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Inflammation and angiogenesis have been defined as potential mechanisms associated with clinical progression from a cognitively normal state to Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this observational case-control study, we aimed to determine plasma levels of cytokines as indicators of inflammation involved in cognitive decline. We measured 30 plasma proteins in 49 controls (CTL), 36 individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 52 patients diagnosed with probable AD. After applying strict filters for quantification limits, only 13 analytes were included in the analysis. Kruskal-Wallis tests showed significant differences between diagnostic groups for nine cytokines (IL-16, IL-7, VEGF, IL-8, eotaxin, MCP-1, MCP-4, MDC and TARC). Non-parametric MANCOVA showed that sex and diagnosis affected cytokine levels in the blood. To determine the sensitivity and specificity of the markers, we performed receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Only those analytes that showed an area under the curve (AUC) ≥ 0.70 were included in the multivariate logistic regression models to better understand the contribution of cytokines to clinical status. Three models: 1) CTL vs. AD; 2) CTL vs. MCI, and 3) MCI vs. AD were developed, with sex and age as covariates. In each model, two cytokines remained significantly different (model 1: IL-16 and MDC; model 2: eotaxin and MDC and model 3: IL-7 and VEGF). Taken together, this report identifies a set of plasma markers of inflammation and strengthens the role of glial biology in different clinical stages of AD., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2025 Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Introduction: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are fundamental for identifying loci associated with diseases. However, they require replication in other ethnicities., Methods: We performed GWAS on sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD) including 539 patients and 854 controls from Argentina and Chile. We combined our results with those from the European Alzheimer and Dementia Biobank (EADB) in a meta-analysis and tested their genetic risk score (GRS) performance in this admixed population., Results: We detected apolipoprotein E ε4 as the single genome-wide significant signal (odds ratio  = 2.93 [2.37-3.63], P = 2.6 × 10 -23 ). The meta-analysis with EADB summary statistics revealed four new loci reaching GWAS significance. Functional annotations of these loci implicated endosome/lysosomal function. Finally, the AD-GRS presented a similar performance in these populations, despite the score diminished when the Native American ancestry rose., Discussion: We report the first GWAS on AD in a population from South America. It shows shared genetics modulating AD risk between the European and these admixed populations., Highlights: This is the first genome-wide association study on Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a population sample from Argentina and Chile. Trans-ethnic meta-analysis reveals four new loci involving lysosomal function in AD. This is the first independent replication for TREM2L, IGH-gene-cluster, and ADAM17 loci. A genetic risk score (GRS) developed in Europeans performed well in this population. The higher the Native American ancestry the lower the GRS values., (© 2023 The Authors. Alzheimer's & Dementia published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.)

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) has a negative effect on employment status., Objective: To present the preliminary results of a special questionnaire designed to collect employment information on patients with MS., Methods: The questionnaire on the impact of MS on employment status was completed by 63 patients. Fatigue, cognition, and depression were also evaluated, and 33 healthy participants were recruited as a control group., Results: Regarding the patients' employment status, we found rates of 31.7% of full-time employment, 28.6% of part-time employment, 7.9% of unemployment due to MS, 4.8% of housewives, 1.6% retirement due to age, 15.9% of retirement due to disability, 7.9% of medical leave due to MS, and 1.6% of medical leave for other reasons. The rate of unemployment among the patients was significantly higher compared with that of the control group. Out of 38 working patients, 31% had been absent from work for the previous 3 months due to MS, and 50% had to make changes in their work to remain employed. Out of the 19 unemployed patients, 78% said that walking difficulties were the cause of unemployment, while 52% thought cognitive impairment was the cause., Conclusions: The questionnaire provides a record of the employment status of patients with MS and describes the impact on work from their point of view., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflict of interests to declare., (Academia Brasileira de Neurologia. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).)

