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Refers to Enrico Premi, Marcello Giunta, Armin Iraji, Srinivas Rachakonda, Vince D. Calhoun, Stefano Gazzina, Alberto Benussi, Roberto Gasparotti, Silvana Archetti, Martina Bocchetta, Dave Cash, Emily Todd, Georgia Peakman, Rhian Convery, John C. van Swieten, Lize Jiskoot, Raquel Sanchez-Valle, Fermin Moreno, Robert Laforce, Caroline Graff, Matthis Synofzik, Daniela Galimberti, James B. Rowe, Mario Masellis, Carmela Tartaglia, Elizabeth Finger, Rik Vandenberghe, Alexandre de Mendonça, Fabrizio Tagliavini, Chris R. Butler, Isabel Santana, Alexander Gerhard, Isabelle Le Ber, Florence Pasquier, Simon Ducharme, Johannes Levin, Adrian Danek, Sandro Sorbi, Markus Otto, Jonathan D. Rohrer, Barbara Borroni Dissemination in time and space in presymptomatic granulin mutation carriers: a GENFI spatial chronnectome study. Neurobiology of Aging, Volume 108, December 2021, Pages 155-167 DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2021.09.001. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. The authors regret that the GENFI authors were listed at the end of the article in the Appendix. The GENFI authors are also part of co-authors. The updated author list is below. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Background: Dementia has a negative impact on the quality of life of the person with dementia and their spouse caregivers, as well as on the couple’s relationship, which can lead to high levels of distress for both partners. Hypnosis has been shown to be effective in managing distress and increasing the quality of the relationship. Objective: The aim was to develop a standardized hypnosis intervention for couples confronted with Alzheimer’s disease and evaluate its feasibility, acceptability, and helpfulness in managing the distress of both partners and increasing the quality of the relationship. Methods: In a single-arm study, sixteen couples received the 8-week intervention. Qualitative and quantitative assessments were conducted pre- and post-intervention as well as three months after. Results: 88.9% of couples (n = 16) of the final sample (n = 18) completed the intervention. Despite the negative representations of hypnosis, several factors led couples to accept to participate in this study: positive expectations, professional endorsement, medical application, non-drug approach, home-based, free, flexible, and couple-based intervention. The results showed a significant decrease in distress for both partners. These effects were maintained three months after the intervention. Couples felt more relaxed, had fewer negative emotions, accepted difficulties more easily, were more patient, and reported better communication and more affection in the relationship. Conclusion: Overall, this pilot study shows the feasibility and acceptability of hypnosis with couples confronted with Alzheimer’s disease. Although measures of the preliminary pre- and post-intervention effects are encouraging, confirmatory testing with a randomized controlled trial is needed.

Heterozygous mutation targeting proline 95 in Serine/Arginine-rich Splicing Factor 2 (SRSF2), associates with V617F mutation in Janus Activated Kinase 2 (JAK2) in some myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), most commonly primary myelofibrosis. To explore Srsf2P95H interaction with Jak2V617F, we generated Cre-inducible knock-in mice expressing these mutants under control of the stem cell leukemia (Scl) gene promoter. In transplantation experiments, Srsf2P95H unexpectedly delayed myelofibrosis induced by Jak2V617F and decreased TGFβ1 serum level. Srsf2P95H reduced the competitiveness of transplanted Jak2V617F hematopoietic stem cells while preventing their exhaustion. RNA sequencing of sorted megakaryocytes identified an increased number of splicing events when the two mutations were combined. Focusing on JAK/STAT pathway, Jak2 exon 14 skipping was promoted by Srsf2P95H, an event detected in patients with JAK2V617F and SRSF2P95 co-mutation. The skipping event generates a truncated inactive JAK2 protein. Accordingly, Srsf2P95H delays myelofibrosis induced by the thrombopoietin receptor agonist Romiplostim in Jak2 wildtype animals. These results unveil JAK2 exon 14 skipping promotion as a strategy to reduce JAK/STAT signaling in pathological conditions.

Dodich and colleagues recently reviewed the evidence supporting clinical use of social cognition assessment in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (Dodich et al., 2021). Here, we comment on their methods and present an initiative to address some of the limitations that emerged from their study. In particular, we established the social cognition workgroup within the Neuropsychiatric International Consortium Frontotemporal dementia (scNIC-FTD), aiming to validate social cognition assessment for diagnostic purposes and tracking of change across clinical situations. ispartof: NEUROPSYCHOLOGY REVIEW vol:33 issue:2 pages:544-550 ispartof: location:United States status: accepted

Supplementary Data from In Vivo Monitoring of Polycythemia Vera Development Reveals Carbonic Anhydrase 1 as a Potent Therapeutic Target

Current murine models of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) cannot examine how MPNs progress from a single bone marrow source to the entire hematopoietic system. Thus, using transplantation of knock-in JAK2V617F hematopoietic cells into a single irradiated leg, we show development of polycythemia vera (PV) from a single anatomic site in immunocompetent mice. Barcode experiments reveal that grafted JAK2V617F stem/progenitor cells migrate from the irradiated leg to nonirradiated organs such as the contralateral leg and spleen, which is strictly required for development of PV. Mutant cells colonizing the nonirradiated leg efficiently induce PV in nonconditioned recipient mice and contain JAK2V617F hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells that express high levels of carbonic anhydrase 1 (CA1), a peculiar feature also found in CD34+ cells from patients with PV. Finally, genetic and pharmacologic inhibition of CA1 efficiently suppresses PV development and progression in mice and decreases PV patients’ erythroid progenitors, strengthening CA1 as a potent therapeutic target for PV.Significance:Follow-up of hematopoietic malignancies from their initiating anatomic site is crucial for understanding their development and discovering new therapeutic avenues. We developed such an approach, used it to characterize PV progression, and identified CA1 as a promising therapeutic target of PV.This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 265

National audience; IntroductionLa presbyacousie comme les maladies neurodégénératives apparaissent insidieusement avec l’âge. Enjeu majeur de santé publique, elles sont néanmoins sous diagnostiquées car la présence de l’une entrave l’objectivation de l’autre.ObjectifsIntégrer lors du bilan cognitif en hôpital de jour en centre mémoire un dépistage des troubles de la compréhension de la parole dans le bruit.MéthodesCent vingt-deux participants, dont 70 femmes, d’âge moyen 72,9 (60–87 ans) ont réalisé trois épreuves : questionnaire Hearing Handicap Inventory for Elderly-Screening (HHIES) mesure la gêne auditive ; test de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit (dispositif ambulatoire – Vocal Rapide dans le Bruit, VRB Leclercq et al., 2018) et échelle cognitive de Mattis. Des analyses corrélationnelles entre l’âge, le résultat du VRB, le score HHIE-S et à la Mattis ont été menées.RésultatsLes corrélations objectivent une association entre les capacités de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit et l’âge (r = 0,324, p < 0,001), la gêne auditive (r = 0,249, p = 0,006) et les troubles cognitifs globaux (r = −0,502, p < 0,001).DiscussionCes résultats confortent le lien établi entre l’âge et les capacités de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit. Ils objectivent un lien entre la plainte auditive et les capacités de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit et révèlent que ces capacités sont amoindries chez les personnes ayant des troubles cognitifs objectivés à l’échelle de la Mattis.ConclusionLe dépistage précoce d’un déficit auditif lors d’évaluations cognitives est indispensable puisque la surdité est le principal facteur modifiable de la démence.

