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The COVID-19 quarantine in Mexico has meant that household members spend more time inside the home, increasing the demand for direct and indirect care by minors, the elderly, chronically ill and disabled. This forced a reconfiguration of the provision of these services by household members. The aim of the document is twofold: first, to describe socioeconomic and demographic aspects of Mexican households around care activities during the quarantine and second, to estimate the determinants of the provision of care in the quarantine. The information was obtained from the Survey of Care and COVID-19 in Mexican Homes during Quarantine (SCCMHQ). The propensity score-matching technique is used as a quasi-experimental procedure to estimate the causal effects of a treatment variable (presence of minors, elderly, chronically ill, disability, or domestic service in the home) in Mexican households. The Probit model shows that age and economic dependency are determinants of caregiving for treatment groups with minors, disability and chronic disease. In addition, sex, home income, and current employment situation are significant for treatment groups with a disability, paid domestic work, and minors, respectively. A positive "net" effect of the treatment variables in the probability of care provision was also observed. Particularly, the existence of minors at home was highly effective to promote direct and indirect care. The confinement solution is characterized by a balance between genders, except in the case of households with disabilities. This shows that a cultural and functional change is possible in the distribution of care responsibilities, which can be consolidated through public policies., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.)

Objectives: Currently, the exact reasons why different α-synucleinopathies exhibit variable pathologies and phenotypes are still unknown. A potential explanation may be the existence of distinctive α-synuclein conformers or strains. Here, we intend to analyze the seeding activity of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease (PD) brain-derived α-synuclein seeds by real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) and to investigate the structure and morphology of the α-synuclein aggregates generated by RT-QuIC., Methods: A misfolded α-synuclein-enriched brain fraction from frontal cortex and substantia nigra pars compacta tissue, isolated by several filtration and centrifugation steps, was subjected to α-synuclein/RT-QuIC analysis. Our study included neuropathologically well-characterized cases with DLB, PD, and controls (Ctrl). Biochemical and morphological analyses of RT-QuIC products were conducted by western blot, dot blot analysis, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy., Results: Independently from the brain region, we observed different seeding kinetics of α-synuclein in the RT-QuIC in patients with DLB compared to PD and Ctrl. Biochemical characterization of the RT-QuIC product indicated the generation of a proteinase K-resistant and fibrillary α-synuclein species in DLB-seeded reactions, whereas PD and control seeds failed in the conversion of wild-type α-synuclein substrate., Interpretation: Structural variances of α-synuclein seeding kinetics and products in DLB and PD indicated, for the first time, the existence of different α-synuclein strains in these groups. Therefore, our study contributes to a better understanding of the clinical heterogeneity among α-synucleinopathies, offers an opportunity for a specific diagnosis, and opens new avenues for the future development of strain-specific therapies. Ann Neurol 2019;85:691-703., (© 2019 American Neurological Association.)