The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of reproductive aging on executive functions. We assessed executive functions in three groups of healthy women in the premenopausal (n = 45, mean age = 30.89, SD = 10.5), perimenopausal (n = 31, mean age = 50.06, SD = 3.6) and postmenopausal (n = 24, mean age = 63.39, SD = 6.5) phase. No differences between groups were observed in working memory, verbal fluency, inhibitory control, planning, and cognitive flexibility. However, when the analyses were repeated with participants with occupations with lower intellectual demands, perimenopausal and postmenopausal women performed worse than premenopausal women in semantic verbal fluency. This study provides important evidence to understand the effects of reproductive aging on cognitive performance in healthy women. Our findings indicate that cognitive reserve-related factors may be important to understand the differences in executive functions associated with reproductive aging.

Introduction: Dissociative amnesia (DA) is a retrograde amnesia characterized by an alteration in episodic memory., Aim: Establish the neural bases which underlie the development of dissociative amnesia., Methods: Systematic and evaluative bibliographic review of qualitative type., Results: The bibliography found suggested functional inhibition in the hippocampus, amygdala, temporal lobes, prefrontal cortex and thalamus. Also, hypoglycemia was observed in right cerebral cortex, at the fronto-temporal junction. An inhibition in the potential action P300 was also stated., Conclusions: There is enough evidence to say that dissociative amnesia is an objectifiable biologically based pathology. There is a need to review the current conceptualization of this syndrome and to establish new criteria that would allow us to distinguish DA from organic amnesias., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Introduction: It is estimated that population aging will continue to rise over the next few years, increasing cases of cognitive impairment. This requires having short, reliable and low-cost tests aimed at the early detection of cognitive disorders. The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) is a widely used test that allows an initial screening of cognitive disorders. Regarding this test, there is no normative data for the Rosario Metropolitan Area, Argentina, in elderly subjects., Objective: Obtain normative values for the MMSE test (language Spanish rioplatense version) in inhabitants of the Rosario Metropolitan Area, with ages 50 years and older., Materials and Methods: The MMSE was administered to 1126 subjects in the context of a campaign to prevent cognitive impairment. When applying the exclusion criteria, the sample was reduced to 824 subjects., Results: Schooling and age influence the performance of the test, while gender had no incidence. The means and standard deviations are reported according to levels of schooling and age ranges., Conclusions: These norms indicate an unprecedented local frame of reference for the purpose of researching cognitive disorders in subjects 50 years of age and older.

Introduction: prospective memory is the ability to remember to perform actions in the future. Currently there is no consensus about the relationship between prospective memory and emotional processing., Objective: The aim of this work is to determine the influence of the emotional valence of prospective memory signals on prospective recall in patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis., Method: 37 patients with multiple sclerosis and 32 healthy volunteers were recruited. An experimental test was made where the concurrent task consisted in a 2-back working memory activity and the prospective component consisted of remembering to press a key on the computer when an image of positive, negative or neutral emotional content appears on the screen., Results: An intra-group comparison was made between the memory of emotional and neutral stimuli, and it was obtained that the differences are significant in both groups in favor of the recall of stimuli with neutral valence (Z = -3.39, p = .001 for the control group and Z = -2.63, p = .008 for multiple sclerosis)., Discussion: The results indicate that emotionally neutral target stimuli benefits prospective memory in normal people and in multiple sclerosis patients. The limitations of the implemented method are discussed.

Introduction: An alteration in the recognition of basic emotions is usually observed in Alzheimer's type dementia. Although there is some consensus that basic emotions are six, more recent studies conclude that there may be a combination between fear/ surprise and disgust/anger. This pattern has not yet been investigated in the Alzheimer's type dementia., Aims: To evaluate if the main confusers are significant as to determine the amount of basic emotions, and to study which are the main confusers, between emotions, that are manifested in patients with Alzheimer's type dementia., Patients and Methods: Twenty-eight patients were evaluated with the Battery of Facial Recognition of Basic Emotions., Results: The highest percentages of choice for each emotion, proceeding those of correct answers, correspond to the main confusers (fear x surprise, surprise x fear, and disgust x anger). Significant differences were found between fear correct/surprise x fear, surprise correct/fear x surprise, anger correct/disgust x anger, and disgust correct/anger x disgust., Conclusions: These results support the classical theory raised on the existence of six basic emotions. As regard as emotional confusers, our results coincide partially with studies which found that the main errors are between anger/disgust and surprise/fear. As an exception, we found in our sample that when the correct answer is anger, the most common response by patients is fear.