Supplementary Table from In Vivo Monitoring of Polycythemia Vera Development Reveals Carbonic Anhydrase 1 as a Potent Therapeutic Target

© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc-nd/4.0/), Objective: Sensitive cognitive markers are still needed for frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The Benson Complex Figure Test (BCFT) is an interesting candidate test, as it assesses visuospatial, visual memory, and executive abilities, allowing the detection of multiple mechanisms of cognitive impairment. To investigate differences in BCFT Copy, Recall and Recognition in presymptomatic and symptomatic FTD mutation carriers, and to explore its cognitive and neuroimaging correlates. Method: We included cross-sectional data from 332 presymptomatic and 136 symptomatic mutation carriers (GRN, MAPT or C9orf72 mutations), and 290 controls in the GENFI consortium. We examined gene-specific differences between mutation carriers (stratified by CDR® NACC-FTLD score) and controls using Quade's / Pearson Χ2 tests. We investigated associations with neuropsychological test scores and grey matter volume using partial correlations and multiple regression models respectively. Results: No significant differences were found between groups at CDR® NACC-FTLD 0-0.5. Symptomatic GRN and C9orf72 mutation carriers had lower Copy scores at CDR® NACC-FTLD ≥2. All three groups had lower Recall scores at CDR® NACC-FTLD ≥2, with MAPT mutation carriers starting at CDR® NACC-FTLD ≥1. All three groups had lower Recognition scores at CDR® NACC FTLD ≥2. Performance correlated with tests for visuoconstruction, memory, and executive function. Copy scores correlated with frontal-subcortical grey matter atrophy, while Recall scores correlated with temporal lobe atrophy. Conclusions: In the symptomatic stage, the BCFT identifies differential mechanisms of cognitive impairment depending on the genetic mutation, corroborated by gene-specific cognitive and neuroimaging correlates. Our findings suggest that impaired performance on the BCFT occurs relatively late in the genetic FTD disease process. Therefore its potential as cognitive biomarker for upcoming clinical trials in presymptomatic to early-stage FTD is most likely limited., The Dementia Research Centre is supported by Alzheimer's Research UK, Alzheimer's Society, Brain Research UK, and The Wolfson Foundation. This work was supported by the NIHR UCL/H Biomedical Research Centre, the Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre (LWENC) Clinical Research Facility, and the UK Dementia Research Institute, which receives its funding from UK DRI Ltd., funded by the UK Medical Research Council, Alzheimer's Society and Alzheimer's Research UK. JDR is supported by the Miriam Marks Brain Research UK Senior Fellowship and has received funding from an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship (MR/M008525/1) and the NIHR Rare Disease Translational Research Collaboration (BRC149/NS/MH). This work was also supported by the MRC UK GENFI grant (MR/M023664/1), the Bluefield Project, the JPND GENFI-PROX grant (2019–02248), the Dioraphte Foundation [grant numbers 09–02-00], the Association for Frontotemporal Dementias Research Grant 2009, The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant HCMI 056–13-018), ZonMw Memorabel (Deltaplan Dementie; project numbers 733050103 and 733050813), JPND PreFrontAls Consortium (project number 733051042) and Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain, and FEDER funds (grant number 20/00448). JBR is supported by the Wellcome Trust (103838), Medical Research Council (SUAG092 G116768) and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215 − 20014: the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care). This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy within the framework of the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (EXC 2145 SyNergy – ID 390857198). JMP is supported by a fellowship award from Alzheimer Nederland (WE.15–2019.02). This work was conducted using the MRC Dementias Platform UK (MR/L023784/1 and MR/009076/1).

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia have a strong clinical, genetic, and pathological connection but association of ALS with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is seldom reported. We report a series of 5 cases of AD associated with ALS. Our patients presented with cognitive deterioration with episodic memory impairment meeting criteria for AD. ALS occurred subsequently in all cases and its phenotype was not homogenous. Amyloid process was confirmed in four cases with cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers. One case underwent postmortem exam, demonstrating hallmarks lesions of both diseases. This series highlights that ALS-AD phenotype could be a specific underexplored entity.

C9orf72 repeat expansions are rarely associated with primary progressive aphasias (PPA). In-depth characterization of the linguistic deficits, and the underlying patterns of grey-matter atrophy in PPA associated with the C9orf72 expansions (PPA-C9orf72) are currently lacking. In this study, we comprehensively analyzed a unique series of 16 patients affected by PPA-C9orf72. Eleven patients were issued from two independent French and Finnish cohorts, and five were identified by means of literature review. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies were performed on three of them. This study depicts the spectrum of C9orf72–related aphasic phenotypes, and illustrates their linguistic presentation. The non-fluent/agrammatic variant was the most frequent phenotype in our series (9/16 patients, 56%), with apraxia of speech being the main defining feature. Left frontal lobe atrophy was present in these subjects, peaking in inferior frontal gyrus. Three patients (19%) showed the semantic variant, with progression of atrophy in temporo-polar regions, later involving orbitofrontal cortex. Anterior temporal lobe dysfunction was also particularly relevant in two patients (12.5%) with mixed forms of PPA. Lastly, two patients (12.5%) had unclassifiable PPA with predominating word-finding difficulties. No PPA-C9orf72 patients in our series fulfilled the criteria of the logopenic variant. Importantly, this study underlines the role of C9orf72 mutation in the disruption of the most anterior parts of the language network, including prefrontal and temporo-polar areas. It provides guidelines for C9orf72 testing in PPA patients, with important clinical impact as gene-specific therapies are upcoming.

