and explicit conditions (emotion processing biases) within a-priori regions of interest was correlated with subsequent treatment response in major depressive disorder.
Results:
Correlations were observed exclusively during implicit emotion processing in the regions of interest, which included the subgenual anterior cingulate (P<.02) and middle occipital cortices (P<.02).
Conclusions:
The magnitude and direction of differential blood oxygen-level– dependent response to implicitly processed emotional faces prior to treatment reflect the potential to respond to scopolamine. These findings replicate earlier results, highlighting the potential for pretreatment neural activity in the middle occipital cortices and subgenual anterior cingulate to inform us about the potential to respond clinically to scopolamine.
Background
Liver inflammation in alcoholism has been hypothesized to influence the development of a neuroinflammatory process in the brain characterized by neurodegeneration and altered cognitive ...function. Monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1/chemokine (C‐C motif) ligand 2 (MCP‐1/CCL2) elevations have been noted in the alcoholic brain at autopsy and may have a role in this process.
Methods
We studied cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of MCP‐1 as well as interleukin‐1β and tumor necrosis factor‐α in 13 healthy volunteers and 28 alcoholics during weeks 1 and 4 following detoxification. Serum liver enzymes were obtained as markers of alcohol‐related liver inflammation.
Results
Compared to healthy volunteers, MCP‐1 levels were significantly higher in alcoholics both on day 4 and day 25 (p < 0.0001). Using multiple regression analysis, we found that MCP‐1 concentrations were positively associated with the liver enzymes gamma glutamyltransferase (GGT; p = 0.03) and aspartate aminotransferase/glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (AST/GOT; p = 0.004).
Conclusions
These preliminary findings are consistent with the hypothesis that neuroinflammation as indexed by CSF MCP‐1 is associated with alcohol‐induced liver inflammation, as defined by peripheral concentrations of GGT and AST/GOT.
BackgroundRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major contributor to lower respiratory tract infections worldwide and several vaccine candidates are currently in development. Following vaccine ...introduction, reliable RSV surveillance should enable monitoring of vaccination impact. Data on the RSV disease burden in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) are sparse.AimThe aim of this study was to gather knowledge on current practices of national RSV surveillance in the EU/EEA.MethodsNational Coordinators and National Focal Points for Influenza (epidemiologists and virologists) from the EU/EEA countries (n = 31) were invited to participate in an online survey in August and September 2017. The questionnaire covered questions on epidemiological and laboratory aspects of RSV surveillance.ResultsAll EU/EEA countries except Liechtenstein replied to the survey. Eighteen countries reported to have a sentinel surveillance system, 26 countries a non-sentinel surveillance system and three countries to have neither. RSV data collection was mostly done within the context of influenza surveillance. A wide range of diagnostic and characterisation assays was used for the detection of RSV.DiscussionThe majority of EU/EEA countries have some surveillance for RSV in place. The prevailing integration of RSV surveillance into the existing influenza sentinel surveillance system may lead to under-reporting of RSV. The documented variations in existing RSV surveillance systems and their outputs indicate that there is scope for developing guidelines on establishing comparable methods and outcomes for RSV surveillance across the EU/EEA, to ensure the availability of a consistent evidence base for assessing future vaccination programmes.
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