Rare coding variants in TREM2, PLCG2, and ABI3 were recently associated with the susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Caucasians. Frequencies and AD-associated effects of variants differ across ethnicities. To start filling the gap on AD genetics in South America and assess the impact of these variants across ethnicity, we studied these variants in Argentinian population in association with ancestry. TREM2 (rs143332484 and rs75932628), PLCG2 (rs72824905), and ABI3 (rs616338) were genotyped in 419 AD cases and 486 controls. Meta-analysis with European population was performed. Ancestry was estimated from genome-wide genotyping results. All variants show similar frequencies and odds ratios to those previously reported. Their association with AD reach statistical significance by meta-analysis. Although the Argentinian population is an admixture, variant carriers presented mainly Caucasian ancestry. Rare coding variants in TREM2, PLCG2, and ABI3 also modulate susceptibility to AD in populations from Argentina, and they may have a European heritage.

Aim: To study the presence of alterations in social cognition in Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), to compare the levels of involvement, and to analyze their relevance as a tool to distinguish between both demential profile., Subjects and Methods: For this purpose, 34 patients diagnosed with PDD, 21 men and 13 women, with an average age of 70 years and 8 years of education, and 26 patients diagnosed with bvFTD, 9 men and 17 women, with an average age of 68 years and 6 years of education, were assessed. The control group consisted of 30 healthy subjects, with a mean of 66 years of age and 8 of schooling. Reading the Mind in the Eyes was use as an emotional Theory of Mind (ToM) test; First-Order False Belief as a cognitive ToM test; Faux Pas as mixed test, considering their emotional (FPec) and cognitive (FPcc) components; and Iowa Gambling Task for social decision-making., Results: Both groups of patients showed alterations in all tests compared to the control group. A significant difference between PDD and bvFTD was also observed for Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, Faux Pas total score, FPec and FPcc, with lower means and medians for PDD patients on all scores except for FPcc., Conclusions: This findings suggests that emotional ToM would be most affected PDD patients, while the use of cognitive ToM and social decision-making tests would be restrain tools to differentiate between a type of dementia or another.

Introduction: prospective memory is the ability to remember actions in the future or remember delayed intentions., Objective: to study the relationship between prospective memory complaints with an objective measure of prospective memory and affective-emotional variables such as depression and anxiety., Subjects and Materials: 51 patients with multiple sclerosis relapsing-remitting and 46 participants in the control group were evaluated with a prospective memory task called El Condor, a questionnaire on subjective complaints of prospective memory, a depression inventory and an anxiety inventory., Results: the control group performed better in El Condor than patients with multiple sclerosis, t = 6263, df = 95, p = 0.000. The prospective memory questionnaire correlated with the depression and the anxiety inventories, but not with El Condor., Conclusions: subjective prospective memory is associated with depression and anxiety and not with the objective prospective memory in a group of multiple sclerosis patients. The results indicate that the subjective and objective prospective memory must be studied as separate entities or different phenomena.

There is a common network for perception and execution of actions necessary for the acquisition of Theory of Mind, and the mirror neuron system could be the neural substrate., Objective: To study the presence of apraxia and their relationship to Theory of Mind in patients with behavioral variant of Frontotemporal Dementia., Methods: 24 patients were assessed, and the cognitive praxis assessment battery and theory of mind were administered., Results: All the tasks of the cognitive praxis assessment battery showed a significant correlation with the first order False Believe task, while Faces Test showed correlations with all the battery tasks except Auditory verbal income. Significant correlations were also found between Reading the Mind in the Eyes and Income of visual objects and Imitation of familiar gestures, and between Faux Pas and Use of tools, Gestural decision and Naming by function., Discussion: These findings reinforce the hypothesis that the processes of Theory of Mind are based, according to mental simulation theory, in a matching execution/observation of actions system, whose neural substrate may correspond to the mirror neuron system.