The presymptomatic brain changes of granulin (GRN) disease, preceding by years frontotemporal dementia, has not been fully characterized. New approaches focus on the spatial chronnectome can capture both spatial network configurations and their dynamic changes over time. To investigate the spatial dynamics in 141 presymptomatic GRN mutation carriers and 282 noncarriers from the Genetic Frontotemporal dementia research Initiative cohort. We considered time-varying patterns of the default mode network, the language network, and the salience network, each summarized into 4 distinct recurring spatial configurations. Dwell time (DT) (the time each individual spends in each spatial state of each network), fractional occupacy (FO) (the total percentage of time spent by each individual in a state of a specific network) and total transition number (the total number of transitions performed by each individual in a specifict state) were considered. Correlations between DT, FO, and transition number and estimated years from expected symptom onset (EYO) and clinical performances were assessed. Presymptomatic GRN mutation carriers spent significantly more time in those spatial states characterised by greater activation of the insula and the parietal cortices, as compared to noncarriers (p < 0.05, FDR-corrected). A significant correlation between DT and FO of these spatial states and EYO was found, the longer the time spent in the spatial states, the closer the EYO. DT and FO significantly correlated with performances at tests tapping processing speed, with worse scores associated with increased spatial states’ DT. Our results demonstrated that presymptomatic GRN disease presents a complex dynamic reorganization of brain connectivity. Change in both the spatial and temporal aspects of brain network connectivity could provide a unique glimpse into brain function and potentially allowing a more sophisticated evaluation of the earliest disease changes and the understanding of possible mechanisms in GRN disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a heterogeneous pathology. Young patients with AD are particularly likely to have an atypical presentation. The objectives of the present cluster analysis were to determine whether patients with early-onset AD (EOAD) had several distinct cognitive profiles and to compare the resulting clusters with regard to clinical, neuroimaging, and laboratory characteristics. METHODS We collected cognitive, behavioural, functional, neuroimaging, and laboratory data on 72 patients meeting the criteria for probable mild EOAD. The patients were first classified into clinical phenotype groups by a multidisciplinary board of clinicians. The patients' cognitive and functional decline was monitored for 24 months. A k-means clustering analysis was then used to determine clusters on the basis of the patients' neuropsychological test results. RESULTS Two distinct clusters were identified: the patients in the first cluster (C1, n = 38) had a predominant memory impairment, whereas patients in the second (C2, n = 34) did not. Dyslipidaemia and the presence of ɛ4 apolipoprotein E allele were more frequent in C1, whereas the cognitive and functional decline was faster in the patients in C2. Moreover, posterior brain abnormalities were more severe in patients in C2 than in patients in C1. CONCLUSIONS By applying a k-means clustering analysis, we identified two clusters of patients in an EOAD cohort. The clusters differed with regard to certain clinical, imaging, and laboratory characteristics. This clustering procedure might be of value for managing patients with EOAD in general and for identifying those at risk of more rapid decline in particular.

International audience; Background During the 2005-2014 period, the GRAALL conducted the GRAALL-2005 trial in patients (pts) with Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-negative ALL aged 18-59y. In this trial, all pts received a pediatric-inspired chemotherapy, whatever their age. Post-hoc analysis revealed an unacceptable TRM in pts aged 45-59y (Huguet et al. J Clin Oncol 2018; 36:2514-23). Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) was offered in first complete remission (CR) to most CR pts, defined at high-risk (HR) by at least one baseline clinical or biological HR factor (CNS involvement, complex karyotype [≥5 abns.], low hypodiploidy/near triploidy, poor early blast clearance, late CR, as well as WBC ≥ 30x109/L, lack of CD10 expression, KMT2A rearrangement or TCF3::PBX1 fusion for B-cell precursor [BCP] ALL). Minimal residual disease (MRD) response was not considered for HSCT indication at that time.In the next GRAALL-2014 trial conducted in a similar population, we introduced two major changes in the treatment strategy. First, chemotherapy intensity (steroids, anthracycline and L-asparaginase) was reduced in pts aged 45-59y to decrease excessive TRM. Secondly, the indication for HSCT was modified, relying on IG/TR MRD response only (post-induction MRD ≥10-3 and/or post-consolidation MRD ≥10-4) while not on any former baseline HR criterion. Here, we compare the outcomes of the two trials, focusing on the impact of these two major evolutions.Patients & Methods A total of 743 pts treated in the GRAALL-2014 trial between 2015 and 2020 were compared to the 787 pts from the historical GRAALL-2005 trial, in terms of CR and induction death rates, rate of HSCT in CR1, cumulative incidence of TRM (CITRM) and relapse (CIR), relapse-free (RFS) and overall (OS) survival. It should be noted that two nested Phase 2 trials were introduced by amendment during the GRAALL-2014 course (in 2017 and 2018, respectively), aiming to evaluate post-remission addition of nelarabine and blinatumomab in 87 T-ALL and 94 BCP-ALL selected pts, respectively.Results Main patient characteristics, including age, gender, BCP/T-ALL, WBC, and historical baseline HR features, did not significantly differ between the two trial cohorts, even if CNS disease at diagnosis was more frequent in the 2014 cohort (12 vs 7%, p= 0.001).Outcome comparisons are shown in Table 1. Overall, the induction death rate was significantly reduced in the GRAALL-2014 (3 vs 6%, p= 0.005). As expected, this was only observed in pts aged 44-59y (3 vs 11%, p= 0.001), in whom dose-intensity reduction also translated into a higher need for second induction course (9 vs 5%, p= 0.05) eventually resulting in a higher CR rate (92 vs 86%, p= 0.05). Due to the newly introduced MRD-based stratification, the rate of pts with HSCT indication was markedly reduced (30 vs 65%, p

International audience

Background: Improving student wellness through curricular activities is a topic of interest in medical school. Both distress and well-being are related to medical student empathy. Numerous data suggest that learning mindfulness skills help to reduce anxiety, stress and overall psychological distress. Moreover, there are still poor data on the impact of MBSR on medical students' empathy and emotional skills. Methods: We designed a controlled study including an intervention group (MBSR) and a wait-list control group. We aimed to explore the impact of an MBSR training in medical students on (1) empathy (2) emotional skills (identification, understanding, acceptance) and (3) self-care. Online assessments occurred at baseline and post intervention. We analyzed pre-post changes and explored intervention effects using a generalized mixed model. Results: Fifty-one medical students were included. 80% of students attended all MBSR classes. When compared with the control group, Personal Distress (PD) of the empathy subscale decreased significantly in the MBSR group (β=-3.55 [95%CI -5.09, -1.40], p). No other significant change was observed as for the empathy subscales. Students in the MBSR group increased their emotional skills as the ability to identify (pp=.02, Cohen’s d=0.62) one’s own emotion. The total Self-Compassion score (SCS) increased significantly in the MBSR group (β=-25.5 [95%CI 18.16, 32.86], p) assesses the ability to self-care. Conclusion: Results suggest that MBSR develops medical students' interpersonal resources and reduces empathy distress. Indeed, PD assesses the tendency to feel distress and discomfort in response to the distress of others and corresponds to a challenge in medical training. MBSR could be beneficially combined with other educational modalities to enhance each component of empathy.

