Diagnostic Criteria for Primary Autoimmune Cerebellar Ataxia—Guidelines from an International Task Force on Immune-Mediated Cerebellar Ataxias

Aside from well-characterized immune-mediated ataxias with a clear trigger and/or association with specific neuronal antibodies, a large number of idiopathic ataxias are suspected to be immune mediated but remain undiagnosed due to lack of diagnostic biomarkers. Primary autoimmune cerebellar ataxia (PACA) is the term used to describe this later group. An International Task Force comprising experts in the field of immune ataxias was commissioned by the Society for Research on the Cerebellum and Ataxias (SRCA) in order to devise diagnostic criteria aiming to improve the diagnosis of PACA. The proposed diagnostic criteria for PACA are based on clinical (mode of onset, pattern of cerebellar involvement, presence of other autoimmune diseases), imaging findings (MRI and if available MR spectroscopy showing preferential, but not exclusive involvement of vermis) and laboratory investigations (CSF pleocytosis and/or CSF-restricted IgG oligoclonal bands) parameters. The aim is to enable clinicians to consider PACA when encountering a patient with progressive ataxia and no other diagnosis given that such consideration might have important therapeutic implications.

     

Developing an Educational Framework for Urological Nursing: Using a World Café approach to gain an emerging international understanding of issues,challenges and responses

A series of three World Café events centred on the topic of developing an Educational Framework for Urological Nursing [EFUN] were held by the British Association of Urological Nurses [BAUN], the European Association of Urology Nurses [EAUN] and the Australian and New Zealand Urological Nursing Society [ANZUNS] between 2017 and 2019. About 376 urology nurses participated in these “conversations that matter” and generated 1047 individual response items that were grouped into themes to assist the three associations to take the creation of an EFUN to the next level. Areas explored centred on four aspects: what any agreed educational framework for urology nursing should contain; the academic level at which education should be provided; who should be recruited as collaborators on writing an educational framework and, lastly, just how any emergent framework should be used. Analysis of the conversational data indicate that there exists within the urological nursing community a collective wisdom regarding their educational needs and how these needs should be met.     

Juvenile mild traumatic brain injury elicits distinct spatiotemporal astrocyte responses

Mild-traumatic brain injury (mTBI) represents ~80% of all emergency room visits and increases the probability of developing long-term cognitive disorders in children. To date, molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying post-mTBI cognitive dysfunction are unknown. Astrogliosis has been shown to significantly alter astrocytes' properties following brain injury, potentially leading to significant brain dysfunction. However, such alterations have never been investigated in the context of juvenile mTBI (jmTBI). A closed-head injury model was used to study jmTBI on postnatal-day 17 mice. Astrogliosis was evaluated using glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), vimentin, and nestin immunolabeling in somatosensory cortex (SSC), dentate gyrus (DG), amygdala (AMY), and infralimbic area (ILA) of prefrontal cortex in both hemispheres from 1 to 30 days postinjury (dpi). In vivo T2-weighted-imaging (T2WI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were performed at 7 and 30 dpi to examine tissue level structural alterations. Increased GFAP-labeling was observed up to 30 dpi in the ipsilateral SSC, the initial site of the impact. However, vimentin and nestin expression was not perturbed by jmTBI. The morphology of GFAP positive cells was significantly altered in the SSC, DG, AMY, and ILA up to 7 dpi that some correlated with magnetic resonance imaging changes. T2WI and DTI values were significantly altered at 30 dpi within these brain regions most prominently in regions distant from the impact site. Our data show that jmTBI triggers changes in astrocytic phenotype with a distinct spatiotemporal pattern. We speculate that the presence and time course of astrogliosis may contribute to pathophysiological processes and long-term structural alterations following jmTBI.     

Do all mammals dream?

The presence of dreams in human sleep, especially in REM sleep, and the detection of physiologically similar states in mammals has led many to ponder whether animals experience similar sleep mentation. Recent advances in our understanding of the anatomical and physiological correlates of sleep stages, and thus dreaming, allow a better understanding of the possibility of dream mentation in nonhuman mammals. Here, we explore the potential for dream mentation, in both non-REM and REM sleep across mammals. If we take a hard-stance, that dream mentation only occurs during REM sleep, we conclude that it is unlikely that monotremes, cetaceans, and otariid seals while at sea, have the potential to experience dream mentation. Atypical REM sleep in other species, such as African elephants and Arabian oryx, may alter their potential to experience REM dream mentation. Alternatively, evidence that dream mentation occurs during both non-REM and REM sleep, indicates that all mammals have the potential to experience dream mentation. This non-REM dream mentation may be different in the species where non-REM is atypical, such as during unihemispheric sleep in aquatic mammals (cetaceans, sirens, and Otariid seals). In both scenarios, the cetaceans are the least likely mammalian group to experience vivid dream mentation due to the morphophysiological independence of their cerebral hemispheres. The application of techniques revealing dream mentation in humans to other mammals, specifically those that exhibit unusual sleep states, may lead to advances in our understanding of the neural underpinnings of dreams and conscious experiences.