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis is a demyelinating neurological disease that usually gives rise to motor, perceptive, affective and cognitive disorders in patients. These symptoms can lead the person to lose his or her job and lower the quality of life of both patients and their relatives., Aim: To review the literature on demographic, clinical, cognitive, psychiatric, occupational and social variables associated with the work situation., Development: Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have detected variables related with unemployment. Empirical research has shown how physical disability, fatigue and the progression of the disease exert a clear influence on the patient's work situation. Yet, the same degree of evidence is not true for gender, depression, age, duration of the disease and cognitive variables. Little attention has been given to work characteristics such as job discrimination, employer's attitude, labour laws, colleagues' attitudes and transport problems., Conclusions: Many of the factors that determine job loss in a patient with multiple sclerosis can be identified in time to allow them to be modified or offset. The knowledge provided by the studies mentioned above makes it possible to detect patients who are at risk of losing their job so that interventions can be carried out with the aim of preventing such a situation from occurring. More particularly, the vulnerability profile includes high physical disability and fatigue, progressive development of the disease and the presence of cognitive impairment, among others.

Verbal material used to assess the cognitive abilities of Spanish-speakers in the the United States is frequently of linguistically unacceptable quality. The use of these materials in research settings is thought to pose a serious threat to test validity and hence to the validity of claimed results or conclusions. The authors explain how and why incorrect language finds its way into cognitive tests used in research and other settings and suggest solutions to this serious problem.

Introduction: At present in the literature there are basically two different perspectives to explain the relation between the capacity to discriminate pantomimes and the capacity to produce them, within the framework of present-day models concerning praxes. The first of these positions suggests the need for two separate systems (action lexicons), one for discrimination (action input lexicon) and another for gestural production (action output lexicon). The other alternative holds that the structures used for production are the same as those responsible for discriminating gestures. The aim of this study is to report the cases of two patients with complementary dissociations between the discrimination and the production of pantomimes., Case Reports: We describe the performance of two female patients evaluated with a cognitive battery for evaluating apraxias. Patient 1 had difficulties in discriminating pantomimes with relative preservation when executing them, whereas patient 2 found it hard to perform pantomimes with relative preservation when discriminating them., Conclusions: The findings, that is, the presence of a double dissociation between discrimination and performance of pantomimes, add support to the proposed existence of two different systems, one for the discrimination and one for the production of gestures.

Introduction and Aims: The aim of this presentation is to report the performance pattern of a patient who suffered ideomotor apraxia with a disorder pattern of the conduction apraxia (CA) type. This clinical picture was originally reported by Ochipa et al. in 1994 as an alteration in the pathway that joins the two lexicons; later, in 2000, Cubelli et al. claimed that there is no evidence for the existence of such a pathway and suggested that the symptoms were due to an alteration affecting the mechanisms governing visuomotor conversion., Case Report: A 51 year old patient who, following a traumatic head injury, presented aphasia and apraxia with 40% errors in the imitation of familiar gestures test, 50% errors in the imitation of non familiar gestures (NFG), 0% errors in the visual admission of objects test and 0% in the tool usage test. The differences between the performance in the imitation tests and in the other tests are statistically significant. Although the patient displayed slight alterations in the gesture decision test (20% mistakes), alterations to the action input lexicon would not account for the patient's performance since there is a significant difference between his performance in the imitation of NFG test and the gesture decision test. Moreover, he did not present alterations in the discrimination of gestures., Conclusions: From the above, it can be said that the patient seems to present CA due to alterations in the non semantic interlexical pathway and in the perilexical pathway, as originally postulated by Ochipa et al.