Dominantly inherited Alzheimer's disease (DIAD) causes predictable biological changes decades before the onset of clinical symptoms, enabling testing of interventions in the asymptomatic and symptomatic stages to delay or slow disease progression. We conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled, multi-arm trial of gantenerumab or solanezumab in participants with DIAD across asymptomatic and symptomatic disease stages. Mutation carriers were assigned 3:1 to either drug or placebo and received treatment for 4-7 years. The primary outcome was a cognitive end point; secondary outcomes included clinical, cognitive, imaging and fluid biomarker measures. Fifty-two participants carrying a mutation were assigned to receive gantenerumab, 52 solanezumab and 40 placebo. Both drugs engaged their Aβ targets but neither demonstrated a beneficial effect on cognitive measures compared to controls. The solanezumab-treated group showed a greater cognitive decline on some measures and did not show benefits on downstream biomarkers. Gantenerumab significantly reduced amyloid plaques, cerebrospinal fluid total tau, and phospho-tau181 and attenuated increases of neurofilament light chain. Amyloid-related imaging abnormalities edema was observed in 19.2% (3 out of 11 were mildly symptomatic) of the gantenerumab group, 2.5% of the placebo group and 0% of the solanezumab group. Gantenerumab and solanezumab did not slow cognitive decline in symptomatic DIAD. The asymptomatic groups showed no cognitive decline; symptomatic participants had declined before reaching the target doses.

International audience; Background: Falls are a major health problem in older persons but are still under-diagnosed and challenging to prevent. Current guidelines do not target high-risk populations, especially people living with dementia. In France, people with neurocognitive disorders are mainly referred to memory clinics (MCs). Objective: We aimed to survey the routine practice of physicians working in MCs regarding fall risk assessment. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey in France from January to May 2019 among physicians working in MCs, through an anonymous online questionnaire: twenty-seven questions about the physician’s background and their practice of fall risk assessment, especially use of clinical and paraclinical tools. We compared the results according to the age and the specialty of the physician. Results: We obtained 171 responses with a majority of women (60%) and geriatricians (78%). All age classes and all French regions were represented. Most of respondents (98.8%) stated that they address gait and/or falls in outpatient clinic and 95.9%in day hospitals. When asked about how they assess fall risk, fall history (83%) and gait examination (68.4%) were the most widely used, while orthostatic hypotension (24%) and clinical standardized tests (25.7%) were less common. Among standardized tests, One-leg Balance, Timed Up and Go Test, and gait speed measurements were the most used. Geriatricians had more complete fall risk assessment than neurologists (e.g., 56%versus 13%for use of standardized tests, p

The real-world efficacy and safety of gilteritinib was assessed in an ambispective study that included 167 R/R FLT3-mutated AML patients. Among them, 140 received gilteritinib as single agent (cohort B), including 67 previously treated by intensive chemotherapy and midostaurin (cohort C). The main differences in patient characteristics in this study compared to the ADMIRAL trial were ECOG ≥ 2 (83.6% vs. 16.6%), FLT3-TKD mutation (21.0% vs. 8.5%), primary induction failure (15.0% vs. 40.0%) and line of treatment (beyond 2nd in 37.1% vs. 0.0%). The rates of composite complete remission, excluding those that occurred after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), were similar at respectively 25.4% and 27.5% in cohorts B and C. Median overall survival (OS) for these two groups was also similar at respectively 6.4 and 7.8 months. Multivariate analyses for prognostic factors associated with OS identified female gender (HR 1.61), adverse cytogenetic risk (HR 2.52), and allogenic HSCT after gilteritinib (HR 0.13). Although these patients were more heavily pretreated, these real-world data reproduce the results of ADMIRAL and provide new insights into the course of patients previously treated by intensive chemotherapy and midostaurin and beyond the 2nd line of treatment who can benefit from treatment in an outpatient setting.

Background Alzheimer disease (AD) is a common complex disorder with a high genetic component. Loss-of-function (LoF) SORL1 variants are one of the strongest AD genetic risk factors. Estimating their age-related penetrance is essential before putative use for genetic counseling or preventive trials. However, relative rarity and co-occurrence with the main AD risk factor, APOE-ε4, make such estimations difficult. Methods We proposed to estimate the age-related penetrance of SORL1-LoF variants through a survival framework by estimating the conditional instantaneous risk combining (i) a baseline for non-carriers of SORL1-LoF variants, stratified by APOE-ε4, derived from the Rotterdam study (N = 12,255), and (ii) an age-dependent proportional hazard effect for SORL1-LoF variants estimated from 27 extended pedigrees (including 307 relatives ≥ 40 years old, 45 of them having genotyping information) recruited from the French reference center for young Alzheimer patients. We embedded this model into an expectation-maximization algorithm to accommodate for missing genotypes. To correct for ascertainment bias, proband phenotypes were omitted. Then, we assessed if our penetrance curves were concordant with age distributions of APOE-ε4-stratified SORL1-LoF variant carriers detected among sequencing data of 13,007 cases and 10,182 controls from European and American case-control study consortia. Results SORL1-LoF variants penetrance curves reached 100% (95% confidence interval [99–100%]) by age 70 among APOE-ε4ε4 carriers only, compared with 56% [40–72%] and 37% [26–51%] in ε4 heterozygous carriers and ε4 non-carriers, respectively. These estimates were fully consistent with observed age distributions of SORL1-LoF variant carriers in case-control study data. Conclusions We conclude that SORL1-LoF variants should be interpreted in light of APOE genotypes for future clinical applications.

International audience

Resume Le dosage des biomarqueurs du liquide cerebrospinal (LCS) a integre depuis maintenant plusieurs annees la demarche diagnostique en cas de suspicion de maladie d’Alzheimer (MA). En France, ou l’imagerie moleculaire n’est pas accessible en soin courant, ils sont le seul outil disponible pour poser un diagnostic biologique de MA selon les criteres de 2018. La combinaison de Aβ1-42 et Aβ1-40 predit avec une excellente sensibilite et specificite la presente d’une pathologie amyloide (A), tandis que P-Tau et T-tau sont des biomarqueurs de la taupathie associee a la MA (T), T-tau ayant une moindre specificite que P-tau. L’association de ces quatre biomarqueurs peut differencier une MA d’une autre maladie neurodegenerative et poser un diagnostic de MA des le stade prodromal ou preclinique. Les biomarqueurs ont toutefois des limites qui tiennent d’abord a la variabilite du dosage, liee a des facteurs pre-analytiques et analytiques. L’harmonisation des procedures, l’automatisation et les efforts encore en cours de standardisation contribuent a reduire les sources de variabilite. Leur interpretation est souvent difficile, liee notamment aux profils ambigus (A+T- ou A-T+) et a la frequence des associations pathologiques, notamment chez le sujet tres âge. Ils conservent neanmoins a tout âge une excellente valeur predictive negative a tout âge. L’arrivee annoncee des biomarqueurs sanguins releguera peut-etre les biomarqueurs du LCS au second plan. Ils resteront neanmoins pour les annees a venir un gold standard biologique.

Genetic predisposition to acute myeloid leukemia (AML) concerns a minority of adult patients. Development of high-throughput sequencing technologies over the last ten years allowed identification o...

Using genome-wide association data, we analyzed Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) associations in over 176,000 individuals with Parkinson’s (PD) or Alzheimer’s (AD) disease versus controls across ancestry groups. A shared genetic association was observed across diseases at rs601945 (PD: odds ratio (OR)=0.84; 95% confidence interval, [0.80; 0.88]; p=2.2x10-13; AD: OR=0.91[0.89; 0.93]; p=1.8x10-22), and with a protective HLA association recently reported in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Hierarchical protective effects of HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes best accounted for the association, strongest with HLA-DRB1*04:04 and HLA-DRB1*04:07, intermediary with HLA-DRB1*04:01 and HLA-DRB1*04:03, and absent for HLA-DRB1*04:05. The same signal was associated with decreased neurofibrillary tangles (but not neuritic plaque density) in postmortem brains and was more strongly associated with tau levels than Aβ42 levels in the cerebrospinal fluid. Finally, protective HLA-DRB1*04 subtypes strongly bound the aggregation-prone tau PHF6 sequence, but only when acetylated at K311, a modification central to aggregation. An HLA-DRB1*04-mediated adaptive immune response, potentially against tau, decreases PD, AD and ALS risk, offering the possibility of new therapeutic avenues.

The accumulation of pathological Tau in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and its eventual increase in the blood are hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the mechanisms of Tau clearance from the brain to the periphery are not clear. We show here, using animal and cellular models as well as patient blood samples and post mortem brains, that hypothalamic tanycytes, whose cell bodies line the ventricular wall and send long processes to the underlying pituitary portal capillary bed, take up and transport Tau from the CSF and release it into these capillaries, whence it travels to the pituitary and eventually the systemic circulation. Specifically blocking tanycytic vesicular transport leads to an accumulation of exogenous fluorescent Tau in the CSF of mice. In AD and frontotemporal dementia, tanycytic morphology is altered, with a dramatic fragmentation of the secondary cytoskeleton in the former but not the latter, accounting for reduced CSF Tau clearance in AD. Both the implication of tanycytic degradation in the pathophysiology of a human disease and the evidence for the existence of a brain-to-blood tanycytic shuttle are unprecedented, and raise important questions regarding the role of tanycytes in physiological clearance mechanisms and the development of neurodegenerative disorders.

Background and ObjectivesGRNvariants are a frequent cause of familial frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Monitoring disease progression in asymptomatic carriers of genetic variants is a major challenge in delivering preventative therapies before clinical onset. This study aimed to assess the usefulness of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)–PET in identifying metabolic changes in presymptomaticGRNcarriers (PS-GRN+) and to trace their longitudinal progression.MethodsParticipants were longitudinally evaluated over 5 years in a prospective cohort study focused onGRNdisease (Predict-PGRN). They underwent cognitive/behavioral assessment, plasma neurofilament measurement, brain MRI, and FDG-PET. Voxel-wise comparisons of structural and metabolic imaging data between 2 groups were performed for each time point. Longitudinal PET changes were evaluated with voxel-wise comparisons and the metabolic percent annual changes method. The association of regional brain metabolism with plasma neurofilament and cognitive changes was analyzed.ResultsAmong the 80 individuals enrolled in the study, 58 (27 PS-GRN+ and 31 noncarriers) were included in the analyses. Cross-sectional comparisons between PS-GRN+ and controls found a significant hypometabolism in the left superior temporal sulcus (STS) region (encompassing the middle and superior temporal gyri), approximately 15 years before the expected disease onset, without significant cortical atrophy. The longitudinal metabolic decline over the following 5 years peaked around the right STS in carriers (p< 0.001), without significantly greater volume loss compared with that in controls. Their estimated annualized metabolic decrease (−1.37%) was higher than that in controls (−0.21%,p= 0.004). Lower glucose uptake was associated with higher neurofilament increase (p= 0.003) and lower frontal cognitive scores (p= 0.014) in PS-GRN+.DiscussionThis study detected brain metabolic changes in the STS region, preceding structural and cognitive alterations, thus contributing to the characterization of the pathochronology of preclinicalGRNdisease. Owing to the STS involvement in the perception of facially communicated cues, it is likely that its dysfunction contributes to social cognition deficits characterizing FTD. Overall, our study highlights brain metabolic changes as an early disease-tracking biomarker and proposes annualized percent decrease as a metric to monitor therapeutic response in forthcoming trials.

We aimed to define brain iron distribution patterns in subtypes of early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) by the use of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM).EOAD patients prospectively underwent MRI on a 3-T scanner and concomitant clinical and neuropsychological evaluation, between 2016 and 2019. An age-matched control group was constituted of cognitively healthy participants at risk of developing AD. Volumetry of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex was performed on 3DT1 images. EOAD subtypes were defined according to the hippocampal to cortical volume ratio (HV:CTV). Limbic-predominant atrophy (LPSixty-eight EOAD patients and 43 controls were evaluated. QSM values were significantly higher in deep gray nuclei (p0.001) and limbic structures (p = 0.04) of EOAD patients compared to controls. Among EOAD subtypes, HpSpIn early-onset Alzheimer's disease patients, we observed significant variations of iron distribution reflecting the pattern of brain atrophy. Iron overload in deep gray nuclei could help to identify patients with atypical presentation of Alzheimer's disease.• In early-onset AD patients, QSM indicated a significant brain iron overload in comparison with age-matched controls. • Iron load in limbic structures was higher in participants with limbic-predominant subtype. • Iron load in deep nuclei was more important in participants with hippocampal-sparing subtype.

Background Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is characterised by a progressive change in personality in association with atrophy of the frontal and temporal lobes. Whilst language impairment has been described in people with bvFTD, little is currently known about the extent or type of linguistic difficulties that occur, particularly in the genetic forms. Methods Participants with genetic bvFTD along with healthy controls were recruited from the international multicentre Genetic FTD Initiative (GENFI) study. Linguistic symptoms were assessed using items from the Progressive Aphasia Severity Scale (PASS). Additionally, participants undertook the Boston Naming Test (BNT), modified Camel and Cactus Test (mCCT) and a test of category fluency. Participants also underwent a 3T volumetric T1-weighted MRI, with language network regional brain volumes measured and compared between the genetic groups and controls. Results 76% of the genetic bvFTD cohort had impairment in at least one language symptom: 83% C9orf72, 80% MAPT and 56% GRN mutation carriers. All three genetic groups had significantly impaired functional communication, decreased fluency, and impaired sentence comprehension. C9orf72 mutation carriers also had significantly impaired articulation and word retrieval as well as dysgraphia whilst the MAPT mutation group also had impaired word retrieval and single word comprehension. All three groups had difficulties with naming, semantic knowledge and verbal fluency. Atrophy in key left perisylvian language regions differed between the groups, with more generalized involvement in the C9orf72 group and more focal temporal and insula involvement in the other groups. Correlates of language symptoms and test scores also differed between the groups. Conclusions Language deficits exist in a substantial proportion of people with familial bvFTD across all three genetic groups. Significant atrophy is seen in the dominant perisylvian language areas and correlates with language impairments within each of the genetic groups. Improved understanding of the language phenotype in the main genetic bvFTD subtypes will be helpful in future studies, particularly in clinical trials where accurate stratification and monitoring of disease progression is required.

Philadelphia-chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL) is the most common subtype of B-ALL in adults and its incidence increases with age. It is characterized by the presence of BCR-ABL oncoprotein that plays a central role in the leukemogenesis of Ph+ ALL. Ph+ ALL patients traditionally had dismal prognosis and long-term survivors were only observed among patients who underwent allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) in first complete remission (CR1). However, feasibility of allo-HSCT is limited in this elderly population. Fortunately, development of increasingly powerful tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) from the beginning of the 2000′s dramatically improved the prognosis of Ph+ ALL patients with complete response rates above 90%, deep molecular responses and prolonged survival, altogether with good tolerance. TKIs became the keystone of Ph+ ALL management and their great efficacy led to develop reduced-intensity chemotherapy backbones. Subsequent introduction of blinatumomab allowed going further with development of chemo free strategies. This review will focus on these amazing recent advances as well as novel therapeutic strategies in adult Ph+ ALL.

Isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) and 2 (IDH2) mutations in Myeloid Neoplams (MNs) exhibit DNA hypermethylation via 2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG) over-production. Clinical impact of azacitidine (AZA) re...

Older adults are frequently prescribed medications with sedative effects, which are associated with numerous adverse consequences. However, the prevalence and longitudinal associations of sedative medication use in community-dwelling older adults with mild–moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has not been explored to date. Our objective was to assess the prevalence of sedative medication use in community-dwelling older adults with mild–moderate AD and examine the longitudinal association between sedative medication use and adverse events (AEs). The association between baseline sedative load (SL) and AEs, unscheduled healthcare utilisation, delirium and falls was assessed in older adults with mild–moderate AD over 18 months using secondary analysis of NILVAD trial data (collected from 2014 to 2016). Baseline medication use was assessed, and the SL model was applied to each participant’s medication individually. The SL model classifies medications into one of four categories: (1) primary sedatives, (2) medications with a sedating component or prominent side effect, (3) medications with sedation as a potential adverse reaction and (4) all other medications with no known sedative side effects. Medications in group 1 were assigned an SL score of 2, those in group 2 were assigned an SL score of 1, and those in categories 3 and 4 an SL score of 0. SL scores for each medication participants were taking were summed and the total SL calculated as an arithmetic sum of individual medications score. A total SL score ≥ 3 was classed as high. Statistical analysis was conducted using Poisson regression and mixed-effects linear regression, with adjustment for important clinical covariates. We also assessed the impact of SL on dementia progression and cognitive decline. Over half (55.7% [284/510]) of those with mild–moderate AD (age 72.8 ± 8.3 years, 61.9% female) were prescribed a regular medication with sedation as a primary effect or prominent side effect, with 22.2% (113/510) having a high SL (≥ 3). The most common medications contributing to SL were antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics and hypnotics. Over 18 months, increasing baseline SL was associated with incident AEs (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 1.15; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.11–1.19; p < 0.001), serious AEs (IRR 1.23; 95% CI 1.11–1.36; p < 0.001) and unscheduled general practitioner visits (IRR 1.23; 95% CI 1.13–1.34; p < 0.001). Further, increasing SL was associated with a greater likelihood of incident delirium (IRR 1.30; 95% CI 1.11–1.53; p < 0.001) and falls (IRR 1.20; 95% CI 1.03–1.42; p = 0.02). Associations persisted after robust covariate adjustment. SL was not associated with accelerated cognitive decline or AD progression. In the current study, over half of older adults with mild–moderate AD were prescribed at least one drug with a sedative effect, and a significant minority had a high SL. Increasing baseline SL was associated with a greater likelihood of incident AEs, delirium and falls, highlighting the need for optimal prescribing in this potentially vulnerable cohort.

Management of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains challenging, especially for relapsed or refractory (R/R) AML patients who display poor prognosis with conventional therapies. This underlined the ...

The behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a frequent cause of early-onset dementia. The diagnosis of bvFTD remains challenging because of the limited accuracy of neuroimaging in the early disease stages and the absence of molecular biomarkers, and therefore relies predominantly on clinical assessment. BvFTD shows significant symptomatic overlap with non-degenerative primary psychiatric disorders including major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism spectrum disorders and even personality disorders. To date, ∼50% of patients with bvFTD receive a prior psychiatric diagnosis, and average diagnostic delay is up to 5–6 years from symptom onset. It is also not uncommon for patients with primary psychiatric disorders to be wrongly diagnosed with bvFTD. The Neuropsychiatric International Consortium for Frontotemporal Dementia was recently established to determine the current best clinical practice and set up an international collaboration to share a common dataset for future research. The goal of the present paper was to review the existing literature on the diagnosis of bvFTD and its differential diagnosis with primary psychiatric disorders to provide consensus recommendations on the clinical assessment. A systematic literature search with a narrative review was performed to determine all bvFTD-related diagnostic evidence for the following topics: bvFTD history taking, psychiatric assessment, clinical scales, physical and neurological examination, bedside cognitive tests, neuropsychological assessment, social cognition, structural neuroimaging, functional neuroimaging, CSF and genetic testing. For each topic, responsible team members proposed a set of minimal requirements, optimal clinical recommendations, and tools requiring further research or those that should be developed. Recommendations were listed if they reached a ≥ 85% expert consensus based on an online survey among all consortium participants. New recommendations include performing at least one formal social cognition test in the standard neuropsychological battery for bvFTD. We emphasize the importance of 3D-T1 brain MRI with a standardized review protocol including validated visual atrophy rating scales, and to consider volumetric analyses if available. We clarify the role of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET for the exclusion of bvFTD when normal, whereas non-specific regional metabolism abnormalities should not be over-interpreted in the case of a psychiatric differential diagnosis. We highlight the potential role of serum or CSF neurofilament light chain to differentiate bvFTD from primary psychiatric disorders. Finally, based on the increasing literature and clinical experience, the consortium determined that screening for C9orf72 mutation should be performed in all possible/probable bvFTD cases or suspected cases with strong psychiatric features.

Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are mainly sporadic but inherited variants have been associated with higher risk development. Here, we identified an EPOR variant (EPOR

Background: Isolated subjective cognitive impairment (SCI) and mild neurocognitive impairment (MCI) are prodromal phase of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Memento is a nationwide study of patients with SCI and MCI with clinic, neuropsychology, biology and brain imaging data. We aimed to compare SCI and MCI patients with symptoms of prodromal DLB to others in this study at baseline. Methods: Participants of the French Memento cohort study recruited for either SCI or MCI. Among them, 892 were included in the Lewy sub-study, designed to search specifically for symptoms of DLB. Probable prodromal DLB group (pro-DLB) was done using a two-criteria cut-off score among the four core clinical features of DLB. This Pro-DLB group was compared to two other groups at baseline: one without any core symptoms (NS group), and the one with one core symptom (1S group). A comprehensive cognitive battery, questionnaires on behavior, neurovegetative and neurosensory symptoms, brain 3D volumetric MRI, CSF, FDG PET and amyloid PET were done.Results: The Pro-DLB group comprised 148 patients (16.6%). This group showed more multidomain (59.8%) MCI with slower processing speed and a higher proportion of patients with depression, anxiety, apathy, constipation, rhinorrhea, sicca syndrome, and photophobia. The Pro-DLB group had isolated lower P-Tau and on brain MRI widening of sulci including fronto-insular, occipital, and olfactory sulci (FDR corrected). Conclusions: Patients with symptoms of prodromal DLB are cognitively slower, with more behavioral disorders, autonomic symptoms, and photophobia. Biomarkers confirmed the non-Alzheimer profile. The occipital, fronto-insular, and olfactory bulb involvement on brain MRI was consistent with symptoms and known neuropathology. The next step will be to study the clinical, biological, and imaging evolution of these patients.Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01926249 .

SummaryTP53 is the most commonly mutated gene in human cancer, typically occurring in association with complex cytogenetics and dismal outcomes. Understanding the genetic and non-genetic determinants of TP53-mutation driven clonal evolution and subsequent transformation is a crucial step towards the design of rational therapeutic strategies. Here, we carry out allelic resolution single-cell multi-omic analysis of haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPC) from patients with a myeloproliferative neoplasm who transform to TP53-mutant secondary acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), a tractable model of TP53-mutant cancer evolution. All patients showed dominant TP53 ‘multi-hit’ HSPC clones at transformation, with a leukaemia stem cell transcriptional signature strongly predictive of adverse outcome in independent cohorts, across both TP53-mutant and wild-type AML. Through analysis of serial samples and antecedent TP53-heterozygous clones, we demonstrate a hitherto unrecognised effect of chronic inflammation, which supressed TP53 wild-type HSPC whilst enhancing the fitness advantage of TP53 mutant cells. Our findings will facilitate the development of risk-stratification, early detection and treatment strategies for TP53-mutant leukaemia, and are of broader relevance to other cancer types.

International audience; Aim: Lower interoceptive abilities are a characteristic of chronic pain conditions. Social support plays an important role in chronic low back pain (cLBP) but social cognitive skills have rarely been investigated. This study aimed to characterize interoceptive and social cognitive abilities in cLBP and to study the relationship between both domains that have been brought closer together by brain predictive coding models. Materials & methods: Twenty-eight patients with cLBP and 74 matched controls were included. Interoceptive accuracy (Heart Beat Perception Task), sensibility/awareness (Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness) and mental-states inference abilities (Mini-Social Cognition and Emotional Assessment) were assessed. Results: cLBP Patients had lower interoceptive accuracy and mentalizing performance. Conclusion: Less efficient interoceptive accuracy and mentalizing abilities were found in cLBP patients without correlation between these performances.

International audience; This multicenter study was conducted in French memory clinics during the first COVID-2019 lockdown (March-May 2020). The objective was to evaluate the effect of a telemedicine consultation on treatment modification in dementia care. Among 874 patients who had a telemedicine consultation, 103 (10.7%) had treatment modifications, in particular those living with a relative or diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. A control group of patients referred March-May 2019 was also included. Treatment modification rate was similar between periods with an adjusted percentage difference of -4% (p = 0.27). Telemedicine consultations allowed treatment modifications with only a minor short-term negative impact on therapeutic strategies.

Measures of social cognition have now become central in neuropsychology, being essential for early and differential diagnoses, follow-up, and rehabilitation in a wide range of conditions. With the scientific world becoming increasingly interconnected, international neuropsychological and medical collaborations are burgeoning to tackle the global challenges that are mental health conditions. These initiatives commonly merge data across a diversity of populations and countries, while ignoring their specificity.In this context, we aimed to estimate the influence of participants' nationality on social cognition evaluation. This issue is of particular importance as most cognitive tasks are developed in highly specific contexts, not representative of that encountered by the world's population.Through a large international study across 18 sites, neuropsychologists assessed core aspects of social cognition in 587 participants from 12 countries using traditional and widely used tasks.Age, gender, and education were found to impact measures of mentalizing and emotion recognition. After controlling for these factors, differences between countries accounted for more than 20% of the variance on both measures. Importantly, it was possible to isolate participants' nationality from potential translation issues, which classically constitute a major limitation.Overall, these findings highlight the need for important methodological shifts to better represent social cognition in both fundamental research and clinical practice, especially within emerging international networks and consortia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Availability of data and materials: The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Supplementary Information: Additional file 1 of A panel of CSF proteins separates genetic frontotemporal dementia from presymptomatic mutation carriers: a GENFI study; Additional file 2 of A panel of CSF proteins separates genetic frontotemporal dementia from presymptomatic mutation carriers: a GENFI study; both files are available online at https://doi.org/10.1186/s13024-021-00499-4 Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Background: A detailed understanding of the pathological processes involved in genetic frontotemporal dementia is critical in order to provide the patients with an optimal future treatment. Protein levels in CSF have the potential to reflect different pathophysiological processes in the brain. We aimed to identify and evaluate panels of CSF proteins with potential to separate symptomatic individuals from individuals without clinical symptoms (unaffected), as well as presymptomatic individuals from mutation non-carriers. Methods: A multiplexed antibody-based suspension bead array was used to analyse levels of 111 proteins in CSF samples from 221 individuals from families with genetic frontotemporal dementia. The data was explored using LASSO and Random forest. Results: When comparing affected individuals with unaffected individuals, 14 proteins were identified as potentially important for the separation. Among these, four were identified as most important, namely neurofilament medium polypeptide (NEFM), neuronal pentraxin 2 (NPTX2), neurosecretory protein VGF (VGF) and aquaporin 4 (AQP4). The combined profile of these four proteins successfully separated the two groups, with higher levels of NEFM and AQP4 and lower levels of NPTX2 in affected compared to unaffected individuals. VGF contributed to the models, but the levels were not significantly lower in affected individuals. Next, when comparing presymptomatic GRN and C9orf72 mutation carriers in proximity to symptom onset with mutation non-carriers, six proteins were identified with a potential to contribute to a separation, including progranulin (GRN). Conclusion: In conclusion, we have identified several proteins with the combined potential to separate affected individuals from unaffected individuals, as well as proteins with potential to contribute to the separation between presymptomatic individuals and mutation non-carriers. Further studies are needed to continue the investigation of these proteins and their potential association to the pathophysiological mechanisms in genetic FTD. This study has received support from the Swedish FTD initiative funded by the Schörling Family Foundation. This work was also funded by KTH Center for Applied Precision Medicine (KCAP) funded by the Erling-Persson Family Foundation, grants from Vetenskapsrådet Dnr 529-2014-7504, VR 2015-02926 and 2018-02754, Swedish Alzheimer Foundation, Swedish Brain Foundation, Åhlén foundation, Demensfonden, Stohnes foundation, Gamla Tjänarinnor and Stockholm County Council ALF. Furthermore, support was received by the MRC UK GENFI grant (MR/M023664/1), the Bluefield Project, the JPND GENFI-PROX grant (2019-02248), the Dioraphte Foundation [grant numbers 09-02-00]; the Association for Frontotemporal Dementias Research Grant 2009; The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant HCMI 056-13-018); ZonMw Memorabel (Deltaplan Dementie), (project numbers 733 050 103 and 733 050 813); JPND PreFrontAls consortium (project number 733051042). JDR is supported by an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship (MR/M008525/1) and has received funding from the NIHR Rare Disease Translational Research Collaboration (BRC149/NS/MH). Several authors of this publication are members of the European Reference Network for Rare Neurological Diseases - Project ID No 739510. M.S. was supported by the JPND grant “GENFI-prox” (by DLR/BMBF to M. S, joint with JDR., J.vS., M.O., B.B. and C.G.). Open Access funding provided by Royal Institute of Technology.

Most patients with COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), display neurological symptoms, and respiratory failure in certain cases could be of extra-pulmonary origin. Hypothalamic neural circuits play key roles in sex differences, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and aging, all risk factors for severe COVID-19, besides being connected to olfactory/gustative and brainstem cardiorespiratory centers. Here, human brain gene-expression analyses and immunohistochemistry reveal that the hypothalamus and associated regions express angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and transmembrane proteinase, serine 2, which mediate SARS-CoV-2 cellular entry, in correlation with genes or pathways involved in physiological functions or viral pathogenesis. A post-mortem patient brain shows viral invasion and replication in both the olfactory bulb and the hypothalamus, while animal studies indicate that sex hormones and metabolic diseases influence this susceptibility.

© 2023 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made., Recent studies have reported early cerebellar and subcortical impact in the disease progression of genetic frontotemporal dementia (FTD) due to microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT), progranulin (GRN) and chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72). However, the cerebello-subcortical circuitry in FTD has been understudied despite its essential role in cognition and behaviors related to FTD symptomatology. The present study aims to investigate the association between cerebellar and subcortical atrophy, and neuropsychiatric symptoms across genetic mutations. Our study included 983 participants from the Genetic Frontotemporal dementia Initiative including mutation carriers and noncarrier first-degree relatives of known symptomatic carriers. Voxel-wise analysis of the thalamus, striatum, globus pallidus, amygdala, and the cerebellum was performed, and partial least squares analyses (PLS) were used to link morphometry and behavior. In presymptomatic C9orf72 expansion carriers, thalamic atrophy was found compared to noncarriers, suggesting the importance of this structure in FTD prodromes. PLS analyses demonstrated that the cerebello-subcortical circuitry is related to neuropsychiatric symptoms, with significant overlap in brain/behavior patterns, but also specificity for each genetic mutation group. The largest differences were in the cerebellar atrophy (larger extent in C9orf72 expansion group) and more prominent amygdalar volume reduction in the MAPT group. Brain scores in the C9orf72 expansion carriers and MAPT carriers demonstrated covariation patterns concordant with atrophy patterns detectable up to 20 years before expected symptom onset. Overall, these results demonstrated the important role of the subcortical structures in genetic FTD symptom expression, particularly the cerebellum in C9orf72 and the amygdala in MAPT carriers., This work was also supported by the MRC UK GENFI grant (MR/M023664/1), the Italian Ministry of Health (CoEN015 and Ricerca Corrente), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as part of a Centres of Excellence in Neurodegeneration grant, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research operating grant, the Alzheimer's Society grant (AS-PG-16-007), the Bluefield Project and the JPND GENFI-PROX grant (2019–02248). MB is supported by a Fellowship award from the Alzheimer's Society, UK (AS-JF-19a-004-517). MB's work was also supported by the UK Dementia Research Institute which receives its funding from DRI Ltd., funded by the UK Medical Research Council, Alzheimer's Society and Alzheimer's Research UK. JDR is an MRC Clinician Scientist (MR/M008525/1) and has received funding from the NIHR Rare Diseases Translational Research Collaboration (BRC149/NS/MH), the Bluefield Project and the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy within the framework of the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (EXC 2145 SyNergy–ID 390857198). Several authors of this publication (JCvS, MS, RSV, AD, MO, JDR) are members of the European Reference Network for Rare Neurological Diseases (ERN-RND) - Project ID No 739510. This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy within the framework of the Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (EXC 2145 SyNergy–ID 390857198). This research was supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014).